I wish someone had told me that bootstrapping a business to success is unlikely. Going from zero to hero on a shoestring is quite rare. I was very shy to ask for financial help and wish I came around to the idea earlier.
Many successful people reinvented themselves in a later period in their lives. Jeff Bezos worked on Wall Street before he reinvented himself and started Amazon. Sara Blakely sold office supplies before she started Spanx. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a WWE wrestler before he became a successful actor and filmmaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a bodybuilder, to an actor to a Governor. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc was a milkshake-device salesman before starting the McDonalds franchise in his 50s.
How does one reinvent themselves? What hurdles have to be overcome to take life in a new direction? How do you overcome those challenges? How do you ignore the naysayers? How do you push through the paralyzing fear?
In this series called “Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life “ we are interviewing successful people who reinvented themselves in a second chapter in life, to share their story and help empower others.
As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Shelly Nuruzzaman.
Shelly Nuruzzaman is entrepreneur and co-Founder of BANG! Curry, the Brick Lane-inspired meal kits that have taken the UK by storm, selling over 750,000 kits in the first five years and gaining millions of likes and views on social media, with one TikTok video achieving 1.1million views alone.
Rated 4.7 out of five stars on TrustPilot, established as the best-selling curry kit on Amazon and recently launched in Waitrose, Shelly has cracked the code when it comes to creating winning spice hacks and flavour combinations. Previously a scientist, with a PhD in Inertial Confinement Fusion from Imperial College London, Shelly swapped the laboratory for her kitchen, where she spent two years perfecting the formulas for her award-winning BANG! Curry kits.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
Igrew up in Brick Lane, London, in the heart of the Bangladeshi community, after my parents moved to the UK.
I used to visit Bangladesh a lot, where lots of my family still live now. It was a real contrast to my life In London; it really grounded me. Life there is so holistic. It’s green and stunning; it made me feel quite close to nature. You can use and live off what’s around you.
Most of the cooking was done in an outhouse and I loved cooking outside in my grandma’s village. As a small child I’d have my clay pots and toys and pretend to cook. I’d mash up the plants pretending they were spice pastes and I’d use my toy pestle and mortar and use red bricks to create make-believe chilli paste.
Food played a big role in my childhood in London too. I was surrounded by food, both at home with my mum who I would often see playing around in the kitchen, transforming the simplest of ingredients into something really special, and in my community where we would eat at the curry houses that lined Brick Lane as my dad was friends with all the restaurant owners.
I was very lucky in that I got to eat so well when I was younger and became a real foodie.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
‘Where there’s a will there’s a way’. This is what I have lived by. I truly believe that if you want something enough, and you’re prepared to work for it, then you can achieve anything in life.
You have been blessed with much success. In your opinion, what are the top three qualities that you possess that have helped you accomplish so much? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
- Being fluid and multi-tasking — I have to say, I think most women are pretty awesome multi-taskers. I’ve always been able to juggle different things and move from one task to another multiple times during the day. You have to do this with a small business especially when you have lean teams. I’m often making strategic decisions, to then marketing, to then showcasing our products at trade shows — all in the same week.
- Blind faith and persistence — I’m like a dog with a bone! If I have belief in something, I’m happy to put in the elbow grease to make sure it happens. I knew I could develop an ambient product to replicate a freshly cooked curry base — after many set-backs and overcoming various hurdles — we now have a patent pending product.
- Problem solving — I can think on my feet. When it was the pandemic, one of our manufacturers let us down. We had some huge orders coming through and it meant we were faced with being unable to fulfil them. This just wasn’t an option. We had to re-jig our entire supply chain within two weeks, a process which usually takes months to get in place. It was also during the pandemic when things weren’t operating as normal. I’ll never forget receiving 27 pallets worth of stock at a local storage facility while we were navigating a solution.
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about ‘Second Chapters’. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before your Second Chapter?
I started my career as a scientist and studied a PhD in Inertial Confinement Fusion at Imperial College in London. I was part of the Plasma Physics Research group who collectively works on Fusion science among other things. This is essentially how the sun generates its energy and would no less, solve the world’s energy crisis. Fusion is a clean form of energy generation with zero carbon emission and so a beautiful solution if it can be made efficient.
I spent much of my time travelling to different labs. The most exciting place I worked at was Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, infamous for its start in life born out of the Manhattan project (as featured in the recent Oppenheimer film). I was working within a small team and because we had a limited time in the lab, we would work around the clock to get as much as we could out of our time there. We’d be literally on site six days a week, 12-hour days, and it was intense.
I was the only female in the labs I visited. I learned slowly but surely how to stand my ground. I loved travelling and working with brilliant and diverse minds. I felt like I had really found my real self during this time.
I left science after seven years; I was satisfied with what I had achieved and was ready for a new adventure. The research and analytical skills I learned during that time was invaluable. I lived in London and the finance world welcomed people with my skills, so I then went on to be what they call a Quant working at Deutsche Bank. It was a very different lifestyle. I worked on trading desks, with numbers and different technologies. So wasn’t far off what I was doing in science, only swapping out physics with financial data.
I did enjoy it immensely, but when the children came along, I couldn’t keep up with the intense working hours and in those days flexible working was not a thing. I really wanted to spend time around the children in a balanced way and not just at bedtime, so I didn’t return to work after having my second son.
And how did you “reinvent yourself” in your Second Chapter?
The concept for BANG! Curry was pretty instant. It was a moment of clarity. I shared the idea with my husband, who immediately agreed it would work and I came up with the name there and then.
I had been cooking the BANG! Curry way my whole life in the sense of perfecting spice mixes, and then using those as the key to make any dish.
During pregnancy I forgot different recipes combining 14–15 spices, which was so frustrating. Without the right combination of spices, the dishes just didn’t turn out right. When I mastered the spice recipes again, I wanted to share them with others. People were always asking me about my food and how I cooked it. The idea of BANG! Curry was that it completely simplifies the process of Indian cooking and I could see it being used a lot.
Can you tell us about the specific trigger that made you decide that you were going to “take the plunge” and make your huge transition?
After I had the idea for BANG! Curry, I did a ‘back of the envelope’ calculation of the gross profit of a pack and I knew there was leverage in the idea. I had so much belief in the convenience factor of what we were providing, and once I knew the numbers added up, I was determined to bring it to life.
What did you do to discover that you had a new skillset inside of you that you haven’t been maximizing? How did you find that and how did you ultimately overcome the barriers to help manifest those powers?
It may sound strange as BANG! Curry is a food brand, but the key skills aren’t about me as a cook or chef, it’s about my scientific approach.
Yes, I can cook well, but BANG! Curry isn’t just about how great the dish is. It’s about a delicious dish that can be repeatedly created in anyone’s kitchen, and taste as if a professional has made it. I’ve applied my science skills and created a full-proof process along with robust spice recipes, that give consistent results for anyone using the kits in their kitchen. That’s the secret of our success; the reproducibility.
How are things going with this new initiative? We would love to hear some specific examples or stories.
It’s going well. We’ve sold over 750,000 kits in the first five years and we’re established as the best-selling curry kit on Amazon. We launched just before the pandemic and so the focus was on online sales.
Since the pandemic we have focused on growing our presence in retail, and in July this year we launched in Waitrose stores nationwide; our first major retailer listing. This was a real milestone moment for us.
We’re also exploring the foodservice world as we think BANG! Curry would be perfect for caterers and chefs working within hospitality, restaurants, pubs, education and leisure. We’ve recently secured a listing with nationwide wholesaler Bidfood, which is a major step forward.
It hasn’t happened overnight though. We bootstrapped the business to get it off the ground, and I tested recipes in my kitchen and built the website myself to keep costs down. After product testing at farm food markets for a year and gathering feedback from consumers, BANG! Curry meal kits were born.
Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
It’s got to be my partner in life, Mark. He’s always got my back. Even though his job is high pressured and intense, he still finds the time to support me with BANG! Curry. In the early days, he came with me to all the farm food markets and got stuck in. He has always been there with me no matter what. That’s what you need — that constant, positive support, believing in you. There are quite a few downs, as well as ups, when you run your own business and Mark keeps me buoyant.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?
We landed a contract with Hello Fresh a few years ago, and I remember the Hello Fresh chef called me just after I did the school drop off. He wanted to pick my brains on recipe development, and so we discussed ingredients and flavours together. It was a really lovely moment; not only because he was a chef and he wanted to hear my opinion, but because it was Hello Fresh which was a turning point for BANG! Curry in terms of growth.
I’ve also met some well-known faces too — when I was doing a sampling in Wholefoods, Levi Roots came in and tasted our products!
Did you ever struggle with believing in yourself? If so, how did you overcome that limiting belief about yourself? Can you share a story or example?
I’m lucky that I have always had strong self-belief. My parents instilled an inner confidence in me that with clever application, you can achieve whatever you set your heart on.
When it comes to motherhood, I’ve had struggles like any mother; it’s a constant learning curve. My solution is to always seek advice — I talk to someone ‘in the know’, who can offer me wisdom and that always helps.
In my own work I usually encourage my clients to ask for support before they embark on something new. How did you create your support system before you moved to your new chapter?
I used my close friends and family to bounce my concept and business ideas against. Those that gave me positive energy formed my BANG! inner circle. I couldn’t have got this far without their support. I am lucky to have really talented people around me and I drew on their expertise to fast track me along. For example, one of my close friends is a marketing genius. He completely got my idea, I sent him a jiffy bag with my prototype plus a recipe and he helped me turn that basic idea into a fledgling product.
Starting a new chapter usually means getting out of your comfort zone, how did you do that? Can you share a story or example of that?
Starting cookery classes in my own kitchen, I was completely out of my comfort zone. Since I’m not a trained chef, I felt a bit of a fraud. I soon got over this, as after the second cookery event, it was clear that the classes were a winner. We had such positive reviews — we were truly inspiring people to cook the BANG! way.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started” and why?
1 . I wish someone had told me that bootstrapping a business to success is unlikely. Going from zero to hero on a shoestring is quite rare. I was very shy to ask for financial help and wish I came around to the idea earlier.
2 . To make time for exercise and things that I enjoy that have nothing to do with the business or being a mum. It makes you far more efficient and focussed with the time you put in.
3 . How to hire amazing people through recommendation and letting go of under-performers. There are a few stories here but it’s all part of the journey!
4 . Caring about the smallest of details. Nothing is too boring or beneath me. I believe that every customer counts and their opinion and feedback is ever so valuable. When we have had the odd bad review, I seek out feedback to understand what happened so we can learn and grow.
5 . Being persistent. I started this process as quite polite, however the constant door shutting from buyers have u-turned my approach. I’m still polite obviously but also more confident in being more direct. If you don’t ask you don’t get!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I’d love to inspire a movement in parts of the world where women are restricted from education or making their own decisions. You’d be surprised at how large that population is.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)
Jamie Oliver! He’s mad about food and I love what he has done for school dinners. He clearly cares about spreading the accessibility of nutrition and great food to everyone. Plus, he seems like a fun person.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can find me on LinkedIn here and you can view BANG! Curry products here
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com.
