In 2005, Alex Tew, a 21 year old business school student at the University of Nottingham, UK, was worried about his student loans. Late one night (in August 2005), he lay down in bed with a notepad and brainstormed cheap things that he could sell a million of. He jotted down dozens of ideas, including a terrible product he called the ‘Gum Slinger’ (a small pouch for used chewing gum).
Then came the once-in-a-lifetime idea: He’d start a webpage with a million pixels that could be purchased for $1 apiece.
Two days and $50 in domain fees later, the Million Dollar Homepage was born. The concept was extraordinarily simple: For a minimum of $100, an advertiser could buy a 100-pixel block (10 x 10 grid) and display an image or logo of their choosing, with a hyperlink. The only guideline was that it couldn’t be porn.
Two weeks in, Tew lobbied his friends and family members to purchase 4.7k pixels, and used the money to hire a PR agency to draft a press release. Miraculously, it was picked up by the BBC and The Guardian.
“The site made $3k that day,” recalls Tew. “I was like, ‘Holy crap. I just made this out of thin air. It felt like Monopoly Money’”
One month in, Tew had raked in $250k, and was receiving 65k hits per day. By the end of October, he’d made $500k from more than 1.4k advertisers. Come New Year’s Eve, 999k pixels had been purchased. Tew auctioned off the last 1k on eBay; the company ‘MillionDollarWeightLoss.com’ bid $38k for those last 1K pixels, bringing his grand total to $1.04m.
“In 4 months, I went from living at home with my parents to being a millionaire,” says Tew. “It was a get-rich-quick-scheme that actually worked.”
The above story sounds ridiculous, but it true.
What worked for Alex Tew ? Was his idea a genius of his time or was it sheer luck? Was it his efforts on the PR that helped or was there something else.
I have always wondered – What does it take to come up with such a ridiculous million dollar idea ? Any comments?
The source of this article and the complete story on Alex Tew’s later ventures, can be found at https://thehustle.co/million-dollar-homepage-alex-tew
In 2005 Jay Rege, along with his wife Jothsna Rege, co-founded Academy One, a career guidance and study abroad counseling venture. Prior to co-founding Academy One, he worked as a software developer with HCL Technologies. He holds a computer engineering degree from Mumbai University and a MBA from the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, USA. He has also been a visiting faculty at a few colleges where he teaches topics related to entrepreneurship.