15/02/2014
Would you like to make one million dollars ? What would you do if you had one million dollars ? In 2005, this dream was realized by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire, England.
The Million Dollar Homepage is a website conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire, England, to raise money for his university education. The home page consisted of one million pixels arranged in a 1000 × 1000 pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for $1 per pixel in 10 × 10 blocks. The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to be displayed on them, a URL to which the images were linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering a cursor over the link. The aim of the website was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating one million dollars of income for the creator. The Wall Street Journal has commented that the site inspired other websites that sell pixels.
Launched on 26 August 2005, the website became an Internet phenomenon. It rose to 127th in the web traffic ranking in Alexa, and this number is 35,983 as of 18 December 2009. On 1 January 2006, the final 1,000 pixels were put up for auction on eBay. The auction closed on 11 January with a winning bid of 38,100 dollar that brought the final tally to 1,037,100 dollar in gross.
“I had literally no money, and I was worried about university,” he says. “I just brainstormed this kind of crazy, get-rich-quick scheme that then took on a life of its own.”
In four months’ time, word of the page had gone viral and it sold out. Tew had achieved success, fame and his first million. And he dropped out of university that December.
Advertisers ranged from The Times to Beer.com and online casinos. Tew says he wasn’t targeting any advertisers in particular, really just “anyone who wanted to buy pixels”.
He also attracted a lot of envy. The main idea of the Million Dollar Homepage (selling pixels) was something anyone could have done. But Tew was the first to do it, which left a lot of people wondering why they didn’t think of it first.
Fast-forward 11 years and Tew is still doing things differently than most and very differently than he was back in 2005. Today, he lives in San Francisco, far from his roots in southwest England, and is founder and CEO of start-up Calm, which offers a mobile app by the same name with numerous narrated relaxation and meditation programs designed to help relax and calm the user’s mind. The app also features visuals and audio of streams, rainstorms and waves.
“It’s kind of like having a sanctuary in your pocket,” Tew says.
The app is free, but users can choose to upgrade to a monthly, yearly or lifetime subscription, which gives them access to more guided meditations and options
The truth is it's not brains that build one million dollars retirement. The world is filled with smart, educated people who never build any wealth.
It's also not just luck. Sure, sometimes people get lucky and win the lottery or just happen to work for a company before it distributes employee stock options and goes public.
But those are the exceptions - not the rule. Instead, millionaires follow specific patterns of behavior that result in regular growth of equity and savings :
How To Make One Million Dollars ?
He Finally Succeeded and Earned Million Dollars !
In Four Months, Tew Had Achieved Success, Fame And His First Million !
How People Make One Million Dollars ?
What Are The Steps To Becoming A Millionaire ?