The Million Dollar Homepage

Alex Tew is like most other young adults.  As an undergraduate university student Alex was always looking for ways to make extra money to pay the bills.  Studying in Nottingham University in the UK, the 21-year-old phenomenon has grown to be one of the most inspiring entrepreneurial stories of 2009.

His idea was to grow rich by having a simple idea that could exploit people’s relentless addiction to funky internet innovations.  Before attending university, Alex was broke and in threat of losing his potential as a business management student.  Not an uncommon story for a working class family.  It came down to Alex asking himself one question, “How can I become a millionaire before I go to university?’

His answer was nothing short of brilliant.  Alex set up a website called the Million Dollar Homepage which contained exactly one million pixels (the tiny dots that make up an image on a screen).  He then used that page as an advertising notice board where advertisers could buy ad space for $1 per pixel.  When you click on the group of pixels bought by an advertiser, you are directed to that advertiser’s homepage.  Easy, right?

The Million Dollar Homepage has successfully captured the imagination of advertisers and has now spawned dozens of copycat sites that so far haven’t done nearly as well as Alex’s.  In fact they haven’t even made it off the ground.  The reason for that is simple: the selling point of Alex’s page is that it was the first of its kind.  It broke new ground, gained incredible publicity as a viral campaign, and inspired a new generation of young entrepreneurs.

Once sales had topped $1,000, he used the money to pay for a press release that was picked up by the BBC. This, is turn, “went viral” across the internet as person after person e-mailed it to friends around the world. For people like Melinda Herring, director of Lollipop Animation, it was a worthwhile investment of ad dollars.  Her 600 pixels brought the company an average of 300-400 hits a day from the beginning, and has since exceeding 2,000 hits in a single 24-hour period.

We all know that it’s relatively easy to make money on the internet. What’s difficult is having a unique idea in the market.  That is what Alex has offered advertisers through his page, and the results speak for themselves.  Our hats are off to you Alex!