Dawn Stokes, founder and CEO of Texas Driving Experience, explains how she combined business with pleasure in order to accelerate her entrepreneurial ambitions.

By: MATT ALDERTON

Dawn Stokes is a self-described "car nut." She's always loved driving. In fact, when she was 14 years old she bought her first vehicle, a 1963 convertible Corvair Monza Spyder, which to this day remains parked in her garage.

In the 1980s, Stokes began enrolling in driving and racing schools as an outlet for job-related stress. "I loved the technical side of knowing that you hit a perfect apex," she says, "although to consistently do it is almost impossible. It's like hitting a hole-in-one 10 times in a row."

Given her lifelong appetite for asphalt and chrome, it's no surprise that five years ago, when Stokes began to get an entrepreneurial itch, she turned to driving in order to scratch it.

"I had the need for speed," says Stokes, who in 2005 founded Texas Driving Experience, a Dallas-based racing academy and safe driving school. More than an excuse to push the speed limit, it's become a compelling reason to mix work with pleasure, both for herself and her customers.

Target: Teens

Stokes was working in corporate America as a health care executive when she first got the idea to start Texas Driving Experience.

"I liked going to high performance driving schools," she says, "and every time I went I would walk away with lots of tips that were applicable to street driving. I was thinking, 'I'm this old and I'm still learning new things about car control every day.'"

If she, an avid and experienced adult driver, was still learning to drive, how could new drivers possibly be road-ready?

They aren't, according to Stokes, who says that 6,000 teenagers are killed every year in car accidents in the United States, where only four states require drivers' education. "I decided I was going to marry my passion for fast cars and safe driving, because to drive fast you have to drive safe. So while I was still working in the corporate world, I went down to the Texas Motor Speedway and said, 'I want to start this school that gives hands-on driving skill to kids.'"

The speedway, which is the country's second largest sporting venue, was not impressed. "I thought I was going to save the world, and they just weren't excited about it," Stokes says. "To them, I was just a liability."

Funding a Dream

Texas Motor Speedway wasn't the only one concerned about liability. Stokes was, too, as the speedway told her that she needed $5 million worth of insurance in order to do business there. When she was laid off from her job a couple months later, however, she decided that it was a price she was willing to pay.

"I decided that I needed to just go out and try this because I'm an entrepreneurial spirit," she says.

A teen driving school wasn't going to generate the kind of revenue that Stokes needed, however. In order to buy cars, insurance and track time, she needed serious cash.

To get it, Stokes decided to serve not just student drivers, but also corporate thrill seekers. "I created a team-building concept for corporations so that executives could come out and be racecar drivers for a day."

Word spread quickly and within a matter of months Texas Driving Experience was hosting queries from Fortune 500 companies whose executives wanted to bond over something more exciting than golf and dinner.

"I started selling events before I even had cars," says Stokes, who cashed in her 401(k) in order to purchase 10 bright yellow corvettes for her corporate customers to drive.

Stokes' neon cars didn't just attract customers, though. They also attracted free labor in the form of experienced businessmen who wanted to offer their professional services in exchange for time behind the wheel. "All of a sudden," Stokes says, "I had 55 independent contractors showing up and saying, 'Don't pay me; I just want to be here.' That was incredibly helpful, because when you're starting a company, your cash flow is so important."

Getting Schooled

Thanks to the revenue generated by her adventure-hungry corporate customers, Stokes was able to open her teen driving school. Called SKILLS Teen School, it offers student drivers the opportunity to learn safe and defensive driving skills in real cars.

Even with adequate funding, however, the school wasn't an easy sell. "Believe it or not, teens didn't really want to come because they thought it was going to be traditional drivers' ed," Stokes says. "And moms, of course, were saying, 'You're going to teach my child how to race?' That was and continues to be a major marketing conundrum."

Stokes solved her marketing problems by offering a unique educational experience in which teenagers could skid, slide and swerve their way through drivers' education.

Of course, cool cars helped, too. While students originally drove rented Mustangs, they now drive brand new 2008 Toyota Scions thanks to a generous sponsorship from Toyota, which has supplied Stokes with 12 new cars every year for the past two years.

Labor, Not Luck

Stokes' most recent success came when she entered a contest for women-owned businesses that was sponsored by American Express; because less than 2 percent of women-owned businesses generate $1 million in annual revenues, the contest's goal was to recruit 1 million women who could do $1 million in business by 2010. Texas Driving Experience has been one of only eight to 10 companies so far to reach its $1-million revenue goal.

"There are only a few things I would rather be doing than growing my business," Stokes says.

Indeed, Stokes insists she owes her success not to luck, but to hard work. "The old adage of, 'The harder you work, the luckier you become,' is true."

For women—and men—who want to emulate her success, Stokes offers three essential small business tips: