Everyone knows @calm

Not as many know how @tewy made his first million and proved his product/marketing genius while waking up a nation of young entrepreneurs like myself to the huge opportunity the internet presented.

It’s probably not what you expect.

Time for a SaaStory

Alex Tew grew up much like myself, in a small town in the UK.

After graduating from high school in 2002, he set up a forum that I actually frequented (but had no idea he ran) called Human Beatbox.

He eventually sold the site to a friend of his after growth stagnated.

“How can I make a million dollars?”

This was the question Alex asked himself in August of 2005 as he lay in his dorm room at Nottingham University. It was also the question that would lead him to a breakthrough….

Brainstorming on cheap things he could sell one million of, he ran through several ideas before it finallly came to him…

He would sell one million pixels for $1 each on a website aptly named: Million Dollar Homepage

Huh? How? Why? Who?

The concept was beautifully simple: for $100 a company could buy a 100 pixel square block to display their logo or if they purchased multiple they could fit some messaging in too! All complete with a link out to their own website to drive traffic.

By New Years Eve 2006, $999k worth of pixels had been sold. Alex capitalized on the huge buzz and auctioned off the last 1000 pixels on eBay for $38k bringing his total haul to just over $1MM

He had made his first million. But the story doesn’t end there…

Alex has spoken publicly about how during this period he wasn’t eating or sleeping well and was letting his lifelong meditation regimen slip. This took a toll on his mental health so he decided to build another website, something beautifully simplistic again…

From day one Calm has offered a freemium model. A 10-minute guided meditation is available to everyone to get you accustomed to the product. Premium access unlocks unlimited meditation, Sleep Stories and other cool features.

Calm’s revenues have grown rapidly over the years culminating in what will be a profitable 2020:

2013 – $100k 2015 – $2MM 2016 – $7MM 2017 – $37MM 2019 – $92MM 2020 – $150MM