Michael Acton Smith moved from ecommerce and children’s gaming into Calm, turning a difficult chapter in one company into a very different idea about technology, attention and mental fitness.
Michael Acton Smith has spent most of his career building things people want to spend time with.
Firebox came first, followed by Mind Candy and Moshi Monsters – a children’s digital world that became one of Britain’s biggest entertainment properties of its moment.
Then smartphones transformed the market.
Mind Candy contracted sharply and Acton Smith has spoken about the personal strain of that period and the reassessment that followed.
Meditation entered the picture around the same time.
Calm, which he had co-founded with Alex Tew, moved from a relatively small project towards the centre of his attention. It went on to become a major global platform for meditation, sleep and mental fitness.
The move contains an interesting contradiction.
Acton Smith came from an industry built around winning attention. His next company asks what happens when people want some of that attention back.
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