Isabel Mattos is a serial entrepreneur, she has what you call the entrepreneurial spirit, running through her veins.

As an 18 year old she managed to get into the prestigious MIT university, even though she only applied 2 weeks before the application deadline. It helped that she received a scholarship or their was no way she would of been able to afford the fees. But she made it & if that wasn’t enough she also managed to get a job at the world’s most sought after company to work for, Google.

Although not from a family of entrepreneurs and no real entrepreneurial connection, she always knew that she would be an entrepreneur. After a short stint at MIT she started WaterAfrica, which developed a solar-powered piping system that enables better water distribution in Africa. After a couple more projects she founded ‘What If?‘ a social site where people can share their what if? questions which people can comment on and share with a gamification side to it as the more comments and likes, the more badges you earn.

She also founded Tisk-Task a a task management tool specially tailored at communities and on top of this she started yet another company. This one is called Talenj, which is a Google labs type of idea. It is made up of fun little websites that are useful and fun. In an experiments type format Talenj is there to try out a number of ideas and see what sticks!

She has a very creative tech focused mind and is always coming up with new ideas as you can tell. But rather than just come up with ideas she goes and makes them happen. Some may fail and some may work but you never know unless you try it.

She gave up the opportunity to have a comfortable job in Google and go it alone. She did plan to go back to Brazil and work on her own startup but after meeting Meyer Malka and Wenceslao Casares, two latin-american entrepreneurs responsible for one of the biggest Latin American startup exits, she was excited by thier idea which led to her latest venture which she joined from the beggining as he head of business development.

The startup is called Lemon and it seems she has made a good move as the online receipt tracking service has just raised $10 million in funding. It helps when raising funding that the founders have a track record of a successful exit.

According to the young 23 year old, Lemon has given her the opportunity to combine the two things she wanted the most: creating a startup, and working with people she admires.

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Hi Tim thanks for joining us on YHP today

So give us a bit of background about you and what you do:

I am a 23 year old serial entrepreneur, currently running businesses within the Entertainment industry.

I started off in the city when I had just turned 17 working for Swiss Re / GE Insurance within IT, I was their youngest ever employee in the world across the brand of over 10,000 + people. I went on to become operations manager by 19 a SME I.T outsourcing business which I doubled the growth of within 9 months.

Our businesses presently include a ticket and hospitality company with growth of over 200% last year and an events showcase business which runs a show called Showcase:LIVE, Showcase Live is one of the most reputable unsigned music showcases in Europe, since the launch in 2007 we have had many then unsigned acts including Jessie J and JLS with coverage in everything from the Mirror to Music Week and some amazing supporters. We are just completing a rebrand across the board to push it out across Europe and America within the coming 12 months.

As well as this, I also do consultancy work and presently I am consulting for one of the largest e-commerce businesses in the world on business strategy within the European market.

Over the last few years I have also begun to get quite heavily involved with the development of our 25 year old Family business in food and wine. My focus here has been in implementing a Re-brand and bringing the logistics and sales models up to speed with the continuous development of technology and media tools.

How do you manage many different projects at once?

I think having great people around you and a great team helps significantly. I have always been of the mind set that you should enjoy what you do so it never feels like work!

With this in mind I try to structure our business models to be flexible around the everyday challenges of change. My theory is that everyone in the company needs to be happy and feel appreciated in order to get the most out of them. Due to the often erratic nature of the time schedules involved with an entertainment business, we are of the mind set that if we are flexible with hours (start and finish) then our team will be too.

I am also fortunate enough to have a great other half which supports me in everything I do and with whom I have a great working partnership with as well.

For me it’s so important to have that other person with whom I can go over things with and that understands exactly how I work. We have very similar aims and goals in life (although in totally different fields) and I know that I can always run something over with her even if its in the middle of the night when an idea springs to mind or understand when I am on a 5 hour conference call on the beach in Thailand. (Although I’m sure she would disagree!)

­As a young entrepreneur, how have you found trying to build credibility and bridge the generation gap?

This has been difficult over the years, I really feel credibility and respect doesn’t come straight away from anyone but when you work hard and give a lot of substance you can really prove people wrong.

Fortunately I got firsthand experience starting my career in the City and being the youngest person out of 10,000. Of course this was challenging, but what I very quickly learnt was to work with everyone and understand the issues with the generation gap instead of working against it. For me, working with team with members that could double or triple your age was motivating and intimidating to start with, however this quickly built my confidence with the realisation that although there was an age gap I was doing the same as them. I worked really hard to prove myself and after no time at all, they began to realise that they could infact also learn from me and that it was a unique and beneficial advantage to have such a young member of the team.

Those days seems like such a long time ago now and I have since gained many close friends in their 50’s + (CEO’s of the large businesses) with whom I regularly go for dinner with and share our different experiences. I feel you can always learn from everyone and this excites me.

Did you ever feel university was right for you? If not why?

For me it would never have worked, I came out of School with hardly any GCSE’s but one thing I did know was how to build computers, and to sell. I would sell sweets and drinks to every kid and teacher at School despite being told by the canteen it was a conflict of interests. It was this which led me on further to do what I really wanted to do, which was to set goals that I knew no one had ever achieved. I like to take risks. Without risk there can be no gain.

My Passions were about ‘doing business’ not in learning about how to do business. I feel experience is everything and this is something I look at when I am employing myself. For me I feel that formal education will make you a living but self education will make you a fortune.

Who is your biggest inspiration in business?

I wouldn’t say there is just one person that I look upto. I don’t think its healthy to look up to just one person, but instead I try to take the ‘best bits’ of many different entrepreneurs and leaders including Sir Alan Sugar and Sir John Madjeski and put these into practise with what I do myself. I have real respect for anyone who has built themselves up from nowhere and those who lost everything and made it all back.

What advice can you give to other aspiring young entrepreneurs?

What I will definitely say is the difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will. If you put your mind to it and set goals and targets you will get anywhere you want to be just don’t give up!

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17 year old Aussie entrepreneur Lachy Groom is on his 4th startup, that’s right his 4th.

His startup is called  iPad Case Finder, and it does exactly what is says on the tin, help you find the perfect iPad case. The site stocks a number of cases from multiple manufacturers to ensure that you get the best choice.

“Basically, I had an iPad and my friend smashed the screen (accidentally). And that weekend my dad told me I should start making some passive income. So I set it up in a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. From that I’ve been promoting it and adding features like crazy,” says Lachy.

So he just set up a site in a few hours one afternoon, great if you can do that isn’t it?

He says he has been promoting like crazy and it seems to have been working, as after only a few weeks the site going live, Lachy saw the site receive over 400,000 hits.

Lachy wants to be more than just a provider of a product and wants to be able to offer all the details such as texture, colour, material and features to ensure that you find the perfect iPad case online. The in depth level of detail provided helps consumers know exactly what they are buying before hand and makes sure that there are no unwelcome surprises when your new iPad case is delivered to the door.

Lachy’s other startup is Cardnap, a secondary market for gift cards. According to the Australian Consumers’ Association 1 in 3 gift cards in Australia where expiring before they were being used so Lachy set up Cardnap to ensure that people across Australia were not losing out.

“We initially launched this as a Cardpool like company for Australia, but it failed due to lack of profitability and how intense it was. So we looked at our options, and looked at the pains of these sorts of sites. We found it was impossible to find the best discount, or all the available cards easily. So we fixed that problem,” says the young entrepreneur.

At the age of 16 he saw that his company was in a market where there was a lot of competition and it was not profitable, but instead of giving up he instead looked at opportunities abroad. Remarkable! Yes at 16 he took his company international, at 15 he was already travelling the world on business trips. In fact on his 15th birthday he sold his first startup, an online design company, to a US firm.

So what is Lachy Groom’s advice to other teen entrepreneurs?

“Network! I think the word teenage is irrelevant, and that advice is the same for any entrepreneur. I like the saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I think that’s really true. But if I was to give advice straight to teens, it would be to have a good work/life balance. Make sure you enjoy yourself, that’s all that matters.”

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Carl Phil is the 26 year old founder Studentbox and Drinkyz. The ambitious young entrepreneur and Kings college graduate founded Studentbox in 2006 whilst still in university. Studentbox has grown into one of the most popular social network platforms in Universities around the UK.

He also founded Drinkyz, a promotional bottling company for major events, which he successfully exited from in 2010, selling his shares in the company two years after he founded it. This let him concentrate on his role as MD of Studentbox and also start Lost in London, a London experience company.

The serial entrepreneur has been involved in entrepreneurship since he was 16. Back then he used a fake id to hire out a venue. As a youngster in Paris, where he moved at the age of 12 from the US, he would organize parties for the young elite in Paris. He even had a staff of 20 people. Even before that, in his early teens, he would buy baseball cards and comic that he could sell of at a profit.

After moving to the UK to go to college at Kings, he started the entrepreneurs society there and was selected to attend an International Enterprise boot camp. This gave him the boost to go make his dream come true, which at the time was to create an online community of over 2 million users. Studentbox was created and his dream was realised.

“Anyone can be an entrepreneur and that it’s more about the idea than the person. However, having drive, intelligence and a willingness to work hard is an advantage,,” says Carl. So don’t feel you have to have been starting business’ since a teen to be a successful entrepreneur. To be honest I believe it’s the mental attributes that will help you reach your own dreams.

Carl was also a contestant on the BBC show ‘The last millionaire‘ which drops 12 of Britain’s most successful young entrepreneurs into six of the world’s most exciting and demanding cities. Here they are given the challenge to make money from scratch in just five days. Carl managed to win in Thailand, selling two businesses in less than 5 days.

He didn’t have a problem with doing business in another country, the multi lingual entrepreneur was brought up in different countries and moved around lots. He was exposed to many cultures stemming from his parents, his Greek-Swedish father and a French-Romanian mother.

At such a young age Carl has crammed in a lot into his life and remember he still only has the same 24 hours a day that you and me have! He has a bright future and the Observer even selected Studentbox as one of the Future 500 companies in the UK,

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When Lauren Leto was in law school she founded Texts From Last Night, which she describes as a humour blog. The sight posts funny texts submissions that people send in anonymously, just showing a zip code and the text.

The Detroit born young entrepreneur dropped out of school, and moved to New York a year after starting Texts From Last Night, such was the success of the site. Within 5 days of opening up submissions to the site from anywhere in the world, the site received over a million hits. These days they get 4 million unique hits a month, 5,000 to 15,000 submissions a day and they also have an iPhone app that costs 0.99c. The app has seen well over a million downloads.

She moved to New York to be part of the tech scene over there. As soon as she arrived, she was welcomed in by the community, getting great advice from those around her. Lauren has seen the company grow from a site where she and her friends would post there drunken texts from the night before to a company at the center of the New York tech scene.

Having moved to New York, the next step was to find an office space. So she found The Makery a co-working space in Brooklyn. The office is full of other startups and gives a great atmosphere for each other to thrive off.

Lauren then went on to start her second startup, Bnter (like Banter). On Bnter you create profiles, have people follow you and post up any great banters as it were that people that can then comment on. it is trying to capture moments in time, in text form.

Bnter received angel funding from high profile investors such as Chris Dixon (founder of Hunch) but has paused any ideas of further funding after a bad run in when going for VC funding.

Having been approached by a VC and going through the process to get funding, even getting faxed over a term sheet, unsigned, but with the note that Bnter should consider the deal done, the firm pulled out after further consultation. It was thought that one of the other funded start ups where vying for the same customers.

So they pulled out, but not after Bnter had already started planning their expansion and spending money. Just shows to go how careful you have to be, a not get carried away to quickly. Thankfully Bnter are in a good enough position to survive this misfortune.

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So you have an idea for a business — one that you believe has the potential to alter the industry. You put together a straightforward proposition, raised the necessary capital, gathered a team and publicized your new venture by every means available. What happens next?

It’s time to deliver on your promises. And the only difference between merely satisfactory delivery and great delivery is attention to detail.

Anyone who aspires to lead a company must develop a habit of taking notes. I carry a notebook everywhere I go. Most of my entries are like this one, from a Virgin Atlantic flight years ago: “Dirty carpets. Fluff. Areas around bow dirty. Equipment: stainless steel, grotty. Choice of menu disappointing — back from Miami, prawns then lobster (as a main course) in Upper Class. Chicken curry very bland. Chicken should be cut in chunks. Rice pretty dry. No Stilton available on cheeseboard.”

What’s most revealing is this final note: “Staff desperate for someone to listen. Make sure flight staff reports are actioned IMMEDIATELY.” I’m pleased to say they now are. This is the key to getting all the other items on the list done — employees are better able to report problems and get them fixed before I come along with my notebook.

And as you decide how best to deliver your product or service, keep in mind the company’s core business values, the medium-term strategic considerations and where the industry is headed in the long term. Make your decisions on the micro level in light of that bigger picture, and your business should be headed in the right direction.

This problem-solving process should not be limited to the launch. Owners and leaders of established companies should sample their business’s products as often as possible. Many bosses regularly speak to staff at all levels, but often they do not follow up on problems they uncover. This means their employees never learn what importance the CEO places on getting the details right, or see just how necessary and possible it is to address the everyday problems that come up. If you foster a culture of waiting for someone else to solve problems, the company will suffer the consequences.

Great delivery also depends on great communication, which should start at the top. Be brave: hand out your e-mail address and phone number. Your employees will know not to misuse it or badger you, and by doing so, you will be giving them a psychological boost — they will know they can contact you anytime a problem comes up that requires your attention.

Instilling attention to detail throughout your new company will prove especially important when the business begins to gain ground. Employees across the business should be focusing on getting it right all day, every day.

A few years ago, I saw warning signs that we were starting to stumble when I received a letter from a couple who had planned to travel on Virgin Trains in Britain. We had seen a rapid 50 percent increase in passenger numbers, and suddenly people were finding it difficult to get a seat on the busier routes. The letter writers had not realized that they now had to book seats in advance. When they arrived at the station, they found the staff unhelpful. Given that the husband was disabled and needed assistance, this was pretty terrible of us.

I personally helped them, and in the process became concerned about the bigger picture for this company. I asked Ashley Stockwell, the brand and customer service guardian for Virgin Group, to take a look. Thanks to our renewed focus on delivering great service and attention to detail, we got better and soon received plaudits.

Finally, if you do start to see success in the form of new and repeat business, remember to keep a cool head. You’re delivering change, and if you are succeeding, other businesses are probably getting hurt. They will try to shut you down.

Be sportsmanlike, play to win, and then befriend your enemies. If you do fall out with a partner, colleague or competitor, call that person a year later and take him out to dinner. It is likely you have a great deal in common. After all, why did you both get into the business in the first place? To deliver change, serve customers, and reform an industry. Now, what can you create together?

This is an edited excerpt from Richard Branson’s book Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur (Virgin Books, 2010).

This post originally appeared at Entrepreneur.

Now as you all now, today is the special day for Kate & William, yes it’s the day of the Royal Wedding. Not coincidentally here is an look at Emma Graham the founder of Wedding decor. Her company local to Cumbria was opened when she was 21 years old.

The young entrepreneur knew that there was a lot of competition when it comes to wedding decor, but there wasn’t any Wedding shops anywhere near her. So she saw this gap in the local market and took advantage of it, opening up her own shop and Wedding Decor is now the most established business in its industry in the whole of Cumbria.

She found the need for her business when she was preparing to get married. She had to search online for hiring of wedding decor and none of these places where anywhere near Workington, her home town. It was hard for her to find exactly what she wanted and so just 6 weeks after her wedding day she opened Wedding Decor based in Workington on the High Street.

This was her dream business and nothing was going to stop her. She partnered up with her mum to help run the company and she said “It is exciting going into business with my mum.”

Emma isn’t inexperienced either when it comes to starting a business. At just 21 years old she already has set up a successful hairdressing salon near to her home.

On her first day she had a 15% of sale on all orders, which proved to be very successful.

Emma just goes to shop that entrepreneurship isn’t all about the next Facebook or finding an innovative product to fill a gap in the market. It is just as important to fill gaps in local markets which can build successful lifestyles for many people. looking to get out of the 9-5 grind and being able to manage yourself.

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By now serial entrepreneur Sarah McVittie is much more than a hot prospect. with one business successfully sold under her belt, she is quickly on to her next venture. After being named one of the top 35 women entrepreneurs under 35 by The Times, she has sold her multi-million dollar business Textperts to KGB giants 118118.

Textperts was started by Sarah in 2003. It is a mobile service which allows users to text any question and receive an accurate answer within minutes. She was working as an investment banker at UBS before deciding to quit, taking her bonus and starting her own business.

This turned out to be a good decision, with the company winning multiple awards including the Shell Livewire Award (East of England), 2005 Global messaging Award, the 2006 Natwest Startups Award (best use of Technology) as well as being recognised as the Best Angel-backed Business with Young Management for 2006.

She managed to raise £2.5million in funding for Textperts and In 2008 Sarah she was runner up in the ‘rising star’ category of the Media Guardian awards and won the “Businesswoman of the Year” award at the Cambridge Evening News Business Excellence Awards.

Not long after, Textperts got acquired, but Sarah didn’t stop there!

In august 2009 Sarah founded Dressipi (like the recipe for dressing, get it). It is actually described as ‘a profiling system that creates a digital fashion fingerprint unique to you, enabling us to make recommendations that make you look fabulous and match your life and dressing style.’

The site is still in beta and Sarah realises that the service will take time till it can serve the needs of millions of women, but she is determined and passionate about it and is willing to be patient and learn as the company grows and gets better.

It is an ambitious project for the young entrepreneur, trying to get personalised fashion tips and mix it with technology, but I’m sure she will make it happen.

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David Cancel is a serial entrepreneur living in Boston, US. He is currently CEO at Performable which he founded in September  2009. Performable is an online platform that helps you convert more of your website visitors into customers, by providing detailed customer analytics.

Davids previous ventures include founding Ghostery (later acquired), Lookery, & Compete Inc. (later acquired) each of his companies have been based around the base of using data to enhance marketing capabilities. He is also on the advisory boards of Visible Measures, Sonian Networks, Yottaa and Shareaholic .

David spent his younger years growing up in Queens, NY, to a Puerto Rican father and Ecuadorian mother. He attributes much of his entrepreneurial spirit from his parents who both immigrated from from there respective countries of origin and where thrust into entrepreneurship out of necessity.

Growing up around that mentality influenced David later in his life. While attending college David held many full time positions as well. This had a negative impact on his college life, but it led him to realise that this was not the life he wanted. He didn’t like working for someone else and he is not the only one, most entrepreneurs feel the same way.

David is also an active speaker and networker because he is passionate about meeting and learning from other entrepreneurs who he finds inspirational. It is not to enhance his business in any way, and this is the reason for networking events learning and contributing to a community of like minded individuals.

David loves making something from nothing and so starting his own business from nothing was inevitable.

“There are two types of people, those that are entrepreneurs and those that aren’t. Entrepreneurs share a mental flaw, they cannot help but to start businesses, you either have this genetic flaw or you don’t,” explains David. “There are much easier ways to make money then to be an entrepreneur, so my advice is to pursue those opportunities if you cannot convince yourself to take the leap.”

As an angel investor David is also out there searching for his next investment but he’s not interested in ‘macro trends’ or anything ‘cutting edge,’ no he is looking for ideas that solve a real customer problem.

“The only reason to start a business is to solve a customers pain and to make their lives a little bit better. Ideas are worthless, go solve a real customer pain,” says David.

So there you go, solve a real customer pain! Go on then, do it now.

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We recently had a blog post about mark bao’s selling his web viral app, well according to a report on Mashable.

He has just sold his site and service to Kevin Ham. Ham is a dot-com mogul whose portfolio includes around $300 million worth of domain names.

Billed as “the man who owns the Internet,” Ham owns domains such as God.com and Satan.com and routinely pays six-figure prices for URLs he likes.

Bao launched the app not too long ago; its purpose was to solicit compliments from users’ online friends. The user would simply post or tweet a unique URL along with a phrase like, “Enter three words that describe me.” The app would then collect (often anonymous) three-word descriptions and track which words came up most often.

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