Gabe Ross and Riley Meason, both 22, have turned weekends with their friends fishing, hunting and diving into fulltime jobs over the course of a few years.
Mr Ross moved to Hawea from Auckland with his family — who sold their vodka company 42 Below in 2019 and bought Lake Hawea Station — when he was 14 and went to John McGlashan College in Dunedin from year 10.
While there, he met Mr Meason and a group of friends who shared a passion for the outdoors and they began filming their adventures in year 12 and 13.
Five years later, the Hawea-based duo have a successful adventure and outdoors safety vlog (video blog) series on YouTube called Weekend Mish and a strong following on social media for their content with brand endorsements from the likes of Toyota.
Their vlogs include adventures into various locations around Otago and Canterbury and they provide tips about camping in a fun and light-hearted way.
Mr Ross said the duo were mostly doing it for fun until 2022 when they got involved with a reality survival show called Tracked and won $100,000.
"That kind of helped us kick-start the momentum," he said.
It had been an absolute "whirlwind" and "a real pleasure" to see Weekend Mish grow within a few years.
Their adventures had not changed a lot from their high school days, but they developed their business acumen and were posting vlogs with more of a plan and had built a merchandise store online.
Mr Ross said it was always the goal to create something like Weekend Mish.
Getting a business degree at the University of Otago helped him put his plans in action.
"I was always going to go to uni and get a degree, but I wasn’t sure what in ... after finding the entrepreneurship course at Otago I was like, sweet, that fits perfectly for me."
About a year ago, Weekend Mish started looking like a steady career pathway for the duo and about six months ago they began pursuing it fulltime.
"It’s something that I’ve dreamt of since I was a little kid and I think it’s something that a lot of young fellas ultimately kind of dream of just being able to pick something they love the most and just do that every day for their life.
"So yeah, it’s a dream come true really to be able to be building Weekend Mish fulltime."
Mr Ross said he and Mr Meason had big plans.
"Both Riley and I are very, very ambitious people.
"We don’t really want to settle for just X amount of followers and selling a bit of merch, we want to grow a big multimedia platform.
"We want to build our following exponentially and ultimately just grow a really cool business that we’re really proud of.
"Hopefully, we can inspire people to get out and about in the outdoors and chase their own passions as well."
