Women Entrepreneurs under 30

A new generation of 20-somethings are taking over London’s startup space. Never before were there so many inspirational, active and ambitious (and young) female founders changing our tomorrow.

Pippa Murray left her day job as a Producer at the Science Museum to start Pip&Nut, a company producing naturally nutritious nut butters.

After winning a competition titled ‘Escape to the Shed’, run by Escape the City, a company whose mission is to help talented individuals leave their unfulfilling corporate day jobs. Pipping 3,000 entrants to the post, Pip won the chance to spend 3 months living, working and launching her business, Pip&Nut, from a shed in Central London — saving resources whilst concentrating on her business goals.

Using equity crowd-funding platform CrowdCube to source backing to ramp up scale, Pip secured £120k funding in just nine days. With an original target of £100k she gained 81 investors, giving away 19% equity in the company. We were very excited about interviewing Pip, here’s what she told us:

Pip, how old are you?

26.

When you were a little girl…

I used to play ‘Food inspectors’ with my sisters after observing my Mum’s kitchen being checked by an environmental health officer when she first started selling products with the Women’s Institute. Who would have known that would come in handy now…

How did Pip&Nut happen? What were you doing before that and can you remember the first jar you made?

At the time I was working at the Science Museum as an Associate Producer so a totally unrelated industry. But I’d always had an interest in food brands and as a marathon runner myself I’d noticed a trend in the fitness world for natural energy food. Nut butters have been a favourite for athletes and I felt that this was a product and category that had the potential to be transformed and brought to the mass market.

There was a lot of product testing and a fair few dodgy batches before I made my first proper jar but I do remember it clearly. I actually started making them in a kitchen in North London, using a commercial food processor. It was a pretty difficult product to make by hand and I remember my food processor kept burning out because the nuts were so hard to blend. I’ve come a long way since then!

In one sentence, what do you need to keep in mind when fundraising?

I needed to raise funds to scale the production in order to make the product competitive in the market.

When you look back at the first months of starting your business, what advice can you share?

I’m still in the first couple of months of trading, we only just launched in January 2015, but I’d say make sure you’ve got the right people around you that can offer advice and support as you first get out there. There will inevitably be a whole ton of stuff which you won’t have been able to predict or plan for so being able to reach out to those who have experience is invaluable.

What inspired you recently?

I’m constantly inspired by other food start-ups who are bringing new and exciting products to the market and achieving amazing thing! Most recently the guys behind the cold brew coffee brand Sandows just raised a round of funding on Crowdcube in just 48 hours (!) which I found pretty damn inspiring!

Women Entrepreneurs under 30 consists of a weekly published series of interviews with young inspirational women. Follow it and subscribe to our newsletter here to never miss a story. More coming next Tuesday!