Teenage Girl's MySpace Layouts Worth Millions, Drops Out Of High School | Hacker News Reader

Teenage Girl's MySpace Layouts Worth Millions, Drops Out Of High School

fastcompany.com

88 pointsvlad34 comments

It's awesome to see not just a young person succeeding on their startup, but a female as well. Clearly female hackers are more rare than their male counterparts, so bravo to Ashley for blazing her own trail.

Well yes, it is rare. But this isn't really hacking--its more art and css/html (digital media). I worked with this 17 year old CSS girl at my last job. I asked her why she didn't want to go in to tech, since she was so good. She told me something to the effect that because she was asian and firstborn, she had to do what her mom wanted, which was for her to be a lawyer. blah

She's more a designer than hacker, but nonetheless, she's really good. It's not my cup of tea for my own sites, but her design sense is impressive for one with so little experience and training.

Current design fad in our world are gradients, big fonts, and reflections. Hers is pretty refreshing, but in order to achieve those effects, she used a lot of unorthodox methods.

I don't know if it's some sort of layout software that's doing it, or she did it by hand, but it's a lot of absolute positioning.

I still think very page-like and being semantically correct when it comes to my layouts. Her methods gives me something else to think about. In addition, if her page source is any indication, CSS and HTML is nowhere near the expressibility that is required for complicated layouts. If it were, her source would be more semantically valid, and she wouldn't be using divs for the buildings and all the little windows in the upper right corner.

the fact that the average young person has neither taste nor technical ability is evidently quite a lucrative business opportunity.

unfortunately myspace has repeatedly shown that they are hostile to external business partners and don't want to turn myspace into an ecosystem. at any time they could capriciously shut you down. it's rupert murdoch and fox news you're dealing with.

She has, quite effectively, hedged her investments against such an occurrence. If you read the article, you'll see that she is playing on multiple social networks, cell phones, and online utilities. She's a damned mogul, and the lot of us should be so lucky to cover our asses as effectively. She's going to do very very well in life as long as she keeps her head on straight when things get crazy and when markets evolve (and as she grows up).

Of course, I also agree that betting on MySpace or Facebook alone is a death wish.

She's 17 years old, and she declined a 1.6$M offer.

It was a lowball offer. The article says she has $70,000 a month in revenue.

Didn't mean to criticize her, but to add more information.

Anyone like to valuate her startup?

4 times revenue? So around 4 million. I'd still be surprised if she took that offer.

Her best method of growth seems to be competing with Weebly with her page generating software. I assume that unlike Weebly she'd be willing to put ads on the pages of her users, so that could also be very profitable.

Where'd you get 4 times revenue? Even that is low-ball for a company with a million in revenues and nearly zero costs. Of course, in most tech acquisitions it's not an all-cash deal and lots of stock in the new owner comes along with it.

But still 1.6 million for a company with a million in annual revenues is an offensively low offer. Whoever made it ought to be ashamed of trying to take advantage of a 17 year old girl that way. Good for her for not being overwhelmed by the big numbers. Even if sales topped out today, and she never saw any more growth, that's a business worth tens of millions over a lifetime. And, worst case, if all of the markets she deals in dry up over the next three years...she still makes enough to retire comfortably on (and a lot more than a measly 1.6 million). I suspect that with her business savvy, though, she'll be able to continue to build into new areas.

I recognize that 4x revenue is a lowball offer and she probably wouldn't take it. But a standard 10x revenue seems way too risky to me in an emerging market of teenagers. I'm sure I could find better things to put my money in, if I actually had money to invest. There's also no telling how much worse the company will do if the former founder becomes a complacent employee.

It was an "associate" of Myspace cofounder Brad Greenspan who made the acquisition over. Brad Greenspan was the guy who accused Rupert Murdoch/News Corp of defrauding investors by undervaluing Myspace. Even more insultingly they came back with an offer to give her $700,000, a car, and her own internet TV show which is clearly much worse than the previous offer.

"I recognize that 4x revenue is a lowball offer and she probably wouldn't take it. But a standard 10x revenue seems way too risky to me in an emerging market of teenagers."

That's a risk of any early stage acquisition. If you're strongly risk averse, you aren't doing this kind of deal. Every tech startup at this early stage has dozens of unpredictable variables, but when you have a strong cash flow, explosive growth, and plenty of users, the value goes way up.

>> And, worst case, if all of the markets she deals in dry up over the next three years...she still makes enough to retire comfortably on (and a lot more than a measly 1.6 million).

This thought makes the last few sentences in the article a bit offensive:

>> Just a 17-year-old and her big dreams in a pink, pink, pink world full of promise. And if they don't come true? Well, there's always college.

I actually get this magazine in paper (thanks for that Delta Airlines!) and was pretty surprised by that story too. I think it's yet another plentyoffish style story that makes the web look a little more democratic than it really is.

Insanely great. Reminds of that post about K->12 students doing startups a while ago... maybe they can do it, after all.

yes, but i think it's a logical leap to propose that you can teach it at that level. i'm not entirely convinced it can be "taught" at any level.

Exactly. This was a bright girl whose hobby turned out to be really lucrative, she grew into it completely naturally. This let her get better at it without running into the normal motivational difficulties a typical teenager would see.

Ok seriously. This is right under my nose! Detroit. I'm in Mt. Pleasant. Wow. Awesome that the googleplex ann arbor isn't the only successful tech development in this troubled economy. And at only 17, I applaud her.

First post!!

Very inspiring, saw this on digg. I am glad to see some women internet entrepreneurs. Also, that sector of the market is very hard to break into, try doing a search for myspace layouts. These websites are plagued with ads. She said in her article she focused on user design and branding which is key.

As much as we all hate myspace. We have to think also, there is a new younger breed of myspace users that are learning html, javascript, css, etc. becoming web designers/developers who might not have learned or wanted to learn elsewise. That is what I think is still great about myspace and other customizable sites.

- Joey Primiani

68 points? what happened today? it has been because reddit has been unavailable?

It's a fantastic story with a lot of appeal to young entrepreneurs? (Reddit also sucks these days, but I don't think it's all recovering redditors traffic.)

Yes, I like the story, it is inspiring. But 70 points are a lot. Is there a top-10 list of most voted stories?

I'm not sure why this is inspiring. Have you seen the site?

Because if a "business" like hers work, imagine what us can do! :)

news.ycombinator.com/best

I think there is a problem with it (86, 90, 81):

9. Kiko guys back as reality tv stars (techcrunch.com) 86 points by gaz 164 days ago | 25 comments

10. y combinator news bookmarklet (writewith.com) 90 points by phil 174 days ago | 12 comments

11. Seven steps to remarkable customer service (joelonsoftware.com) 81 points by beau 191 days ago | 8 comments

Oh, thank you.

So how does she make all that money? Advertising? Contracts she's won?

I forwarded this article to my sisters, who are around that age.

This will inevitably become standard fare to boost one's high school resume for college. What's special is that this girl did this on her own initiative without rich or highly-educated adults to guide her along the way. She did something for fun and it worked out. I hope you stress the fun, socializing aspect to your sisters and not a money-making scheme, since that will just them off from the idea.

Maybe there just haven't been enough rolemodels for girls to look up to.

My standard speech to them is that hacking is the ultimate in flexibility: whether they found a startup, make a standard career of it, or choose another path (such as marriage/motherhood, the popular choice in my family's subculture for young women), they will always be able spend some time hacking, wherever and whoever they are.

As far as earning money, they're working at retail stores earning single digits/hour to earn spending money; if I was a bit richer, I would hire them to learn hacking/build an app as a way of earning at least that amount. Money-making is definitely not a turn-off for them.

One more thing: it's not just that there are too few role models for women; there's too much peer pressure not to be a girl geek. For guys, being a geek has a certain cachet to it; people treat you as smart. This is not true for girls. So there's more pressure for girls not to do hacking/engineering/other geeky things. This is my observation, anyway; YMMV.

Perhaps the only good news to come out of Michigan this year.

Wow. Good for her and all that, but I think skipping out on school is a mistake, whatever she's earning.

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