A Scrappy Entrepreneur's Plan B: Chewing Gum for a Cause When his first idea doesn't hold water, an entrepreneur turns to gum -- and a philanthropic business model.

Tyler Merrick was sweating. Sitting in a buyer's office at Whole Foods in Austin, Texas, he'd just had his bottled water idea shot down. His company, Project 7, didn't have other product lines yet, so he did what any scrappy entrepreneur with a shot at the big time would do: He lied.