Positivity: Ashley Qualls
From Southgate, Michigan (HT Debbie Schlussel):
$8 grows to a million on teen’s Web site
Designing friends’ MySpace pages now a big business
September 25, 2007Like a scene out of a reality show or a Disney movie, Southgate teenager Ashley Qualls’ moment has arrived.
The 17-year-old entrepreneur, designer and self-professed computer geek is in New York City this week, pitching her wildly successful Web site, Whateverlife.com, to ad-buying agencies for the country’s biggest companies. And today, Qualls will get to talk to the women of “The View,” taping a show that is due to air on Friday.
“This is in some ways her coming-out party,” said Robb Lippitt, Qualls’ 38-year-old business consultant.
On the cusp of national fame, Qualls is planning to expand Whateverlife.com, which gets more visitors than Oprah.com. She wants to start a social network for the millions of teenage girls who flock to her Web site for free designs to decorate their MySpace pages.
Whateverlife.com generated a million dollars in revenue last year and is on track to do the same this year. Already, Qualls has turned down outside funding for her site and a verbal offer from someone willing to pay $5 million to buy her company.
“I’m stubborn, and I’m independent,” she said from her pink office in the basement of her house. “I like the feeling that it’s my company, and I want to have the say-so in everything.”
But don’t mistake Qualls for another smart but spoiled teenager. She is growing up fast but possesses instincts for life and business that elude many girls her age.
For now, she has turned down the idea of starring in a reality show because she fears the loss of privacy.
Early this month, she won her petition to be declared an adult, so she legally could sign business contracts and manage her own money. And she sounds like a 30-year-old when she talks about the struggle to balance work and personal time.
Qualls is not your typical teenager.
She hired her mother to be her business manager and pays three of her friends, all high school seniors, to work for her after school and on weekends. She said she is more interested in working on her Web site than in learning how to drive. And a year ago, Qualls bought a house in a new subdivision in Southgate, where she keeps three Himalayan cats and a Rottweiler named Thor.
“She’s really creative,” said best friend Bre Newby, a senior at Allen Park High, pointing out that Qualls was voted most likely to succeed in the eighth grade.
Despite a 3.9 grade point average, she dropped out of Lincoln Park High School after her sophomore year to work full-time on Whateverlife.com, a decision that she said shocked her family, friends and teachers. She now is studying to get her associate’s degree in graphic design and a GED from Henry Ford Community College.
With her blonde highlights and vivacious personality, Qualls doesn’t fit the stereotype of a computer geek. But she spent seven hours on her living room floor building a computer that she uses today.
And while other teenagers were playing sports and watching television, Qualls was teaching herself how to write HTML coding so she could build Web sites.
“I love it,” she said. “You can create so many things. The possibilities are endless.”
In December 2004, Qualls borrowed $8 from her mother to buy the Whateverlife.com domain name. She started the Web site as her personal graphics portfolio, intending to use it as a way to share her designs for MySpace pages with her friends.
But in the uncontrollable, fast-moving world of cyberspace, others began noticing Qualls’ site even though she never has spent a dime on advertising. At the beginning of last year, Qualls received e-mails from people informing her that Carson Daly had mentioned the site on his radio show.
When it comes to Web traffic, Whateverlife.com currently ranks No. 825 out of 20.3 million Web sites, drawing 2.4 million visitors worldwide during the last 30 days, according to Quantcast, an Internet ratings service. Oprah.com is No. 997. Qualls said that on average, 72% of her site’s audience makes a return visit.
In March, Qualls hired Lippitt, a former chief operating officer of ePrize, to help her grow her business. The biggest challenge facing Qualls, he said, is keeping her finger on the pulse of her audience as she gets older and her company expands.
“Ashley is a natural entrepreneur,” he said. “I expected her to need a lot more direction and guidance than she actually needs. You only have to tell her anything once.” …..
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