Ashley, 17, designed hot graphics for her friends’ Web sites. But she never guessed it would land her a cool $1 million!
As told to: Veronica Byrd
When I was growing up in Lincoln Park, Michigan, my family never had much, and we struggled after my parents divorced, often moving from one small apartment to the next. I started playing around on my cousin’s computer when I was 9. One day she showed me how to start a Web site—and I was hooked! I learned HTML, CSS, and Photoshop on my own, and I began designing graphics as a hobby, mostly simple patterns, like hearts and stripes, because they were easy. In 2005 my friends started getting into MySpace and asked me to help do their pages. Not many sites had the kinds of cool graphics they wanted, so I used the designs I’d already put on my blog (by that point, I had about 100) to create wallpaper for their pages.
After my friends told kids at school about my blog, they started checking out my site and asking how they could create their own blogs. I offered all the graphics for free and added content that explained how to use them. Within a few months, I was getting hundreds of visitors a day, so a friend suggested that I sign up with Google AdSense (google.com/adsense), a service that puts ads on your site and pays you when someone clicks on one. I decided to call my blog Whateverlife.com—one day I was playing a Nintendo game with my best friend and when I lost the game, I said, “Whatever . . . that’s life.” After I said it, I realized it would make a great name for the site.
KA-CHING
Two months later, when I got my first payment from Google, I was shocked: It was for $2,700! To me, that was, like, a gazillion dollars! I’d never had a job (unless you count babysitting) and I always had to borrow money from my mom whenever I went out with friends. Getting that much money was totally new to me. Even my mom was suspicious! She didn’t understand what I did on the computer all day and worried I wouldn’t get paid for the work.
The next month I was paid $5,000! I was floored! By then, the site had 500 graphics and was getting 20,000–45,000 visitors a day, all through word of mouth. It was amazing to have my own money that I could actually buy things with.
My mom drove me to the mall so I could get whatever I wanted: six pairs of jeans, a dozen shirts, and gold earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. I spent $700 (the most I’d ever spent in my life!). When I got the third payment—for $10,000—I realized my blog could be a business. I didn’t know anything about running a company, so I hired an accountant and a lawyer. I incorporated Whateverlife.com, and as my site’s traffic went up, the payments got bigger.
SWEET SIXTEEN
Last year I had a huge celebration for my 16th birthday. My friends and I made pink bracelets that read “Ashbo’s Sweet 16” (Ashbo is my nickname) and handed them out as invites. It was formal and 200 people attended, all decked out in evening gowns and tuxedos. I wore a white Cinderella-style dress. In true My Super Sweet 16 fashion, I rode to the event in a limo worth $2,500 with my best friends.
But having my own business had one downside: I quit school my junior year (and earned my GED), because the site demanded so much of my time; I’m on the computer up to 10 hours a day! But I really miss school—the laughter, the lunch lines, the class clown, even the evil teacher who gave too much work.
But there’s a huge upside. Now my site gets 7 million visitors a month—and I’ve made more than $1 million! I bought a four-bedroom, four-bathroom house last September for $250,000 and set aside money for college. I’m putting most of the money I’ve made back into the company to upgrade the site’s technology so I can add more content and start selling cell phone wallpaper too. I still shop when I want, but the best part is that now when I go out with my friends, I can pay!