(FORTUNE Magazine) – THEY ARE REBELS with a cause, offbeat businessmen and women on track with today's consumers. The key to their success: They understand that customers in the 1990s want to be educated, entertained, and coddled, to do right by the earth and by others (especially their children), and to feel rich, even if they're not. Typically in their 40s, they are often veterans of corporate America, whose tumultuous downsizings and right-sizings have tossed a few onto the unemployment line. If Bill Clinton were reinventing cookies or computer software instead of government, he'd be the quintessential Nineties entrepreneur. A look at nine of these business creators and their bright ideas shows that few provide products or services as original as, say, Velcro. But what these people understand is that the familiar can be just as gripping to customers -- if it's delivered faster, cheaper, or better. Even something as prosaic as, say, milk. Up in Whiting, Vermont, Steven Judge is literally betting his 305-acre farm that people will pay up to a third more for milk that, he claims, tastes better because ''it's been babied all the way along.'' What makes the difference, Judge says, is how clean he keeps his barn and herd of 50 cows. Any contamination of their feed or bedding would adversely affect the milk's flavor, he claims. The odds are that Judge's Vermont Family Farms milk will be a hit. For today's fickle consumer, drawn as much to health food as to junk food, what better way to wash down a few Oreos than with a glass of pure-as-the-driven- snow milk? And the colorful carton, festooned on four sides with an idealized rendering of a New England farm, should hit home with reluctant city dwellers. In any event, Judge, 42, fits the mold of today's entrepreneur, someone who has a keen feel for his customers precisely because in many ways he is their mirror image. Like consumers now, Judge cares about the environment and about nutrition. He works himself ragged (from five in the morning till ten at night), was deeply affected by the anti-Vietnam war movement (he lost interest in school and later dropped out of Ohio Wesleyan after the National Guard killed four students at Kent State in 1970), and is as politically correct as they come. (He says he ''manages his land as a living resource vital to the survival of our planet.'') Judge is also unconventional. It's not just that he and his wife, Wendy, school their two youngsters at home or that he feels most comfortable with cow manure on his boots. What makes him really different is how committed he is to his venture, ''on fire with his ideas,'' as Harvard's John Kao, who lectures on entrepreneurship, puts it. Says Judge: ''It's like I'm out there on the face of a cliff, and I can't go back and I can't stay hanging.'' What's behind the cliffhanger mentality? New York venture capitalist Marty Kahn says this half-cocked confidence is what enables an entrepreneur to know he has seen a consumer need before others have and ride out the hard times. ''I don't think you can be a successful entrepreneur and be entirely sane,'' says Kahn. ''These people believe the world should be the way they see it and not necessarily the way it is. They need great ego strength to persevere in the face of people telling them they're nuts.'' People could have been excused for telling that to Ann King, a former Delta flight attendant, and partner Ashley Ghegan. Their Blooming Cookies venture delivers edible bouquets nationwide -- cookies fastened to long stems and planted in a personalized pot. That may not sound like the answer to a crying need, but customers include Mick Jagger and Barbra Streisand. More important, most of the sweet-toothed takers are corporations, including Coca-Cola and Mary Kay, which these days are looking for novel yet inexpensive ways to thank clients and acknowledge valued employees. King expects sales to exceed $2 million this year. Confidence? An arsonist nearly burned the business to a crisp last summer. ''Adversity,'' says King, 42, ''just makes me dig in more.'' The day after the fire, she and Ghegan hired a local bakery to fill a surge of orders generated by news of their misfortune. If sensing consumers' desires is difficult, at least getting started is easier than it used to be. Put the basic business tools -- a fax, a PC, and a phone system -- on your credit card, and you can be up and running. Tap into a database or two, and you've got the beginnings of a market research department. Rent a list of likely customers, fax them your promotional material, and presto! -- you've replicated the reach of a corporate sales force.

VETERANS recommend that you conceal just how bare the bones are for a while. Customers, after all, want to be sure you'll still be around next week if they invest in your product. When Mark Nelson started his medical software business in a crack-infested Manhattan neighborhood, he was as much security guard as innovator, marketer, receptionist, distributor, and customer service representative. ''I wanted to keep it a secret that I was a one-man operation because I didn't think it would inspire confidence,'' he says. ''But when people called asking for billing and later for repairs, and the voice was always the same, they began to catch on.'' Fortunately for Nelson, his software by then had also caught on. With the health care industry feeling squeezed and likely to feel more so, Nelson, 35, has just the cure. His company, CD Plus Technologies, offers doctors and medical researchers some of the most logical, user-friendly software around. By following simple, straightforward directions on a screen, even those unfamiliar with computers and medical terminology can tap into the latest literature on a particular drug, symptom, disease, or treatment. As a kid, Nelson wanted to be a priest when he grew up. Instead he won a scholarship to Columbia University, majored in English literature, and stayed on for his master's. To help support himself, he found a part-time job doing medical research for a drug company -- copying citations by hand, for hours, in the library. ''When my boss finally invested in a computer, I was afraid of it,'' he says. ''But when I realized how much time it saved me, I became intrigued.'' So much so that Nelson soon did little else. ''I spent two years, 16 hours a day, writing software, living on hot dogs and spaghetti. I often wondered whether anyone would ever see the software, much less use it.'' Nelson's happy customers now include two-thirds of the nation's medical school libraries. The fervor with which he and his employees serve them can border on the fanatical. After one of Nelson's technicians repaired some software glitches for the Harvard medical school library, he offered to sleep in the computer room should things break down again. Librarian Elizabeth Wu appreciated the offer but declined: ''Let me tell you, it's cold in there.'' Such four-star service has driven sales at CD Plus over $11 million this year, and Nelson's operations from his tiny apartment into a 9,400-square-foot loft with 70 employees. Dale F. Nadeau, 45, a Chippewa Indian from Belcourt, North Dakota, wooed and won his customers by delivering more swiftly and for less money than the . competition. Nadeau runs his reservation's Turtle Mountain Manufacturing Co., which makes trailers that haul everything from ammunition to power generators. His biggest customer is the U.S. government, which has awarded the company a five-year, $70 million contract. U.S. soldiers and disaster victims have come to depend on Turtle Mountain's ''water buffalo,'' its nickname for a trailer that hauls a 450-gallon thermos of water fit for drinking, washing, and cooking. Washington's faith in Nadeau was reinforced during the Persian Gulf war. The Army needed 500 sand-colored water buffalo for Desert Storm. While competitors said the job would take at least a year, Turtle Mountain promised the trailers in two months. With over 200 people working round the clock, ''we came on like a light bulb,'' says Nadeau. ''We delivered like true soldiers.''

CONSUMERS who like to shop from their beds to save time, avoid the hassle of stores, and have an attentive salesperson all to themselves -- not a bad description of today's consumer -- will appreciate the meticulous service of Hanna Andersson, a mail-order company in Portland, Oregon, that specializes in endlessly washable, 100% cotton clothing for kids. Call its toll-free 800 number with a question, and one of 100 phone representatives will patiently guide you as you shop. Here's the joy: The employees know the products, or at least know how to call up information about them on their computers. The spirit behind such service is a Swedish immigrant named Gun Denhart (her grandmother was the eponymous Hanna Andersson). Denhart, 48, has brought to her business many of what she calls ''socialist concepts from home.'' Most innovative is her policy on returned clothing that no longer fits. Ship it back, and she credits 20% of the original price toward your next purchase, a concept she has labeled Hannadown. Denhart in turn donates the returned clothes to charities and relief organizations. The program touches a deep desire in many consumers to do good works -- though they lack the time. Employees also benefit from her Scandinavian largess: The company foots their child-care bill for up to $3,000 per child. Generous, to be sure: Its babysitter bill came to $250,000 last year. But worth it, claims the boss: ''We have a more dedicated work force because of it.'' Denhart started the company ten years ago with her husband, Tom, 52, an art director ''fed up with the rat race on Madison Avenue.'' She had recently given birth to a son and was unable to find the kind of affordable and attractive cotton clothes for him that she knew were available back home. Her solution: a month-long shopping trip to Sweden, on which she bought clothing not only for her kids but also for other people's children. Denhart gave away the clothes on the beach near her suburban house in Connecticut and later checked in with parents for their reaction. This market research gave the Denharts a green light that continues to shine: Sales last year crossed the $40 million mark. Chasing boomers where they live with affordable but chic products has also paid off for Les Mandelbaum, 42, a housewares manufacturer from Toronto. You may even have one of his brightly colored, swing-top plastic trash cans deployed in your kitchen. Umbra, his company, also sells sleekly designed but reasonably priced clocks, picture frames, soap dishes, place mats, and the like in stores throughout the U.S., including Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn. Like Hanna Andersson's Denhart, Mandelbaum targets customers who share his tastes: ''Our original customer was a sophisticated, under-30 yuppie type. As I've grown older, so has my market.'' His staff of 90 is made up of several childhood friends whom he treats as virtual equals. ''I don't take a me-up- here, you-down-there approach,'' he says. ''I'm dependent on them, and they've stuck by me.'' A bass guitarist, Mandelbaum made a meager living after college as a jazz musician. ''Then I started to meet younger guys who had a lot more natural ability than I did, so I quit,'' he says. Cashing in on his musical contacts, he started selling ''hippie hardware,'' the parts needed to make the large, black, metal-and-plywood carrying cases used by musicians to lug equipment. In 1980 he launched Umbra with a single product: a printed paper window shade. This year his line of some 500 household items has generated close to $20 million in sales. Baby-boomers, ever the perfectionists, are into more than home improvement. Members of the best-educated cohort in history want to better themselves in every conceivable way. Among those meeting that need is Ed Quinn, 56, founder of Worldwide Educational Services in Clifton, New Jersey. He helps all manner of folk with their reading, from high school dropouts in need of remedial skills to top executives at companies like Exxon and Johnson & Johnson who want to read more efficiently. ''Many people read for total comprehension all the time,'' says Quinn. ''We teach them speed and skimming techniques.'' As a former high school English teacher, Quinn observed that reading was neither easy nor pleasurable for many of his students. His business today, which generates $3 million a year in revenues, mainly serves that youthful market. He tutors unemployed youngsters and dropouts and finds jobs for about 75% of them. Whatever their need, consumers these days want to be taken care of, and entrepreneurial hand-holders are obliging in the most unexpected ways. Want to get hitched? Just get yourself and your fiancee to Guam, and for $1,500 Island Wedding Service will do all but consummate the marriage. First, founder June Terlaje, 45, meets you at the hotel, marriage documents in hand. She and her staff of nine then swing into motion, attending to hair and makeup. Bride and groom are bedecked in the latest Western-style regalia, including underwear, costume jewelry, and tuxedos in shades ranging from silver to midnight blue. Terlaje then ferries couples by limo to church. For good measure, she tosses in confetti, champagne, and photos.

WONDERING who in the world would want such a service? Well, enough Japanese tourists, Guamanians, and U.S. military personnel stationed in the area -- five couples a day in peak season -- to drive this eight-year-old business's sales to $735,000 last year. With the average price of a traditional wedding now running as much as $16,000 in the U.S., $4,500 for round-trip plane fare for two to Guam, plus a full Island package, can seem like a bargain. Honored by the U.S. Small Business Administration in 1992, Terlaje plans to take her rent-a-wedding concept to Las Vegas and Honolulu. Terlaje's corporate counterpart is Bill Herz, a modern Merlin from Manhattan. Herz doesn't walk anyone down the aisle, but he does accompany executives on-stage, making conferences a less painful experience for all involved. ''Meetings are boring,'' says Herz, 38, who for up to $40,000 a convention livens things up with sleight of hand, illusion, and lots of heavy equipment that can slice a rival in two, produce a CEO in a puff of smoke, and, most magically, dispel boredom. A magician since the age of 8, Herz started out on the birthday circuit. His business will generate over $1 million in revenues this year. He regularly delights executives at dozens of FORTUNE 500 companies. At a recent Price Waterhouse conference of 550 executives, senior partner Martin Baumann spotted a planted ''spy'' from another major accounting firm in the audience. Herz then helped Baumann pull off a stunt that seemingly flattened the guy in a giant roller. ''This woke people up,'' says Baumann. ''It showed them I was willing to take chances and be innovative.'' Established corporations everywhere, eager as they are to reinvent themselves, would do well to learn a trick or two from today's successful entrepreneurs.