Possibly one of the most effective “get rich quick” schemes since the emergence of the internet, The Million Dollar Homepage was founded in August 2005 by Alex Tew, a British 21-year-old in an attempt to raise money to pay for his university education.
Extraordinarily simple in concept, Tew aimed to sell advertising blocks of 10 x 10 pixels, priced at $1 per pixel to brands who wished to place their logo with a hyperlink to their own website on one aptly named homepage. Advertising pixels were first sold to businesses through his own personal and family network and within two weeks he generated enough revenue to hire a PR firm to launch the new online business idea to the press. The story went viral and by the end of the year, he had sold 999,000 pixels to advertisers. He chose to auction off the remaining pixel blocks on eBay, where brands bid against each other to purchase a piece of Internet history. This took the total revenue from the venture to $1.037M.
Despite its initial success, the website or business model has not evolved since and the main difference between the site that caused an internet sensation in 2005 and the one still online today is that several of the links no longer lead to active websites or businesses. It is, however, a monument to a simpler time in the digital age, when graphics were more garish but the internet was a wide-open space where anything seemed possible. Of course, the sense of possibility still exists but while the internet is now saturated with over a decade’s worth of new ideas, content platforms and business ventures from millions of people around the world, the chance of a novelty website causing such a global stir, is significantly lower than it would have been in 2005.
Tew’s ensuing businesses, founded on the same model, did not follow the same level of success or have the same impact as his first business idea and he had some lessons to learn in creating value over sensation. He has since found even greater success through creating a relaxation app, Calm, which has become one of the leading players in the online wellness/meditation spaces. Named as Apple’s 2017 App of the Year, the company was valued at $1 billion earlier this year. With a $1M company and now a $1 Billion company behind him, we wonder what could be next for this innovative tech entrepreneur.
