Twitch and Atrium founder Justin Kan has gone public with why he quit drinking and started meditating daily, among other steps he's taken to live the fullest life possible. Alcohol has "been an unhealthy way to avoid being fully in touch with my emotions and my experience of life," he writes.

Gatik AI's self-driving software is being placed in light-commercial Ford vehicles, with Walmart as an early high-profile customer. "Gatik fills the critical 'middle mile' part of logistics, which is only becoming more valuable as a layer in the $800 billion logistics ecosystem," says Reilly Brennan of Trucks Venture Capital.

Salvage Food in Chicago makes vinegar from brewery waste and hopes to one day expand its operations to include leftovers from winemaking as well. The startup partners with breweries to turn cider and beer left over in the tanks or transferring lines as well as faulty bottles into vinegar, including a balsamic-style vinegar.

Every entrepreneur needs passion, and it doesn't hurt to think about the customer and the things that don't change over the long run, says Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. "When you identify those big ideas that are stable in time ... they're usually customer needs," he says.

Paul Flick runs four home-care operations under the umbrella of Premium Service Brands, but he encourages franchisees to start the way he did -- one brand at a time. He started with a painting company and says "the mistakes I made -- whether in software or marketing or training -- ­helped me learn what to do or not do as I built the other brands."

Bill Herp transitioned Linear Air Taxi from a charter service to a marketplace, which meant not having to own maintenance, classify pilots as full-time employees or be limited in what planes it could use. This pivot came out of bad news: the bankruptcy of the jet supplier Herp had contracted with.