When dotcom entrepreneur Calum Brannan had his first meeting with potential investors last year, he immediately encountered a problem.

"My uncle had driven me down to Cambridge from Coventry for the meeting, and came to sit in on it with me," he said. "But they thought he ran the website and started talking to him instead of me."

Aged just 18 and with schoolboy looks, Mr Brannan makes an unlikely businessman. But as one of a number of young entrepreneurs taking advantage of the new dotcom boom, he is already tipped for success.

Investors desperate for profit are scouring the internet for the next big thing, many of them spurred on by success stories such as Facebook, the social networking website founded by Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg when he was just 19, and now valued at $10bn (£5bn).

Stories of adolescent web businesses inevitably bring back memories of the last dotcom bubble, which ended abruptly in 2001 with stock market turmoil and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs worldwide. General optimism about the technology goldrush, allied with the lack of understanding of the internet, meant that vast sums were handed over to whizzkid companies which collapsed.

With millions of pounds once again being poured into companies run by young entrepreneurs, some experts are warning that too much emphasis on youth could help reinflate the dotcom bubble.

"People like Mark Zuckerberg show that there is great talent out there ... but there's a world of difference between a teenager and a young entrepreneur," said Sayula Kirby of Index Ventures, which has backed a large number of European internet startups. "I wouldn't say we are in a bubble yet, but we are getting closer to the point where the froth begins."

The positive feeling from investors towards whizzkids like Zuckerberg is already having an impact on some of those - like Mr Brannan - who hope to follow in his footsteps.

His website, PPLparty.com, is on the verge of securing a funding deal worth £250,000 and is also competing for up to £5m in funds from British venture capitalists. He believes that investors want to tap into his ability, as a teenager himself, to understand what teenagers want.

"We have a different take on the market because I'm young and we connect directly with the users," said Mr Brannan.

PPLparty.com initially began as a copy of MySpace, before focusing on niche services for young clubbers in the West Midlands and getting support from Peter Jones, a judge on BBC show Dragon's Den and a former business wunderkind himself.

After signing deals with local venues and club promoters, it has started to spread and now claims 400,000 users. The company has expanded to a staff of eight and has signed partnerships with high-profile companies such as Channel 4 and Yahoo.

Despite a new generation of teens brought up with the web, however, young internet entrepreneurs are the exception rather than the rule. Even in America, with its larger population and love of entrepreneurial culture, there are only a handful of high profile teenagers running their own internet companies. Those who have achieved success have not always found it easy.

Ashley Qualls, who founded Whateverlife.com two years ago, is one of the leading lights. Still just 17, the Detroit native has experienced success that many older business people chase their entire career. The site, which creates designs and ways to personalise MySpace and Facebook profiles, has around 7 million users and claims to be bringing in revenues of around $70,000 (£35,000) each month.

Things have been difficult on a number of levels, though. Ms Qualls, who lives with her mother and sister in the house she bought with her profits, has been ruled as too young to control her substantial assets by a district court. The result is that a court officer is currently overseeing her finances until she turns 18 next summer.
Such setbacks have not prevented Ms Qualls from continuing to move up the internet hierarchy, and she has turned down a number of lucrative offers, including one to start her own internet TV show with a budget in excess of $2m.

"I created this from nothing, and I want to see how far I can take it," she told Fast Company magazine earlier this month. "If I wanted to do an internet show, I could do it on my own - I have the audience."

While she keeps herself grounded, other young entrepreneurs have tended towards the precocious.

Californian Ben Casnocha, who founded his software company five years ago aged just 14, has even gone as far as writing a book of business advice - My Start-up Life.

However Ms Kirby of Index Ventures warns that it will take more than just a quirky idea to capture the hearts of investors this time around.

"Times are good in the technology industry, but investors have been burned once before," said Ms Kirby. "They are being very careful about where they put their money."

While recognising that his age has proved a talking point, Mr Brannan admits that it is not always helpful.
"Being a young entrepreneur, everybody is ready to help you out," he said. "But conversations with my bank manager have been very different than they might have been if I was older - after all, I can't ask for a business loan because I haven't even got a credit rating."

He does, however, admit that there have been some significant advances recently.
"At least now, since I turned 18, I'm actually allowed into the venues I'm doing deals with."

The Guardian