Sudden entrepreneur

From theatrical producer to food guru

Pippa Murray had never considered starting her own company. At 24, she’d fallen into a nine-to-five job as a theatre producer at the Science Museum in London. But while training for the Paris Marathon in April 2013, she became addicted to peanut butter as a post-workout snack. Finding all the supermarket options were full of sugar and palm oil, she decided to try her hand at making and selling her own. Fast-forward six years and she now has a fully fledged business called Pip & Nut, stocked in 4,000 stores and employing 21 people. For anyone who is tempted to do something similar, here’s Murray’s advice…

Play around and experiment.

I bought a fancy blender and tried out different recipes, roping in my flatmates to be guinea pigs. Later, I opened a stall on London’s Maltby Street Market. I would get up at 5am every Saturday, drive to where the butters were stored and get to the market to set up by 7am. We’d sorted out our social media by that point, and I remember being so excited when the first person tweeted us saying they’d had our butter.

Don’t quit the day job straight away.

It took me so much longer to get up and running than I had initially planned. I worked parttime at the Science Museum for a year and a half, making the nut butters on a Thursday and Friday. On the weekend, I would be at Maltby. When the day finally came for me to hand in my notice, I was terrified, but I had got myself to a point where I was ready to press go. I borrowed £5,000 from my parents and, when I paid them back a little later, my dad joked he had never expected to see that money again.

Embrace things you don’t understand.

During the first few meetings with investors – nearly all of whom were men – I had to ask them what valuation meant and I was so embarrassed. But then I went off and did an accounting course at City University. I almost fell asleep in every class, but I made sure I got to grips with the subject.

Nerves are normal.

When we first went into production for 10,000 jars, I texted my sister really late at night in a panic, asking, ‘What if no one buys it?’

Go with your gut.

I’m proud of building the brand from the bottom up, going out to independent stores and explaining the product. Fortnum & Mason took us on, and by the end of 2015 we were also stocked in Sainsbury’s. So much of starting a business is about your gut feeling. Right at the start, I thought, ‘There’s something in this.’ If you’re worried that someone is going to do it before you, then make sure that doesn’t happen.

The desire for a healthy post-run snack resulted in a successful business