Thursday 8 May 2008

Teens aren't completely useless after all!

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation - Pearl S. Buck

This post is about the owner of this amazingly funky website Whateverlife.com. Her name is Ashley Qualls. It's not so much about her website (which is very useful for some HTML tips, funky graphics and other Myspace stuff) but it's about her and her life (or what I've learned about it thanks to Wikipedia).


Ashley is the founder and owner of the hugely popular site whateverlife.com. The site is so popular that in September 2006, she bought a $250,000 house and paid for it in cash. And this entrepreneur is all of 17 years old! Yeah! In 2004, when she was only 14, Ashley started the website which basically consisted of HTML tutorials and free Myspace layouts and its costs were covered completely by advertising revenue. And (according to Wikipedia without which this post would be non-existent) "this website now receives several times more traffic than circulations for popular teen magazines Seventeen, Teen Vogue and CosmoGirl combined"! This from a girl who had no connections, no formal training, no rich relatives, no business professionals in the family and who dropped out of high school before she turned 16 to concentrate on her website. She didn't completely forgo her education though. She took classes through an online high school. She also attended a local college to earn credits for her diploma. She lives with her mom, younger sister and a horde of pets. And here's the curve ball - her mother was a retail data collector and now she works for her daughter for $500 a week! Oh yeah! Ashley is her mom's employer! How cool is that? She can actually say "Mom either let me go to the party or no pay check this week!" *grins* In addition to this, in September 2007, she obtained legal emancipation (yeah I had no idea what it meant either but Wikipedia to the rescue!) which means that now she has the same legal status as adults.

What an unbelievably fantastic life story this is. And she's not even old enough to vote! I *love* how inspiring and creative and smart she is. Just goes to show that anything is possible as long as you're ready to go after it. You have to stick to your dreams, not let go of them and be ready to chase them until they come true. Like Mark Twain once said, twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.


1 comments:

Tanuj Lakhina said...

Its an inspiring story indeed.Also,the creator of facebook was in high-school when facebook started and they were approached by big-wigs too for an acquisition but this guy resisted and now we all know how huge facebook is.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation - Pearl S. Buck

This post is about the owner of this amazingly funky website Whateverlife.com. Her name is Ashley Qualls. It's not so much about her website (which is very useful for some HTML tips, funky graphics and other Myspace stuff) but it's about her and her life (or what I've learned about it thanks to Wikipedia).


Ashley is the founder and owner of the hugely popular site whateverlife.com. The site is so popular that in September 2006, she bought a $250,000 house and paid for it in cash. And this entrepreneur is all of 17 years old! Yeah! In 2004, when she was only 14, Ashley started the website which basically consisted of HTML tutorials and free Myspace layouts and its costs were covered completely by advertising revenue. And (according to Wikipedia without which this post would be non-existent) "this website now receives several times more traffic than circulations for popular teen magazines Seventeen, Teen Vogue and CosmoGirl combined"! This from a girl who had no connections, no formal training, no rich relatives, no business professionals in the family and who dropped out of high school before she turned 16 to concentrate on her website. She didn't completely forgo her education though. She took classes through an online high school. She also attended a local college to earn credits for her diploma. She lives with her mom, younger sister and a horde of pets. And here's the curve ball - her mother was a retail data collector and now she works for her daughter for $500 a week! Oh yeah! Ashley is her mom's employer! How cool is that? She can actually say "Mom either let me go to the party or no pay check this week!" *grins* In addition to this, in September 2007, she obtained legal emancipation (yeah I had no idea what it meant either but Wikipedia to the rescue!) which means that now she has the same legal status as adults.

What an unbelievably fantastic life story this is. And she's not even old enough to vote! I *love* how inspiring and creative and smart she is. Just goes to show that anything is possible as long as you're ready to go after it. You have to stick to your dreams, not let go of them and be ready to chase them until they come true. Like Mark Twain once said, twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.