How to Retire at 40
Entrepreneur Pippa Murray, 28, on how moving into a garden shed helped launch her own nut butter business
Monday / C4
It might be a bit late for me now as I’ve passed my forties, but this is an intriguing look at those who have achieved financial independence when most of us are in the middle of our working lives. Meet the movers and shakers...
I raised £120,000 in nine days, so it was a really quick process
NEW FACTUAL How to Retire at 40 monday / C4 / 8.30Pm
People thought Pippa Murray was crazy when she quit her job and moved into a shed to save money as she concentrated on getting her nut butter business, Pip & Nut, up and running. But after trading for just two years, her fledgling company made more than £3million in 2016 – showing that it wasn’t such a nutty idea after all!
Pippa, 28, is one of the canny entrepreneurs featured in C4’s
How to Retire at 40, which suggests ways in which people who’d like to escape the daily grind can transform their financial fortunes.
Londoner Pippa saw the potential market for a tasty product that was healthy and high in protein. ‘I’m a runner – and a complete peanut butter addict as a result,’ she explains. ‘But most of the products I was eating contained rubbish ingredients like palm oil and sugar. I thought:
“This is a product you could clean up and make healthier.” It was something I felt passionate about.’ Getting the project going, however, would prove a huge learning curve. ‘I had no experience in food and drink,’ she admits.
‘I was working at the Science Museum – I’d never thought of running my own business before.’
The road to success started at Pippa’s kitchen table. ‘I used to make jars of nut butter at home,’ she says. ‘I would sell them at weekends at a market, where the public would be brutally honest if they thought your product was disgusting!’
The biggest stumbling block to turning this part-time operation into a full-time job was money, and a timely competition win provided just the leg-up Pippa needed.
‘I entered a random competition to win three months rent-free accommodation in a garden shed,’ she explains. ‘When I got the phone call to say I’d won it, I quit my day job just an hour later!’
Unsurprisingly, some of her friends and workmates were taken aback when they heard what she planned to do next.
‘People thought I was crazy to start something so niche,’ she says. ‘I remember my dad gave me a £5,000 loan and, when I eventually paid it back, he did tell me he never expected to see the money again!’
Pippa also raised cash through a crowd-funding platform. ‘I raised £120,000 in nine days, so it was a really quick process,’ she says.
The growth of the business has also been fast. ‘When we launched in 2015, we had one customer, which was Selfridges,’ says Pippa. ‘Now we’re in about 3,500 stores, so it’s grown from one customer to being nationally distributed.’
Looking back, Pippa says she has no regrets about her decision. ‘For most people who start their own business, it’s a really big leap of faith,’ she says. ‘The best thing is that every day is so incredibly different. The downside is that you never switch off, so you don’t really have that work/life balance. But it has transformed my life – even though I don’t pay myself as much as I’d like to as it’s my own business!’