A Day in the Dragons Den

By Gwyn Pratley | Posted: Friday July 1, 2016

On Wednesday 29th June, the students in the Year 13 Business Studies class attended the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme’s ‘Otago Regional Dragons Den Competition’ for young entrepreneurs. 

In total there were twenty-one teams who participated in the competition where they pitched their business ideas to a panel of YES judges as well as three local dragons.

Four teams from Otago Boys’ High School competed in the regional competition. The teams included; OPPS (Online Parental Permission Slips) who have created a website that allows teachers to send out permission slips electronically and record the response in a clean easy to use page that teachers can access through their own web link. Easy Eating who offer a similar product to ‘My Food Bag’ but focused their product at a lower price-point. Code Cases who are providing Otago Boys’ mobile phone cases and are also currently working with local rugby clubs to produce cases for them. And finally OBM (Old Boys’ Merchandise) who are creating re-useable coffee cups for local schools and businesses.

The OBHS team OPPS won 1st prize for the business that the dragon’s thought had the ‘Most Investment Potential’ and they rewarded them with a cheque of $300. Congratulations to the team at OPPS. OPPS were also 3rd equal for best oral presentation, which started with the most professional video of the day followed by team members Matt Ecroyd, Ricky Jackson, Taine Box and Ryley Kennard presenting great speeches. They finished their presentation to the amusement of the judges right on the 5-minute buzzer.

The goal for all the OBHS YES teams including OPPS Young Enterprise team is winning the Otago Regional Competition and earning a place during Term 4 to compete at the Lion Foundation YES National Finals in Wellington.

After Dragon’s Den the team at OPPS look well place and now many within the Dunedin business community are asking ‘What do they do’? OPPS also known as Online Parental Permission Slips have created a website for parents and schools that allow schools to send out permission slips and for parents to grant or decline permission for their children to attend events outside the classroom. This takes place all online without paper with only a few simple clicks. Their system is currently being trialled successfully and has the team and users excited by it prospects.

The OPPS (Online Parental Permission Slips) team have big ambitions for the future. Their next step is to raise the final capital for their website development. They plan to offer advertising on their websites landing page to local businesses. The business logos will be viewed by the trialling schools using the OPPS website in Term 3 and 4 2016.

If you are at all interested in advertising on the OPPS website and supporting the OBHS OPPS team, or have any question or queries please feel free to contact either CEO Mathew Ecroyd ([email protected]) or Ricky Jackson ([email protected]).

Image Gallery