The Coach

Brent Skoda, a 24-year-old senior at Texas Christian University, founded CollegeFitness.com in 2006.

Big leaguer: Skoda drew on his experience as a high-level amateur baseball player to start CollegeFitness.com, a social networking site for students hoping to drop the "freshman 15" and more. The free site, which is supported by ads from sporty companies like Under Armour and Everlast, has 12,000 members, who turn to it for workout videos, diet planners, a weight-loss tracker, and the like. In January, CollegeFitness.com launched a customized site for the University of Oklahoma (it's called CrimsonFitness.com), and Skoda is negotiating similar deals with other large schools. He and his nine employees have also started to sell on-campus ad space in and around the fitness facilities at some of those schools. All this activity explains why CollegeFitness.com, which had revenue of $250,000 last year, hopes to reach $3 million in 2010.

J.J. McCorvey is a reporter at Inc. magazine, where he covers a wide range of topics, including technology and business research. He has covered metro news for The Detroit News, and his work has been featured in Men's Fitness. @jmccorvey