Media release · For immediate release · Invercargill
Former supermarket worker, 21, signs first web clients as his budgeting app launch nears
Jack Ridder, who left school at 15, runs Bryder Group, a small group of Invercargill businesses that includes the web studio Bryder Studios and KiwiBudget, a budgeting app launching on 16 November.
Invercargill founder Jack Ridder, 21, has taken on the first paying clients for his web studio, Bryder Studios, this month, three weeks before his budgeting app KiwiBudget launches on Monday 16 November. Both are part of Bryder Group, whose parent company, Bryder Holdings Limited, Ridder set up in March.
Ridder, who is from Wyndham, spent about five years working in supermarkets, where he saw more and more shoppers adding up their trolleys on calculators as they went. That led him to start building KiwiBudget in January 2026.
"Plenty of Kiwis are doing everything right and still finding money tight, and the tools out there don't make it any easier," says Jack Ridder, founder of Bryder Group.
KiwiBudget is a budgeting app for New Zealanders, built around weekly and fortnightly pay rather than the calendar month. With a user's permission, it can link to their bank accounts through New Zealand open finance provider Akahu, and its home screen shows what is safe to spend until the next payday. More than 190 people have joined its waitlist, and its founding offer for early sign-ups closed on 17 October.
Bryder Studios designs and builds websites, and the phones and email behind them, for businesses in Southland and across New Zealand. A business can see a free mock-up of its new home page before it pays anything, and clients get a private online page where they can follow the job, share files and message Ridder. Its first client websites are now under way.
"I want to show you can build real tech businesses from Southland," says Ridder. "KiwiBudget helps people plan around their payday, and Bryder Studios gives local businesses a home page they can see before they pay a cent."
KiwiBudget launches on 16 November at kiwibudget.nz. Photos of Ridder and a media pack are at kiwibudget.nz/press. Ridder spoke about KiwiBudget on RNZ's Nine To Noon on 16 October. Bryder Studios is at studios.bryder.co.nz, and Bryder Group is at bryder.co.nz.
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