Mr Hoefliger (24) is among a record number of Master of Entrepreneurship students - 17 in person and five in absentia - who graduated from the University of Otago on Saturday.
While 33 finished their degrees in the latest intake and were eligible to graduate, the remainder were deferring for various reasons.
For Mr Hoefliger, who has lived in Auckland for the past 18 months, it was an opportunity to celebrate the achievement and then "get back to the real world" today.
He is the co-founder, with Dunedin man Julian Cox, of Eftplus, an innovative loyalty and e-marketing service.
Originally from Rotorua, Mr Hoefliger came to Otago initially to complete a bachelor of commerce degree, majoring in marketing and finance.
As part of an advanced paper he was doing, he did some consultancy work for TracPlus. Through that, he met Mr Cox who was looking for an intern to do business development research for what is now Eftplus.
Mr Hoefliger did the internship, staying in Dunedin the summer of 2009-10, and realised the potential of the idea.
The Master of Entrepreneurship was a "great way" to work on it, Mr Hoefliger said.
The Master of Entrepreneurship is a 15-month degree designed to support those with an entrepreneurial spirit who wish to start an innovative new venture. It is taught in three-day modules, plus required course and project work, with one module completed every six weeks.
Mr Hoefliger wanted to meet other like-minded, passionate entrepreneurs and develop networks and both those goals were achieved.
One of the guest lecturers had now invested in Eftplus.
"You never know who you might meet," he said.
He highly recommended the degree as a starting point for anyone looking to at least do some research into an idea they believed could "possibly turn some heads".
It was about the third year of his commerce degree that he started to think that if other people could build successful companies - and there were "millions" out there - then "I can't see why I can't". Meeting Mr Cox had sped up that process.
Eftplus linked customers' loyalty cards to payment cards, removing the "hassle of having to carry around a whole bunch of loyalty cards in your wallet".
Mr Hoefliger, who was a shareholder in the company, could not envisage himself doing anything different.
"I love the game I'm in," he said.
