Dominic Day, Co-Founder

Dom grew up in West Wales where, as the tallest person in his school, he was directed towards rugby and ended up making a 15-year career out of it. He was lucky to play all over the world and finished his career with three years at Saracens where he met his co-founder, George. He now resides in Dublin, Ireland with his family and travels back and forth to London for business.

George Kruis, Co-Founder

George played professional rugby for 14 years, playing the majority of his life at a club called Saracens. He was also privileged to have played 45 times for England. Towards the end of his career, he snuck off to Japan for two seasons to travel, explore, and start his transition from sport to business. George has a huge passion for health and wellness and, alongside Dom, set up fourfive over five years ago whilst coming to the end of his rugby career.

Their mission? To inspire individuals to take control of their every day and confidently live life to the max through the power of premium CBD, Hydration, and Functional Mushroom products.

“fourfive was created for a need and a want to live a happier, healthier lifestyle during and after our rugby careers,” said Kruis.

In 2018, when playing rugby for Saracens, George and Dom were both struggling with injuries and looking at alternative methods for recovery other than the usual things they would do. At that time, CBD had just been legalised in sport and they gave it a go, seeing immediate results from reducing inflammation to better sleep.

So, they started fourfive to offer people safe, tested, and trusted CBD supplements, and from there, they have since extended the range to offer multiple natural products to help people live a happy and healthy life. Five years on, they’re now stocked in Holland & Barrett, David Lloyds, Boots, and Amazon.

“Having spent our whole adult lives as professional rugby players, diving into something new was hugely exciting,” notes Day.

Rugby roots

You often find that there is a lot of crossovers between sport and business. Sport is a high-pressure environment, and things can go wrong and need to be fixed very quickly, similar to running a startup.

“I think there are some skills from rugby that have very little transference, for example, chucking a ball around the rugby field does not help me understand a P&L (profit and loss)! There are, however, some skills which we would be much more comfortable with, and I would include resilience, the ability to work as a good team player, and strong social skills. With any good team it is about finding the persons best skill sets and putting them in the right role and filling the gaps with better experience than you,” notes Kruis.

“The ability to work as part of a team is the key one. In sport you are heavily reliant on each person doing their job well so that you too can excel. In business it’s the same, from NPD to marketing to retail to branding. For a successful business, everyone needs to execute to ensure success,” said Day.

Beyond the try line

But creating a business is not easy, and certainly not as easy as George and Dom first thought. One of their biggest challenges has been around the initial lack of skills and knowledge it takes to run a business. They went from an environment where everything was done and managed for them, into a position where they had to run meetings, manage people, and pitch to investors.

“When playing professional sport, you are in a bubble from the outside world and have very little idea about what goes into a successful business. Stepping out of that bubble over the last five years has been eye opening,” comments Kruis.

“We made a lot of mistakes in the first few years and did not hire enough experienced people from the off. We now have a great team with a balance of experience, however that has taken time to create and put together.”

Day echoes this statement: “We have certainly made a lot of mistakes and learned as we have gone. If I was to highlight a couple, I think we would have fine-tuned our offering a little bit and done some market research as to what customers would have wanted. Cash flow is king, and we probably invested a little too much cash in lesser performing SKUs.

“We are only now starting to focus on D2C, and I think we could have really started doing this a little earlier. We went out hard after retail and distribution which has been great for us but certainly the more difficult way to do things.”

The pair have undergone some steep learning over the years but have built some invaluable skills off the back of it. Running the business together has been key, with both leaning on each other at various times.

“It has worked very well and would have been a very tough path if we were doing it alone,” notes Kruis.

Tackling the highs with the lows

Quality and trust were the two biggest factors for Geroge and Dom when building fourfive. They are ready to support you in the moments when you need a boost – whether it’s pushing through a tough workout, conquering a challenging day at work, or simply navigating the ups and downs of day-to-day life.

The pair are now trying to get to a point where they can focus on specific areas so that they don't have to stretch across all aspects of the business.

The big push is on scaling fourfive in the UK and building their D2C customer base.

For their fellow entrepreneurs, here’s their advice

“Make sure you have enough experience, capital, contacts etc. to start before you create your own business. That sounds like a pessimistic view, but it is important to appreciate just how many companies fail and the reasonings behind that are largely because they do not have the basics required first. Once they are in place then my advice would be to chuck yourself at it and enjoy the journey!” said Kruis.

“I would probably be the opposite to George on this one. I think if you have an idea, and you think it could work then just kick it off and get going. Like us, if you are driven and want it to work you will find a way.

Make sure you build a network and ask for advice along the way and there is every chance you will be successful,” said Day.

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of Startups Magazine. Click here to subscribe