Kruzee is an ed-tech startup that makes it radically easier for new drivers to learn how to drive, get their license, and get insured.
We’ve built a platform that allows students to book driving lessons with instructors in their area. When we first built Kruzee, it surprised us that for all traditional driving schools in Canada, students are still required to schedule their lessons via pen and paper and know nothing about their instructor before getting in the car. We believe that by empowering students with past reviews/profiles of instructors and building an online booking system, we make it safer, easier, and more straightforward to book driving lessons. Finally, we help our students gain access to preferential auto insurance rates and save more money after they’re done taking lessons with us.
Tell us about yourself?
First of all, I’m lucky enough to be building Kruzee with my best friend from undergrad, my co-founder, Osama. We’ve known each other for over a decade and love building products together.
Before starting Kruzee, we both had fairly similar career paths. We started our careers working in management consulting for the Boston Consulting Group and Monitor Deloitte, respectively. We then went on to operating roles at two high-growth Canadian startups, Ratehub and Juno. We decided to start Kruzee because having worked for startups in the ed-tech space in the past, we saw there was a large opportunity to bring modern tech to driving schools and make the experience more delightful for students.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
If you trust the process and look after your customers, you can’t go wrong.
What problem does your business solve?
Learning to drive is scary. From the nerves around driving tests to the outdated way in which traditional driving schools operate, learning to drive has historically been a stress-filled experience from end to end. We built Kruzee to change all this. For the in-car lessons, our online booking platform and top-tier instructor calibre take the complexity out of booking and taking driving lessons. After students get their licence, we work to help them access preferential insurance rates as well since insurance rates can be particularly expensive for new drivers.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Growing up, we’ve all had friends that experienced the pain of going through traditional driving school – whether it was having to go into a physical classroom for the online lessons or their instructor ghosting them and not replying to texts. Kruzee was built to solve this by digitizing the theoretical portion of the curriculum and eliminating scheduling headaches with our booking system.
What is your magic sauce?
Kruzee puts students back “in the driver’s seat” by giving them the flexibility to choose where, when, and with whom they would like to learn how to drive through our platform.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Our goal is to become the one-stop-shop for new drivers and make their lives radically easier by digitizing driver’s education and helping them save on auto insurance.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
As a startup, you never feel that your product is done, ready, or perfect – we’re always looking for ways to improve our offering.
How can people get involved?
They can visit our website at www.kruzee.com or give us a call/send us an email if they have any questions!