Technology, Culture, Commentary on the Internet Revolution

Teen High School Dropout Builds Million-Dollar Site

by Mike Abundo on August 30th, 2007

IT history is filled with stories of college dropouts hitting it big — from Bill Gates to Steve Jobs to Larry Ellison to Kevin Rose. Now they’re starting early: seventeen-year-old Ashley Qualls dropped out of high school to make a million dollars with ads on her own site, WhateverLife.com.

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.

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.

Ashley now makes $70,000 a month. The boom is back, startup costs are low, and money is flowing — this time not from overheated investment, but from actual revenue. Kids, stay in school. Even the founders of Google are Ph.D. students on leave.

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