Ah, I like this one. I'm not going to speak about any company in particular.

I think one of the most important parts in the success of a startup is luck. The entrepreneur can help improving their luck, but arbitrary luck is also crucial.

But arbitrary luck isn't interesting, the cool part is how to improve your luck. One important thing is to have pretty amazing contacts, it will help to go to a lot of events related to what your working on and not being shy at all, people are usually more impressed with seeing young people really into this than thinking that we shouldn't be around places like this. In my case it's also being really important to have contacts in the public administration, specially related to entrepreneurship and business.

Effort is also very very important. You need to love your project and work as hard as you can on it.

In the case of a teen entrepreneur it's also very important to be mature and humble, you need to know your limits and don't let success get to you. It's very important to be ambitious and confident about yourself and your project, but don't surpass the limit.

Most brilliant ideas have come out of entrepreneurs thinking about what they need improved in this world, not what they think others need improved. Nevertheless, it's important to study the market.

Being productive. Being an entrepreneur is tough, really tough, and I think a teen entrepreneur is even tougher because you need to combine your startup with school and you musn't forget your social life. Organization is crucial. I wish I was as productive as I could be, I'm stil working really hard on this aspect.

Thinking ahead would be a great quality for an entrepreneur. There are people who have great minds for entrepreneurship, like Steve Jobs. He could develop a product without even doing a market study, he knew he would create a new necessity for people and that it would be successful. This is mostly for geniuses, but this, like everything, can be trained and improved.

I can't think of anything else really important right now. Any more ideas??

I was thinking about this one and thinking of a company to use as an example. I was thinking of doing Twitter, but everyone knows why Twitter is successful and it would be a pointless post. I couldn't really think of a very successful company in which people, especially on connect, don't know why they are successful. But when you look at successful companies, specifically those entering crowded markets and founded by teens, the characteristics and reasons why they are successful are generally very similar.

Simplicity, ease of use, constantly improving the product and developing new features, and of course innovation and creating a product people want, seem to be the most common characteristics of successful companies. I was thinking about adding design and the aesthetic part of a site as well, but checking this out (showing the original designs of some of the most successful web companies http://mashable.com/2011/12/11/old-web-design/) rejects this idea that a slick design is imperative. Constantly improving your product and making it better is a very important key for a company to be successful long term. This is why I think Facebook may be around for the long run, and why MySpace....is well...MySpace.