Younger would-be chief executives are increasingly seeking profits — and freedom from the 9-to-5 — by pivoting from corporate jobs into often unglamorous small-business niches.

“Making It Work” is a series about small-business owners striving to endure hard times.

When Nicole Rizzo saw the “For Sale” listing for Die Cleaning Equipment, the first detail she liked was that it was run by a married couple. Ms. Rizzo, then 43, was searching for a company to run alongside her own husband. But her husband, David, was puzzled by the name. Was it something involving janitors?

Die Cleaning Equipment, as it turned out, employed welders. The company in Phoenix made machines that cleaned other machines — specifically, aluminum extruders, which force the metal into shapes useful for everything from bumpers to stethoscopes to gun parts. Steve Smith oversaw the shop, where a small team assembled vats and pumps out of stainless steel. His wife, Kristin,

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