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

A new app connecting businesses and truckies is looking to fill labour shortage across the ditch following a successful launch in New Zealand.

Road Ninja has been dubbed 'the love child of Tinder and Uber' - as it matches up companies looking for hireable help with skilled drivers in their area.

CEO and founder Bodhi Vette says the company's built a pool of skilled and reliable workers, and they're looking to send them out beyond New Zealand. 

"We're really just looking at the 'fly in, fly out' roles that are over there at the moment - and there's about 26,000 drivers short over there, so there's big opportunities." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks ab A.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Kiwi has created an app described as the love child
of Uber and Tinder, is looking to get Kiwi's work
in Australia. It was launched here last year, road Ninja.
It's a transport employment platform connecting businesses to ready to
work skilled drivers. The aim is to address the critical
labor shortages. The app went operational in Australia this week
and will allow kiwis to seek work in Australia on

(00:34):
a fly and flyout basis, and the CEO and founder
of road Ninja, Body Vetti, joins me, now get a
body ydo Roman.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
How are you mate? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Pretty good? Thank you. You've you've launched in New Zealand
last June, so around six months ago. How has the
app been received here?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Ah, yeah, fantastic. We launched nationwide probably just over six
months ago here in New Zealand. So we've got about
over three thousand drivers on our database now and about
fifteen hundred on the road Ninja platform that are awfully vetted.
So you were looking to utilize that pool, not just
here in New Zealand. But further afield as well.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
All right, so for those who haven't used the app yet,
who have no idea what it does, how does it work?

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Basically, if you're a driver, commercial driver and you're looking
to be able to dictate your own rates and pick
what types of driving that you've got experience and you
can download our app free from the app store on
iOS or Android and create your profile. And then once
you've created your profile, you select all the different types
of driving that you've got experience in or even interested in,

(01:41):
and then you dictate your hourly rate that you want
to receive for that work. And then when companies need drivers,
they basically go on our platform, put in their filters
for what they're looking for, area, location, type of driving,
class of license, etc. And then our platform filters and
presents the available drivers and then they can jump on
and make a booking.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Sounds really good. Of course, we don't want anyone going
to Australia. We want to close those doors. So what
industry specifically are you working with here and who is
actually using that platform?

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Well, we've actually got quite very like a massive variety
of different sort of transport operators here in New Zealand.
For Australia, We're actually going to be a bit more
specific on who we target first because we're really just
looking at the fly and fly out roles that are
over there at the moment, and there's about twenty six

(02:34):
thousand drivers short over there, so you know, big opportunity.
And obviously Keyweed's well received every in the world, and yeah,
in particular in Australia for the driving jobs, yeah, there's
obviously a big gap in the transition for the licenses
is also very easy too, So I think creating those

(02:55):
pathways is going to be really exciting for the pool here,
but you know, I'd be really interested to see what
it can do in return as well, because as we
open up the pool in Australia, I think having thoseways
coming in this direction as well would be nice to do.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
So it's a good point. So why did you move
the whole thing to Australia Had no one else been
doing anything like this over there?

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Well, we just had every customer we have on the
platform has really really enjoyed it. In fact, from a
cost perspective, they've pretty much every single one of them
has got to return on their investment within the first
one to three months, and so we've been experience quite
a lot of growth here with the companies and just

(03:39):
the business model. It's different to anything else as well,
which we kind of used to be a labor high
model back in the day, where we would charge a
percentage on top, and what I didn't like about that
was that still made the price of the drivers in
the eyes of the transport company a little bit more expensive.
So we had some companies that were doing quite a

(04:02):
lot with us in that model and asked if we
could do something for volume based pricing. So went away
and had to think about it, and came back and
flipped it on its head and said, oh, let's just
do a subscription model. Once you've got your subscription, you've
got unlimited access to the pool of drivers on the platform.
So from a cost perspective, you're only paying a set
fee each month and you've got unlimited access to drivers.

(04:25):
And then we thought, let's even go one step further
and say, if you want to recruit those drivers as well,
no recruitment fits all included in the subscription cost. And
so I don't think anyone had really done that before,
and so it was, Yeah, it's been really, really well
received and companies get to not just find contractors on
our platform, which is what it was originally designed for,
but now they can also get full time employment employees

(04:49):
off it as well. So it's really quite diversified in
that way. And it's just been received so well that
we thought, hey, let's expand this over to Australia because
we had some interest from some of our clients here
in New Zealand which actually have Australian operations as well. Yeah,
it's exciting.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Times, it really is. Road Ninja is the name of
the app of you're a truck driver looking that up
at the moment, is it easy for KeyWe's just to
whip across the ditch and start driving over there? What
sort of what sort of heard?

Speaker 3 (05:20):
The licenses over there? Actually, they've got a license system
that is across Australia in terms of this kind of
the class of licenses actually all are the same. The
difference between New Zealand licenses in Australia is that you've
got your Class one, which is a car license, Class two,
which is a rigid, Class four which is a big rigid.

(05:43):
Three is a small combination, but most people go to
the Class five for the combination vehicles, because after Class
four is your sort of you know, your big heavy
truck and trailers, and so we go up to class
five here in New Zealand, but in Australia they've got
like this additional class called a multi combination, which is
your big road trains. If anyone's seeing our back truckers

(06:04):
or anything like that, there's just these yeah, monster trains
of trailers behind the truck. And that's the only really
additional class that doesn't completely transition when you go from
your New Zealand license to the Australian license, But you
can get it converted in about a day over there.
I mean, obviously if you're there you can drive on

(06:26):
holiday and without having to change your license, but it
transition it over to using it commercially. You can do
about a day course and get that transition. So it's
fairly simple. And because of that, you know, there's some
pretty good pathways to get between New Zealand and Australia
for all the additional work that's over there, and especially

(06:48):
if it's fly and fly out, you know, going under
a couple of weeks and then come home.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Well done, look well done. It sounds like an exciting
opportunity that you've tapped into. There, Thank you body Vetti
there with road Ninja. For those coming through on the
text machine. What's the name of the app raman? It's
road Ninja. But just don't go to Australia please, if
you just don't.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talk ZTB from nine am Sunday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.