From running nail salons to a bakery to a law firm, these young entrepreneurs got an early start in making their way in the business world.

Chris K. Achar, 26

Genesis Life Sciences and Divya Wines, Los Angeles

Employees: About a dozen.

Financials: $1 million in seed funding from RP Capital in Los Angeles. The six drugs that the company is developing have brought in about $10 million in revenue from interested pharmaceutical companies.

When he was 12, Chris Achar’s favorite after-school hangout was Semler Research Center, a pharmaceutical services business owned by his father.

Today, at 26, he owns Genesis Life Sciences, a pharmaceutical development company, and Divya Wines. He thanks his dad for getting him interested in the drug business, even though he can’t say exactly why it clicked.

“My father made a conscious effort to involve me,” Achar said. “I remember sitting in on his meetings at age 12, not a clue about what was going on. But something must have worked.”

Achar got the idea for his own pharmaceutical development company, Genesis, while working for his father as an undergraduate at California State University, Northridge. He was majoring in business and marketing when he talked with his father’s clients and found that many of them wanted to develop generic drugs, but lacked resources. So he designed Genesis to provide startups with capital and infrastructure in exchange for future revenue.

Genesis is developing six generic drugs, with a focus on ophthalmic and dermatological products. By manufacturing and developing in India, Achar hopes to keep prices low for the day he is able to sell the products to pharmaceutical companies.

Genesis was able to secure initial seed funding from local entrepreneur Nimish Patel, co-founder of investment fund RP Capital LLC. But Achar said he might also find some other well-heeled investors through his second business, Divya Wines.

“The wine business has helped me start conversations with people who I wouldn’t get to speak with otherwise,” he said.

Divya is marketed toward the growing Indian wine-drinking community; Achar pitches the wine as a good match for Indian cuisine. The company also sponsored this month’s Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.

But Achar, who recently completed his M.B.A. at Pepperdine, said that his businesses have another correlation beyond networking. A favorite saying:

“Make money in the sciences and spend it in the wines.”