A pound coin bought the whole thing. On Christmas Eve 1999 John Roberts had a drink with his friend Alan Latchford, and the friend bet him GBP1 that he could not start a business selling white goods online. Roberts took the bet. By 2000 the company existed.
He was not new to work. His first job, at 14, was as a waiter at the Last Drop Hotel in Bolton. Where he went to school, or what his parents did, I could not verify, so the story sits on the first job and the bet.
The same year it raised GBP40m and cut GBP30m of costs, after a full-year loss.
The first version was called Appliances Online. It sold fridges and washing machines direct and also for other retailers including Next, House of Fraser and B&Q. Latchford joined as a co-founder, but the friendship was shorter than the company: he left in 2006 for health reasons, and he died in 2020. Roberts has carried the pound-coin story since.
The turn was not a website. It was control of the delivery. In 2009 the firm bought Expert Logistics, so its own vans handled the item at the door, and in 2013 it rebranded as AO.com. In February 2014 it floated in London to fund European expansion.
Then came the cost of ambition. A Dutch site was announced in 2015 and a German headquarters in Bergheim opened in 2016. Roberts stepped down as chief executive in 2017, and when Steve Caunce left in January 2019 he came back. In November 2019 AO said it would close the Dutch business, and in June 2022 it shut Germany, which was about 10% of group revenue. The same year it raised GBP40m and cut GBP30m of costs, after a full-year loss.
It has since done what it said: focus on cash. For FY2026 it reported revenue of GBP1,266.6m and net income of GBP35.9m. Roberts still owns about 18.3%, and Frasers Group holds about 25%.
The lesson lies in the smallness of the start. A bet of GBP1 does not need to be big; it needs to be taken. And the founder who walks away from the controls is sometimes the one who has to come back for them.