❝Story03:30
The 16-hour day: building Myprotein around a full-time dev job
Cookson kept his job as a web developer while launching Myprotein, doing 8-10 hour days at work and building the site, blending the product and running fulfilment around it. He got up at 4-5am to print works orders and blend product at his unit, went to his job, came back to package boxes for the Parcel Force collection, then did customer service, purchasing, web development and marketing at home. He wrote an algorithm that grouped orders and calculated flavouring quantities so the pick-and-blend was systematic rather than done with a calculator.
“So, to do a full-time job and that at the same time, it's it's literally impossible to do it in less than 16 hours days.”
“So I got up at 4:00 or 5:00 went to my my unit which is the size of this room um and did the orders…”
❝Story12:30
One GCSE, an apprenticeship, and learning to code as the real moat
Cookson left school at 16 with one GCSE, tried college IT and was refused entry to the higher class despite already building computers, and walked out. A modern apprenticeship as a junior programmer on IDE drivers gave him an NVQ level 3 — and, more importantly, he says, an education in office politics and how workplace dynamics flow. Introduced to the web around 1997, he taught himself Perl, JavaScript, HTML, Java, ColdFusion and MySQL from a book, and had seven years of building sites (including work on bbc.com and jessops.com) before Myprotein. Ali notes the same pattern in Ben Francis of Gymshark and in his own start.
“What I did learn there which was absolutely key was the the dynamics of office politics.”
“To make a website back in 2004, there was none of those pop-up websites, Shopify or or WooCommerce, whatever there is.”
❝Story08:30
The kitchen eureka: whey protein is a byproduct of cheese
Making his bedtime shake in his mother's kitchen on a Thursday night around 2002-03, Cookson turned over his MaxiMuscle tub and asked what whey protein actually is. The label read whey protein, flavouring, sweetener, fillers and vitamins. Researching it, he found whey is the liquid left when cheese is made — a byproduct that had been thrown away a decade earlier, and which when filtered enough becomes a highly bioavailable protein used in baby food and sports nutrition. That reframing from proprietary formula to commodity input is what opened the opportunity.
“And I said, "What is actually whey protein?"”
“Now, whey protein is actually a byproduct of cheese.”
❝Story21:30
Made to order: why it was called MY protein
The name encoded the second USP: off-the-shelf protein is sold identically to a 16-year-old who weighs eight stone and an 18-stone seasoned bodybuilder. Cookson let customers choose unflavoured, light, medium or heavy flavouring, and zero, some or lots of sweetener — the tea-and-sugar analogy. That personalisation is precisely why the site had to be custom-built rather than bought off the peg. Fulfilment was equally primitive: powders weighed on scales into a 20-litre Wickes paint bucket, shaken vigorously for 20 seconds by hand, no machinery.
“it was called Myprotein for a reason it was called Myprotein cuz I wanted protein for you.”
“And that was so everything was made to order.”
❝Story29:00
First customers: a MuscleTalk sticky post and early Google AdWords
Two channels produced customers from day one. Cookson championed Google AdWords when it was new, built and personally managed the account until finally delegating it in 2009, and held a £2.34 cost per acquisition excluding brand terms all the way through. The bigger driver was MuscleTalk, a vBulletin bodybuilding forum with tens of thousands of members, where he paid a trivial sum to James — later a co-founder of Huel — for a sticky post with a strong introductory offer, selling whey at a third of competitor prices with a full certificate of analysis. Early adopters in tight communities, he notes, become the best ambassadors, the same way cyclists championed Wiggle.
“So Google AdWords was something I really championed in those early days 2003 four it was pretty pretty new.”
“I approached a guy called James, which is one of co-founders of Huel actually.”
❝Story46:00
Walking out when private equity chipped the multiple
Cookson signed a 30-day exclusivity period with a private equity house for deep due diligence, warning them upfront that the process would consume management time and that growth would soften — and getting agreement that this would be taken in the round. Due diligence took 90-95% of every working day. At the end, the buyer looked him in the eye and said the numbers had flattened and the multiple needed reworking. Cookson stopped the meeting on the spot, on the grounds that a partner negotiating in sales mode could not be trusted. The firm later told him Myprotein was the one that got away.
“"Oliver, the it's flattened off the numbers. We're going to have to rework your multiple."”
“Since then they've actually told me we were the one that got away and we shouldn't have tried that little trick on you.”
❝Story50:00
The Hut Group deal: £34m cash, rolled equity, and £289m nine years later
After roughly 25-30+ approaches including Pepsi and Nestlé as trade buyers, and 17 private equity houses offering minority stakes, the process collapsed back to square one. The Hut Group arrived at the eleventh hour with a clean bid: no provisions, freedom to leave or stay. Around £34m cash on day one with about half the value rolled into The Hut Group for roughly 14% of it. Cookson says Myprotein was then bigger and more profitable than The Hut Group, which was selling CDs online and, contrary to what was presented, was making minus one rather than 3-4 million. He sold £289m of shares at the float in September the previous year and still holds a chunk.
“The deal was around about 34 million quid cash day one and then the rest of the value of the business which was about half…”
“But I sold 289 worth of shares in the Hut Group.”