What I Didn’t Know About Business (And Why That Matters)

I didn’t grow up thinking I’d build a business.

Like most people, I had a fairly standard view of what work looked like — you go to school, maybe university, and then you get a job. Business felt like something separate. Something for other people.

People who were more confident.
More experienced.
Better connected.

Looking back, what’s striking isn’t what I didn’t know — it’s how little visibility there was into what building a business actually involves.

And that’s not unusual. More than half of young people in the UK can’t name a single entrepreneur, and while a majority say they’d like to start a business, nearly 60% say fear of failure holds them back.

The result is a gap between interest and participation — where business feels like something for other people, rather than something you can learn and step into.

Business Is Much Less Theoretical Than It Looks

One of the biggest surprises, building Pure Pet Food, has been how practical it all is.

From the outside, business can look strategic and polished. Internally, it’s much more about:

• Solving problems quickly

• Making decisions with incomplete information

• Learning by doing

• Getting things wrong and adjusting

There isn’t a moment where you suddenly feel “ready”.

You just start, and then you figure it out.

The Gap Isn’t Intelligence — It’s Exposure

What’s become clearer over time is that the biggest barrier for most people isn’t capability.

It’s exposure.

If you haven’t seen how a business operates:

·       It’s harder to imagine yourself doing it

·       It feels more complex than it actually is

·       It feels like something you need permission for

And that lack of exposure isn’t evenly distributed.

People who grow up around businesses — through family, networks, or education — see how things actually work. It becomes familiar, and importantly, it feels possible.

For others, business feels more abstract, more risky, and further away.

Over time, that shapes who participates.

It’s why you see consistent underrepresentation in entrepreneurship and leadership — not because of differences in ability, but because of differences in proximity to how business actually works.

Why This Matters More Than It Seems

That gap in exposure shapes who participates in business.

It influences:

• Who starts companies

• Who joins early-stage businesses

• Who progresses into leadership

And ultimately, it shapes what the business landscape looks like.

If access to that knowledge is uneven, participation will be too.

Why We’ve Chosen to Share What We Know

As we’ve grown Pure Pet Food, we’ve become more conscious of that gap.

And we’ve made a deliberate decision:

To share what we’ve learned, openly and practically.

Not as a marketing exercise.
Not as polished storytelling.

But as an attempt to make business feel:

• More understandable

• Less abstract

• More accessible

This is now a structured part of how we operate.

What That Looks Like in Practice

We focus on a few simple things.

Talking to people early

Spending time in schools and colleges, explaining what building a business actually involves — not just the idea of entrepreneurship, but the reality of it.

Sharing operational knowledge

With founders and small businesses, we talk about the parts that are often hardest:

• Scaling

• Decision-making

• Funding

• Trade-offs

The things you only really learn once you’re doing it.

Creating follow-on opportunities

Where possible, these conversations don’t stop at a talk.

They lead to:

• Work experience

• Apprenticeships

• Ongoing conversations

• Introductions

Because awareness on its own isn’t enough.

Moving Beyond Inspiration

A lot of business content focuses on inspiration.

That’s useful — but limited.

If more people are going to participate, the focus needs to shift towards:

• Capability — understanding how things actually work

• Confidence — seeing that it’s possible

• Access — having a route in

That’s where the real change happens.

This Is Not About Positioning

It would be easy for this to become brand-led.

That’s not the intent.

The goal isn’t to talk about Pure Pet Food.
It’s to reduce the distance between people and business.

To make it feel like something you can step into — not something you observe from the outside.

A Simple Reflection

The biggest difference, in hindsight, isn’t talent.

It’s whether you’ve been close enough to business to realise:

It’s learnable.

And once you see that, everything changes.

It’s something we’ll keep coming back to — breaking down the parts of building a business that are often hardest to see from the outside.