Ashley Qualls
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Ashley Qualls (born July 1990) is an entrepreneur from Detroit, Michigan. Originally as a hobby, in 2004 at age 14[1], she started a website called whateverlife.com, designed to provide free Myspace layouts and HTML tutorials for people in her age demographic, and supported entirely by advertising revenue [2]. The website receives several times more traffic than circulations for popular teen magazines Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and CosmoGirl! combined [1].
In September 2006 she paid cash for a $250,000 home in a fenced-off subdivision in the community of Southgate, a couple of blocks removed from Dix Highway. She lives there with her mother Linda LaBreque (42), younger sister Shelby (°1999); as well as three cats, two turtles, a rottweiler, a hamster, and a fish. On September 5, 2007, she obtained legal emancipation, giving her the same legal status as adults.
The basement of the home is her office. In addition to employing her mother she employs friends from school. Bre Newby is her right hand lady; and other employees include Shayna Bone and Jen Carey [3].
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[edit] Biography
Qualls had no connections nor formal training. No business professionals in the family. No rich aunt or uncle. In the working-class community of downriver Detroit, south of downtown and the sprawling Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, she bounced back and forth between her divorced parents, neither of whom attended college. Her father is a machinist. Her mother was a retail data collector for ACNielsen; she now works for her daughter for $500 a week. It was Linda who gave Qualls the initial investment: $8 to register the domain name. Ashley still hasn’t spent a dime on advertising.
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. “Everybody was shocked,” she says. “They asked, 'Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ But I had this crazy opportunity to do something different.”
Running a growing company without an MBA, not to mention a high-school diploma, is hard enough, but Ashley confronts another extraordinary complication. Business associates may forget that she is 17, but Detroit’s Wayne County Probate Court has not. She’s a minor with considerable assets–”business affairs that may be jeopardized,” the law reads–that need protection in light of the rift her sudden success has caused in an already fractious family. In January, a probate judge ruled that neither Ashley nor her parents could adequately manage her finances. Until she turns 18 in June 2008, court-appointed conservator Alan May is controlling Whateverlife’s assets; Ashley must request funds for any expense outside the agreed-upon monthly budget. [4].
According to Steve Greenberg (former president of Columbia Records and now the head of indie label S-Curve Records) Qualls' website and musical widget is credited with launching the success of Jonas Brothers and Lily Allen is the US.
- This teenage girl in the Midwest got more views for our video than YouTube” says Greenberg, 46. “It wasn’t even close.” The viral campaign encouraged fans to vote for the band on MTV’s Total Request Live, and the group’s song “Mandy” hit No. 4, unheard of without radio play.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Salter, Chuck (September 2007). Girl Power. Fast Company. Retrieved on 2008-02-19.
- ^ Sites, Kevin (2007-10-30). People of the Web - Teen Millionaire. Yahoo! News. Retrieved on 2008-02-19.
- ^ The Imaginative Republic | Girl Power - Whatever Life
- ^ http://biginteractive.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/whateverlifecom-story Profile/Bio of AShley Qualls
