''Hello possums'' may have been Dame Edna's catchcry, but two Dunedin university students want to bid the pesky pests goodbye.
James O'Callaghan and Sean Love are behind Fur Retrieval Dunedin, an initiative which has made the top 40 of the annual Audacious Business Challenge.
A total of 137 entries were submitted by University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic students.
Mr O'Callaghan (21), originally from Wellington, had trapped possums in the past in the Marlborough Sounds. When he heard Dunedin was ''infested'' with possums, he thought he ''might as well give it a go down here''.
He got Mr Love, his flatmate, involved as well, with the idea of making some cash. Not only was it a profitable thing to do but it was also good for the environment, he said.
Since starting this year in Dunedin, he estimated they had probably sold about 10kg of possum fur, which equated to between about 140 and 150 possums.
They plucked the possums and sold the fur to a local buyer with the going market price about $110 per kilogram.
They started in Kaikorai Valley and were keen to expand to Otago Peninsula, where they hoped to work alongside a conservation group, as well as getting into rural Otago. Possums were vectors of bovine tuberculosis, which was a major threat to the farming industry.
The pair have 100 traps, which cost $7 each, and they wanted to increase the number to 500, employing students to help check the traps, kill the possums and pluck the fur.
They have also considered making it ''into an experience'' for foreign exchange students to ''get a feel for being out in the bush'', Mr O'Callaghan said.
They had taken fellow students with them when they were checking traps and they ''loved it''.
If they could increase the number of traps, he estimated they could potentially earn between $6000 and $7000 a week.
There were 350 registered possum trappers in New Zealand but most of them were ''up north'', he said.
Mr O'Callaghan came from a hunting background and started possum trapping ''for a bit of fun''.
Now he realised that if it was scaled properly and effort was put in, it could become a profitable business.
Another group of Audacious Business Challenge contenders have developed a children's drink bottle, which they believe will be the first interactive drink bottle on the market worldwide.
Flowbot is the brainchild of Sam Thorpe, Nick Barraclough, Yi Zhang and Charles Smart.
Child obesity and type 2 diabetes were on the rise in New Zealand and overseas and sugary drinks were a contributing factor, Mr Thorpe said.
Flowbot was a reusable bottle that could tell the difference between a sugary drink and a sugar-free or low-sugar drink. A key component was that it was a ''third-party'' assessment of sugar levels, he said.
There were two lines of bottles: a passive drink bottle for children aged 2 to 4, which if containing a drink which was low- or no-sugar, a smiley face appeared on the bottle, and if the drink was high in sugar, a ''message of positive encouragement'' appeared; and, for children above that age, a game was activated when the bottle was filled with water or other low-sugar drinks.
It would play for a set amount of time and then became locked. To restart the game, the player had to have a sip of liquid.
The group had developed a ''little piece of technology'' that reacted to the sugar level of a drink, he said.
Not only did they want children to have the right kind of drink in their bottle, they wanted them to continue to drink it, he said. The concept was similar to a pinball game and little development had been done on the game. Instead, they had focused on the technology.
Originally from Tauranga, Mr Thorpe said he was fortunate to have cousins living in Dunedin on whom he could test the concept.
That was a ''crucial part'' as it needed to appeal to both children and their parents, he said.
Flowbot was looking for early-stage capital investment to ''get us off the ground'', which would involve funding a market-ready prototype.
They wanted to get it on the market as soon as possible. Mr Thorpe's personal goal was to launch it in the next 12 to 18 months. While that was quite ambitious, he believed it was achievable.
While initially focusing on New Zealand and Australia, he believed it was a ''worldwide product''.
The Audacious Business Challenge was a ''great programme'' and had generated many success stories, he said.
He appreciated the input of people who had ''have been there and done it before'', he said. ''It gives you a lot of confidence ... [and] makes you feel like you're doing something that is potentially worthwhile,'' he said.
Master of Entrepreneurship student Keir Russell had the idea of the Ecoplug ''years ago''.
He was frustrated at having to turn all the various electrical appliances off individually when he left a room - and it turned out that many others shared the same annoyance.
He met his business partner, Josh Urieli, two years ago and Mr Urieli had the computer modelling ability to start producing models of the idea, which involved turning off multiple power sockets with one switch.
Powered devices such as fish tanks that needed to be left on all the time could be left on ''on'' mode.
But if you had ''a couple of bedside lamps and a heater'', you could flick a switch when you left the room and turn them all off.
The design could be retrofitted to any house.
At this stage, the duo was working on proof of concept and also looking for some angel investor help, Mr Russell said.
The Master of Entrepreneurship course was very much based on realising students' ideas to some degree, he said.
He was lucky that through some of the contacts he had made on the course, he had received some ''incredible business advice'' from people already in the market, he said.
Audacious was a ''good motivating competition''. ''We were working on this idea. Nonetheless it kind of catalyses you to do certain types of business plans,'' he said.
Michael Jensen works as a property manager and one of the most annoying things he encountered was trying to process pre-tenancy application forms. It was ''a big logistical hassle'' and he did not see why it could not all be done online. He decided there was a niche there that could make ''quite a nice business''.
At this stage, he would like to get Tenantplus built and use it himself. After that, he intended to go door-knocking to real estate and property management firms around the city to see if they were interested.
He believed Dunedin was a great place to test out such an idea. If it worked in the city, he believed it could be used ''anywhere''.
It was a simple idea and there were few barriers to it working. He believed the path to first revenues was quite short.
Mr Jensen was ''blown away'' to be named in the Audacious top 40 and it was great to hear positive comments from the judges. He said the competition ''gets better every year''.
Upstart Business Incubator chief executive Steve Silvey described this year's Audacious ideas as ''bold, imaginative and full of passion''.
Strong entries were seen across all categories, including technology, social enterprise and design excellence. The awards ceremony will be held on September 27.
''Between now and then we'll see students entering an engine room of pitch school, mentoring and detailed planning culminating in a `Dragon's Den'.
''By that stage, we normally see a number of businesses trading and ready for further investment. That's what makes it really exciting,'' Mr Silvey said.
