Elliot Moss
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 or shortened due to rights issues.
Good morning it’s Jazz Shapers, with me Elliot Moss, it’s the place where the Shapers of Business join the Shapers of Jazz, Soul and Blues – I am sure you know by now. My guest today, is Pip Murray, Founder of the nut butter brand Pip & Nut, one of my own personal favourites I have to disclose that right away. She is a keen marathon runner and a fierce foody and Pip had the inspiration for the brand when she couldn’t find a nutritious and of course tasty protein source to fuel her training without the refined sugar and palm oil. Taking matters into her own hands, Pip began as she says ‘messing around with nut butter flavours and ingredient’ in her own kitchen. She started selling at a London street market and realised there was scope for a scalable business and she decided to go for it. Pip & Nut eventually launched into Selfridges in January 2015. Now four years old and boosted by growing food trends such as veganism, Pip & Nut can be found in five international markets and wait for it, over five and a half thousand stores around the UK and Europe. We will be talking to Pip in a few minutes about all of this, about crowd funding and mentoring and her belief in learning through doing. We’ve also got the wonderful sounds of amongst others, Stan Getz, João Gilberto and the Hot 8 Brass Brand, that ladies and gentlemen is today’s Jazz Shapers. Here’s John Scofield with What I’d Say.
That was John Scofield with What I’d Say, you may remember the original. It was by Ray Charles, another one of my absolute top favourites. I am with Pip Murray.
Pip Murray
Hello.
Elliot Moss
Hello. How are you?
Pip Murray
Absolutely wonderful with the sunny weather outside today.
Elliot Moss
Good, it’s nice. It makes a difference. You are the creator, you are the maestro behind this fabulous brand which I did declare a love for earlier, well now I am declaring love officially – Pip & Nut. Tell me a little bit about how this idea began for you? Where did it start?
Pip Murray
Yeah I mean I think when I look back it probably sounds quite random, six years ago when I remember telling my boss when I quit my job, I am going to start a nut butter brand and I remember… I do actually remember the moment when he looked at me and he was like ‘you’re a bit crazy’. But I mean it came from a real love of the product if I am really honest, you know, I was doing loads of marathon running and I guess when you are doing sort of long distance running in particular obviously you are looking for ways to kind of like fuel your training and for me always being a believer in like something has got to feel like a treat at the end of the run, you’ve got to reward yourself and for me peanut butter was my absolute addiction. I am still that person that stands guiltily by the kettle as I am brewing a cup of tea, spooning a jar of…
Elliot Moss
You’re not the only one.
Pip Murray
…yeah. So getting the jar with a spoon and I just love it, I just always felt like it really delivered on all fronts. It’s a product that is totally addictive, delicious, uncuous, indulgent as well as being nutritionally good for you. Our products are pretty much 100% nuts, a bit of sea salt and so you get this like completely permissible treat which I don’t think many healthy products really deliver upon that and that is really what… that’s what got me started, the kind of idea of it and seeing about six years ago that a lot of products that I picked up in supermarkets, every single one of them had palm oil in, most of them had sugars and I was like you know what, you could create a much simpler, much more honest product and really bring it to life with loads of flavours and things like almond butter that didn’t really exist in the UK, it was massive in America and I was like you know, this product needs to come to the UK. So it was a few things coming at it but very much like my background wasn’t food and drink whatsoever so I was coming at it as a consumer being like, this is a product I love, something I could improve about it and also an opportunity to innovate within what is a really traditional part of the supermarket. The unsexy aisle right at the back of store you know with the jams and the lemon curd so it is not the most glamorous section but I loved it and I thought that could be an opportunity to disrupt an area that hadn’t really been looked at before.
Elliot Moss
At that point you were working at the Science Museum.
Pip Murray
That’s right.
Elliot Moss
Let’s just be clear and you had done a Degree in Geography, Humanities and Humanistic Studies?
Pip Murray
Anthropology, Geography and Anthropology.
Elliot Moss
Geography and Anthropology.
Pip Murray
Pretty similar.
Elliot Moss
Okay. Very…
Pip Murray
Quite useless.
Elliot Moss
…very, very useless. I mean useless in the sense of someone who is then going to go and make butter…
Pip Murray
Exactly yeah.
Elliot Moss
…from nuts. It is one thing wanting the product and it’s another thing deciding you are going to make it. Why you? I mean I get all that stuff and I get the, you know here’s a chance to disrupt but where did that desire to actually do something about it come from?
Pip Murray
Yeah I mean I have always been a pretty independent person you know I, I had a career before I started up the brand but really, what I had been out of University two years and I think I was definitely searching for something that I felt was more me. I’d you know, I’d enjoyed my job at the Science Museum but I didn’t find it challenging or stretching and I think food had always played an important part of my life, I grew up in a large family, I’ve got three older sisters you know, dinner tables were you know, dinner you know, meals were really an important part of our family and I think from an early age I cooked from a really early age. My mum basically stopped wanting to cook dinner for all of us so she gave us each a day that we had to cook and from that point onwards it was part of the time that Jamie Oliver was getting big and I remember picking up one of his cook books and loving it and I think that kind of thread of food has run through me from a very early age, about 12, and I think living in London, went to Uni in London you know, you are in the hotspot of all the amazing food and drink scene that is here and it was what six/seven years ago was when the food truck scene really started to kick off and I think more and more independent brands were creeping into supermarkets and I was like you know, this food scene is something that I find really interesting. So I think there wasn’t really necessarily like a, a lightbulb ding, ding, ding moment where I thought you know I am just going to just set this up, I’m going to go for it but it sort of crept in on me and I was sort of searching and figuring out well maybe food and drink is a space I want to be in and therefore within food and drink where do I want to go? Do I want have a food truck, do I want to start a food brand Do I want to have a food blog and it slowly filtered down into being like actually there’s a product here that I really like and I could see it being a national brand and I liked the thought of having a brand that can not only deliver a bit of happiness through eating it but also the kind of through your own mission and our mission is to kind of help people love food that loves them and that’s all about championing healthier food and encouraging people to eat better and I really loved that and I thought actually this is something that I could pursue.
Elliot Moss
It struck me as you were talking, it’s not one thing and it wasn’t one moment. That fact that you rolled in it was about you know a bit about making people happy, a bit about your vision for healthy food, a bit about the fact you cooked and it was in your head from when you were 12, it’s just who you are?
Pip Murray
Mmmm.
Elliot Moss
And sorry… my question is, is being an entrepreneur who you are then because all those things are slightly different to actually the reality of day-to-day running a business?
Pip Murray
Yeah and I never really thought that I’d ever run a business. It didn’t even cross my mind. I went to a pretty traditional school, it was all about going on and getting a solid job and moving through your career and up the ladder or whatever. My parents were a doctor and my mum was a nurse so public sector work you know, they just didn’t… business wasn’t really in our you know, in our conversation but I think there are a few things that kind of thread through me that kind of linked to why being an entrepreneur actually kind of fits my kind of personality. I am incredibly determined, quite head strong and I almost also draw analogies with like marathon running in the way that you kind of have to have this level of resilience and kind of eye on the prize and kind of you know you are looking at the 26 mile marker and thinking you know, you can get there and it’s a similar thing with a business I think but I think one of the things that is quite common with people that start-up businesses I am dyslexic, as are many business owners that kind of start something up, Richard Branson being the most famous one and I think with that you know, you are always striving to you know push yourself harder, you are always having to kind of accept failure because often you are never really performing up to your level of kind of your intelligence, you are always a little bit lower and I think those sorts of things as you kind of grow up really build a certain type of personality within you so yeah, so it comes out resilience is probably one of my kind of biggest assets. I am quite hardy when it comes to getting knocked back, I kind of never really take no for an answer and I think that kind has been ingrained in me from a really early age.
Elliot Moss
Is, and I read about the dyslexia and I think you are right there is a correlation between people with dyslexia and them getting on and doing stuff. Is it partly also because if you are not reading you are a good doer, you are actually practical?
Pip Murray
Yep.
Elliot Moss
All the dyslexic people I know (a) are super bright.
Pip Murray
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Part one but part two, they are really good at just actually doing what’s in front of them.
Pip Murray
Yep.
Elliot Moss
You talked about cooking. I know other people that can make stuff and it’s not they’ve gone in, they are not manufacturers but they are just, they just see what needs to be done and they get on with it. In terms of though when it comes to reading, do you have to get, I mean of course you can read but it is just not as good as it should be and writing even makes mistakes that aren’t really there. How do you get round that?
Pip Murray
Well I’ve had to like train myself. I have had years and years of classes to kind of get round it and to be honest now I just kind of accept if I send a bit of a dodgy email sometimes it is fine and you just kind of…
Elliot Moss
I know plenty of people that aren’t dyslexic that send dodgy emails as well, as we all know.
Pip Murray
Yeah but I mean I know that for instance I am not great at being that person to fact check something and make sure the numbers are exact or you know, there are certain things which I’ll know to pass to someone else to proof read something, check some packaging for any you know, spelling mistakes you know, I am not brilliant at that and I think you just get over it, you know that that’s just not your skill set. I am not necessarily a real detail orientated person. A bit more broad brush strokes, a bit more practical like you say, yeah like kind of physically doing stuff so I think yeah, different attributes.
Elliot Moss
And the other areas where you are not good, I think another talent that I’ve noticed of the people that I talk to, is they are really good at saying I am just not good at this so I get a person in. Where else are you deficient as it were so you go ‘I need one of those, I need one of those’?
Pip Murray
I am…
Elliot Moss
I feel like it’s now Prime Minister’s questions, ‘what’s your weakness?’ and they go ‘well my weakness is I am really good with people and you go ‘really that’s not a weakness’.
Pip Murray
Yeah, it’s like turn it into something…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Pip Murray
I am a, this is one of those kind of positives that’s negative but I am an eternal optimist, I really am. I always look on the bright side and I think that can also bite you in the backside sometimes when you are, particularly having to be a bit more realistic and practical about I don’t know for instance, how will a new product perform. I will always be like ‘it’s going to smash it out the park, we’re going to you know, sell it in all these stores, it’s going to go amazing’ and sometimes you need a realist to come in and be like ‘well let’s just like manager the risk around this and…’
Elliot Moss
And do you have some of those in your business?
Pip Murray
Absolutely and they are incredibly useful to kind of reign me in and not put cold water on something, just protect the business and I think it is important to have that optimist in the room, it kind of gets people in to energise and excited and sees the bigger picture but equally there have been moments where it is definitely hurt us where I have almost been too optimistic and we have been chasing something that is just not achievable so yeah I think it is a bit of that balance and that’s kind of what I look forward for when I am sort of building up my team is to try and balance some of the things that I am not good at and get other people round me that can help kind of you know, build the team and make it more balanced.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for much more from my Business Shaper, it’s Pip Murray, she is the Founder of Pip & Nut and if you haven’t tried some, you should try some. She is coming back in a couple of minutes but first we are going to hear from one of our partners at Mishcon de Reya and they have got some advice for your business.
There are absolutely loads of ways for you to enjoy all our former Jazz Shapers and indeed to hear this very programme again with Pip. You can ask Alexa, she is very clever or he, depending on who you are, let’s be gender neutral. You can ask Alexa to play Jazz Shapers and there you can find many of the recent programmes, or if you pop Jazz Shapers into iTunes or your preferred podcast platform, then you can enjoy the full archive over there too. But back to today’s guest, it’s Pip and she is the Founder of the nut butter brand, Pip & Nut, lucky that you are called Pippa really. Was that intentional?
Pip Murray
I know that was a bit of a tongue twister.
Elliot Moss
It is a tongue twister but I suppose it wasn’t intentional. Those first few days and months and years of setting this thing up, was it fun? Or was it a bit seat of the pants and a bit nervy?
Pip Murray
Yeah it was…
Elliot Moss
Truthful answer.
Pip Murray
…definitely more the latter. I think the first couple of years actually if I am honest are the absolute toughest and particularly when you are actually just starting something up when you’ve not even got any sales to your, to your spreadsheets or whatever. You know that when you are trying to figure out how to make the product, you are trying to convince people to give you money to help launch it, you are trying to work out what the positioning from the brand is but also you are working completely, in my case, a sole Founder, completely by yourself and it is really quite isolating and also I think isolating from your sort of family and friends who understand that you are starting up a business but probably don’t understand the context of what your vision is for that brand and that product and probably think it’s a bit of a waste of time and that you should go and get a proper job and all that stuff and you haven’t got any proven track record to kind of sit back and be like well I am doing it, we are doing well. So yeah I actually found the first couple of years really hard work and I think the first year in fact probably the first two to three years, I used to count every single month to be like ‘yep not gone bankrupt’ and I’d literally be you know making like celebrating every month that we were still trading because you are always on that slight edge, you’ve always got not quite enough money in the bank account or you’ve got enough but maybe not a comfortable amount if you like and you don’t really know whether or not a buyer is going to buy it and you are going to get those key listings that you need to be able to keep the business thriving and so there is so much uncertainty and I think that’s one of the things about having a business is that you’ve got to be able to live with a level of uncertainty. You’ve got to sit comfortable with it because to some extent you will always have that regardless of what stage of business you are at, there will be something that could come right round the corner that you’d never even anticipated and that’s just something you are going to have to deal with and I think yeah in the first couple of years when I was getting used to kind of being independent and running the business myself and familiarising myself with food and drink and what that all was, yeah it was really unnerving but at the same time, quite exhilarating and liberating and thinking ‘God I don’t have a boss like how weird is this. I don’t have to tell anyone what I am going to do today’. So there were with that comes that huge kind of benefits and you know, you enjoy the good times when you can as much as you know you panic a little bit in the bad so yeah it’s that lovely kind of you feel like you are really living I think.
Elliot Moss
And I imagine that feeling like you are really living is juxtapose with not really knowing what you are doing.
Pip Murray
Yep.
Elliot Moss
When you really didn’t know what you were doing, I read somewhere that your, and I think I listened to a… watched a film you were featured in, that you said you are really comfortable with asking for advice?
Pip Murray
Yep.
Elliot Moss
That’s from humility or from desperation or from just you are not embarrassed, I mean what is it that enables you to because some people I think are too proud to do that? It doesn’t seem that you are.
Pip Murray
Yeah I think, I think there is an element of kind of being quite proud of myself for even starting something in the first place and I actually whenever I speak to anyone starting up a business whether it is in the first month or the first ten years, I am always like ‘yeah good on you, you’ve got off your bum and you know you’ve gone out there and just put yourself out there in a really quite vulnerable way’ and so I always find when I am asking a stupid question I just think well I don’t care like, I know I don’t know everything so… and I am coming from a perspective of I am just going to give it a go and give it a shot and I think there is also an element of I just love learning new stuff so I’d rather ask a question and put myself out there and try and learn something new than just sit on my hands and be a bit embarrassed. I just almost don’t understand it where people try and pretend that they are more than they are, I just think be as open and honest as you possibly can and it really helps endear people to you I think. It gets you way further down the line.
Elliot Moss
In these last few years as you’ve seen success happen, now we are a few years in and it’s I think as I mentioned over five and a half thousand stores are stocking your products. What are the moments that give you the most joy? Is it the new product development – I know there is this cherry Bakewell concoction which I haven’t had yet? Is it actually watching people eat your lovely product? Is it walking down the aisle of the less than sexy part of Sainsbury, Tesco or wherever it might be? Which moment do you go ‘this is pretty good’?
Pip Murray
All of those are great. I think my ultimate though is that as much as possible I want to see people’s reactions to the brand so for example, we did Taste of London in Regent’s Park. Brilliant event, a real foody event and you get a great crowd, always up for a laugh and I love it when I am standing, if I am doing like a sampling and I do like going to them still because it, it brings the brand to life, you see the products out, you see our stand looking brilliant, people trying it, engaging with us but the thing that I love the most is when you might be standing there and someone will walk past the stand and say to their friend ‘oh I love Pip & Nut’ and they’ll say it without prompt, without trying the product, they will just be passing comment to a friend and that for me is what really gets me out of bed. I am like I love the fact that people love the brand, that there is this real warmth to it.
Elliot Moss
Have you advertised? I don’t think I’ve seen any.
Pip Murray
No. No. We are about to start doing our first in September ‘Above the Line’ campaign which that will be a big moment.
Elliot Moss
Is this television then?
Pip Murray
No. We can’t quite afford television yet.
Elliot Moss
So where might we see it?
Pip Murray
It will be, it will be like the sort of like digital billboards, the six sheets kind of outside I don’t know, supermarkets or on bus stations, maybe some more interesting kind of pop-up kind of advertising as well but around Shoreditch but yeah that will be a big moment where you see like the logo big on a screen like that’s the ‘ah yeah we’ve made it’ moment. Yeah right now we do all kind of grass roots activation but yeah I think it’s when I can hear consumers say without me having to ask them that they love the product or that you get that kind of engagement, it’s just so cool. It’s such an amazing feeling.
Elliot Moss
We’ll have our final chat with my guest, Pip Murray today plus we will be playing a track from Stevie Wonder, that’s all coming up in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
The music is brilliant today, not that it isn’t always fabulous but that’s another great number, it was Stevie Wonder with ‘As’ and just for a few more minutes I have my Business Shaper here, she is Pip Murray. Pip I haven’t mentioned the following because it is easy to embarrass my guests and I don’t always like to but I am going to. Pip Murray for those of you that don’t is the Winner of the Start-Up Entrepreneur of the Year, the Natwest Great British Entrepreneur Awards last year, named the Forbes Thirty under Thirty Year – it’s all last year, a bit last year isn’t it? And the Management Today’s Thirty under Thirty also last year but only just last and a Young Entrepreneur of the Year Start-Up.Co.Uk awards in 2017. Does this all matter, all these accolades for the chief squirrel as you are called and the Founder? Are they nice things? Does it make any difference?
Pip Murray
Yeah you know what it’s a great boost and it is not just for me, I think it is also for my team like it’s a nice feeling to be recognised or to kind of be – take a moment – and be like ‘ah yeah we are not doing so bad are we’, you know like it can be tough like starting a business up and trying to scale it and growing it quickly like so to then be like recognised and you know, go to one of those fancy awards ceremonies, put on a nice dress for once and think ‘ah we’ve won’.
Elliot Moss
But I meet a lot of people who are very tough, I look at them and I might quiver a bit. You seem quite opposite. You seem like you have this clear mission, you wanted to create this product, you’re as you sort of talked about asking questions, being endearing, it’s not for effect it is just who you are. Are you tough as well? Do you ever have to make super tough decisions about people or about manufacturing processes or whatever else?
Pip Murray
Yeah I mean there has definitely been times where you know someone in the team hasn’t quite worked out. It has not been right for either of us and had to let them go and I think decisions like that and actually then having to you know have those conversations, yeah (a) has been a really new thing for me and yes I can and will have those difficult conversations but I think when you care so much about something that you are doing and you are so passionate about it you are also fighting for it as much as anything else so for instance if you have a challenging time with a supplier or whatever it happens to be, and you feel like you are being taken advantage of, for whatever reason, I think yeah you actually, it comes from the heart as much as anything else, you actually feel quite passionate about making sure that you are not being trodden on so yeah I think, I have quite a soft exterior and I don’t really like that phrase – nice guys finish last – I don’t think it is necessarily true, I actually think that and you mentioned it before when we were off air, like you know, if you give to people and are generous with your time or whether it’s another business that you offer some advice to or a recommendation or introduce to an investor, whatever it happens to be, I generally think it comes back to you at some point or another and that’s not the reason why I do it, I just think that there is an element of you know, I’ve had a lot of people that have given me a lot of support along the way and I think it is just really good for the whole business you know, start-up culture more broadly to be able to be you know, kind and generous with people so it is just my style, maybe it is a good or a bad thing I don’t really know but so far it has sort of worked out alright.
Elliot Moss
Well it is who you are?
Pip Murray
Yeah and it is also who I am.
Elliot Moss
Yeah and I can see straight away. I asked the question and you like switched ‘you went okay’.
Pip Murray
Serious voice.
Elliot Moss
‘I am in killer mode here’. Because if you want to… and I love your phrase, you want to fight for the business, I mean that’s what it’s about, it’s about the greater good in the long run. Where are you going to go in the long run? Is this just going to be more and more, are we going to be reading about the continuous exponential growth of Pip & Nut?
Pip Murray
I hope so.
Elliot Moss
Is that’s what going to happen?
Pip Murray
That’s the plan. I mean we have big ambitions for the brand so my vision is to very much create a brand that has multiple products underneath it so in lots of different places and supermarkets I hope to see our brands sitting there, I love product development so anything with nuts basically works for the brand so…
Elliot Moss
A simple proposition.
Pip Murray
…a simple proposition.
Elliot Moss
Has it got nuts in it? Yes, good.
Pip Murray
Yeah great we can do it. But we are very much looking just at the UK, I mean we do do a bit of export but it is very UK centric and will continue to be and I’d love in a few years’ time to be able to go up to anyone and say ‘oh I run a business called Pip & Nut’ and for them to be like ‘oh yeah I love that brand’ or ‘I know it, I’ve tried it’ – not quite there yet and I think that’s where I am sort of looking to in the next few years.
Elliot Moss
Well listen, really good luck with it.
Pip Murray
Thank you.
Elliot Moss
I am sure it will get there. I love the product, it’s so great.
Pip Murray
Thanks.
Elliot Moss
It really is.
Pip Murray
I didn’t even pay you to say that.
Elliot Moss
I know you didn’t. To be clear no one has paid me to say anything. I just genuinely do and if you listen regularly then you will know that I say if I like something and I do like it. Just before I let you go, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Pip Murray
So I’ve gone for a very mellow tune for hopefully a lovely sunny August day for anyone having a barbecue and it’s Alice Coltrane and I am going to pronounce this wrong so forgive me but it’s Journey In Satchidananda.
Elliot Moss
Sounds about right and we are going to try and play all of it, it is a long track though so forgive us if we don’t.
That was Journey In Satchidananda, I hope I said that properly, Alice Coltrane featuring Pharaoh Sanders, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Pip Murray. She talked about her resilience, about her eternal optimism, about saying good on you to people that also set up their own businesses. The sense of her loving to learn stuff and really importantly as she said herself, ‘I am fighting for it and when I fight for it it’s got to be worth it because it’s my business’. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a great weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You will find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive. To find out more, just search Jazz Shapers and iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.