Young entrepreneurs fired up

LIT UP: Fire starting entrepreneurs are, from left, Matariki Te Hau, Max Briant, Rewiti Ropiha, Jacob Corrin, Eni Sinoti. Picture by Liam Clayton

Five student entrepreneurs from Gisborne Boys' High School are on fire over their new business — Eco Starters.

Max Briant, Rewiti Ropiha, Jacob Corrin, Eni Sinoti and Matariki Te Hau started their business selling eco fire starters earlier this year.

The start-up rolled out their product on Facebook and then enrolled with the Youth Enterprise Scheme — a programme where students set up and run a real business.

The group are proud of their 100 percent “green” fire starters which are made out of natural ingredients like beeswax, cabbage leaves, wood chips and egg cartons.

“We saw a gap in the market for eco-friendly products as there are a number of toxic ones out there,” Jacob said.

They are promoting their eco starters as being “easier and cheaper to use”.

They come in carefully-packed boxes of 12 and sell for $5.

As of earlier this week, the group had sold 72 boxes online and in pop-up shops and had received many positive responses.

“People said they had to use a whole row of fire starters using the original market ones, but for ours they used only one and our ones burned for much longer.

“Ten minutes long, quite enough to start a fire,” Jacob said.

Eco Starters chief executive Max said they initially got funding of $580 from the Eastland Port-sponsored Enviroschools Tairawhiti Action Fund which they used for product development and testing.

The group were mentored by Gisborne Chamber of Commerce committee member Barry Foster.

“I asked them to do some more research into similar products overseas and draft a written budget for the seed money they received and look to get some early sales,” Mr Foster said.

Max said they had targeted winter months but the product could also be used to quickly start barbecues in summer.

The group are keen to expand to popular selling platforms like TradeMe and have already planned a sales point at a market day on August 13.

Their pop-up shop has been running in Treble Court this week and closed yesterday.