Ask South Pacific Fire Protection director Brent Te Kawa to describe his business and he says modestly: ''nothing glamorous''.
The business, named the fastest-growing services business, is a specialist one-stop shop for fire protection.
From design to installation and maintenance, the company's clients include residential homes and some of the largest commercial projects in the country.
Turnover was expected to be more than $20 million this year - with room to double or treble that in New Zealand alone in the future - and the company was now eyeing opportunities in Australia, Mr Te Kawa said.
With a give-it-a-go approach, the company has grown from humble beginnings in Queenstown in 1994.
When the global financial crisis hit, it was decided the only way to keep the business going was to look for other markets.
Offices include Auckland, Christchurch, Queenstown and Dunedin and there was really no such thing as a head office.
Accounts were handled in Queenstown, while most of the design work was done in Dunedin.
Clients include Ryman Healthcare in the North Island, while it has also been involved in some big developments like Five Mile in Queenstown.
There was a ''plethora'' of work on its books at the moment, stretching from Northland to Bluff, Mr Te Kawa said.
The company provided work for about 80 to 100 people including sub-contractors.
Growth continued and while it was not seeking growth, it was looking for markets to be in.
Mr Te Kawa said he loved Queenstown and the wider Otago region and enjoyed the lifestyle it afforded.
The secret to operating from multiple locations was to have a good team.
The company was actively looking at opportunities in Australia, which was a ''completely different market''.
While it was not able to enter the market as a New Zealand brand, it was looking for an existing company for sale.
He was not concerned about the logistics of operating in another country, saying ''it's only just over three hours on the plane''.
South Pacific Fire Protection was competing against some very large companies, and he was pleased it did not have a big corporate structure.
Instead, it was very nimble and able to move quickly.
There was always a challenge finding staff.
Young people seemed to be steering away from the trades - ''anything getting your hands dirty'' - although Otago Polytechnic did a good job turning out young mechanical engineers.
A number of people chose to live outside Auckland and, at the moment, Queenstown was growing and it was a good place to be, he said.
Also loving the Queenstown lifestyle is Tom Lynch, from TomTom Productions, a technical production company named fastest-growing technology business.
The business catered for live events, from conferences and festivals to special branding activations, providing sound, lighting, video, staging and ''whatever'', Mr Lynch said.
Founded seven and a-half years ago, when he was only in his early 20s, he ''kind of fell into'' the business.
From a very musical family - his father was the late Kevin Lynch, the Arrowtown entertainer who co-wrote the musical Rush! - he grew up in the industry.
When he left school, he was not sure what he wanted to do but he had shown an interest in the industry and his father got him a job in Queenstown.
After three years, he decided to venture out on his own. Joined by his sister Emma and a friend in Christchurch, they incorporated the company TomTom Productions on April Fool's Day in 2008.
A van was bought and Mr Lynch also asked his grandfather ''nicely'' if he could borrow his house to store some gear.
Since then, the business has grown and now employs 10 full-time staff, as well as Mr Lynch.
A branch was opened in Christchurch earlier this year.
Clients were diverse and included the Air New Zealand Wine Awards in 2013, Queenstown's Winter Festival and Rhythm and Alps in the Cardrona Valley.
A lot of its work was incentive-based for insurance and financial groups.
The best thing about Queenstown was the scenery and the fact it was such a popular place for national and international companies to visit.
''It's certainly allowed us to grow beyond what the town would otherwise allow us to do,'' he said.
The hardest part of being based there was the remoteness, in terms of moving gear around.
However, they could be anywhere within the country within two days, with a truck and ''a whole lot of gear''.
The design-focused business wanted to be known for ''pushing the boundaries and thinking outside the box''.
There had been a ''crazy'' amount of growth over the last few years but Mr Lynch did not want to get too big too quickly.
''I love growth ... if it's in the right areas. For us, it's more about becoming high-end boutique as opposed to just try to take over and get as much work as possible.
''It's about being clever how we grow from now on and be smart with where we are pushing. We're not trying to take over the world or anything, we're slowly chipping away at jobs we think we're suited for. We just want to do stuff that we enjoy,'' he said.
For a long time, the company was working quietly behind the scenes and he was enjoying now working on a national scale.
The biggest challenge was the market, in terms of the appetite to spend, and dealing with those fluctuations.
Mr Lynch believed there was huge potential, particularly with the video side of the business, especially with branding and product interaction.
In nearby Arrowtown is the office of Compass Agribusiness Management, an agricultural and rural business consultancy, named fastest-growing agribusiness business.
Compass, which was established in 2009, provided an advisory service and there was an agri-investment side, procuring and managing farms on behalf of investors, managing director Guy Blundell said.
The company managed some larger-scale irrigated farms in Central Otago, and three properties in Tasmania.
In 2011, Compass opened an office in Melbourne, working primarily in Victoria and Tasmania.
The Australian business was run by former Clinton man Nigel Pannett, who moved to Melbourne eight years ago initially to run ANZ's equity partnership division.
The business had grown rapidly, from two staff two years ago to 19 staff now.
Within the team, there was a lot of valuable intellectual property around how to run successful farming operations, Mr Blundell said.
It covered all aspects of agriculture - sheep, beef, dairy and dairy support - working with both family farms and corporate farms to help improve their businesses.
The company had also been heavily involved in irrigation and irrigation feasibility over the past few years, particularly with the North Otago Irrigation Company's scheme, and the Manuherikia and Lindis schemes.
Volatility in the industry had increased and it was a matter of making sure clients had a business robust enough to get through that volatility, he said.
The Compass team were all from farms and were ''all farmers at heart'' and passionate about the industry.
It was intended to continue to grow both the agri-servicing and agri-investment opportunities both in New Zealand and Australia.
Mr Blundell was recently elected president of the New Zealand Institute of Primary Industry Management, a body that oversaw rural professionals.
The institute had had a ''new lease of life'' in the last few years, while a committee had been put together to get the Otago branch ''off the ground''.
An irrigation-focused meeting would be held in Cromwell on October 15, with a variety of presentations which included new innovations happening around water and understanding what was required, from the Otago Regional Council's perspective, around nutrient management.
There would also be a networking session afterwards.
