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Riches to rags for young web entrepreneur

A web entrepreneur who earned $2.5 million by the time he was 21 lost it all in a year of fast cars, expensive overseas trips and poker.

For 22-year-old Andrew Fashion, it’s a tale of riches to rags.

He launched two websites that allowed users to alter the way their Myspace profiles appeared, netting him $2.5 million by the age of 21.

But, as the social networking site began to lose traffic to rivals Facebook and Twitter, the business evaporated within a year.

In that year, he bought his first car, in cash, and purchased a house and had $80,000 worth of renovations done to it, Mr Fashion told Business Weekly.

"I ended up buying seven cars total, a few for my friends. One of my friends wrecked a car; I wrecked a car. I paid for that out of pocket. A lot of my money just disappeared," he said.

"I had a girlfriend. I lost a lot of money in Vegas. I got into poker. I bought a lot of toys, photography equipment, technology, tons of clothes, and trips to places like London, Florida, and Hawaii.

"The money was coming in so strongly, but it went out just as fast. All of a sudden, my site dropped off of Google and the money just stopped," he said.

Mr Fortune admits he was “young and stupid,” but plans to recoup some of his money by releasing a memoir and launching a new social networking site for models.