Steve Caunce

…who joined AO as Finance Director when turnover was £8m, losses were very significant, and the business was in danger of going out of business, needing to be fixed fast. Steve helped stop the financial chaos leading to losing so much money so fast, but together with John, the founder and CEO, were then dealt another blow as the source of half of their revenue at the time, selling appliances white labelled through Sainsbury’s, was taken away as they gave 6 months notice. John was great at ideas, Steve had learned he was great at execution. The story that followed saw them first create the Appliances Online brand to replace Sainsbury’s then working at continually getting better at what really mattered to customers – best prices, biggest range, fastest and most reliable delivery. They did this in lots of ways and not always systematic – eg learning by accident that as-new appliances that had been returned and so were in stock, then advertised with immediate availability, flew out of the door. So did more and realised 24 hr delivery guaranteed really mattered in white goods where it’s a disaster when something breaks. They then recognised that others could copy, so found a 4th thing to get best at – service & experience. The home delivery part of this was also learned partly by accident. If a delivery was going to be late, then they would send a van with only one product on board specifically to make sure the customer was not let down. One, to Cornwall, cost £600 and they had to stop it happening… They looked at 1,000 orders and found 25% were not delivered as promised. So then they found out all the reasons why and little-by-little chipped away at the issues. This was learning to do things properly – things that mattered that became competitive advantages. They had made an ad to shout about it but when the ad was finished and paid for, the business wasn’t good enough at doing it. So they had to stop with all the disappointment of postponing it until the business could make the promise true. Three months later they did and it ran. They also learned from near misses – they nearly went into the furniture business and had decided to buy one. But then they met the CEO at B&M Bargains who asked what they were doing – they only had 3-4% of the appliance market – it should be 15-20%. They changed their minds and focused on the core. Growth rocketed and the business would have failed if it had got into furniture. The IPO in 2014 valued the business at over £1bn and Steve subsequently became CEO, leaving in 2019 to start investing in early stage businesses.