Teen-age girl Ashley Qualls turned $8dollars into Millions!!!!
Posted by Media Outrage on November 1, 2007
We 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 again.
Ashley Qualls doesn’t sound like a typical high school student. Maybe that’s because the 17-year-old is the CEO of a million-dollar business.
Ashley is the head of whateveverlife.com, a website she started when she was just 14 — with eight dollars borrowed from her mother. Now, just three years later, the website grosses more than $1 million a year, providing Ashley and her working class family a sense of security they had never really known.
It all started with capitalism 101, the law of supply and demand. Ashley became interested in graphic design just as the online social networking craze began to catch fire.
When she saw her friends personalizing their MySpace pages, she began creating and giving away MySpace background designs through Whateverlife. The designs are cheery, colorful and whimsical, with lots of hearts, Ashley’s favorites.
Thanks to Ashley’s work ethic and savvy cultivation of her peer group as a target market, Whateverlife began pulling in more teenage girls than a Justin Timberlake concert – about a million a day. With a big audience, the site attracted advertisers. Ashley’s first check was for $2,700. The next was for $5,000, the third for $10,000.
At the time, Ashley’s parents were divorced. She and her little sister, Shelby, were all crammed into her mother’s one-bedroom apartment.
When first the check arrived, her mother was doubtful, wondering if her daughter could really make money off a website. But Ashley was confident, telling her mother: “No, I really trust this. I think it’s really gonna happen.”
Ashley has even turned down a deal for her own reality television program. “I’m really stubborn, like my mom,” she says, “So I know what I want from business. And I don’t want that. I like my privacy. I like to hang out with my friends. I don’t want cameras following me around.”
Unlike many adults, Ashley has not succumbed to the temptations that new wealth can bring. She pays herself a modest salary of $3,000 a month. Aside from the house, she hasn’t made any other major purchases.
“I don’t even know how to put this,” says Ashley, “But it’s just kind of like the shiny feeling that when you have this money, it kind of goes away after a while. It gets old, you know. Yeah, I can go out and buy you know something really cool. But at the same time I mean I don’t really need too much. I like to invest it back into the business.”
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wittybanter said
very cool. maybe she should take a look at my site and give me ideas?
Savannah said
Hey!!
I do not have a website but I want to make one really bad!! I was wondering if you could give me some advice and information on how you started yours. I have a REALLY GOOD idea but have no clue what to do with it.
Thank you!!
Others have done great things. Good. It’s your time now! « Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel. Napoleon Hill said
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brynnrock said
Go head girl, free enterprise in effect