Cruisekiwis say YES to feeling and driving confidently on our roads

Grace and Lauren are year 13 students at St Oran’s College in Lower Hutt and they created a glovebox sized booklet called CruiseKiwis' breakdown guide as the product for their YES (Young Enterprise Scheme).

Both recently passed their restricted driving test and realised that if they were to break down, have a flat tyre or have any other mechanical issue they wouldn't know what to do.  After discussing this practical point with many other students they came to realise that very few new drivers actually know what to do in these types of situations.

Together they have created a glovebox sized booklet which is simple, clear and easy to use for new drivers to keep in their cars for when breakdowns or other situations occur.

They (and many other new drivers) felt that alternative books, like the road code, can be very hard to navigate and there is a lot of information to take in.  Websites that could potentially help in these situations are hard to find and may only be accessible if an individual has data or wi-fi reception.

Their booklet - CruiseKiwis' guide to breakdown - has simple formatting, clear instructions and tips of what to do in a variety of driving situations.  This means drivers can just grab the book from their glovebox and look up what to do next.  The book was specifically designed for easy use so when the time comes that it needs to be used, the user feels as calm as possible.

Their business motto is Feel Confident, Drive Confident.  They strongly believe that their guide is not only a way to help new drivers but also increase confidence when driving on New Zealand roads so that our roads can be safer.

Once they finalised their content, Kaitiaki o Ara became aware of their focus on road safety and Roger has been working with them since.  He posed a few questions for them:

Q. Lauren and Grace - you ultimately choose road safety as the umbrella for your product – breakdown booklet.  Tell us a bit more.

We decided to use our business opportunity to help other teenagers in the same boat as us that don’t know what to do in a breakdown or minor accident situation. When you begin to start driving on your own it's very exciting, but you also realise how much you don’t know e.g. what to do in a breakdown or how to jump-start a car and that can be quite frightening.

Q. Tell us about the design process.  How long did it take for the idea to take shape and where did you get your inspiration from?

It took a lot of hard work in the first few months to construct our book because as well as trying to put together all the information on a topic we were hardly an expert in, we also had to find funding, complete YES challenges and finish internals. However this was where we did the most learning and it was the most rewarding thing finally seeing our product in June.

The kindness of others when they took us seriously was so overwhelming and surprising to us because all you hear these days is how negative society can be and how you can’t trust anyone but we have met so many kind people willing to give up their free time to help two young entrepreneurs.

Q. At some point, you probably noticed you were improving your skills.  Tell us a bit about that.

We are both on the more probably introverted side so sparking up a conversation with some stranger on the street during our first YES challenge when we had to ask for strangers opinions on our product was challenging. 

Meeting with sponsors and mentors who were so knowledgeable and experienced around road safety was very nerve wracking at the start. However, doing so prepared us and we have both become more and more confident in our speaking and can easily spark up a conversation with a stranger in order to promote our product. 

We are also confident in our own knowledge about road safety and where our book stands in the market and how we can grow our product. 

Q. Did you originally consider Kaitiaki o Ara/SADD as a supportive organisation?

No, we didn’t initially know about SADD but were put in contact through AA when we were searching for sponsorship.

Roger provided us with many connections for possible sponsors which we used to fully fund the start up of our business.  It would have been incredibly hard to get the funding we have now without the help of SADD.

Q. Did SADD’s knowledge base in linking you locally help?

Most definitely, we secured seed funding which would have been extremely hard to do without SADD’s contacts.  SADD also went out of their way to find multiple other possible sponsors in case the main target fell through or wasn’t right for our company.

Q. Would you recommend SADD as an organisation to connect with even if there isn’t a SADD group in the school?

Yes, SADD provided much more than just information about road safety. They helped us become the business we are today with their endless support throughout the entire process.

Q. How did you find going out on your own and networking?

Having not had any experience networking before we didn’t really have any expectations on what it would be like. Initially we were turned down lots or we were ignored when reaching out to possible contacts. We put this down to being people not seeing the full potential of our product just because we were young women participating in a school project. However the people that we did manage to get in contact with were absolutely amazing. YouthLaw and Tuffy Auto Centre have helped us immensely and we are so appreciative that they took the time to meet with us and listen to our vision in the early stages of the business 

Q. What was it like selling to the general public and how did you do it?

Mostly through word of mouth of family and friends, by posting on social media pages, local newsletter and articles.

We have always received positive feedback from our community. After purchasing or hearing about our product they usually agreed with us that there was a gap in the market for a simple breakdown guide. 

People are also especially impressed by the fact that it is entirely student-run and that we are donating 50% of profits to Road Safety Education NZ.

Q. Are you happy with how things went from start to finish?

So far we are really happy with how our business is going. 

Sales have been steady and we have received positive reviews from all customers who have ordered a copy. We are over half way to our goal of selling 100 copies.

Q. What are the big takeaways that you can apply to general life or in education and do you have any advice for following YES groups?

Our advice to other YES participants would be to dream big because that's when you get big results, sales and opportunities.

A takeaway from this experience would be to just take everything as it comes and because there will be unexpected things that happen but that’s when some of the best things can also happen!

If you are interested in knowing more - you can visit the Cruisekiwis website here:

https://cruisekiwi.mystorbie.com/ where their booklets are available to purchase.  

Grace and Lauren aren’t the first YES group we have worked with and they won’t be the last.  Each year a YES group picks a road safety focus to base their project on.  We want to see more and we will be here to support them.

*Kaitiaki o Ara/SADD does not benefit financially from the sales of this product.  We just like supporting youth-led road safety initiatives!