To locals, Usful Glassworks is a place to drop off used wine and alcohol bottles. To foodies, it’s the place that supplies upcycled drinking glasses to popular restaurants like Fork and Red Feather. And while both are true, there’s more to it than that.

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.

After going through a big career transition, many turn to hobbies to clear their heads. And that’s what Russ Whitney did.

In 2008, while working as a developer for Clearwater Analytics, he realized a problem: Technical phone interviews. They were a mess of coordinating conference calls and screen sharing tools. Unlike a traditional phone interview, developer interviews required live coding tests to prove the interviewee was up to snuff. Screen sharing tools required additional software and setup, wasting time for both parties Ben knew there was a better way.

You might say that fish fertilizer is in Thomas Lansing’s blood. The son of an environmental activist and a commercial fisherman, Thomas spent much of his childhood exploring Idaho’s great outdoors. As an adult (and founder of Carp Solutions), he’s trying to keep it that way as he builds a career.

Melt looks like butter. Spreads like butter. And in most ways, tastes like butter. But of course — it’s not butter. In fact, the only reason Melt exists is because the company’s founder, Cygnia Rapp, couldn’t eat butter (or many other common fat sources) without becoming ill. “She was 30 years old at the time and decided she didn’t want to live that way,” explains Meg Carlson, an experienced food industry veteran and the company’s president and CEO. Cygnia’s solution? Develop a not-so-easy-to-follow recipe for an alternative to butter.

Law associate Chris Hoyd was starting a code school in Boise. Software developer Matt Overall was also starting a code school in Boise. So when Matt unknowingly stumbled on Chris’ Craigslist ad looking for instructors, it was kismet.

To say 2008 was a life-changing year for Brooke Linville and Dan Thurber is a pretty major understatement. In August, their home was one of ten destroyed by the Oregon Trail Heights fire — a massive, fast-moving grass fire in Southeast Boise. In September, their first son was born.

“I realized around 2001 that TV news would be forever changed by the internet,” says Ed Vining, a sports broadcaster turned entrepreneur. But the internet didn’t just change TV — it changed him too.

To call Nathan Barry transparent is an understatement. Barry — part entrepreneur, part teacher — has built his reputation as a blogger, software designer, app developer and author by not just being transparent, but radically transparent. (Each year he chronicles every detail of his business and personal life, including finances, on his blog.)

“I’ve told people we could never have done this when we were younger,” Lynn Hoffmann says of launching a new business with her husband Brian last year. “But our long marriage can survive the ups and downs of a business.” Not only has this pair “survived,” they’ve thrived.

George Seybold will be the first to say startups face a shortage of many things: cash, talent and time included. But for George and his company, Talloo, “ambition” isn’t one of them. “I don’t think small,” George says. “I think in scale.” The vision for his company? To do nothing less than turn the $20 billion customer relationship software (CRM) market on its head.