Maine’s thriving mail-order business in live lobsters is an example of ingenuity in the marketplace that business schools and others should be watching. Instead of leaving themselves at the mercy of wholesalers and other big customers, a hardy band of entrepreneurs has taken advantage of improvements in communications and shipping (the Internet, FedEx) to go directly to their customers. Some of them, as Sandra Dinsmore reports in this issue, make their profit on the price of lobster and other seafood; others make it in handling and shipping. Whatever way the cash flows, it’s a refreshing alternative to hoping that wholesale prices will hold up. On the other hand, doing business this way is always risky: the small operator can’t do anything about the weather or global market conditions, and when it comes to the tastes and concerns of finicky consumers, the little guy’s on his own. The rewards in this corner of the economy will go to the industrious, the ingenious and the brave.