Erin Meagher, 36

When Erin Meagher was a high school teacher more than a decade ago, teaching 18-year-olds accounting, computer and business classes, her favorite subject was entrepreneurship — it always got her excited. So much so that her students started to ask her why she was in the classroom with them instead of directing her enthusiasm into starting her own company.

Even going back to when she was little, Meagher used to tell her mom: “'I just want to be grown up and go to work now,'” she says. “I’ve always had a work ethic and a desire to build something, to do something. I was born with that side, and I can’t turn it off.” 

Meagher did start something. In 2009, Meagher found an untapped opportunity — and something she was passionate about — in coconut oil. At the time, coconut oil looked like Crisco — “just a lump in a jar,” Meagher says. “No one was giving it any love or attention.”