Alex Tew
{{Short description|English businessman (born 1984)}}
Alex Tew (born 1984) is a British entrepreneur and the co-founder of the meditation app Calm. He is known for The Million Dollar Homepage in 2005, at the age of 21, which earned him more than $1 million in five months.{{cite web |last1=Pierce |first1=Sarah |title=The Million-Dollar Home Page |url=https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/82936 |website=Entrepreneur |language=en |date=13 January 2006}}
Career
Alex Tew was raised in Wiltshire, England. He began meditating when he was fourteen and he frequently read books about concentration, memory, and cognition.{{cite news |last1=Garone |first1=Elizabeth |title=The man behind the million-dollar homepage |language=en |work=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160914-the-man-behind-the-million-dollar-homepage |access-date=30 July 2021}} He attended a business management program at the University of Nottingham before dropping out in December 2005.
After the success of The Million Dollar Homepage in 2005, Tew began several internet ventures including Pixelotto, which sold advertising space on websites. He founded humor-focused social network called PopJam, and a Million Dollar Homepage-inspired website site called One Million People which featured photos instead of advertisements.
In late 2008, he made a Flash game called Sock and Awe, a gamified version of the George W. Bush shoeing incident.
In 2011, while he was the CEO of PopJam, he and developer Ben Dowling created a site called "Do Nothing For 2 Minutes".{{Cite web |last=Tsotsis |first=Alexia |date=2011-01-21 |title=Creator Of Million Dollar Homepage Makes Do Nothing For 2 Minutes |url=https://techcrunch.com/2011/01/21/creator-of-million-dollar-homepage-makes-do-nothing-for-2-minutes/ |access-date=2023-12-22 |website=TechCrunch |language=en-US}}
Tew moved to San Francisco and in 2012, along with Michael Acton Smith, he co-founded Calm, a company that currently operates a meditation app. He serves as co-CEO.{{Cite web |title=Alex Tew, Calm.com Inc: Profile and Biography |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/22076354 |access-date=2023-12-22 |website=Bloomberg.com |language=en}}{{cite magazine |title=Alex Tew, creator of the Million Dollar Homepage, wants you to keep calm |url=https://www.wired.co.uk/article/visit-reload-and-refresh |access-date=30 July 2021 |magazine=Wired UK}}{{cite web |title=Alex Tew |url=https://smithandwilliamson.com/en/solutions/entrepreneurs/entrepreneurs-hall-of-fame/alex-tew/ |website=Smith & Williamson |access-date=30 July 2021 |language=en}}{{cite web |last1=DiPiazza |first1=Daniel |title=This Entrepreneur Skipped College and Made $1,037,100 In Five Months |url=https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/292422 |website=Entrepreneur |access-date=30 July 2021 |language=en |date=24 April 2017}}{{cite web |last1=Crockett |first1=Zachary |title=How the Million Dollar Homepage kid became the $250m app man |url=https://thehustle.co/million-dollar-homepage-alex-tew |website=The Hustle |date=12 May 2018}}{{cite news |first1=Callum |last1=Jones |title=Keeping Calm and carrying on with a long-term ambition |url=https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/markets/article/keeping-calm-and-carrying-on-with-a-long-term-ambition-qr7ggnh2v |access-date=30 July 2021 |language=en}}{{cite news |last1=Yiannopoulos |first1=Milo |title=Is Alex Tew the most annoying man on the internet? |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/8022539/Is-Alex-Tew-the-most-annoying-man-on-the-internet.html |access-date=30 July 2021 |work=www.telegraph.co.uk}}
References
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Category:English businesspeople
Category:British technology chief executives
Category:British technology company founders
Category:21st-century English businesspeople
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