Making a mint: Student ideas that made a fortune

You may have heard of Alex Tew. When a 21-year-old student in business management at Nottingham University, he famously started the “Million Dollar Homepage”, a website which sold advertising space by the pixel for $1, in minimum of 100 pixels (10x10 blocks).

He came up with the idea purely because he couldn't stand the thought of paying off his student loan for a large portion of his life and because he needed some new socks.

Once the media heard about it, interest soared, and within six months he made his million dollars. As it happens, Tew only stayed on his course for one term before he had to pull out due to the massive media attention, and more lucrative offers. I don't blame him. Sitting on a million dollars must make it that little bit harder to concentrate in morning lectures.

However, the Million Dollar Homepage pales in comparison to the projected $350 million dollars in revenue (for 2008) generated by the greatest student idea of them all – you guessed it – Facebook.

Set up by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 from his Harvard dorm room as a way to connect Harvard students, the social networking site now boasts 62 million active users worldwide, and has made its creator a billionnaire.

A relatively simple idea that reportedly took just two weeks to write the code for, many students are now kicking themselves that they didn't think of it first.

A few students may still be kicking themselves that they were not more careful with their intellectual property; several Harvard students have claimed that they were the originators of the idea. Some claimed Zuckerberg used large portions of the code from rival site Connectu.com, although these claims have been dismissed by courts.

In 2002, a music website that began life as university coursework sold to US media giant CBS for £140 million. Described as 'the lazy man's way to discover new music', the sale of Last.fm made the three IT experts behind it instant multi-millionaires.

Whilst studying computer science at the University of Southampton, Richard Jones created the original software program which builds a detailed profile of a person's musical tastes based on every song played on their iPod or computer. The information is then shared online, allowing the site to recommend similar bands

When trying to get the project off the ground the entrepreneurs lived in tents on the roof of their office because they could not afford to pay the rent on their own flats. The site now boasts more than 15 million users worldwide.

Although technically never a university student, this entrepreneur is certainly an inspiration to us all. Richard Branson has an estimated worth of over £4 billion according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

He published a magazine called Student at the age of just 16; went on to set up a charity for young people, the Student Advisory Centre at 17; and then a mail-order record business aged 20. By 21, he owned the chain of stores then branded as “Virgin Records”. Decades later, it is hard to find a market that Branson hasn't conquered, from airlines and credit cards to underwear and wine.

Even Branson and Zuckerberg had their setbacks. Branson was dyslexic and did not excel in school, leaving education at 15. By that time he had already failed in two business ventures, the first growing Christmas trees, and the second raising budgerigars.

Who can forget his four failed attempts to circumnavigate the globe non-stop by balloon? But would you call him a failure? Zuckerberg was kicked off the university network for breaching computer security and violating rules on Internet privacy, and has faced many lawsuits over original concept rights.

However, for all the success stories, some of you simply won't be the entrepreneurial type. Fear not, there may be other roads to a million. There is always the lucrative career as a game show contestant. Lydia Nash did just that, winning £32,000 on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

The psychology student from Wadham College, Oxford, considered buying a new laptop or a coat, but ended up giving away every penny – yes, every penny - to a children's home in Thailand. Each to their own I say.

If setting yourself up to possibly make a fool out of yourself on national television doesn't appeal, there are several low-profile ways to make a bit of money. Ebay really can turn unwanted items into cash. If you already have a website, Google adsense could make sense. Even filling out surveys day after day will eventually earn you that £5 HMV voucher. But where, may I ask, is the fun in that?

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