Two student businesses, two different ideas of success

Two student-run businesses in Auckland have seen different successes – one financial and one feel-good.

AUT students Will Ruddick, 19, and Brydie Whitehead, 21, are founders of a brand which sells pamper packs.

“I think if we’re honest, we didn’t think things would go as well as they did,” said Ms Whitehead.

Brydie Whitelock and Will Ruddick, founders of Dirt. Photo: Laura Tupou

They had sold almost 30 $10 packs after just one week.

Predominantly targeting women, each brown bag contains a peppermint-coffee scrub, coconut and vanilla hair treatment, brightening lemon face mask, and organic apple body wash.

“The majority of people who shop are women so we thought we would appeal to them and people our own age,” said Mr Ruddick.

The pair marketed their product as organic after realising the ingredients they sourced from the Cruelty-Free shop, supermarkets and from Ms Whitehead’s workplace, a coffee shop, were indeed organic.

“People are inclined to buy something if it’s organic, eco-friendly, [and] animal cruelty free,” said Mr Ruddick.

A different business venture, Boc, had a not-for-profit model.

Founding member Maika Nguyen, 20, said the mission and core values of the business were to enhance empathy in people.

“Because leisurely reading has been researched and found to enhance empathy and improve it.”

The group sold second-hand books wrapped in brown paper with the title, author, and a one-sentence blurb written in black vivid on the front.

“I chose books that university students would be interested in. So it’s almost a curated collection,” said Ms Nguyen.

Boc business founders Jamie O’Neill (left) and Maika Nguyen. Photo: Laura Tupou

The books sold for $3 each and the purchaser was able to choose the charity the money would be donated to.

“Having charities alongside [selling books] really correlates because charities help people in need and empathy is where you try to understand people in need,” said Ms Nguyen.

She was pleasantly surprised at the uptake and plans to sell the books again as summer approaches in the hope that people will have more leisure time.

Both businesses were set up within a first-year AUT Marketing, Advertising, Retailing, Sales (MARS) paper.

Dirt and Boc decided to sell their products at a recent Wednesday market day on campus along with other businesses.

A MARS teaching assistant, Natasha Lewis, said the exercise was a really good way for students to see what strengths they had and see how they could use those to their advantage.

Ms Lewis bought products from both the Dirt and Boc group.

Although neither group are going to continue with their businesses immediately after the assignment ends, Ms Lewis said: “It’s quite cool to give them that platform to give it a go.”