Emily Lui: Co- founder of Cutter & Squidge

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1:46This is Jazz FM. Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world, together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Emily Louis, one of the two sisters, Annabelle being the other one, who are co-founders of Cutter and Squidge, the bakery and gifting brand. Spending much of their childhood in their parents' Hertfordshire restaurant, learning the art of hospitality, Annabelle and Emily developed an appreciation for lovingly handmade food using natural ingredients.

2:23With Annabelle building a career in corporate finance and Emily becoming a partner at a London law firm, it was a hunger for a more creative, fulfilling path that led them to bake together, transforming their small kitchen into, as they say, a late-night laboratory. And when their creations, Biskies, a biscuit-cookie-cake hybrid, sold out at fine food markets and attracted listings with Selfridges and Harrods, the success led to their first permanent store in Soho in 2015. That's a long while ago. The self-funded Cutter and Squidge have since collaborated with Hello Kitty, Downton Abbey and Freddy's Flowers and have grown into a direct-to-consumer gifting brand, delivering natural bakery treats all across the UK.

3:00It's great, great to have you here. You make cakes. You're a lawyer. Explain. You know, we grew up in a family food business. Restaurants, of course, but our dad was a bit different. He's Chinese, but he actually cooked French, kind of continental Italian food. So we've just grown up in food. And Annabelle and I, growing up, we were always the people that if you were having a party, we would bring the cake. Standard. You would expect Emily and Annabelle to bring a cake to a party. So we were doing that for a really long time. And we both love cooking. We love baking. We just, we're very passionate about food.

3:38Total foodies. And one day Annabelle bought me, very proudly, some cupcakes, which were very substandard. And she said, we can do better. And I said, yes, we can. But we're not going to make cupcakes because that's done. Let's do something new and inventive. When was this? This was in 2013-14. This is that early, early days of inception. So about 2013. And you're both in proper jobs. Yes, Annemarie. As your father and mother would call them, I'm sure. Absolutely. We followed the instructions to the T. Quite right, too. Lawyer. And then I'm a lawyer. And Annemarie was in corporate finance. So not doctors.

4:13Slight disappointment there. But close. Close enough, I would say. You're conforming to the norm of first generation Hong Kong Chinese family. Absolutely. In a good way. I say that with love and with kindness coming from a Jewish family, it's the same thing. It is. Annabelle had said to my dad, I want to become a pastry chef, and he said, over my dead body. Says the chef. Yeah, absolutely. He said, I haven't done all of this for you to become a pastry chef. If you want to have a career and then retire and become a pastry chef, by all means, but you have to have your career first. But you're seeing that.

4:47Mum and Dad both working in the restaurant and utterly committed to putting food on the table, not just for their lovely guests, but obviously for you. So you obviously listened to Dad. We did. And then what? Then we were like, we will never have a restaurant. So we absolutely have never had a restaurant. But we just, the passion for being creative and using food as that creative outlet, it was just too great. It was just, honestly, it was just too great. and we just felt that we had to act on it. And back in 2013, 14, early days, the food industry was just filled with artificial colorings and flavorings, bright blue cakes, rainbow cakes, and nothing really tasted natural and that really upset us.

5:31And, you know, 10 plus years ago, nobody cared about what they put in their bodies. They really didn't. But now, you know, 10 years on, everyone does. But back then they didn't. But we decided that we were going to be this all natural bakery. So if something said it was lemon, it wasn't lemon flavoring, it was made with lemon. If it was pineapple, it was made with pineapple. It's just completely logical for us. And that's how we started the business, with an ethos of all natural and innovative. So we were, I say, naive, maybe slightly arrogant in thinking that we could launch a new food product type into the sweet treat market.

6:07So instead of doing cupcakes, we created this thing called Biscay. And that was the first invention, as it were. It was the first invention. And it's a biscuit cookie cake because Annabelle loves biscuits, cookies. I absolutely adore cake. Full stop. That's my go-to. So we were like, what do both of us love? What can we make that both of us would love and that it would be a tactile, enjoyable dessert that wasn't too pretentious but really tasted and was made of things that we said it was going to be made of? You know, fruit, basically. So that first, just paint me the picture before we hear from Tito Puente because he's waiting in the wings.

6:43Paint me a picture of that very first biscuit you made that I could have bought. It was a chilli, pineapple and coconut biscuit. That was the very first flavour. And how big is the biscuit? About the size of a tennis ball. So quite a substantial. Quite a substantial. I think it's a sweet burger. Cutter and Squidge is centre stage. Emily Louis is my business shaper. She's one of the sisters that set this business up back in 2013-ish, 13, 14, something like that. Who pushed this? was it you or was it Annabelle? It was I would say it was Annabelle she was very driven for us to do something. Why? Why was she so driven?

7:22She was in the early parts of her career and she just felt as though her capacity wasn't being used enough by the jobs that she was in which is true she was probably using about 20 % of her capacity she knew she could give more she was at a stage where she would need to move firms she was in a crossroads of do i stay here or do i move firms and if i move firms what what does my career path look like and she was at a big firm called kpmg she was which many people may will have heard of so a great place to be in corporate finance yeah along with all the other the other big four companies but she so you think she pushed it is that a younger sister goading the older sister thing as well a little bit absolutely Absolutely.

8:05We're very much, our partnership works because she's 100 miles an hour and I'm grabbing her by the back of her shirt going, yeah, before we do that, we need to do X, Y and Z. Now, is that personality type or is that an age thing or is that just the big sister thing? What's going on there? Is it a bit of a combo of the lot? It's a combo. I'm seven years older than her. Obviously, I'm a lawyer, so by, you know, I'm cautious by design or they call me the merchant of doom because I always look at everything that is probably going to go wrong and tell them about it. Emily, I know many merchants of doom.

8:38Mishkondorea is a wonderful place full of brilliant lawyers, but it's in the DNA of a lawyer. You've got to be the merchant of doom as well as the merchant of opportunity. You have to look at both, and that's the super skill, I guess. But your dynamic, has it shifted now that you are working together closely? No, actually, it's the same. Really? It really is the same. So she has a position of CEO, which is that head honcho driving position. I am COO, CCO, commercial officer. I sign on contracts. She's not allowed to because she treats them like autographs. She'll just sign away. And she's not here to protect herself, by the way.

9:17I can pipe up. I can say, but Annabelle would say Emily. That's not quite fair. She'd agree. So actually, we've both taken very natural roles, which suit our skill sets. And then the things that are in between that maybe neither of us particularly like to do or neither of us have a particular strength. And we tend to share those responsibilities. So in terms of our personalities, we're very lucky in that we complement each other very well. And what did mum and dad think about all this once it had kicked off and once they realised they couldn't hold the reins to stop the pastry chefs emerging? They were very supportive.

9:53Were they? Yeah, we're a family business. They were very, very supportive. Any good advice? Yes, there was very good advice. It was very much sort of, you know, they're entrepreneurs themselves. So my parents never really understood the, okay, you're working how many hours a week and you're getting X amount and that's the bonus that you got at the end of the year. You know, my mom's like, I don't understand this because they are entrepreneurs themselves. They've had multiple businesses. So, you know, what have they taught us? Without saying anything they've taught us resilience absolutely our mother's an incredible business woman you never she always gets what she wants and did mum run the show really even if dad thought he did yeah i think so i mean they're not going to listen to this so yeah absolutely mum runs mum runs the ship i'm going to make sure they listen to this emily i'm going to actually find their email addresses if they look at email or their mobile numbers and we're going to make sure they listen they will they will then all hell will break loose you know there was a time where we had this big fridge being moved into our first bakery it was in it was in a fulham and it wouldn't get in the door and the delivery driver was just going to drop it outside and leave it and walk away and our dad turned to us and said if your mother was here she would sort this out she would have this fridge installed in the bakery without any argument it would be done and that kind of upbringing you know it's very much tiger mum you've probably heard a lot about it.

11:20Chinese mums are tiger mums. She completely brought us up that way. Why are you crying? Are you hurt? No, well, stop. Crying is not going to fix anything. I just, I'm rarely stumped for words, but I think it's probably, I'm thinking of my own parents thinking, Elliot, you've got to get a grip. Much more coming up from my brilliant business shape today is Emily, Emily Louis, and she'll be back in a couple of minutes. But right now, while I'm still thinking about being a tiger parent and realizing I've missed my vocation, we're going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Innovation Series, which can be found on all the major podcast platforms.

11:50Lydia Kellett invites business founders to share their industry insights and practical advice for those of you thinking about starting your very own thing. In this clip focused on the edtech industry, we hear from Chris Carla, co-founder and CEO of Kinu, a gamified learning app designed to increase the rate of knowledge acquisition. The Mishcon Innovation Series. Inspiration from founders of cutting-edge businesses. In association with Jazz Shapers with Mishcon Derea. I think one thing that's interesting in edtech, but in startups in general, is that even if it's not a good time to raise capital, that shouldn't impact the ambition that you have in the long term.

12:30The weird thing is that if you want to do something that's truly bold or will have a lot of impact, and education, like really, I think impactful education startups feel like that because there's so much opinion and so much momentum about how things should be done, then I think you should always just ignore the state of the market and just do the thing that really inspires you. And don't be scared to do something bold. Sometimes doing something bolder when the market is bad is easier because you'll just, you'll stand out from the crowd of people trying to do something safe. And so I think now is a great time to start something in learning or education because of that.

13:07The Mishcon Innovation Series. In association with Jazz Shapers with Mishcon Derea. This is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss. In partnership with Mishcon Derea. It's business, but it's personal. You can enjoy all our former business shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast. You can hear this very program again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your favorite podcast platform. My guest today is Emily Lui, one of the two sisters who are the co-founders of Cutter and Squidge, the bakery and gifting brand. The name Cutter and Squidge, one of you squidged and one of you cut. Is that it in a nutshell? Absolutely.

13:44Which one were you? So I'm the squidger. So you literally with your hands, you're squidging. So when we created the biscuit, Annabelle would cut the biscuit part and I would squidge the buttercream inside with the piping bag, cutter and squidge. I love it. And when did you decide that was going to be the name? Immediately. Early days. Early days. We sat down, obviously being ex-corporate, we sat down and we said to each other, what are we building here? Of course you did. I love it. I mean, it was very clinical. What's the market position? Absolutely. Yeah. Where are we? What are we doing? So we had a blank piece of paper and we said, what are we building here?

14:18Are we building a product, a single product line, a bisky? Are we building a company that is all about us? So the Louis Sisters Bakery, Emily and Annabelle's Bakery or are we building a brand? And we said, actually, we're building a brand. That's what we want to build is a brand. And why that? Because I mean, I would agree that that thesis is probably a good one to follow, but you could argue that Emily and Annabelle's is also a brand. It is, but it's a personal brand. We wanted to build a brand that would live long after we had anything to do with that weather, whatever that might be. What was that about?

14:53That particular point. And why legacy? Is that a family thing, do you think? I think it was something that we knew we could build something that might end up being bigger than we are, or something that is bigger than that we could even make it. so we wanted to make sure we had a brand that could encompass lots of different areas so not just biscuits or cake or blah blah blah we wanted a brand that could encompass a lot of things and we'll talk about where it's going because I think there's some other things like flowers and things which are coming along as well so I love that there was this corporate finance person meets lawyer they sit there and they plot they've got a strategic framework a brand is what tick we need a brand premium pricing tick we need premium pricing because we're going to have to deliver these natural ingredients are not going to be cheap no so we're going to have to build that in okay so it's got to look great and all that your first real break and i think if i'm right you there were a hundred letters that went off to various people saying please stock us is that right yes we back then the rage was um fine food markets so you had all the different food markets around which a lot of them still exist now i said okay the way to break into this food market let's do a food market so one christmas annabel wrote off to one to 200 different markets and one person said yes john shepherd yep partridges um and he's the you know guild of fine foods good taste awards etc and he said oh this looks interesting come and see me so off we went with our product and wrapped in a bow it was our early version of biscuit it looks different now than it did then and we put it in front of him and he said oh this is interesting i like the idea of this so like why why don't you come and do a little stall at the Partridges Market in Sloan Square?

16:41And he gave us our first chance. And he's incredible in bringing and truly supporting new people into the market because he didn't charge extortionate pitch fees. I mean, he covered the electricity. That was it. Without pitch fee, it was nothing. What do you think he saw? I mean, was he, you know, if everyone else ignored you or either said, no, thank you, why did John say, I like this? I think it was because it tasted good and it was a new concept. And his markets weren't really about making him money. His focus is promoting good food. That's why I think he took the leap. Product has to be good.

17:24That was probably on their chart as well at the beginning of the journey. It can't just be a brand with no substance. It's got to have some proper, beautiful tasting sensations when you eat the biscuits. and all the other products which are going to hear much more about. Emily Louie is my business shaper. She's the co-founder of Cut It and Squidge. So you get your break. What's it like? You've now set your stall up, go back in time for a moment, and there's people coming up and tasting your wares. What did that feel like in that moment compared to what you'd felt like professionally before? Surreal, because it's something that you've created, you've made.

17:57People are tasting it, and then they're buying it because they enjoy it. And there's no greater feeling than that, especially if you're a foodie and you cook and you you know my love language is food i love to cook and i love people to enjoy food there's no greater feeling than that that something that you've really worked hard at has has has really hit home people enjoy it i mean it was quite grounding moment when we started the markets freezing once a week was it at that point once a week on a on a saturday on a saturday um and uh rain hail snow blizzards we were there um it was grounding because it was interesting to actually be face to face with people who didn't like the product and they told they had no qualms whatsoever to tell you it was disgusting to your face so that's that yeah that really brings you down a peg or two um and did mom and dad come along to when you were they there on the first day dad was integral to the whole thing we used to call him um he was director of logistics and operations because he'd drive us places and he would help us so if we had two markets on the same day he would go and do one of the other the quieter market um so he was completely involved he was sort of semi-retired at the time so he had a bit of time on his hands and he's like i have time let's do it i'll help you girls is he the kind of person that's expressive and that says, wow, I'm proud of my girls?

19:18They're Chinese, full stop. Any Chinese person listening to this will completely understand. There is no, to the external world, I'm sure they tell people that they're proud and that we've done great. But to us, it's you can do better. You can do better. We can always do better. And that was there on day one as well. Absolutely. You did that wrong. You should have done that better. But you go, that means he loves me. Yeah. Because he's given me, I'm in the glare. He's given me the glare. He's given me attention. The beautiful thing then happens is, of course, that Harrah's and Selfridges pop up and they say, hey, we'd love to have you.

19:53And then the ripple dissolve. They say, we don't want you anymore. And suddenly you go from the highs of a new business to the lows of the reality of a new business. Tell me how you then bounce back from that and decide, hold on a minute, there's not much money left in the bank. What do we do now? What's the thought process in that moment when suddenly the adversity hits? The thought process, once you've got over the shock of having a business, employees, premises and no income, is, well, number one, we have employees and they've trusted us with their livelihood. So what can we do? You know, what can we do to repay that trust?

20:36And number two is like, is it time to give up? and I think a lot about becoming an entrepreneur is being able to push away the fears and just go for it and just say, do you know what? Let's just see what's going to happen. Win or lose, we'll learn a lesson. And it was at that moment when we said, okay, win or lose, are we ready to give up? No, we're not. We still believe in our brand. We still believe in our business. How are we going to make it work? Our solution was take every last penny that we had in the bank account and throw it at a pop-up shop and see if that was the way that our business should be for it to then actually be successful, sustainably successful.

21:18And the market responded by saying, hell yeah. Hell yeah. Final chat coming up with my guest today. It's Emily Louis. And we've got some Coco Roco for you too. That's in just a moment. Don't go anywhere. This is Jazz Shapers with Elliot Moss. In partnership with Mishkondorea. Condorea. It's business, but it's personal. Emily Louie is my business shaper. She's co-founder of Cutter and Squidge. They're the people who have brought me today some cheesecake brownie. What are they? They're cheesecake brownies, right? They are. And what's the taste sensation in a tent? It's easy. Because you are in the business of joy, which is what it says on your website.

21:58So it must be true. But I like that idea. It's so simple. So we were talking about resilience and talking about bouncing back and that thought process and all of that. You had some shops. They went down. You still got the one shop. You're now looking at expanding the business. You're here. You're very much here. Things are going the right way. Are you happy, even if your parents have said not good enough? Are you tough on yourself, Emily, in the way that your parents are? We're incredibly tough on ourselves. We can always do better. What did we do wrong? Where are the lessons? And sometimes because you're in the weeds, you don't always take a step back and look at what you have achieved, because we're always thinking about what can we do better?

22:34How can we do it better? How can we serve our customers better? What can we give them that they don't know they need yet, but they do definitely want it from us? The five-second rule I loved, I think I read something about, within five seconds, your customers have to be greeted. Is that right? In the store. In the store. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that's quite rapid. It is, but there's nothing worse than walking into a store and being ignored. Yeah. Yeah, so even if they're super busy serving, you go, hello, lovely to see you, welcome, have a look. Exactly. Simple stuff. The hard work ethic is what I want to come back to, because obviously this is very much an immigrant story generally, not just specific to the Lewis.

23:12Is that more important in a way than the creativity that you sought in doing your own thing, do you think, for you personally? Is it more intrinsic to being successful? Yeah. And what gives you happiness? Is it the creativity or is it the results of the hard work? It's both. The creativity is, being creative is fun. It's the fun part of the job. The execution is the hard part of the job. And then the results at the end give you the joy that everything that you've put in, your creative efforts, your hard graft on the execution have actually resulted in something successful that a lot of people have enjoyed.

23:51So it's a whole process that you have to enjoy. the middle bit is the least enjoyable bit which is the execution and do you take a moment at the end to enjoy the joy you personally generally not because we're always thinking about the next occasion we're you know we're now this occasion we're an occasions business so we cater to all the different occasions that different demographics have as a lot as well as our anniversaries birthdays mother's we're doing everything so we actually just kind of roll from one to the other and i think one of the criticisms i would say that we probably have of ourselves is that we don't take an opportunity to step back and look at what we've achieved.

24:27I can imagine you don't, and that's why I guess I'm asking the question, but does Annabelle ever say to you, Emily, can we just stop for five seconds and say, do you know what, we're doing an okay job? No, absolutely not. She's worse than me. Is she? No, absolutely. She's more driven. She's corporate finance, you know, there's no stopping. And in terms of that, when the family are together, when you are together and you're not, quote unquote, not working, do you have a chance to talk about things that aren't work? All the time. And, you know, my husband said to me, what do you two talk about all the time?

24:56Well, we bounce between, you know, family things, her kids, the dogs, the wider family and the business. It all just melds. And we're lucky because, you know, we are best friends and we continue to be able to be best friends as well. So this hasn't affected, because often people say, you know, family businesses, and I've seen it with lots of families, that it creates problems if things aren't going so well. how are you going to ensure that it doesn't create a problem in your family do you think that's just an impossible you know because again lawyers the lawyer and you would say well you've got to think about what could go wrong that's the nature of being a lawyer have you thought about that we have come from a family of entrepreneurs so it's ingrained in us that at dinner table which my husband's actually said this he's observed where we have this very heated family business conversation at the dinner table and then we're like okay who wants dessert are you having this you having that you know there's we don't take it personally and it's not personal and it's not about ego and you do have to put ego aside when it comes to the greater good of a business and difficult questions before i let you go and ask or before i even before i let you go i'm gonna ask your song choice don't forget that bit but in terms of these the duality of emily the lawyer and emily the entrepreneur where might this end where might it land up do you think time will tell such a loyally answer you just don't know we're going to we could it could be this it could be that i'm only giving you the options i mean i could be on tv you could be my third career it's been really nice chatting to you um and i actually quickly quickly add before i just asked to do ask your song choice you've got plans this business is diversifying but tightly i imagine you've still got a clear proposition from that original whiteboard absolutely so we didn't think our business would be a direct consumer nationwide brand that it is now that was a creation of what we what we managed to put together during covid and beyond and we did never imagine that this would be the business now so for us it's harnessing that growing it and growing what we do as a business what we're offering to our customers and what they're what they want from us give me one example of what they'll be getting or are getting now they want more hampers and they want more curated joyful moments so that could be with flowers um with hampers with large cakes sent to their door up in scotland from london but perfectly good luck may the force be with you just before i let you go what is your song choice and why have you chosen it ella fitzgerald every time we say goodbye it was a song that was on repeat in our parents restaurant and so every time i hear it i just think about working in the restaurant with mom and dad ella fitzgerald there with every time we say goodbye the song choice of my business shaper today emily louis she talked about building something bigger than themselves this idea that there will be legacy long after they have gone in the business called cutter and squid she talked about her joy being the joy that she sees in other people as they eat their products.

28:07And finally, that phrase, it wasn't time to stop. The conversation between Emily and Annabella's founders when they were faced with a really difficult moment and they decided to invest their last savings in opening a shop. Fantastic stuff. That's it from Jazz Shapers. Have a lovely weekend. Jazz Shapers on Jazz FM. In partnership with Mishkondorea. It's business, but it's personal. We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You'll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive. To find out more, just search Jazz Shapers on iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com forward slash Jazz Shapers.