He spent 18 months studying a problem before a line of code was written. After building LeaseQuery into FinQuery, George Azih is testing a familiar belief in a new setting: give people room to run.

After two decades marketing association software, Jacob Fabbri left a planned sabbatical to give accounting automation a sharper story. His method is equal parts category design, customer empathy and a willingness to build the booth attraction out of 50,000 LEGO bricks.