Meet the client: Butternut Box

Butternut Box is a dog food delivery service, creating nutritious, tasty food and delivering straight to pet-owners’ doors. Launched in 2016, founders David Nolan and Kevin Glynn used their own experience with Rudie, a rescue dog from Battersea, to fill a gaping hole in the pet food market for natural, tailored dog food.

We caught up with David Nolan to find out how the team are settling in to their new space and to understand a little more about their journey to date, including some of the key decisions they made over the course of the last few years. 

As part of the journey for their business, Butternut Box had to restructure its commercial model and re-think it’s USPs, establish a positive working culture amid rapid growth and make precise hiring decisions all within the space of a year. They are now looking to grow and expand into new markets and products, meaning they’ll be facing even more critical decisions for their business in the next year.

What inspired you to create Butternut Box?

I adopted Rudie, my Staffie, from Battersea a few years ago. She had problems with her coat, skin, and ears, and it took us a little while to realise it was her diet that was exacerbating the problems. I started cooking her fresh meals from scratch, but working in the City full time it wasn’t feasible. That’s when we got the idea for Butternut Box, to help dog owners like us to take better care of their dogs.

It took 6 months to go from idea-to-launch. My co-founder Kevin Glynn and I were able to quit our jobs at the start of 2016 to work full time on the business, and we got off to a flying start, with 70% of trial clients converting to paying customers.

What was the most difficult decision you made in the first year of your business?

We had to make quite a significant change to our business model fairly early on, in order to manage demand and provide the best service we could. Rather than delivering fresh food weekly (an initial USP for the business), we moved to providing frozen food and not delivering every week to each customer. It can be difficult to make significant changes to a business model which is quite recently established, but we did it because of customer demand, and we haven’t looked back.

How do you manage work/life balance for you and your employees?

We have a young team which has grown exponentially in the last 6 months, and we’ve considered lots of different ways to keep them happy. For us, trust and flexibility is what makes the biggest difference. There's no set start or end times, and people can work at home when they need to. We also have no limit on the amount of holiday you take at once. We work hard to ensure that our team are happy and we trust them to get the work done. 

Do you make the majority of your decisions at home or at work?

I prefer to leave my work in the office where possible. I’m not much of a home-worker as I prefer that space for myself. It means I do spend quite a lot of time in the office, but that environment is better for me when thinking about work.

What advice would you give to someone when it comes to making tough major business decisions?

I would say get as much advice from as many people whose opinions you value as possible. There’s no such thing as too much information when it comes to making significant decisions especially around a new business venture. However, use that advice to inform your decision, not to shape it. No one can dictate your own vision to you, and at the end of the day it’s your business. Don’t bury your head in the sand, but make sure to stand firm when it comes to your beliefs in the business.

Which decisions took the longest amount of time?

Hiring is the most important thing to get right. We spent quite a few days deliberating over our first few employees and, while it feels like a slog, there’s nothing worse than hiring the wrong person. Kevin and I would much rather spend our time doing the research and discussing interview candidates at length, than get it wrong.

How did you find the process of searching for a new office space?

I had heard about Workthere through a friend at Savills, and he suggested that they could help us find a new office. As a rapidly growing team, we needed a space that filled the requirements for our employees, but where we could also move into quickly. Freddie and Matt thoroughly understood our needs and nothing was too much trouble for them. We found the office we wanted from their first shortlist, and then visited it and got the deal done on the same day. We were really impressed by the service at Workthere and Savills, and we’re planning on using their services again to acquire a ‘big shed’ in 2018.