SKY News
14:33 UK, Thursday October 06, 2005
A university student is set to become a millionaire before he graduates after making a fortune from a bizarre website he set up in his spare time.
Alex Tew, 21, a first year business studies student at Nottingham University, made £150,000 in the past month selling pixels on a computer screen to advertisers.
"I knew that if I could get some interest out there and get people looking at the site then the pixels I was selling would have value," he said.
"I thought it would work to a degree but not to the degree that it has."
Alex's website,
milliondollarhomepage.com, is divided into 10,000 squares - each one consisting of 100 pixels - and each square costs $1 to buy.
Advertisers have to buy a minimum of 100 squares, but the more they buy, the bigger their advert appears on his website.
Alex was overdrawn when he started university but his lecturers say he is well on his way to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
"It's a fantastic idea and like most really good ideas it's so simple, so effective and also so rapid in its impact," said business expert, Professor Martin Binks.
The site has already attracted plenty of business and Alex aims to make $1m by the end of his degree to finance his studies.
The National Union of Students say 90% of students are in debt. But the only money worries Alex now has is what to spend it all on.
