At 27 Calvin Hunt finally stumbled across his first great opportunity. The Atlanta native and lifelong fishing fanatic had graduated from Florida State in 2008 directly into the teeth of the Great Recession. A shot at a dream job in the corporate headquarters of Hatteras Yachts in North Carolina vaporized as the tanking economy swiftly decimated the luxury-boat business. Instead, for nearly four years Hunt toiled at a Hatteras dealer in Orange Beach, Ala. servicing old boats, struggling to sell new ones ("I think I sold three the entire time I was there"). By the summer of 2012, his interest in the marine business effectively scuttled, Hunt had relocated to Austin, Tex. to attend an unusual one-year M.B.A. program focused on entrepreneurship at the Acton School of Business. "The goal was not to earn an M.B.A.," he recalls. "It was to learn to start and run a business."
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