Godzich, 43, sold a health care company, Definity Health, to UnitedHealthGroup Inc. for $300 million in 2005. Definity was the first consumer-directed health benefits provider. Now Godzich is back with a new take on the consumer-directed health business. After a year of planning and marketing, he began signing up customers in 2008 for Liazon.

Liazon helps small employers provide health plans that give employees a set amount of money to spend on their health care. How they spend it is up to them. Godzich refers to it as a gift card for benefits. An employer gives each worker a card that has, for instance, $10,000 to be spent on health care in a year. The employee decides how to spend that money. It provides the employer with a predictable health insurance cost every year.

He raised more than $4 million mostly through venture capital firms to fund the business, which he says will have $2.5 million in revenue this year. With only 20 employees and another 20 contractors, he runs a lean operation. The business won't be profitable this year but he expects it to have a profit next year.

A former Deloitte consultant, Godzich started his first company, Definity, in 1998. As far as being a good business startup, Godzich says health care has vast opportunities.

"Health care is a $2.4 trillion industry," Godzich says. "It's going to continue to grow."

Plante, 42, another serial entrepreneur, says he was inspired to start a genetic-testing company after his father's death in the early '90s. He says he thought about it for more than a decade before he finally acted.

"I have a pretty big interest in genetics," Plante says, noting his father died of kidney disease. "I always felt consumers didn't have direct access to genetic testing. It seemed like the technology pieces were available, and I think consumers are educated enough to know they have to be proactive on their own."

So he set up a lab in San Diego last October and markets his business through the Web. He can offer tests significantly cheaper than going through a doctor because he keeps his costs to a minimum. Customers order online, they get a tube in the mail, they spit in it and return it to the company for testing.

Pathway's lab has capacity to handle 100,000 tests a month, he says. Yet he only has 50 employees. He says he can provide a thorough genetic screening for as little as $200, tests that would cost $100,000 if ordered through a doctor.

"We want to educate consumers that this service is available at an affordable price for them. There are billions of people on the planet, and we think they should have access to drive their wellness."

He won't be profitable this year, but he hopes to make a profit next year, he says. In the meantime, he's attracted heavy-hitter investors, the Founders Fund, Edelson Technology Partners, and Western Technology Investment. He predicts investors will continue to be drawn to innovative new health care companies.

"When I coach entrepreneurs, I tell them to get into markets that have the potential to be very big," Plante says. "If it's already a very big market, you want to be in an industry that's changing very rapidly. Obviously, there are lots of unmet needs, and this industry is rapidly changing."