Latest / Best of Business / Bodhi Vette: CEO and founder of Road Ninja on the new platform designed to help Kiwis find work in Australia

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Bodhi Vette: CEO and founder of Road Ninja on the new platform designed to help Kiwis find work in Australia · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio. A.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Kiwi has created an app described as the love child
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  Speaker 2: of Uber and Tinder, is looking to get Kiwi's work
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  Speaker 2: in Australia. It was launched here last year, road Ninja.
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  Speaker 2: It's a transport employment platform connecting businesses to ready to
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  Speaker 2: work skilled drivers. The aim is to address the critical
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  Speaker 2: labor shortages. The app went operational in Australia this week
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  Speaker 2: and will allow kiwis to seek work in Australia on
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  Speaker 2: a fly and flyout basis. And the CEO and founder
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  Speaker 2: of road Ninja, Body Vetti, joins me, now get a
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  Speaker 2: body ydo Roman.
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  Speaker 3: How are you mate? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Pretty good, Thank you. You've you've launched in New Zealand
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  Speaker 2: last June, so around six months ago. How has the
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  Speaker 2: app been received here?
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  Speaker 3: Ah, yeah, fantastic.
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  Speaker 4: We launched nationwide probably just over six months ago here
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  Speaker 4: in New Zealand. So we've got about over three thousand
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  Speaker 4: drivers on our database now about fifteen hundred on the
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  Speaker 4: road in your platform that are all fully vetted. So
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  Speaker 4: you were looking to utilize that pool, not just here
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  Speaker 4: in New Zealand, but further Afield as well.
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  Speaker 2: All Right, so for those who haven't used the app yet,
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  Speaker 2: who have no idea what it does, how does it work?
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  Speaker 4: Basically, if you're a driver, commercial driver and you're looking
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  Speaker 4: to be able to dictate your own rates and pick
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  Speaker 4: what types of driving that you've got experience and you
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  Speaker 4: can download our app free from the app store on
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  Speaker 4: iOS or Android and create your profile. And then once
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  Speaker 4: you've created your profile, you select all the different types
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  Speaker 4: of driving that you've got experience in or even interested in,
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  Speaker 4: and then you dictate your hourly rate that you want
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  Speaker 4: to receive for that work. And then when companies need drivers,
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  Speaker 4: they basically go on our platform, put in their filters
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  Speaker 4: for what they're looking for, area, location, type of driving,
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  Speaker 4: class of license, etc. And then our platform filters and
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  Speaker 4: presents the available drivers and then they can jump on
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  Speaker 4: and make a booking.
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  Speaker 2: Sounds really good, of course, we don't want anyone going
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  Speaker 2: to Australia. We want to close those doors. So what
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  Speaker 2: industry specifically are you working with here and who is
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  Speaker 2: actually using that platform?
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  Speaker 4: Well, we've actually got quite very like a massive variety
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  Speaker 4: of different sort of transport operators here in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 4: For Australia, we're actually going to be a bit more
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  Speaker 4: specific on who we target first because we're really just
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  Speaker 4: looking at the fly and fly out roles that are
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  Speaker 4: over there at the moment, and there's about twenty six
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  Speaker 4: thousand drivers short over there, so you know, big opportunity.
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  Speaker 4: And obviously Keyweed's well received every in the world, and yeah,
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  Speaker 4: in particularly in Australia for the driving jobs, Yeah, there's
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  Speaker 4: obviously a big gap in the transition for the licenses
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  Speaker 4: is also very easy too, So I think creating those
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  Speaker 4: pathways is going to be really exciting for the pool here,
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  Speaker 4: but you know, I'd be really interested to see what
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  Speaker 4: it can do in return as well, because as we
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  Speaker 4: open up the Paul in Australia, I think having those
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  Speaker 4: pathways coming in this direction as well would be nice
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  Speaker 4: to do.
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  Speaker 2: So it's a good point. So why did you move
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  Speaker 2: the whole thing to Australia had no one else been
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  Speaker 2: doing anything like this over there?
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  Speaker 4: Well, we just had every customer we have on the
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  Speaker 4: platform has really really enjoyed it. In fact, from a
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  Speaker 4: cost perspective, they've pretty much every single one of them
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  Speaker 4: has got to return on their investment within the first
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  Speaker 4: one to three months, and so we've been experienced quite
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  Speaker 4: a lot of growth here with the companies and.
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  Speaker 3: Just the business model.
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  Speaker 4: It's different to anything else as well, which we kind
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  Speaker 4: of used to be a labor high model back in
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  Speaker 4: the day, where we would charge a percentage on top,
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  Speaker 4: and what I didn't like about that was that still
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  Speaker 4: made the price of the drivers in the eyes of
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  Speaker 4: the transport company a little bit more expensive. So we
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  Speaker 4: had some companies that were doing quite a lot with
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  Speaker 4: us in that model and asked if we can do
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  Speaker 4: something for volume based pricing. So went away and had
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  Speaker 4: to think about it, and came back and flipped it
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  Speaker 4: on its head and said, oh, let's just do a
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  Speaker 4: subscription model. Once you've got your subscription, you've got unlimited
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  Speaker 4: access to the pool of drivers on the platform. So
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  Speaker 4: from a cost perspective, you're only paying a set fee
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  Speaker 4: each month and you've got unlimited access to drivers. And
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  Speaker 4: then we thought, let's even go one step further and say,
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  Speaker 4: if you want to recruit those drivers as well, no
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  Speaker 4: recruitment fits all included in the subscription cost. And so
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  Speaker 4: I don't think anyone had really done that before, and
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  Speaker 4: so it was yeah, it's been really really well received
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  Speaker 4: and companies get to not just find contractors on our platform,
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  Speaker 4: which is what it was originally designed for, but now
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  Speaker 4: they can also get full time employment employees off it
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  Speaker 4: as well, so it's really quite diversified in that way,
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  Speaker 4: and it's just been received so well that we thought, hey,
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  Speaker 4: let's expand this over to Australia because we had some
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  Speaker 4: interest from some of our clients here in New Zealand
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  Speaker 4: which actually have Australian operations as well.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's exciting times, it really is.
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  Speaker 2: Road Ninja is the name of the app of you're
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  Speaker 2: a truck driver looking it up at the moment, is
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  Speaker 2: it easy for KeyWe's just to whip across the ditch
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  Speaker 2: and start driving over there? What sort of what sort
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  Speaker 2: of heard?
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  Speaker 3: The licenses over there? Actually, they've got a.
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  Speaker 4: License system that is across Australia in terms of this
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  Speaker 4: kind of the class of licenses.
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  Speaker 3: Actually all are the same.
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  Speaker 4: The difference between New Zealand licenses in Australia is that
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  Speaker 4: you've got your Class one, which is a car license,
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  Speaker 4: Class two, which is a rigid, Class four which is
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  Speaker 4: a big rigid. Three is a small combination, but most
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  Speaker 4: people go to the Class five for the combination vehicles
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  Speaker 4: because after Class four is your sort of you know,
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  Speaker 4: your big heavy truck and trailers, and so we go
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  Speaker 4: up to Class five here in New Zealand. But in
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  Speaker 4: Australia they've got like this additional class called a multi combination,
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  Speaker 4: which is your big road trains. If one's seen our
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  Speaker 4: back truck or anything like that, there's just this yeah, monster.
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  Speaker 3: Trains of trailers behind the truck.
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  Speaker 4: And that's the only really additional class that doesn't completely
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  Speaker 4: transition when you go from your New Zealand license to
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  Speaker 4: the Australian license.
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  Speaker 3: But you can get it converted in about a day
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  Speaker 3: over there.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, obviously if you're there you can drive on
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  Speaker 4: holiday and without having to change your license, but it
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  Speaker 4: transition it over to using it commercially. You can do
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  Speaker 4: about a day course and get that transition.
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  Speaker 3: So it's fairly simple.
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  Speaker 4: And because of that, you know, there's some pretty good
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  Speaker 4: pathways to get between New Zealand and Australia for all
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  Speaker 4: the additional work that's over there, and especially if it's
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  Speaker 4: fly and fly out, you know, going under a couple
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  Speaker 4: of weeks and then come home.
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  Speaker 2: Well done, look well done. It sounds like an exciting
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  Speaker 2: opportunity that you've tapped into.
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  Speaker 3: There.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you body Vetti there with road Ninja. For those
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  Speaker 2: coming through on the text machine, what's the name of
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  Speaker 2: the app raman? It's road Ninja, but just don't go
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  Speaker 2: to please if you just don't.
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