Dane Westerweller was reading an article about car accidents and was shocked by the statistics.
Australian drivers aged 17-25 represent 25 per cent of all vehicle crash fatalities even though they only represent 13.5 per cent of the driving population.
The 36-year-old entrepreneur thought something needed to be done to address the link between car accidents and young and inexperienced drivers.
"Professional driving lessons dramatically reduce the risk of accidents," Westerweller says. "I started to do a bit of research and a bit of research turned into a lot and I couldn't believe there was nothing out there for learner drivers to set up driving instructors. With the rise of AirBnB and Uber I thought there was an opportunity to reach a youth audience who are on their mobiles all the time but there was no app to connect learner drivers and instructors."
Westerweller teamed up with his surfing mate, 40-year-old Nathan Dawes, to create LDrivo which the pair launched this week.
The Sydney based founders say they have a global vision to make learning to drive safer and more accessible, helping learners find and book their perfect instructor and creating new business for driving instructors.
They have invested $700,000 over two years building the app and along the way received $15,000 in funding from NSW Government Innovation.
"It's been a long birth," Dawes says. "We have been self-funded to date and that has been difficult for us."
LDrivo is free to download for instructors and learner drivers and the pair make money by taking a 15 per cent commission on any lessons booked.
Learner drivers are able to search by different categories including male and female driving instructors, car make and type such as manual or automatic. The app can also be used as a digital logbook for learner drivers recording all lessons, average speed and maps for driving.
"We have done a lot of research with instructors and users," Dawes says. "The combination of nailing the business model and nailing the user experience is really critical to go to market."
LDrivo started onboarding instructors two weeks ago and already has "a few hundred" of Australia's estimated 4000 driving instructors signed up.
The combination of nailing the business model and nailing the user experience is really critical to go to market.
Nathan Dawes
"We see a real opportunity to have a real impact on an old school industry and bring them into the digital age," Dawes says.
LDrivo is going to approach learner drivers through targeted social media and digital advertising as well as using influencers.
Dawes and Westerweller claim there is nothing else like LDrivo in the world.
"We see an opportunity to make not just a big impact in Australia but to move quickly to the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom which have similar markets," Westerweller says.
"In so many countries like the UK you have to mandatory lessons with a professional. All these markets are dictating you have to do professional lessons because it reduces deaths on the road so why the hell isn't Australia jumping on it?"
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