Disclosure certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Michael Acton Smith: Mind Candy unraveled despite widespread public accolades

Michael Acton Smith · Calm: Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith · May 26, 2025 · at 33:29

Michael Acton Smith, co-founder of Calm, describes the disconnect between public hype and internal collapse at his gaming startup Mind Candy.

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“I was on billboards and posters around East London. I was being interviewed on TV shows winning awards left, right, and center, but knowing in the pit of my stomach and at four a.m. That this was unraveling and this was falling apart.”

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More from Michael Acton Smith

What-if
Acton Smith: Not selling Mind Candy to Disney was probably a mistake
“When you're an entrepreneur, you do need to think of all the stakeholders and investors and employees. Not selling was probably a mistake in hindsight.”
Michael Acton Smith May 26, 2025 ▶ 32:14 Calm: Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith
Disclosure
Acton Smith bought Calm.com for $140,000 using his house deposit
“I think 140,000 dollars, about, he sold it for. About that, yeah. I would, I earmarked that money for a deposit for a house”
Michael Acton Smith May 26, 2025 ▶ 40:40 Calm: Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith
Opinion
Acton Smith: Silicon Valley offered scaling talent and openness lacking in London
“Silicon Valley was the place to build this business. You know, the, there was more investors who were open to ideas like this. The climate was more open to it as well. A lot of our friends and people we knew in London were very, very skeptical of meditation an…”
Michael Acton Smith May 26, 2025 ▶ 49:59 Calm: Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith
Opinion
Acton Smith: Calm's target market is anyone with a mind
“The market we did feel was absolutely enormous. It wasn't just the people who are meditating. It was, you Pretty much anyone with a mind. So we felt there were going to be multiple winners. Not a winner takes all market, but a winner takes most.”
Michael Acton Smith May 26, 2025 ▶ 52:47 Calm: Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith
Assertion Supported
Acton Smith: Calm's revenue surged from $7M to $21M to $80M
“So our revenue went from, you know, seven million to twenty one million to eighty million.”
Michael Acton Smith May 26, 2025 ▶ 1:02:54 Calm: Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith
Assertion Supported
Mind Candy buried a $200,000 treasure for game Perplex City
“So that's what Perplex City was, and to cut a very, very long story short, we buried a treasure worth 200,000 dollars somewhere in the world, and then we set about releasing clues across all sorts of different media.”
Michael Acton Smith May 26, 2025 ▶ 20:03 Calm: Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith
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