Overall winner of the Audacious Business Awards handed out
at a gala event at the Regent Theatre in Dunedin on
Thursday was Clay Caird, shows off his product, disposable
promotional supporters' rugby headgear for fans to wear to
their teams' games. Photo by Linda Robertson.
Some young Dunedin entrepreneurs have received
recognition through winning awards in this year's Audacious
Business challenge for Otago University and Otago Polytechnic
students.
The winner of this year's NBR Online Audacious Challenge was
Otago University master of entrepreneurship student Clay
Caird, who plans to have his promotional headgear product
colouring the crowds at all top-level rugby union/league
games within a year.
The audacious challenge is a joint initiative by the Dunedin
City Council, the University of Otago School of Business and
Otago Polytechnic to encourage tertiary students to pitch
business ideas.
It gives potential entrepreneurs assistance and knowledge to
set up their own businesses, and seminars were held
throughout the year providing practical support on topics
such as business planning, law, website development and
finance.
Mr Caird (25) said his cardboard helmets were based on the
protective headgear worn by rugby players and featured each
team's colours, and the sponsor's brand on the front.
The headgear was designed to be worn by fans in support of
their team and, thereby, to provide exposure for the sponsor.
He said he got the idea for them when he saw something
similar while playing ice hockey in Holland in 2007.
He formed his company, Creative Hype!, this year and, with
some assistance from his mother and her contacts in printing,
has already had some success, with Sydney league team the
Rabbitohs ordering the cardboard headgear for a game earlier
this year.
The $25,000 prize for winning the Audacious Challenge would
go a long way towards helping him take his business to the
next level, he said.
He would use some of the cash to travel to Australia, where
he planned to conduct a sustained marketing campaign
targeting the NRL and the major teams in the league.
The runners-up for the top prize were Julien Van Mellaerts
and Will Horton and their company Namida Wasabi Spirit, which
makes wasabi vodka.
Arjun Haszard (26), who is studying towards a postgraduate
diploma in commerce at Otago University, won the other big
prize of the night, the prize for entrepreneurship, for his
and business partner Cameron McPhail's business Quick Brown
Fox, which makes organic liqueurs.
They had so far produced 17 litres of coffee and cinnamon
liqueur in the kitchen of Strictly Coffee in Dunedin, but had
plans to get their own kitchen and still and make a variety
of new flavours, Mr Haszard said.
The liqueur was a boutique product targeted at the "hipster"
customer, and was the first organic spirit made in New
Zealand, he said.
"We're gonna make it huge."
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