Check MateYour competitor has just been taken over by a huge corporation. To stay ahead of the game, what should your next move be?

Like every MBA student, Dwight Schultheis was waiting for a business idea to inspire him. Then he noticed something: He and his male friends had shaving-related skin problems, and the products they used didn't help. "[We're] spending $200 on jeans, but using soap [on our faces]," he says. "It felt to me like it was a really untapped market."

Months of market research and a few focus groups later, his upscale men's grooming products company, Amenity, was born. The New York City business has grown to nine employees and annual revenue surpassing $1 million--quite a leap from last year, when Schultheis and co-founders Lisa Lehan, 28, and Kimberly Pecoraro, 32, started the company with $500,000 from personal funds and angel investors. "We're trying to be a first-mover and innovator in the men's category [of clinical grooming]," he says.