Get'em while they're hot: on the lookout for the latest and greatest opportunities for 2003

Entrepreneur, Dec, 2002 by Steve Cooper, Mark Henricks, Gisela M. Pedroza, April Y. Pennington, Chris Penttila, Chris Sandlund, Devlin Smith, Nichole L. Torres

HOT BIZ MEDI-SPAS

Get off work and drop by the spa for a quick laser peel. Welcome to medicine in the new millenium. More and more consumers want medical services (we use the term loosely) to feel like a trip to the salon, and businesses that provide that feeling are seeing healthy returns.

Medical spas, or "medi-spas," have become a beauty of a business category. Services include dental cosmetics, chiropractic services, vein removal, laser skin resurfacing and even laser eye surgery. Growing 23 percent a year, says Melinda Minton, a spa consultant in Fort Collins, Colorado, and founder of The Spa Association, "It's the fastest-growing segment of the spa industry."

Consumers are looking for a quick fix and some pampering. On the other end are doctors breaking into higher-end services where haggling with insurance companies isn't an issue. "Physicians from all realms are getting involved," Minton says. "They just decide that they're now a spa."

Marcia Fosnaugh-Avis, 44, has tranformed her late father's Southfield, Michigan, dermatology clinic, Fosnaugh Center for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, into a medi-spa offering everything from face lifts and liposuction to Botox injections. She's also started a skin-care line called Clinitone. Today, the center has annual sales of about $3 million, with the medi-spa constituting 30 percent of the company's business. You have to be a good strategist to pull all these areas together successfully under one roof, she says. "Have some background in the area," she suggests.

The downside: Payroll and the costs of creating luxury surrounding can mean high overhead. Most spas make between 8 to 13 percent profit--low for a business. If this is too ugly a prospect, consider cyberspace, where Web sites such as HealthcheckUSA.com are springing up to offer direct-to-consumer blood testing and other services.

HOT BIZ INSTANT MESSAGING

Internet use at U.S. companies rose 20 percent from October 2001 to July 2002, according to ComScore Media Metrix Inc., a New York City tracking firm. Meanwhile, instant messaging attracted 28 percent more business users, and MSN's IM service grew an even loftier 42 percent.

The IM explosion seems certain to create opportunities selling IM-related services and products. At the top of the list are fixes for IM's weaknesses. IM's big four--America Online, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo!--are consumer services, notes Max Kalehoff, senior manager at ComScore. Because IM messages aren't coded, virus-protected, tracked or logged, companies can't protect secrets, verify communications or block viruses. Some firms sell add-on software to log employees' IM messages. But many services employ stealth technology that is hard to detect without complex software.

In-house IM systems with built-in security may be the most practical solution. Richard Bezjian, CEO and president of Boomerang Software Inc. in Belmont, Massachusetts, says financial and health companies with regulations requiring secure client-related communications have been quick to adopt his encrypted IM system. "I wouldn't say we're making money hand over fist," says Bezjian, 48. "But I think it's a matter of time."