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Success at 17: What it Takes

Posted by Naomi Grossman Monday, Aug 27, 2007, 11:31 AM ET

What does it take to start a Web-based small business?

Apparently not much — beyond a really good idea, a willingness to learn, and lots and lots of time.

At least that's the impression a reader will get from this article in Fast Company on Ashley Qualls, founder of Whateverlife.com, a Web site that supplies designs for MySpace pages.

According to the article, "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."

Forget for a moment that Qualls is only 17 years old. Forget that she created the site at 14, to show off what she could do in design. Focus instead on what her success means to small business owners trying to make a go of it on the Web:

Writer Chuck Salter writes: "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."

The article emphasizes that Qualls had no financial resources, no sources of funding, no angel investors — no one in her life had money or even any connections to money. "But Ashley had no connections. 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, until recently, a retail data collector for ACNielsen."

But her business model didn't need financing — although she has the money now. Writes Salter: "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."

Really, all she needed was an idea and a willingness to pursue it.

Now let's remember that she's 17 years old. Beyond the fact that, with no dependents, she didn't have to worry about drawing a salary while she was getting things up and running (although now she employs her mother and a bunch of her friends) Qualls also didn't worry about reigning in her ideas and her enthusiasm. And, of course, she was able to start a business for teenage girls because she was able to think like one.

Is that all it takes to hit it? No, probably not. But the simple ingenuity of Qualls's idea and her passionate pursuit of it can serve as a reminder to small business owners of what they know is a key ingredient of success, but sometimes forget.

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