From $0 to a $1 Billion Valuation in 7 Years: How the Co-Founder of the Calm App Pivoted From Online Games to Meditation. Before co-founding the unicorn company Calm, Michael Acton Smith ran the online gaming company that created Moshi Monsters, a U.K. Here's his story.

Michael at the Web Summit 2018

Michael Acton SmithOBE (born 1974) is the current co-CEO and co-Founder of Calm, a meditation space company.[1] He is also the founder of Firebox.com,[2] and founder and chairman of children's entertainment company Mind Candy – the creators of Moshi Monsters.[3] He has been described by The Daily Telegraph as 'a rock star version of Willy Wonka'[4] and by The Independent as 'a polite version of Bob Geldof.'[5]

Career[edit]

In 1998, Acton Smith co-founded online gadget and gift retailer Firebox.com with Tom Boardman.[6] In 2004, Firebox was listed on The Sunday Times' 'Fast Track 100' list of the fastest growing, privately owned business in the UK.[7]

In 2004, Acton Smith secured $10M backing and launched Mind Candy.[8] The company launched alternate reality game Perplex City, a global treasure hunt with £100,000 buried somewhere in the world that played out across various media including websites, text messages, magazines, live events, skywriting and multiple helicopters. The game was nominated for a BAFTA award in 2006.[9] After three years (and $9M spent) Perplex City was placed on indefinite hold.[5]

In 2007 Acton Smith launched online world Moshi Monsters. Today, Moshi Monsters has over 90 million users around the world.[10] It has expanded offline[11] into selling a range of products including toys, a kids magazine in the UK,[12] a DS video game,[13] a top 5 music album which has gone gold in the UK,[14] books, membership cards, and trading cards. In December 2013, Moshi Monsters teamed with Universal to release a full-length feature movie.[15]

In late 2012 Acton Smith co-founded Calm.com, along with Alex Tew.[16] In 2013 the company announced a $450,000 funding round from a group of Angel investors.[17] By 2015, Calm had reached 2 million downloads worldwide and, after winning a British competition, launched the world's first 'slow TV Ad'.[18] That same year, Acton Smith released a book with Penguin called Calm: Calm the Mind, Change the World.[19] It was published in 12 countries.[20]

In July 2017, the release of Baa Baa Land, an eight-hour slow cinema film, was announced with Acton Smith as Executive Producer.[21]

Acton Smith is also the founder of Ping Pong Fight Club,[22] Silicon Drinkabout,[23] and the Berwickstock Festival.[24] He was awarded a BAFTA in 2013 for Moshi Monsters[25] and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to the creative industries.[26]

References[edit]

  1. ^'That One Time I Was Tucked In By A Startup'. Techcrunch. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  2. ^'Moshi Monsters makes it third time lucky for dotcom entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith'. telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
  3. ^'Mind Candy appoints Ian Chambers as new CEO'. Licensing.biz. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  4. ^'The man who gave birth to Moshi Monsters'. Telegraph. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  5. ^ ab'The man who aims to hide a monster under every bed – Business Analysis & Features – Business'. The Independent. 17 July 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  6. ^Cellan-Jones, Rory (31 December 2011). 'The Moshi Monsters mogul'. BBC News. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  7. ^'Directorzone'. www.director-zone.com. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  8. ^Hannah Prevett (19 August 2012). 'A monster success'. Elitebusinessmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  9. ^'Mind Candy: Michael Acton Smith – Startups.co.uk: Starting a business advice and business ideas'. Startups.co.uk. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  10. ^Mike Butcher (2 May 2013). 'As Moshi Monsters Hits 5 years, Can it pull of Three new games?'. TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  11. ^Jemima Kiss. 'Moshi Monsters plans move into online children's TV | Media'. The Guardian. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  12. ^'ABC Figures Reveal Moshi Monsters Magazine is the Best Selling Children's Magazine in the UK'. Bloomberg. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  13. ^Tyler, Lewis (30 April 2012). 'Moshi Monsters video game breaks chart record | Latest news from the toy industry | ToyNews'. Toynews-online.biz. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  14. ^Pakinkis, Tom. 'Moshi Monsters album goes Gold – with no promotional airplay'. Music Week. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  15. ^James Batchelor (20 August 2013). 'Moshia Monsters The Movie Hits Cinemas This Christmas'. MCV UK.
  16. ^'Executives Need to Find Calm in a Stormy World'. Forbes.com. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  17. ^Sarah Perez (26 February 2013). 'Relaxation Calm.com Launches iPhone App that Helps you Chill, Grabs $415K in Angel Funding'. TechCrunch. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  18. ^'calm.com relaxation app unveils world-first two-minute 'slow TV' ad'. thedrum.com. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
  19. ^Calm: Calm the Mind, Change the World
  20. ^Ashley Macey (6 February 2016). 'This New Journal Will Teach You to Be More Mindful'. Brit+Co.
  21. ^Hanrahan, Mark (19 July 2017). 'Is this eight-hour sheep epic `the dullest movie ever'?'. Reuters. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
  22. ^Kevin Maher (13 February 2014). 'Inside London's Silicon Roundabout'. Esquire. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  23. ^Josh Halliday (17 July 2011). 'Mind Candy – the monster that lurks on Silicon Roundabout'. The Guardian.
  24. ^Judy Bevan (16 July 2011). 'The Man Who Aims To Hide A Monster Under Every Bed'. independent.
  25. ^Leo Kelion (30 December 2013). 'Moshi Monster Founder and ARM's Ex-Boss Honoured'. BBC.
  26. ^'No. 60728'. The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2013. p. 14.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Acton_Smith&oldid=944293646'

EvanTubeHD is a YouTube channel run by Jared and Evan, father and son. They are uploading videos which content is reviewing toys.

Bio

Moshi monsters not working

Evan was born on December 6, 2005, in Pennsylvania, which is located in the United States. His father Jared is a filmmaker, and together with Evan, his wife Alisa and their other child, Jillian, have a number of YouTube channels with various content. Jared and Alisa are known as DaddyTube and MommyTube, and they are both YouTube celebrities. In addition to Evan and Jillian, they have another child called Chloe.

There isn’t much information about Evan’s educational background, but we can assume that he is going to some local school somewhere in his city.

Beginning

Evan and Jared started making videos in 2011, and Jared didn’t know anything about monetizing videos. When the channel started attracting more and more subscribers, he noticed that there is some monetize option, and he wanted to try it out. That is when he realized that they could actually make some money out of their YouTube uploads. Evan’s first video was titled “Angry Birds Stop Motion by EvanTubeHD – My very first YouTube Video!”

YouTube

EvanTubeHD is Evan’s creation, and everything started when Evan asked his father Jared one day if he could make a video together with him. Jared was excited to do it, as he was a filmmaker, and he enjoys spending time with his son. When Jared added some special effects in the first couple of videos, people started watching them and immediately fell in love. It was about reviewing toys. It sounds simple, but the two created such amazing content, that Evan’s popularity only grew bigger and bigger as time went by. At first, it was Angry Birds toys, but now that collection includes Lego, Moshi Monsters and Star War toys amongst others.

After toy reviewing, Evan went on with some science experiments and some clay modeling. Due to the fact that there was some new content involved, he started getting more and more subscribers, and thus his fame just grew. Evan decided to create separate YouTube accounts for various content, and so today we have EvanTubeGAMING that is made just for games. There Evan posts videos with him playing video and computer games like Minecraft, Disney Infinity, Roblox, Skylanders amongst others.

Another channel is called EvanTubeRAW, and that is for vlogging purposes. There you can see things that Evan does in his ordinary everyday life. When he visited LEGOLAND in California, he created a video about it and uploaded it to this vlogging channel.

Evan and his sister Jillian are doing various things together too, and that can also be seen on YouTube. Jillian has her separate YouTube account, called JillianTubeHD.

Acting

Moshi Monsters Net Worth 2016

Evan’s YouTube fame even got him into some acting career. In an animated movie called Beyond Beyond, Evan gave his voice to the main character named Jonah. Evan was also found himself in a deal for an ad for Spy Gear. Evan and Jillian were once guests for Jimmy Fallon and his television talk show. The first acting experience that Evan had was in ‘The Fixits,’ which premiered on Disney XD channel. “The Fixits’ is a fantasy and adventure series created by Disney.

EvanTubeHD Net Worth 2020

Moshi Monsters Net Worth 2018

Evan is currently four feet high and weighs 40 kg, but considering that he is just a child, he will grow and gain more weight. Evan has dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. He is also active on social media and has a lot of followers. You can find him on Twitter, Instagram, and even musical.ly, where he is a big hit.

EvanTubeHD has more than eight million subscribers by now. Just from ads on their videos, the channel is earning around $4000 a day. That makes it $1.5 million annually.

Moshi Monsters Net Worth 2018

EvanTubeRAW, the vlogging channel, has 4.5 million subscribers, and the channel is getting about $2000 per day, which is $730,000 per year.

Moshi Monsters Net Worth 2017

EvanTubeGaming has 1.4 million subscribers now, and that gets Evan’s family a sum of $480 a day. In addition to YouTube, Evan and his family wealth come from other projects too, and we mentioned that Evan even got into some acting, too. With everything considered, the family’s estimated net worth in 2020 is around $15 million.

⇐ ⇐ Moshi Monsters Dead
⇒ ⇒ Moshi Monsters Last Moments