Looking good, Alli

She had a blow-dryer, would travel;

Alli Webb started a door-to-door hairstyling business in 2008 as a way to get out of her house and take a break from rearing her two kids.

The former hairstylist saw the need for a service that focused on providing affordable, high-quality blowouts—in which a client's hair is washed and blow-dried into a style, without being colored or cut.

The business spread through word-of-mouth, and Ms. Webb soon found herself unable to keep up with demand. Her side project turned into a company with a projected $40 million in revenue this year.

Drybar Holdings LLC, which opened its first shop in February 2010 in Brentwood, Calif., now has 32 locations across the country. The business is about to go through a management transition, bringing in John Heffner, former president of nail-products maker OPI Products Inc., as chief executive, starting Dec. 2.

Many a business is only hot air, but she found a real need for it, and....

Meanwhile, there is a little problem she shares with other small businesses;

We always were $40 in New York. We tried to keep prices $35 [elsewhere] as long as we could, but you know things go up: rent, health insurance, incentives. There's just a lot of different things that got more expensive. We had to raise the prices to keep the business model as it was.

Expect it to get worse;

WSJ: How, if at all, do you think your business will be affected by the new health-care law?

Ms. Webb: We recently started providing all of our employees with various options of health-care benefits and are following the new health- care laws very closely. It definitely is and will continue to have an impact on our business. 

Government interference with small business never goes out of fashion.