A golf ball in an egg carton. A fridge delivered to a dorm room. Ruslan Kogan built a retail business by noticing the small absurdities in what people pay - and has spent two decades discovering which costs are harder to remove.

Aaron Walters learned retail in stockrooms and billion-dollar merchandise businesses. At Altar'd State, he put that experience toward a different ambition: making giving part of the working week.

Before sports merchandise became an always-on global business, Alan Trager saw a simpler opening: a new NFL town, a mall shop, and fans who wanted something to wear. The wager became Fanatics.

Before Nashville had a local-food boom, a former medical salesman opened a neighborhood grocery and learned the business one farmer, one customer and one costly mistake at a time. Twenty-five years later, he still stocks the produce aisle.