Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM however the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today, I am very pleased to say is Gush Mundae, founder of Bulletproof, a brand design agency with eight studios across the globe.
Having left India at the age of five and moved to London with his family, Gush faced a country and language he didn’t understand as well as widespread racism, but finding solace and identity in graffiti and hip-hop culture during his teenage years and inspired by his art teacher to focus his talent, Gush started graphic design and typography, then joined various design and advertising agencies. Unable to find an agency that did global work with the culture he was after, Gush convinced his art college friend Jonny Stewart to join him in business and the pair launched Bulletproof in 1998, working seventeen hour days for two years before landing their first major client, none other than Coca-Cola. Bulletproof now have studios in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Melbourne, New York, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney, serving their global clients including Booking.com, Diageo and Liverpool FC. It’s lovely to have you here.
Gush Mundae
Thank you.
Elliot Moss
In your own words, what is Bulletproof? What does it do?
Gush Mundae
Bulletproof is a brand agency. We create desire through disruption. So…
Elliot Moss
You’ve said that before haven’t you.
Gush Mundae
We kind of live by it.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Gush Mundae
You know, we, it’s a premise that all human beings, no matter how complicated life gets and technology becomes, you know becomes part of what we do, we are still very basic creatures so, we desire first, we justify second. Doesn’t matter how big that decision is or how small, it’s made with heart over head, every, every time. So, even if you’re, you know if you, you’re purchasing an apartment for example, there’s something in you which says this is the right one, this is it, you know, you feel it’s right and then your head justifies the reasons for it, well it’s really near to a school, there’s a brilliant pub round the corner, there’s a new café opening up, it’s very near the tube station, whatever that is, so…
Elliot Moss
It’s the fast and slow thinking thing though that came and talked about in essence, you’re trying to balance one or the other but in your business it’s all about go with the instinct.
Gush Mundae
Yeah, it’s, it’s, I believe human beings are instinctive creatures and we’re led by that so that’s why we create desire and we do it in a disruptive way.
Elliot Moss
And what is it that you’re doing? You’re designing packaging?
Gush Mundae
We’re, we’re designing, well, we’re basically, we’re a strategy and brand design business so we position brands, reposition brands, we find white spaces to validate for brands and create new brands as well, as well as creating everything from the brand, the concept, right the way through to the campaign and launch material. So, it’s, it’s end to end and we do that mostly all in-house so there’s very little we do out of house. We’ve got a digital team, social teams, we’ve got motion, everything in between.
Elliot Moss
And when you were a small boy…
Gush Mundae
Yes.
Elliot Moss
…is this what you knew you’d be doing in life?
Gush Mundae
No.
Elliot Moss
What, what was the young… we’ll come back, I want to come back eventually, very quickly to coming from India, being born in India, arriving aged five but in your later kind of teens and as you moved towards your twenties, what did you think you’d be doing in life?
Gush Mundae
I knew it was art based, I didn’t know what it would be or what it was called so, I knew that I had a talent in art. So, school, you know education wasn’t great for me, didn’t work out very well, we can talk about that, but so I knew I was good at drawing shall we say, so I was good at that and so I focussed on that and with graffiti, with graffiti art, that became one of my reasons that, I mean I just, I just loved it, you know I loved that culture, I loved the creativity of it and I loved being even an outsider in that world a little bit, you know because there are not many Indian kids with a spray can who can, who can do something beautiful, amazing, imaginative and so I was a bit of an outsider then, so I loved proving myself in that so, there wasn’t really a huge plan, you know when you’re like fifteen, sixteen, there wasn’t, there wasn’t a huge plan, I knew what I was good at and I knew what I wasn’t good at, you know.
Elliot Moss
Recently I went on a graffiti and street art talk in the East End where I saw Osh and I saw some other, and obviously Banksy but other people and it was hours with my daughter, it’s phenomenal and that’s a brilliant way of living ones life but you decided to, someone helped you say you know what you’ve got a talent but why don’t you apply it over here. Do you remember how you got to taking that graffiti talent and converting it into a more commercial thing?
Gush Mundae
Yeah, very much. So, it was my art teacher, Mr Moffat, who always kind of looked out for me and was seeing that I was hanging out with the wrong, the wrong crowd, as you do, you know, and just that…
Elliot Moss
You say “as you do” but some, I want to talk about that as well so we’ll come back to why you got into the wrong crowd but yes, carry on.
Gush Mundae
And so he, he just sat me down and what he did was, he spoke to me like an adult and he just said “listen, you’re a talented boy but I’ve got news for you, talent is everywhere and if you don’t harness it, you’re going to squander it and you won’t regret it now but you will later, I’ve seen it a lot” and he said “would you please meet with a lady who I used to teach, she’s teaching the Fine Art course at Hounslow College”, which is now West Thames, “would you go and see her.” So I did because I trusted him, so I went to see her and she said “look, I love your work, it’s great but it’s very graphic” and I didn’t know what that meant, you know, and she said “so, my counterpart on the graphic design course, I think you’d be right for that, would you see her” so I said yeah sure, you know and then I went to see this lady called Linda and she said “look I love your work, it’s great, you know, it is very graphic” and I was like I don’t understand what that means and she was like “look, you know, you could design brochures” and I was like nah, you know, she was like “you could design posters and…” and I was like nah, doesn’t do anything for me and then she went “you could design album covers” and I was like what? And she was like “yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a thing, you know, you can”, I was like so I get paid to design what, album covers? And she was like “yeah, yeah, it’s a whole industry” and I was like okay, that’s it, I’m in, I’m in, that was the hook, you know because I love music.
Elliot Moss
And how old were you then?
Gush Mundae
I was, I was sixteen then, you know and she was like yeah but then she said also, look, the one thing is also, school you have to be in, this is higher education, she was like so, I see you’re very truant, you know your record’s not great, I’m only seeing you because of this recommendation so, she was like here, if you don’t turn up, we kick you off, that’s a thing so, you’ve got to work on that, you’ve got to be here, you’ve got to be present you know, I’m not, I’m not suffering any fools and she didn’t you know and so I was like okay, you know I was like alright so, school wasn’t great, I wasn’t, I wasn’t turning up a lot you know and, and…
Elliot Moss
And the wrong crowd bit so, so, obviously as I mentioned and as I mentioned in the intro, you land from India from Delhi, aged five, you then have to work out what’s going on in a country which is cold in many, many, many ways.
Gush Mundae
Very.
Elliot Moss
Literally, metaphorically, and then is it coincidence you end up in the wrong crowd ten years later? Because that’s not the story of every immigrant from India obviously.
Gush Mundae
I don’t think it is, yeah, it’s…
Elliot Moss
But your story was that so, why?
Gush Mundae
So, I think it’s a case of never really fitting in, you know, never really feeling like I’m, I belong, you know, at all so, in school for example, I couldn’t speak English right so, you know I could speak four, four dialects, you know, Indian dialects, I couldn’t speak English and so I remember very distinctly being, being called out at school and my teacher making me stand up to read you know a paragraph from a book, you know, and I can’t read, right, and she wants to see where I am, how advanced I am or not, you know, I can’t read and so all the children are laughing, you know, and she’s not exactly not laughing so, at that moment I’m thinking I don’t want to be here, right, and I’m about nine at this, at this point, you know, eight, nine, and I’m like I don’t want to be here and those things never leave you, you know, those, those feelings never, never leave you so, I just, I basically ran out of class and I went, I remember going to the park for a bit and then went home, kind of at home time so it didn’t look like I had basically skipped school, you know, and that caught up with me in the end and I had it out with my father and I just said I don’t want to do it, you know I don’t want to do this and, it’s very difficult I think for an educated man to hear from his son.
Elliot Moss
And your father had a doctorate.
Gush Mundae
My father had a doctorate, yeah, and really believed in education, you know, so because that’s the, that’s the kind of, I think the old school, and still the new school kind of Indian way of thinking, you know, the way for progress in India is through education, you know you’re taught that very early on and so here’s his son going I don’t want to go to school, I don’t want to learn, it’s not for me, you don’t understand and…
Elliot Moss
But actually, and we’ll come back to this, the truth was it wasn’t about that, it was about the way that you were made to feel.
Gush Mundae
Yeah, way I’m made to feel, yeah and so for a long time I didn’t read, you know, and so I learned to read off of comic books and then graphic novels, you know, so very visual you know and small soundbites, you know small snippets, that’s how I learned, and now I love reading so I grew up thinking I don’t like reading, I mean I thought like that for about thirty years.
Elliot Moss
Wow!
Gush Mundae
I hadn’t picked up a book in about, you know, in my early thirties, hadn’t read a book, nothing, now I love reading, I love it, you know especially business books, books about entrepreneurs, books about interesting people. I don’t really read fiction, I still kind of read comic books for that if that’s the, you know, if that’s how I feel but yeah, I grew up, that never left me, still have that…
Elliot Moss
But I was going to say, but it started in that classroom. Stay with me for much more about the impact of various things on Gush’s life and how that has shaped him and helped him run and create this incredibly successful business, it’s called Bulletproof and he is the founder, he’s back in a couple of minutes. Right now though, we’re going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Innovation Sessions which you can find on all the major podcast platforms. Lydia Kellett invites business founders to share their industry insights and practical advice for those of you thinking about getting into an industry and starting your very own thing. In this clip we hear from Tariq Rauf, architect and founder and CEO of Qatalog, with a ‘Q’ by the way, a digital work hub aiming to give people a radically simpler way to coordinate work.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can catch this very programme again if you pop ‘Jazz Shapers’ into your podcast platform of choice. My guest today is, as you’ve been hearing I hope, is Gush Mundae, founder of Bulletproof, a brand design agency with eight studios across the globe. You were talking about that feeling in school, how have you taken that feeling forward into your business? Has it defined the way that you view the world?
Gush Mundae
Yeah, very much so. So, from a business perspective I learned very early on, I want everyone in that business to feel welcome, to feel engaged, to feel empowered from the very start and I’m very conscious of that, even today, so even today in any of our studios across the globe, if I see someone sitting in reception and they’re looking a little lost, they’re waiting for someone, I’ll always, I encourage everyone to go up and say, “Are you okay? Do you need a drink?” you know, whatever and that’s usually taken care of because the first thing they say is, “No, I’ve been looked after and I’ve got a coffee coming” or whatever that is but I always do that, I never want anyone to feel excluded in, in any situation in any of my businesses.
Elliot Moss
Let me just ask you a question then thinking about that. You’re an outsider by your own definition, immigrant, didn’t speak English, got pilloried at school and every step along the way you’ve got something from that, you’ve fought back, you’ve created something. Are you worried that whilst one would never want to inflict that and I’ve had my own version of, you know, racism and various things along the way, just because of the way I look. Would you, and I think it’s made me who I am, if it’s too comfortable and it’s too easy and there’s too much support, what happens then to that fight and that fire in the belly that you evidently have?
Gush Mundae
I think you lose it. Yeah, you lose it.
Elliot Moss
So what, for all those people that are sort of so managed and looked after, all that lovely inclusivity, which of course I agree with, is there a middle ground which you still keep a bit of discomfort in, because I think that’s what it feels like you’re talking about creativity, as you talk about creativity. Creativity comes from resolving a problem, it comes from breaking a convention, it comes from creating a new future, which again you and your business talk about. You can’t do that if you’re all relaxed and happy and cossetted.
Gush Mundae
I can’t, I can’t speak to that. I’ve never had that feeling.
Elliot Moss
But for all your people though, the way you want to make that environment, then what?
Gush Mundae
Well, I, well, I think, I think that’s a personal, I think that’s a personal stance. I want them to feel secure and you know happy but the challenge comes with the creative element you know in our business, it’s seeking that nugget that other businesses wouldn’t do, you know, so it’s that…
Elliot Moss
And how do you get to that nugget?
Gush Mundae
Well, it’s, it’s through boundless, it’s through endless research, you know, and finding that real truth within a business or a brand, you know, looking outside the obvious, you know, starting there, it’s a fine start point, it’s going out and being inspired, you know, walking, sometimes it’s the opposite of where you are, you know, trying to be inspired at a desk with a laptop is pretty awful, going out into nature sometimes is really helpful, that’s why all of our studios around the world, they’re in amazing, inspiring locations where you can go out and grab a coffee here, you can go and experience something there, you can walk amongst parks and you know everything else so that you can, you can think more freely because you can’t think in a confined way, you know.
Elliot Moss
And your clients benefit from that, the Toblerone’s and the Liverpool FC’s and the Johnnie Walker’s and all that.
Gush Mundae
Yeah, massively.
Elliot Moss
You talk about what you’re creating, which is space for people to feel at home with and I’ve read about you and how hard you’ve worked and I talked about the seventeen hour thing. How has your family experience shaped who you are now? I know you had a, a tragic loss, your son died around seven years ago, as a young, young teenager. How has that impacted the way you view the world and that you view work?
Gush Mundae
So, I mean it’s impacted it massively, you know, I don’t plan as much as I did, so I used to plan everything, you know, I planned to the nth degree, you know, so now I don’t, I plan you know maybe a few months ahead rather than a few years ahead, I don’t, it took all of that, you know, all of that out of me.
Elliot Moss
Because?
Gush Mundae
Because I had a plan for our whole family, you know, and what we’d be doing and that plan fell to pieces, you know, after that so, I just thought what’s the, what’s the point. You know, for a long time I just thought what’s the point, what’s the point of working so hard if I can’t give my family, those I love most, the best life possible, you know, my family is incredibly important to me, it’s the, they’re my gravity, you know, my wife, my wife always says you know you’re my rock, and I’m always like well you’re the gravity, you know, because without, rock just floats, you know, that’s the thing. So, my family is my gravity, you know and so, I live for them, you know, with them, and when I, you know when my son, when my son died I realised that there was little as an individual I did for myself, I don’t really play a lot of sport, you know, I, I work out, I do you know, but they’re very personal things so I didn’t have a lot, I didn’t have a lot of places to turn, you know, to fill my time and it’s, it’s lonely in your head, it gets lonely, you know when you’re trying to work things out so, Bulletproof was really a bit of a saviour for me, you know, I, I didn’t go into work for three months, my team were amazing, they were incredible, I then started to go back in and it’s really helped, you know focussing, being busy, feeling that you are valued, you have worth is incredibly powerful when you question everything about your being, which happens when you have a death like this. So, it just makes you rethink your entire life, your entire meaning, you know, and I’m a lot more, I think I’m a lot more balanced now as an individual, I’m more sympathetic, empathetic, to people, to their, to issues, you know that they face. It wasn’t that I wasn’t before but I’m much more attuned to it, in tune to it now. I feel that everyone’s going through something, we all have something and so, so that’s really, that’s really the focus I have now, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for my final chat with my guest today, it’s Gush Mundae being very honest with me and we’ve also got him coming back for more honesty as well as some Snarky Puppy, that’s all coming up in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
I have Gush Mundae just for a few more precious minutes. Your business has grown, you’ve got these eight studios around the world, just over 400 people and counting. That’s beyond the creativity and beyond the teacher saying go and meet someone and having the talent and all that, that’s something quite different Gush, you’re obviously pretty good at this thing called business. What do you think, what do you think is underpinning that now, what are the two or three things that you think are driving the success?
Gush Mundae
Well, I think, I think massive insecurity is driving it. You never, you never forget, you know, you never forget coming from nothing.
Elliot Moss
Do you really think like, what you don’t think, I’m not very good at this, is that what you think?
Gush Mundae
Yeah, oh massively, yeah, plus there’s no, there’s no Plan B, you know, there’s no Plan B, this is it, this is all I have, you know, this is thirty years’ worth of, it’s my life’s work, you know, there is no Plan B, I don’t have a, there isn’t a rescue plank, there’s no trust funds, there’s you know, everything rests on, on me, you know.
Elliot Moss
So is every day lived like that?
Gush Mundae
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
So do you feel that pressure that you put yourself on, under every day or is it, is it not pressure, is it something else?
Gush Mundae
It’s not, it’s not pressure, I don’t feel it like that every day, it, you know it’s when we have these conversations that I reflect on it and that’s, that’s definitely there but no, become so, I’m so about driving forward, I love people, I love business, I realise that, you know I love talking about creativity, about ideas, you know and so, I feel very lucky to be in an industry where we’re valued, we feel we are very well thought of, you know, and we are paid fairly and well for, for what we do, so I think it’s a great privilege, it doesn’t feel like hard work but I make it, I’m hard on myself, you know, I’m hard on those I love, I just am, it’s just the way, it’s just the way I am as a, as an individual, you know, so I’m very driven because I don’t want to go back to that room with four of us in Southall where I grew up, you know, and I’m far from that I think but somewhere in the back of my head there’s a feeling that that could still happen, you know, and I don’t want that.
Elliot Moss
And in terms, and the industry itself obviously, the advertising and communications brand, all these areas, fundamentally shifted, there’s change happening all the time, we’re in the midst of possibly the most important technology revolution of our lifetimes where the internet was one big thing but artificial intelligence is another, how are you going to shape the future of your business? What’s going to get in the way of you being super successful? What’s going to stop it or rather what might help you navigate through beyond the attitude that you’ve just described?
Gush Mundae
I think, I think it’s the attitude, I think it’s just working with great people, you know, I’ve been, I’ve surrounded myself, I’ve been very fortunate to work with brilliant people who for some reason stay with me, you know, in the business and we have some incredible people a little younger now, more focussed on AI, who are creating tools that we’ll be using and devising so we’ve just been thinking about at tool that basically garners information for, on a brand, on your consumer base, create insights which are live through live feeds, social feeds, digital feeds, assesses that information and plays it back through what we call ‘growth stand out and fandom’ to determine where your business or brand can grow more, where we could garner more fans because you know fandom is a currency now in its own right, and how we can do that through amazing assets and stand out so, we’re already developing future tools which are tech based that can help us to get to creative and business solutions much more quickly so, it’s something we embrace, you know we never run away from that, you know so I was taught very early on, you embrace these things, you don’t hide from them, so that’s what we do and you know I don’t create that, I work with amazing people who do that.
Elliot Moss
Keep embracing stuff, it sounds like that’s exactly the right way so, open arms, not closed ones. It’s been lovely talking to you.
Gush Mundae
Thank you.
Elliot Moss
Really, really good. Just before I let you disappear, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Gush Mundae
It’s The Isley Brothers, Footsteps in the Dark. I chose it because it’s, it’s incredible, it means a lot to me so it was the second song at my, my wedding, I love The Isley Brothers anyway, I love everything they do and I love the fact that Ice Cube sampled it so it means a, it means a great deal to me.
Elliot Moss
Footsteps in the Dark from The Isley Brothers, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Gush Mundae. He talked about never really fitting in and how he wanted to make sure that everyone in his business would feel like they fitted in. He said talent is everywhere, is what he was told but if you don’t harness it, you will squander it. All brilliant advice and absolutely true. And finally, the recognition that to be a good leader, you need to be empathetic and his realisation through his own life is that everyone is going through something. Really good stuff. That’s it from Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.