While Bernie Madoff was busted bilking billions from investors only one year ago, the seeds to his Ponzi scheme were actually planted in the early 1980s. Although a generation of fraudulent business practices left many holding the bag, opportunistic startups like River North-based FIPPEX Operations are hoping to profit from reform.

Looking to climb the corporate ladder 140 characters at a time? General Motors and Southwest Airlines are looking for a few good Twitter and Facebook fanatics to help them sell more Buicks and cheap airline tickets. You can even drink beer while you brainstorm.

For Bump Technologies, 3 million is a more significant number than 1 billion. The company that famously developed what was the 1 billionth iPhone application downloaded from Apple reportedly raised more than $3 million in its first institutional round of financing.

Groundbreaking ideas rarely make money without patience, passion and relentlessness.