Ashley Qualls is a 17 year old entrepreneur behind Whateverlife.com. She runs the website from her basement in her Southgate, Michigan home and is closing in on 2.5 million visitors per month.
Last year, her business generated $1 million in revenues.
Earlier this month she had to petition to be declared an adult so she could legally sign the contracts she has with her advertisers and be able to manager her own money.
“I’m stubborn and I’m independent. I like the feeling that it’s my company, and I want to have the say-so in everything.”
She has hired her mother to be her business manager and has also employed three of her high school friends to work for her after school.
“I love it. You can create so many things. The possibilities are endless.”
The website was started in December 2004 when Ashley borrowed $8 from her mother to buy the Whateverlife.com domain listing. The initial intent was to showcase her graphics design skills and share her MySpace designs with her friends.
Without spending any money on advertising the site quickly took off as many MySpacers enjoyed her designs and used them to improve their own MySpace profiles.
The website, which gets more hits that Oprah.com, had an offer to buy for $5 million but Ashley turned it down.
Evan Carmichael
she turned down a $5 million dollar offer for a social network profile enhancement site??
R O F L
unless the offer was all stock in some no-name or something, she’s nuts. take the $5 million cash to the bank, put it in a 5% GIC and rake your $250,000 a year in for the rest of your life
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You don’t hear many stories involving people who turn down $5 million offers. Interesting!
It wasn’t $5 million. It was $1.5 million and a car of her choice, as long as the car was under $100,000.
She is a smart young lady, that amount is not worth such work.