As easy as it was to schedule a meet up with Cafe Moto owner Torrey Lee, it’s much harder to pin down a description of his business. The list includes solar power, social responsibility, sustainable agriculture, local distribution, and community involvement -- though none of these are core principles per se, and they’re more than just good business decisions. They involve decisions that he can, and does, feel good about.

Emily Green moved to Lima, Peru in August 2008 to start a business, without a real idea of what it was going to be or how it was all going to work out.

For just about as long as I have known Meghan Shea and Michael Rogers, I’ve been following their worldwide travels and simultaneously trying not become enraged with travel jealousy. This is especially difficult when I hear they are in some exotic, far off location, while I am (seemingly) locked into my 9-to-5 existence to support myself, leaving me filled with wonderment about how they make it all happen and still make a living. The answer is that they made their work encompass this element of travel, all in the pursuance of a career path they love as documentary filmmakers.

Every startup, one way or another, is born when someone with a vision sees an opportunity for innovation and economic sustainability where others haven’t. What makes the founders of Madécasse unique is that these visions of prosperity had nothing to do with with themselves and everything to do with a island nation that was exporting its resources without reaping its fullest benefits.