Karie Boesiger bakes a mean cookie. As a child, she spent summer days with her grandmother learning to bake. Those summers stuck with her. “To this day, I just love to make people happy through baking,” Karie says. So in 2005, she decided to make a job of it with business partner (and mother-in-law) Kris Boesiger, whom she had previously worked with on a line of locally made mustards, called Mom’s Mustard. This time though, they went after something a little bit sweeter.

We’ve all seen it: an athlete twists an ankle, and then TV announcers use instant replay to analyze what could have happened. Over. And over. And over again. Like most of us, Chris Dean quickly grew tired of watching such replays. But one day, while watching an NBA game at his brother’s house in San Jose, Calif., he started seeing the replay of one player’s ankle roll differently.

By the time Rocky Detwiler hit his 30s, he was already a millionaire. Then the phone rang…

Four years. That’s how long Roger Hancock went without a paycheck. Not just an employer’s paycheck, any paycheck.

It started as Becky Logue’s quest several years ago to create a tool that would make her job more efficient. It continues today as her small business that helps people accomplish more with their computers — by using their feet.

As a boy, Jared Iverson dreamt of being a doctor. Instead, he ended up a securities attorney. “It was a good job. The firm was really good,” Jared says. But he wanted more.