Psychelia Terry

Terry, 29, had trouble finding lingerie that she liked and that fit well. She entered her idea for Urban Intimates in a business plan contest for her MBA at the University of Las Vegas.

She lost the competition but launched the company in 2009 to offer affordably priced luxury lingerie to women with curves. She moved the business to North Texas last year when her husband received a job promotion.

“We are the fresh, funky urban lingerie company. We are not Frederick’s of Hollywood or Victoria’s Secret,” Terry said from her home office. “I thought I’d run this small online retailer, but it grew much faster than expected.”

Business got a big boost when Essence magazine featured Urban Intimates twice. For now, Terry has put Web sales on hold as she designs a product line — from leopard print bustiers to diaphanous baby dolls.

She thought the transition would take a few years, but instead it’s been months.

In the last two months, Terry met with Macy’s, J.C. Penney and other retailers. She designed a spring line to show store buyers her ideas, but she’s shooting for fall 2012 orders.

Macy’s and J.C. Penney don’t comment on potential vendors or partnerships.Terry is “very aggressive … and eager to learn more,” said Michael Armitage, director of fabric and color technology for Dallas-based Haggar Clothing Co., who has become a mentor to Terry. “She is also very humble and will accept advice from people like myself who want to assist in her endeavors. I see her going far in this venture and will continue to offer assistance if she requires it.”

Terry is finalizing a $500,000 angel investment to start production. So far, she and her husband, Vantoba Terry, have bootstrapped the business, investing more than $100,000 from credit cards, 401(k) retirement plans and personal savings, she said.

Terry just hired her first employee. In November, she plans to meet with manufacturers in China.

“I have been a go-for-it kind of girl all my life,” said Terry, who spent 12 years in sales at Whirlpool. “I say shoot for the moon.”

Brent Skoda

The Cleveland native and baseball player launched CollegeFitness.com after friends kept asking him for help losing the “freshman 15” pounds. The site started with nutritional data for restaurants near his school, Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

CollegeFitness.com attracted some big universities, but business really took off last year when a new law required chain restaurants to disclose calorie content on menus. Its database grew tenfold almost overnight, Skoda said. Today, CollegeFitness provides detailed menu and nutritional data for hundreds of thousands of restaurants in five countries.

As CollegeFitness grew, so did the demand for mobile apps. Skoda spun off the database into a separate company called yumee and launched an Android app earlier this year. An iPhone app should go live this month.

This year, Skoda started appcasters to develop word and entertainment game apps. So far, it offers games to teach cooking to children (MyPlay Chef) and word games for food lovers (Foodie Games).

Skoda also recently branched into a new industry, co-founding a commercial and residential restoration company called Legacy Builders and Contractors. Partner Trevor McCormick has the restoration experience, and Skoda brings the technology background.

“He never stops thinking,” said Priceline.com chief executive Jeff Hoffman, who has become a mentor to Skoda after meeting at a start-up forum. “That’s rare for someone so young to be that focused on business. Like the construction industry, he thinks of new ways to do something, and he’ll run his idea by me.”

Skoda, 26, has taken several steps to handle growth. In May, he set up Ahkeo Ventures as a holding company for the four businesses. Ahkeo has 36 employees, up from four a year ago, he said.

“It was really tough,” Skoda said. “I was doing 10 jobs. I wrote a job description for myself and hired three people.”

After graduating from TCU in December, he returned to Cleveland. He just moved to Dallas and is in the process of bringing the business headquarters here.“

You have to be careful not to get ahead of yourself,” Skoda said. “All of a sudden, we went from selling our product to how to put the process and procedures in place to support this growth. All of a sudden, there was all this paperwork.”

Skoda raised more than $2.4 million from family, friends and angel investors in the first couple of years. Since then, he’s been self-funded.

Skoda declined to break out revenue for each company but said he expects combined revenue to double next year to about $20 million. Ahkeo is profitable, he said.

Along the way, Skoda has become a spokesman for young entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs Organization named him the 2010 Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year. This year, he spoke at the kickoff of the Startup America Partnership to promote innovation at the White House and participated in the NextGen IT Boot Camp in Cairo, to help 38 Egyptian techpreneurs build their businesses and an entrepreneurial community.

Dallas small business consultant Cynthia Nevels offers a few tips for small businesses wanting to expand.

Invest now: Invest in new employees or resources to take your idea from paper to a product or service you can sell.

Don’t do it alone: You have to go out and find resources that can fill in the gaps.