A 17-year-old millionaire??? C'mon,now really! (pay, advertising, income, how much)

[truckingbronco]

I don't see what is so unbelievable about this story.

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by 8 SNAKE

1. It's close to her home
2. She's going part-time
3. Flexible scheduling

She's not worried about the brand name of the school that she goes to. She's worried about the brand name of her business.

And the reporter implied that she was not going to college because? I bet she failed to disclose that information.. Makes the story so much nicer to think a high school dropout made millions in the internet business..

Again, I'm not disagreeing with her ability to make the $1,000,000 quoted.. I just think that certain facts were twisted by someone, to make a better story.

[8 SNAKE]

Originally Posted by pghquest

Again, I'm not stating she's not a millionaire, just that its impossible for her to be getting it from this one website alone. The traffic statistics just dont show the kind of traffic needed to generate $1,000,000 profit in less then a year since advertising has been added, (let alone the three years she's had it live)

Do you think the article was including all web sites that she runs that are linked or related to her whateverlife web site?

It would seem to me that the journalist who ran this article would get lambasted for writing that story if the info was so far out of line with what the stats you posted seem to indicate.

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by 8 SNAKE

Do you think the article was including all web sites that she runs that are linked or related to her whateverlife web site?

It would seem to me that the journalist who ran this article would get lambasted for writing that story if the info was so far out of line with what the stats you posted seem to indicate.

I believe that the 17 year old in the article, runs multiple websites, and multiple companies, (some of which I found..) and I believe they most likely all sharing one google account, all under the name of whateverlife.com, so whenever one of those other websites get opened, whateverlife.com gets the "hit" count and credit.

While ALL of her websites together may have made her $1,000,000 (bravo if true).. the one website alone, barely reaches enough traffic to make 1% of that revenue.

As for the journalist getting lambasted, nah.. its a happy go feeling story, makes everyone feel good, and the "facts" are rarely important

[pghquest]

I also did a page ranking count on google.. Which is showing a 5, out of 10.. Decent showing, but.. Page ranking count is figured out by

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn)).

And without going through the equation, letter by letter, a website with 101 links pointing to it, cant possibly be showing that high of a count. I have sites with thousands of links, with a page ranking of 2-3..

Some "statistic" being manipulated somewhere by someone..

[GreenMachine]

Originally Posted by 8 SNAKE

I highly doubt it.

Maybe they twisted the story then?

[8 SNAKE]

Originally Posted by GreenMachine

Maybe they twisted the story then?

I would say you're right. Journalists write to attract an audience, so I'm sure that the story was written with that purpose in mind.

[ProLogic]

Traffic rankings from Alexa: Traffic Details for: whateverlife.com/

[howsitgoingdude3]

I read the story and I do not remember them saying she was making over a million dollars a month. What they did state was that she was bringing in over 50-70k in top line revenue. Now, I’m sure at least 20-25% of the cost is tied up each month in server usage and maintaining the web-site (3rd party contracts), but everyone knows the internet is a high margin business. Secondly, what if they are not valuing the company based solely on bottom line growth. VC's and other companies are valuing the company based on traffic and top line growth using comparables and probably discounting her current cash flows.

If she's making between 50-70k a month let's make a few assumptions

Assumption 1 - Let's say it's 60k a month

Assumption 2- COGS (cost of goods sold) is 25% of top revenue

Assumption 3- She has no real advertising overhead as whateverlife apparently does not advertise

Assumption 4 - Let's say VC's or private investors are valuing the company at 2-3 times top line revenue (obviously to run a DCF analysis and get a better picture I’d need to know her cash flow situation which i do not) Since this information is not avail to any of using comparables on previous companies sold in her market is the best way to anticipate the "value" of her company.


Okay

Revenue 60 * 12 = $720,000
25% (COGS) = 180,000
Total 540,000 in bottom line profit

Comparables let's say that companies generating her traffic and revenue were sold between 2 - 3 times top line revenue.

2x Net worth of her company would be 1.4 million dollars..... (I believe an investor offered her close to 1.0-1.2m earlier this year

3x Net worth of her company would be 2.1 million dollars

So, regardless of what you're saying the story was not misleading if someone makes you an offer for your company at 1.0 million dollars, that is the perceived market value of your company therefore they are correct in asserting she is a millionaire regardless of whether or not she actually has a million liquid dollars residing in a bank account. DUH!

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by howsitgoingdude3

I read the story and I do not remember them saying she was making over a million dollars a month. What they did state was that she was bringing in over 50-70k in top line revenue. Now, I’m sure at least 20-25% of the cost is tied up each month in server usage and maintaining the web-site (3rd party contracts), but everyone knows the internet is a high margin business. Secondly, what if they are not valuing the company based solely on bottom line growth. VC's and other companies are valuing the company based on traffic and top line growth using comparables and probably discounting her current cash flows.

If she's making between 50-70k a month let's make a few assumptions

Assumption 1 - Let's say it's 60k a month

Assumption 2- COGS (cost of goods sold) is 25% of top revenue

Assumption 3- She has no real advertising overhead as whateverlife apparently does not advertise

Assumption 4 - Let's say VC's or private investors are valuing the company at 2-3 times top line revenue (obviously to run a DCF analysis and get a better picture I’d need to know her cash flow situation which i do not) Since this information is not avail to any of using comparables on previous companies sold in her market is the best way to anticipate the "value" of her company.

Okay

Revenue 60 * 12 = $720,000
25% (COGS) = 180,000
Total 540,000 in bottom line profit

Comparables let's say that companies generating her traffic and revenue were sold between 2 - 3 times top line revenue.

2x Net worth of her company would be 1.4 million dollars..... (I believe an investor offered her close to 1.0-1.2m earlier this year

3x Net worth of her company would be 2.1 million dollars

So, regardless of what you're saying the story was not misleading if someone makes you an offer for your company at 1.0 million dollars, that is the perceived market value of your company therefore they are correct in asserting she is a millionaire regardless of whether or not she actually has a million liquid dollars residing in a bank account. DUH!

You might have a point about her being a "millionaire", technically but the story couldnt have been more misleading. The story stated that this one very little website, had traffic counts of 60,000,000, that this one little website made her a millionaire, and that this one little website has been offered to be bought for over $1M..

The only reason I'm hitting the facts so hard is that others are going to read that story and think. hey, I can get a website like that built for $100 (and you can).. and then I can retire a millionaire.. Couldnt be further from the truth. Rarely do reporters understand website "networks" and how they interact, and how statistics can be skeewed...

I have no doubt her "network" of websites, all working together probably could bring her in decent money.. that one website.. not a chance..