Trying to scale my courier business

Hi all,I’m a first time entrepreneur so go easyI’ve hit a ceiling with my self-run courier business and am at my wits end about how to scale this thingA little info: I started the business last year after my first bdr job, so started delivering for local small businesses. Since then it’s been pharmacies, firms, random people, meal kit companies, etc.Pricing: Normal customers are charged per km/distance/duration, and business customers vary.Why customers like us: 1. We always always deliver within our guaranteed delivery time (4 hours). Folks have told me they switched because of this very reason so they can promise their customers and keep it 2. Customers like our booking portal compared to some other companies because it’s very intuitive. It’s a third party software based out of India 3. Service is very important to us e.g updating customers on traffic, having contact with driver, exhausting every effort to ensure no driver leaves until goods are hand-delivered 4. Prices are relatively low for this “rapid” serviceBut, things are becoming “hard”.Problem #1: Driver supplySeveral times over the year we had really high moments where I would pull drivers from Facebook jobs to lend a hand and try to put them on the app consistently, but then business would slow down and they wouldn’t be responsive. This happened about 6-7 times now. Biz picks up > recruit > biz slows down > drivers ghost > do them myself > biz picks up > recruit > repeat. And then when it’s ultra slow I do all of it myself, but then that cycle kicks in again.So it bears the question, how do I retain drivers? I pay them very well, often as high as $30/hour. I treat them lovingly and we joke and laugh over the phone. But it’s hard when I don’t have anything for a driver, and then when I do and ask them, they’re not available because of course they weren’t expecting it.Problem #2: low margins during high volume, high margin during low volumeObviously when I do deliveries myself, excluding gas, maintenance, mileage and my own “time”, it’s just money in my pocket. But when volume is high, I have to pay drivers accordingly, and because of the lack of control on drivers, I have to call the nearest driver that’s available and if they’re far, I’ll have to bump up their pay to make it worth it.However, one time in the summer I had a moment of clarity. I had a crap load of customers and a crap load of drivers at the ready, everything was so smooth because I didn’t need to pay a driver 2x the regular rate just to make it worth the drive from 20 km away, I seemed to always have a driver in very close proximity to the customer.The rates being charged less the driver payroll was actually just straight profit and I barely did any driving. That was niceBut how do I keep this up?Problem #3: I do too many tedious tasks which prevent me from hunting for more businessThe app is good, but still a lot of back end stuff I have to do on my own esp. for b2b customers. Invoicing, special pricing, calling drivers to see if they’re available, what routes they can’t accept, texting drivers how much the route pays, waiting on their acceptance/decline. These things could all be automated.Maybe I can talk to the software providers, but I know it ain’t cheapAnyway, I really appreciate if you read all this. Other than that, I love what I do, I pay myself minimum wage, but god damn it’s worth the pay cut. Thank you very much in advance for your help!TLDR: Courier business trying to scale. Want to gain more customers, but can’t because not enough drivers. Want more drivers, but can’t because it gets out of control. Resort to doing deliveries myself, now I can’t hunt for business. Repeat see hubwealthy.com/wealthy