Bike mirror coup views profit path
GOLD Coast business RearViz is a classic example of Australian ingenuity.
Run by Kayla Crane, the company was started after her father invented a rear-view mirror for cyclists in 2012.
“He was driving to work from Paradise Point one morning and nearly hit a group of cyclists near Charis Seafoods at Labrador. At the traffic lights he told them about the near miss and that they needed rear vision mirrors, but they told him the ones on the market were crappy.”
Mr Crane went home, cracked open a beer, and together with his wife’s compact make-up mirror and some torn wetsuit material, constructed the first prototype RearViz product.
“He strapped it to his wrist and took mum’s bike for a spin and came back confident that the idea worked.”
Ms Crane, 23, said at the time she was working as a hairdresser and studying at university.
“Dad came to me in 2013 and said he needed someone to go to Las Vegas and launch RearViz at bicycle innovation convention Interbike. He said: Are you interested? I thought it was a good idea. I used to do promotional work and thought it wouldn’t be that difficult.”
She came back from the convention and was offered the chance to run the business full time, as Mr Crane was tied up running his construction business.
“I went to speak to my career adviser and told him about the opportunity. He said: ‘Go, you will never have this happen again; university will always be here but this won’t’.”
Ms Crane said she dropped out of university (she is now back studying at Bond University) and threw her energy into running RearViz.
She said the product has a number of advantages over others on the market.
“Most of the rear-view mirrors are fixed to the bicycle, so the vision is distorted due to the vibrations from the road,” she said. “Ours is worn on the body, so your body absorbs the vibrations and you don’t have that distorted vision.”
Ms Crane said this aspect also made it more portable.
“You can take it anywhere and it is a big advantage, especially with share bikes.
“It is also adaptable, so when you are not using it as a mirror, you can pull the housing out and turn it into a camera-mounting system, so you can go scuba diving or snorkelling with the camera fixed to the device.”
Ms Crane said RearViz, which manufactures its products in China, launched to the market in 2014.
However, she said, the operation was shut down at the end of 2014 due to issues with their manufacturer.
“We put in an order for 20,000 products, and of those 20 per cent of the armbands were faulty. So we pulled it all under, moved to another facility in China, and got new armbands.”
Ms Crane said 45,000 units of the products, including the mirrors and camera-mounting devices, had sold since 2014.
The biggest market is the US, where 40 per cent of RearViz sales come from.
Ms Crane said she is keen to collaborate with entrepreneurs and investors to produce new items that RearViz can add to its product range.
“I want to know what we can add, whether it is a heartmonitoring device or flip container that contains a patch repair kit.”