Dallas Crilley’s Kidpreneur Blog — Ways Kids and Teens Can Make Money

Samantha Qualls

The Story:

When 17-year old Ashley Qualls isn’t out with her friends hitting the malls, she’s hanging out at her house. Not her mom’s house, not her dad’s house, her house. The one she bought herself, with her own money. Ashley started out designing Myspace layouts for her friends, and quickly discovered she could make a business out of it. She created Whateverlife.com, which caters to teenage girls, and offers countless unique designs for free. Ashley makes money off the ads, and with over 60 million page views a month, that’s more hits than Oprah gets. In fact, she just turned down an offer of 5 million dollars to sell the company.

The Secret:

Who better to design layouts for teenage girls than a teenage girl? She knows more about what kids like than any adult ever could, but she also had to act. So many of us dream about doing something, but all of these ambitions seem to disappear as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

Now It’s Your Turn:

As Ashley demonstrates, children often have an advantage over adults. They see a market of other teenagers that many adults are completely ignoring. What are kids around you into? Is there a way for you to provide it and make money off of it? If all the kids in school are into a certain kind of music or clothing, could you get that and sell it for a profit? If you go into Whateverlife.com, you’ll see that Ashley’s favorite color is probably pink, but I can guess whatever her second favorite color probably is: green.

A Talent For Tape

The Story:

If there’s one undeniable truth in this world, it’s that duct tape will fix anything. After seeing Red and Harold from the “Red Green Show” make a duct tape wallet, 10-year old William Beacom realized that you could probably make anything out of duct tape too. His curiosity already sparked, Beacom decided to see just how much he could make with an ordinary roll of duct tape.

With persistence, William began realizing how far he could stretch the tape of his friends’ imaginations. After hearing compliments from his peers time and time again, Beacom realized that there was probably some cash in his creations.

He decided to start giving workshops to libraries and kids all across the state of Michigan, and when he was just 16 his unique story caught the eye of a reporter for the State News. The story they wrote for him was then seen by a talent coordinator for the David Letterman show, and just a few months later he found himself being broadcast to television sets all over the nation.

William says that he’s made about $8,000 dollars so far, giving him a great start towards paying for college. He is still a renowned tape expert, and his web site can be found at http://www.williambeacom.com/

The Secret:

This kid had a talent for tape, plain and simple. Not only was his skill interesting and unique, but he did it better than anyone else. Seeing that other kids his age all wanted to learn, he decided to share his aptitude for adhesive — for a price, of course. Once you get started, you’ll find that the people who can do things other people can’t do are the ones making money.

Now It’s Your Turn:

What are you good at? Start looking at your talents. Are you better at something than all of your friends? Once you’ve found that talent, it’s time to start using it. Isn’t about time that you begin turning your skills into a salary? The lessons you learn along the way will stick with you for the rest of your life.

Here’s the new Kidpreneur blog — I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to make the e-zine and the blog work together, but hey, this is a pretty cool piece of technology.