Printed apparel and promotional products business Konstruct Ltd is shifting its base from Dunedin to Auckland, prompted by the steady increase in Auckland clients.
Lower transport costs would also make its products more competitive, director Tom Wolfenden said.
Despite the move, it would maintain a presence in Dunedin. Mr Wolfenden would work from a home office in Maori Hill and it would always consider itself a Dunedin company, he said.
Mr Wolfenden, Chris Ashton and Mark Colley were watching the television news when they saw an item on Alex Tew, an English student who launched The Million Dollar Homepage to raise money for his university education.
It consisted of a million pixels arranged in a 1000 1000 pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for $US1 per pixel in 10 10 blocks.
It struck a chord with the students and Mr Wolfenden said he remembered thinking ''what can we do?'' to make money.
At that time, nobody was making University of Otago branded apparel so they approached the university and got approval.
They managed to ''scrape together'' all the money they had - ''it wasn't that much'' - and got 400 branded hoodies to sell on a stall at Orientation Week.
Only about four were sold so then the trio wondered what to do with all the remaining stock.
They rented a room at The Clubs and Societies Centre and managed to sell out, and the business grew from there.
Their flatmates were not very happy with them taking over the lounge so they had to find permanent premises.
They were approached by groups wanting to buy apparel with custom designs and their focus moved, as they began producing custom printed apparel and uniforms for clubs, sports teams, businesses, schools and organisations.
Mr Wolfenden admitted it had not all been plain sailing with a few ''touch and go'' moments early on.
''Like any business starting out, payables exceeded receivables, and we couldn't help wondering what we had got ourselves into. But through hard work and determination, we pushed on,'' he said.
Konstruct offered an ever-widening portfolio of products, extending beyond its clothing range into promotional items such as pens, lanyards, badges and mugs.
The company was also expanding its presence in Australia and exports increased ''substantially'' this year.
A big part of its market was secondary school leavers' apparel, particularly hoodies.
They had just started doing that in Australia and it was going well, he said.
Since 2008, Konstruct has operated from its production facility in Kaikorai Valley.
Over the Christmas shut-down period, the company's machinery would be shipped to Auckland where it would be set up in a new facility in Henderson.
The relocation was an opportunity for upgrades, with production capacity being increased.
The factory upgrade included an automatic screen-printing machine, a new embroidery machine, which would more than double embroidery capacity, and a bespoke facility layout would mean improved efficiency and quality, Mr Wolfenden said.
Mr Ashton, who won the Young Enterprise Scheme national award in 2001 for a business he started producing playing cards featuring local businesses, and Mr Colley both lived in Auckland.
Mr Ashton, who has a law degree, works full-time for Konstruct. He moved north late last year after his wife, Ria Vandervis got a role on television soap Shortland Street, playing Dr Harper Whitley.
She was also a director of Konstruct and was involved with the customer service side of the business.
Mr Colley, who has law and commerce degrees, works part-time for Konstruct.
With the firm's production facility in Kaikorai Valley closing, two staff were being made redundant, although one of those was heading overseas next year, Mr Wolfenden said.
While they were excited about the move to Auckland, they were also grateful for the support from the Dunedin community.
Mr Wolfenden did not have any firms plans to move north ''for the time being''.
The decision to shift base was hard but it was ''one of those things'', he said.
