Posted on 03/15/2008 10:13:01 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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 whateverlife.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.
She also pulled quotes from popular songs and built backgrounds around those themes. "Teenage girls love quotes," Ashley says, scrolling through some of her site's 3,000 designs, more than a third of which she made herself.
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 was right. The checks kept coming and the business kept growing-to the point where she could afford to buy a brand new four-bedroom house for them to live in. Ashley also hired her mother, Linda LaBrecque, to help manage the company.
It was and has been a bittersweet time for them both. "It's hard to be a mom and a manager," LaBrecque says. The roles clash every day, she says, but they manage by keeping a sense of humor.
She's proud of Ashley. Prior to starting the business, she says, her daughter was too shy to even order a pizza by phone. Now she's making presentations to business executives.
The job has also made LaBrecque's life easier, allowing her to quit her job and work from home following back surgery.
But Ashley's life has become much more complicated. When her business took off, the former straight-A student quit school to concentrate on Whateverlife.
"It's a busier schedule," Ashley says. "There's more to keep track of, whether its finances or employees and making sure everything is up to date and the content is secure."
In addition to her mom, Ashley hired three friends to help with the business, teaching them design and then requiring them to make a minimum of 25 designs a week.
Bre Newby says Ashley is a better boss than her past employers. "It's cool to have your best friend be like your boss," says Bre, "'cause she's a good boss. She's not like rude or it's not like working at McDonald's where you have like supervisors and people over you all the time."
Has the price of Ashley's business success been the loss of a part of her childhood? She doesn't think so.
"You know, when I'm with my friends, I'm still 17," she says.
But time with friends sometimes has to take a back seat to business. On a recent afternoon, her three friends drop by to hang out with Ashley, but they have to wait for her to finish with her business advisor, internet consultant Robb Lippitt.
Ashley and Robb sit on plastic chairs around a white conference table in Ashley's basement office, the walls decorated with hearts, like a Whateverlife background.
The conversation includes overtures from Hollywood and a possible deal to help promote Britney Spears's new album on Jive Records.
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."
For his part, Lippit says he had concerns about working with a teenager, but Ashley won him over in the first meeting. "She doesn't sit there and say, ‘I did something well-that's good enough,'" says Lippit. He says Ashley knows, without being told, that she needs to keep developing her business, or it will stop growing.
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."
Despite all her success, one thing that has eluded her - something most of her friends already have - is a driver's license.
"My mom does drive me. And then my friends drive me wherever we go," she says, "And I want to drive. Believe me. But it's just been kind of crazy lately."
It may be the one thing about Ashley's life that reminds you she really IS still a teenager.
Very cool !
Bump !!
Good for you!
“It’s a simple business plan.”
It sure is. My husband has his own computer repair/networking/sales/systems security...you name it, company and he’s doing great.
I sell books on-line and also raise laying hens for egg sales, along with managing a Garden Center. I’ve recently moved up into management because the guy that worked the job before me finally made enough cash selling goat’s milk to dairies, individuals and cheesemakers to support his family. (Small Ag is all the rage here in the Midwest and you can made an adequate living at it. People LOVE their fresh food!)
There are a zillion ways to make money, and you are 100% correct; provide someone with what they WANT or NEED, solve their problems for them, and they will pay you handsomely. :)
A buddy of mine who has had numerous businesses has an uncle that sells spices. Just spices. He buys tons of salt and pepper and other stuff. He has a crew that mixes the various ingredients together then they have their own label. He has some vans that go from store to store and eatery to eatery selling the stuff. OK, I have to admit he does have some pretty hot babes driving the vans. But, they make a commission and are VERY WELL paid. They can make all the money they want. Isn't that cool?
He saw a need and started to fill it. He made $4 million last year. Just selling spices. And he does not even have a web site.
In my childs school they teach the kids how to handle their finances. How to balance a check book, etc. I say they should also teach people how to start and run a business. Unfortunately, how could we teach kids to build a business like this teen did? Since the people that teach in schools have the same problem that the people in government have. They don't know a damn thing about business. We should tie the salaries of congress to an index based on how well individually owned businesses are growing in their districts.
We should make it super easy to start a business. Easy to get a permit, etc. And junk the IRS. Just get rid of it. If we went to a flat tax or sales tax investor money would pour in to this country plus new busineeses would grow everywhere.
My first rule for anyone wanting to go in to business for themselves would be "find something that you love doing". And then put a unique spin on it that fits YOU. After that it's all down hill. Or maybe up hill.
Spices! I make a “Wisconsin Herb Blend” that knocks the socks off of anyone that tries it. Additional income stream, I’m thinkin’!
Hopefully someone that’s reading our posts will be inspired. I’ve inspired one Freeper on to exploring her passion in making homemade jams & jellies and so far, so good! :)
If I hadn’t of fallen completely in love with my job at the garden center (when I wasn’t even LOOKING for a job), I’d be off doing more things on my own, but the pay is good, we have decent insurance and I can still manage my side-line businesses for now.
But, as soon as Husband makes his first million, I’m outta there. ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.