Steve Hendershot

A couple of years ago, Andy Cronk had an idea for a database business. No longer were computers the only devices sharing data. Fitness trackers, cars, appliances and even buildings were producing digitized info that needed to be stored somewhere for analysis.

Cronk would start a company to service this new “Internet of Things.” He applied to a San Antonio tech-business bootcamp called TechStars Cloud in 2012 and, in exchange for signing away 6 percent of his company and a $100,000 loan, he got $18,000 in seed money and into the program. All this, despite a startling lack of progress: Cronk's company, TempoDB, had neither customers nor a functioning product. In fact, he and his two co-founders, Justin DeLay and Mike Yagley, had not written a single line of code.

Today the Internet of Things has evolved to a budding phenomenon: Stamford (CT)-based Gartner Inc. predicts that by 2020, the Internet of Things will consist of 26 billion devices generating $300 billion of revenue for companies like TempoDB. Cronk has signed on about 20 enterprise customers, including the Australian government, which uses his River North-based startup to track solar power usage.