BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : MAY 29, 2000 ISSUE
PEOPLE Girl Geeks Start to Breach the Wired World From designing Web pages to selling Beanie Babies online, teen girls are making their digital mark Melissa Sconyers, 16, got her start in computers as an infant. By the age of 6 months she was handling the space bar and several keys on the family PC. "I learned everything -- my colors, my shapes, and my letters -- on the computer," she says. At 10, her father introduced her to the Internet, and before long, she started creating Web pages. These days, she's one of the few female teen Internet entrepreneurs. She designs Web pages, charging a minimum of $1,000 a page, and earned a five-figure income last year. "There are not many girl geeks, but there's no shortage of cute -- really cute -- guy geeks," says Sconyers, a petite teen with soft brown eyes and upswept brown hair. "I love being unique. I'm an absolute ham." "HE GOT JEALOUS." Sconyers, who is home-schooled, often puts in 18-hour shifts at work, wearing her pajamas as she types on her family's computer at their comfortable home in Austin, Tex. Often, she barters for work. An avid inline skater, she attended a meet and was impressed with a national skating organization. After returning home, she noticed the organization didn't have a Web site, and so she e-mailed them and offered to build one. She wound up receiving a waiver of entry fees to future events. Then there's, Jennifer Ambrose, 13, one of the few other girl Internet entrepreneurs, who started her business to support her real hobby of figure skating. When Ambrose, of Great Falls, Mont., was 10, she wanted to go to a skating camp in Sun Valley, Idaho. Her father told her she could only go if she paid for it herself. It cost $7,800. So, Ambrose, who like Sconyers has been home-schooled, built a Web site and went into the Beanie Baby business. "When my Dad saw that I was getting checks in the mail, he got jealous," she says. "He kind of horned in on my business." Before long, father and daughter started working together, and for two years had sales of about $1,000 a week. She got to go to the Idaho camp, and also attended camps in Colorado and California. Soon, she plans to start selling cosmetics over the Internet, too. SERIOUS ABOUT FUN. For Sconyers, the pressures of work have affected her social life, and a few months ago, she realized she was in danger of suffering a burnout. "Right now, I'm very serious about having fun -- I have to have fun," she says. "I don't work weekends anymore...I don't answer business-related e-mail. Business is for the week. I lost touch with my friends, I alienated them, and I had to remember I am a teenager." One of the toughest parts of being a teen entrepreneur is that she sometimes feels she gets no respect, notably from fellow teenagers, which she chalks up to jealousy. She also resents friends who hit her up for money. But she has not experienced discrimination because of her age. "I don't think I've ever had to deal with that, because my work speaks for me," she says. In Sconyers' view: "The best advantage to being a teen entrepreneur is that you are not making a living. You're allowed to make mistakes. Even though I do like to make money, it's just for fun. I'm not going to have to eat ramen noodles for a week because I didn't do this page like I should." By the time she's on her own, she might not have to worry about subsisting on ramen anymore. By Rochelle Sharpe and Hilary Hylton _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Teen Internet Moguls RESUME: Michael Furdyk RESUME: Cameron Johnson RESUME: Brad Ogden RESUME: Angelo Sotira RESUME: Paul Dinin RESUME: Rishi Bhat ONLINE ORIGINAL: Microsoft Puts Teens under the Microscope ONLINE ORIGINAL: Girl Geeks Start to Breach the Wired World ONLINE ORIGINAL: From High-Tech Hobby to Big Bucks ONLINE ORIGINAL: Changing the Image of the Inventor ONLINE ORIGINAL: The Legal Pitfalls of Doing Business with Teens INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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