We asked readers to submit their picks for the Capital Region’s top entrepreneurs —and you answered. Our editorial team vetted almost 100 nominations, looking for innovative business ideas, interesting backstories, unique products and services and that ineffable “it” factor. And here they are…

Lessons learned on the road of entrepreneurship.

Resilience and risk are must-have traits to secure support for your entrepreneurial vision.

Hustling by itself may have a negative connotation, but co-opting the term seems to mirror the millennial tendency to reclaim edgy words.

I’m a corporate recruiter. For candidates that progress to an HR phone screen, we ask their expected salary and share the range we have for the role. Is it appropriate to use someone’s low salary expectations as a reason for not moving forward? I’m concerned that a candidate who makes so much less won’t be a good fit. Is that the case?

Airbnb is all the rage these days, in Sacramento and beyond. And why not? After all, we’re hearing a lot of hype about becoming successful in real estate through short-term rentals.

For the last dozen years, the UC Davis Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship has fostered hundreds of aspiring entrepreneurs out of the classroom setting and into the real world. Comstock’s sat down with Senior Program Manager Niki Peterson to learn how her institute is helping turn the Capital Region into a world-class incubator for innovation.

When Christy Hayes arrived in Woodland in 2004, the former U.S. Air Force heavy diesel mechanic was fresh out of active duty. She found a job as a hostess at an iconic downtown eatery, Morrison’s Upstairs. She worked her way up to bartender and then bar manager. But Hayes never expected she would one day see the building house her own restaurant.

With the deployment of Verizon’s 5G wireless network on the horizon in 2018, some say Sacramento has the potential to become a lightning rod for tech. Is there truth to the hype?

Stephanie Stiavetti had an IT job that she liked in Sacramento, managing a company’s servers, mobile devices and computers. Yet her real passion was cooking. She had attended culinary school, designed recipes, dabbled in freelance food writing and had even written a cookbook.

Having a great idea is easy. But turning that idea into a business is a bit more difficult. From creating a product with market viability, to hiring staff and growing to scale, the road to entrepreneurship is rife with obstacles. But, perhaps none are as fundamental as the age-old question of how to fund.

With interest in MBAs flat or falling across the nation, can modernization help programs keep up with student interest? We take a look at how the region’s education programs are innovating their offerings.

Every year, Sacramento Life Center’s two mobile medical clinics provide free services for over 2,000 low-income women in critical need of medical services throughout pregnancy, with a goal to see all pregnancies come to term. However, last year, the service-providing vehicles needed some upkeep of their own: The two mobile clinics required engine repairs and tires to stay on the road.

A father and son duo are lighting up the Central Valley with handmade neon signs.