Meet the teenager that passed Oprah!!!
Posted by Media Outrage on October 27th, 2007
Meet Ashley Qualls the young 17yr old millionaire entrepreneur that started whateverlife.com, a site that young women can go to in order to decorate their myspace pages with pretty flowers, hearts, celebrities and more.
At 17 going on 37 (at least), Ashley is very much an Internet professional. In the less than two years since Whateverlife took off, she has dropped out of high school, bought a house, helped launch artists such as Lily Allen, and rejected offers to buy her young company. Although Ashley was flattered to be offered $1.5 million and a car of her choice–as long as the price tag wasn’t more than $100,000–she responded, in effect, Whatever. 
“I don’t even have my license yet,” she says.
Ashley is evidence of the meritocracy on the Internet that allows even companies run by neophyte entrepreneurs to compete, regardless of funding, location, size, or experience–and she’s a reminder that ingenuity is ageless. She has taken in more than $1 million, thanks to a now-familiar Web-friendly business model. Her MySpace page layouts are available for the bargain price of…nothing. They’re free for the taking. Her only significant source of revenue so far is advertising. To find out how she passed Oprah Winfrey – Yes we said it Oprah Winfrey!
According to Google Analytics, Whateverlife attracts more than 7 million individuals and 60 million page views a month. That’s a larger audience than the circulations of Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and CosmoGirl! magazines combined. Although Web-site rankings vary with the methodology, Quantcast, a popular source among advertisers, ranked Whateverlife.com a staggering No. 349 in mid-July out of more than 20 million sites. Among the sites in its rearview mirror: Britannica.com, AmericanIdol.com, FDA .gov, and CBS.com.
And one more, which Ashley can’t quite believe herself: “I’m ahead of Oprah!” (Oprah.com: No. 469.) Sure, Ashley is a long way from having Oprah’s clout, but she is establishing a platform of her own. “I have this audience of so many people, I can say anything I want to,” she says. “I can say, “Check out this movie or this artist.’ It’s, like, a rush. I never thought I’d be an influencer.” (Attention pollsters: 1,500 girls have added the Join Team Hillary ’08 desktop button to their MySpace pages since Ashley offered it in March.)
She has come along with the right idea at the right time. Eager to customize their MySpace profiles, girls cut and paste the HTML code for Whateverlife layouts featuring hearts, flowers, celebrities, and so on onto their personal page and–presto–a new look. Think of it as MySpace clothes; some kids change their layouts nearly as frequently. “It’s all about giving girls what they want,” Ashley says.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So9doa8vuNw&rel=1]
Read the entire article on Ashley Qualls Here.
October 27th, 2007 at 6:06 am
Congrats to her for being a little entrepreneur. She should still at least get her diploma. Even though she is already a millionaire at such a young age, a diploma is still very significant and should be attained.
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November 3rd, 2007 at 3:01 pm
[...] have now reported on this story twice ( Ashley Qualls pt1) (Ashley Qualls pt2), but it is such an inspirational piece that we had to report on it [...]
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