Entrepreneur - Schoolgirl

Ashley Qualls is the founder of Whateverlife.com (http://www.whateverlife.com/myspacebasics.php)


It started as a hobby. She began dabbling in Web-site design, when she was 9, hogging the family's Gateway computer in the kitchen all day. She taught herself the basics of Web design.

Ashley created the site in late 2004 when she was 14 as a way to show off her design work. Then she figured out how to customize MySpace pages and many classmates asked her to design theirs that she began posting layouts on her site daily, several at first, then dozens.

By 2005, her traffic had exploded; Her Web host suggested Google AdSense, a service that supplies ads to a site and shares the revenue. The greater the traffic, the more money she'd earn. The first check, her first paycheck of any kind, was a cool $2,790.

In January 2006, a few months after that first payday and six months before her 16th birthday, she withdrew from school. Instead of taking AP English, French, and algebra II, instead of being a straight-A sophomore at Lincoln Park High School, Ashley stayed home to nurture her budding business and take classes through an online high school.

Now her life is centered around working in the basement of the two-story, four-bedroom house that she bought last September for $250,000. The business brings in as much as $70,000 a month.

According to Google Analytics, Whateverlife attracts more than 7 million individuals and 60 million page views a month. Quantcast, a popular source among advertisers, ranked Whateverlife.com a staggering No. 349 in mid-July out of more than 20 million sites.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/girl-power.html