Franchisee Voices: Taylor Bixby of SafeWay Driving

The father and son team of David and Taylor Bixby own the SafeWay Driving business covering the areas in Austin including Stephen F. Austin, Westlake, and Lake Travis high schools. The Bixbys launched in March of 2015, adding the LTHS territory in May of 2016. Winners of SafeWay Driving’s 2015 “Spirit of SafeWay” award, 27-year-old Taylor runs the day-to-day business in the city he’s called home almost his entire life. Taylor was working for Hat Creek Burger Company after college, and was trying to figure out what to do that could make a difference in the Austin community. David’s connections to the Houston business community introduced them to the concept and the two decided that SafeWay Driving offered them an opportunity to build a business that they could share and Taylor could grow while building a family in Austin.

1851 caught up with Taylor to learn more about his background and how he got involved with SafeWay Driving.

Tell us a little bit about your background.

My parents lived in Houston, went to the University of Texas, and got married after college. They later moved to Austin where I was born, and after leaving for a period, we moved back and settled there when I was in the 4^th grade. I went to Westlake High School and after I graduated from there, I went to UT as well. So I’ve always been in the Austin area and I got married to my wife, Lindsay, in the area. I started working for Hat Creek Burger Company right out of school. It’s a small restaurant group with 4 locations across the Austin area that is doing fantastic work. I spent 4 years in a variety of roles – managing restaurants, and spending some time in the corporate office.

How did you learn about the brand?

My dad’s roots in Houston gave him business connections to the SafeWay ownership team. In fact, my mother, Betsy, got her driver training in the 70’s from Spring Branch Driving School, now known as SafeWay Driving. We learned that SafeWay was expanding into a franchise system, so we did our due diligence and decided to pursue the Austin launch. We had a mutual connection with the company, and after doing our due diligence, decided that launching SafeWay Driving in Austin to address the needs of the community was a great idea. My dad has since moved to Houston and I’m running the business day-to-day, but we still connect to talk big picture business issues together.

Why did you choose to become a franchisee with SafeWay Driving?

We saw that Austin was a good market – and no one else was doing what SafeWay is doing in the area or in the franchise industry. I’ve seen Austin grow a lot in my time here. The reason I chose to become a franchisee with SafeWay, was to give back to the community. My family has been heavily involved with Young Life, a Christian ministry organization, and I’ve been involved with it my entire life. My dad has been part of it for more than 15 years. I wanted to do something that would impact people, and be a benefit to the community, and it is something that I can do and set myself and my family up well for the future.

We want to educate folks in our community. Safe driving is something that gets taken for granted until a mistake is made and a lot of the consequences can be life-changing. We wanted to change the culture in Austin, and bring serious driver training to the area.

Do you engage in any specific community, charity, or local organization involvement? How do you market SafeWay Driving?

My experience prior to SafeWay was restaurants and accounting. Our marketing efforts are directed at brand awareness and since we are a new brand in Austin, we want educate the community about how there is another option for driver training aside from the traditional classroom setting or parent taught. We want families to value the importance of a developing a lifelong skill in safe driving, not just checking off the boxes to get a license. Just because you have a driver’s license doesn’t make you a safe driver – quality training and practice does. We try to be involved with the schools and organizations close to the schools as much as possible.

Do you have any development or extension plans with the brand?

We’re taking it as it comes. We’d love to serve to whole Austin area, but we don’t want to grow so fast that we can’t continue to provide quality drive training on a local, individual basis. We want to make sure that we are doing the best job we can today to training our drives to be lifetime safe drivers, and the growth will come if we do that well. For now, we are focused on establishing ourselves where we currently are and continuing to provide a quality service to the community.