Candida Perceval
Age 25
Who is she? Founder of IntoFashion.com, a new shopping site aimed at women.
What's she worth? No definite figures but the company is thought to be worth around pounds 10 million
CANDIDA SAYS Like a lot of women I stumbled into the internet world. I had three months to kill before going to work in PR in Boston and I agreed to help my dad set up a financial company on the internet. From then on I was hooked. I never got to America and three and a half years later I'm running my own business on the Web.
My company sells high-quality and unusual clothes, handbags, jewellery and hats - we've also got exclusive internet sales of the actress Sadie Frost's collection - and many of the items are cheaper than in the shops, rolex fake because we don't have the same overheads.
A lot of people think of the internet is an industry, but it's not, it's a medium. We can all use it for different purposes, from finance to fashion. It's not the computer you have to understand, it's the business you're going into.
My computer know-how extends from a secretarial course I once did so I could help to pay my way through university. Beyond that I hated computers. I associated them with air- conditioned work environments.
I never really had any clear ambitions when I was at school. I was more interested in art than academic subjects and I was never in the top stream.
But that's the good thing about the internet, you don't have to be academic to get on.
I live in a small, studio flat in London and I don't have a car, because it's an added expense I can't afford at the moment. I strap my laptop on to my bike and cycle everywhere.
It was my last job that got me thinking about starting up on my own. I was setting up a huge shopping site, rather like an on-line department store. I was doing all this hard work for an average salary, so I decided to take the plunge and go it alone.
Because I had a proven track record in the industry I got a lot of support from a technical solutions company called Aspect, who I had worked with before, and they funded the launch of the site in exchange for a percentage of the business.
I haven't drawn a proper salary for five months, even now that the company is doing extremely well, because it's more important to me to keep improving it. I work seven days a week and usually my brain's whirring at 600mph, but I try to make sure that at least one day at the weekend I get to the countryside
for a good four-hour walk.
Even if I do find time to go for dinner the first thing I do when I get home is check my e-mails.
But none of it feels like work, it's my project and I love it.
I bore my poor boyfriend Dan to tears with all the ins and outs, but he's a godsend. He takes all the photographs for the site and is effectively my creative director. The reason I've probably survived without a business partner is because I can bounce ideas off him.
But you can become obsessed.
After months of intense work to launch the site Porcelain Bracelet I went to a party and I felt like I'd forgotten how to socialise.
The best advice I can give other girls who are interested in this business
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