Co-founder Bruce Jackson looks back at some great memories and some big changes over the last 12 years.
Happy birthday to The Motley Fool UK. We are 12 years old today.
It has been an exciting journey. My fellow co-founder David Berger talks more about the humble beginnings in a very special edition of our highly popular MoneyTalk podcast, but these are few of my own early memories…
- Discovering the internet via a Mosaic browser -- it was a slow, slow, slow experience.
- Wondering how an email could be sent from the US to the UK, and back again.
- First meeting David Berger and US co-founder David Gardner in a pizza restaurant in Clapham. It was a meal that forever changed my life, infinitely for the better.
- Driving down to Devon in a (borrowed) sports car to meet with David Berger to plan the launch of Fool UK. After a productive session on the Saturday, we awoke that Sunday morning to the news of the death of Princess Diana. It was a sombre drive back to London.
- The day we went live on the AOL service. Early in the morning, I was at AOL HQ in Fulham to 'flick the switch'. Then it was back to my day job (from where I couldn't access AOL), before rushing home to be greeted by a stack of emails, and an even bigger stack of message board posts. We were off and running.
- At my day job, I used Ceefax and a site called ESI to track the stock markets. It was slow, painful going. I would cobble together an article, email it to one of our US editors and by the time I'd ridden home, they'd put it live on AOL. The phrase sub-optimal springs to mind.
- Fool HQ began in my Paddington, London bedsit. It moved with me to Kilburn and expanded into my front room. David Berger would travel up from Devon each Monday morning and together we'd plot world Foolish domination. We shared a single, dial-up phone line. Monday evenings we'd have a pizza and Peroni at a local restaurant, talk more shop, and David would sleep the night in the front room on a very old de-sprung single mattress. I hope your back is better these days David.
Who Could Ever Forget…
I could go on reminiscing. There are so many great memories. For example, who could ever forget the very first version of the ever popular 10 Steps To Investing Foolishly? Pure David Berger.
Or the ongoing battles with the IFA industry, as we encouraged thousands of people to say no to endowment mortgages, no to commissions, and to be their own financial advisor?
The podcast has more memories, including the huge success of our books. Brilliantly written by David Berger, The Motley Fool UK Investment Guide sold over 200,000 copies, and really put our company on the map. Without the success of that book, it's doubtful we'd be here today.
The First 5 Years
Way back in 2002 I wrote a long piece titled Five Years Of The Fool. It chronicled our early years in some detail, including the painful dot com bust, but ending with us being profitable and on the up.
And what a rise it was. In the wake of the dot com bust and the falling stock market, we made a decision to focus our business around the much more popular personal finance market. We became a one-stop shop for all your credit cards, mortgages, loans and savings accounts news and products.
Where once we were writing stories about the daily machinations of the stock market, we were now writing about money-saving tips, the way to make the most out of your credit card, and about the latest, greatest and lowest personal loan rate.
Stoozing
In hindsight, we were in at the start of the massive credit expansion that ended up spectacularly exploding in everyone's face just over a year ago. The 0% credit card with its ever longer interest-free period (I think 18 months was the longest) encouraged millions of consumers to take advantage of the bank's generosity, spending it large and not having to pay a penny of interest.
Who can forget stoozing, where banks would actually transfer money to your new 12 months 0% credit card, and you could then move that money into a high-interest savings account or to an offset mortgage, making or saving yourself thousands of pounds, before paying it back in full to the credit card company once the 12 month interest-free period expired?
No wonder it all ended in tears for the banks! But it was fun whilst it lasted, as long as you remained very disciplined, which I'm sure some people didn't.
2 Million Members And Counting
Business-wise, and popularity-wise, the credit expansion years were very good to The Motley Fool UK. We aggressively grew our database to well above 2 million members. We were very profitable. We were expanding, and moved to new, bigger offices. The site was constantly improving and evolving, as were the products and services we were rolling out on a regular basis.
Times were good. But one thing was not quite right. The Motley Fool is a global organisation, with its HQ in Virginia, USA. Its motto was always to 'educate, amuse and enrich'. Its focus was the stock market, and on building the world's greatest financial community.
Yet at fool.co.uk we were attempting to build the UK's greatest personal finance information, comment, opinion and comparison site. The word alignment didn't obviously spring to mind.
Returning To Our Roots
So, at the beginning of this year, the decision was made to spin-off the personal finance business into lovemoney.com, a brand new site for all your everyday money needs.
The Motley Fool UK returned to its original investing roots. We write exclusively about the stock market and its myriad of opportunities and traps. We've even got some old timers (apart from myself) back writing on the site, including Stuart Watson, Alan Oscroft and the ever-forthright Stephen Bland.
The services of our resident media-guru David Kuo are in demand more than ever. He's a popular spokesperson on the BBC, Sky News and CNBC, just to name a few.
Maynard Paton has been with The Motley Fool UK for over 10 years, soldiering on through the dark (for him) days when 0% credit cards ruled over great companies like Capita Group (LSE: CPI) and Autonomy (LSE: AU).
Today, the future looks brighter than ever at The Motley Fool UK. We're completely aligned with the strategy and focus of our US parent, and as such able to better leverage their technical resources.
Champion Shares, our premium stock-picking newsletter service, is going from strength to strength and hitting new record member numbers. You can take out a free 30-day trial today and see all our latest recommendations.
We are 12 years old today, but we are still such a young company. We've achieved a lot, but there is still so much more to do. The past year has been tough for stock market investors, and who knows what the future holds, but we do seem to be past the worst and things are looking infinitely brighter than they were just a few months ago.
A Big Thank You
In the years ahead, we aim to keep you educated, amused and enriched via all the content you read on the site today. Our award-winning discussion boards continue to go from strength to strength. Our Motley Fool Sharedealing Service is more popular than ever, no doubt helped by the recovering stock market, but also because at £10 a trade and free to open, it is one of the cheapest services of the market.
The staff here at The Motley Fool are the most incredibly loyal and hard working people I've had the pleasure to work with. It truly is a unique organisation with a unique and special culture.
Finally, we obviously couldn't have done it without you, our loyal readers and customers, many of whom have been with us from the very beginning. We thank you for continuing to support us as we continue on our quest to educate, amuse and enrich.
After the past year on the stock markets, we're aware we've all got some work to do on the enrichment side, but hopefully you'll continue to follow us on this, our never-ending Foolish journey.
Happy 12th birthday, Motley Fool UK. As ever, please leave comments, ideas, spare change and suggestions in the boxes below.
> Listen to Fool UK's other co-founder, David Berger, in this podcast
> A birthday confession from Fool UK's new(ish) MD David Forrest
