How George Kruis Built FourFive From a Physio Bed

0:00You've got to do everything at once at the beginning and then as you grow you section out different things I think that's our next one, which I think will make a huge difference because we've got good contacts and love speaking to people and selling as well. In this bite-sized episode, I'm joined by George Cruz, former England and British Lions Locke who swapped the pitch for the boardroom. He co-founded 4.5, a wellness brand born out of pain, performance and recovery. I'm sort of, I guess, probably a bit more risk adverse, but that's the beauty in having founders which are different. You can't be the same founders, I think.

0:33You've got to have differences. Welcome to this special bite-sized episode of Screw It Just Do It from our back catalogue of over 550 past episodes. How long from idea to start 4-5 to actually starting it, like when you're on the chip in the catch? What was that kind of time scale like for you two? I mean we had to set up a company which like rugby players or I'd say athletes in general are so I guess so sheltered so like you know you ask someone to do a an email in a day it will take them you know it will take them a week so it's just like it's like that first bit is like okay we've got to set up a company it probably took us way too long whereas actually you can set it up in a couple days but yeah I think once like once that was done all right well we've made a company that's just we've got to dive in now so I think probably sitting on physio beds in January 18 to having what a product on shelf yeah online yeah yeah

1:4310 months okay quite long time I mean we're still doing a business it was still far longer like a lot of the businesses we've interviewed they always just say the getting the manufacturer is the hardest thing the hardest thing would you agree with that supply chain is big yeah especially in a you know in an fmcg business that's yeah it's a huge thing i think for us it was just like the big things were like negotiating around um setting up bank accounts in a in an area like cbd that was growing at the time it was quite um you know it's quite it was hard to get a trading business account attached to a company okay those sort of yeah it took like three or four months just to do that um but obviously like yeah the manufacturing stuff learning a lot more about it like you can't just go in and just profess to know everything you've got to do like some hard graft and create a lot of contacts within that within the industry um and finding you know finding a decent nutritionist finding a decent um neuroscientists who can help along with all the CBD bits.

2:46Yeah. Yeah, probably building the team, I think, 10 months, yeah. Okay. And you've already touched on what I was going to ask you about what it's like from going in a team environment. I worked for Virgin Atlantic. Everything was done for us. Again, we were really cocooned. They booked the hotel for you. They'd give you an envelope with money and then a card and load money on it. There'd be transport, a range, and all of a sudden, you have to do everything for yourself like is that one of the biggest leaps it is yeah it really is like the fact that like you have so a normal like we're going normal day training you go in there'd be your food supplements there uh you go into the change room you'd have like nice little folded thing with all your all your kit out laid out for you uh you don't have someone to put your socks on but i don't know what the world's coming to but uh and then you go upstairs you've got your breakfast laid out you've got and you go to the gym programs laid out you know you've got sometimes like you'd have like one like almost a one-to-one trainer with you you know doing doing all the bits uh with you and and then you go you have food you've got the meetings all laid out it's so simple it's like school on steroids it's just so easy um and all you've got to do is just like properly apply yourself and train and work as hard as you can i think i think coming away from that you know where you've got to organize meetings emails team team members like that management pit is it's like a coach going from being a like a single skill like a defense coach to being a team manager you sometimes see them like just not not work you know it's like you could they could be the best coach in the world at a certain thing but then they have to go and manage a team it's just yeah so i think that sort of like understanding um almost like off delegation is a huge thing because we're quite proud people we're quite like let's take this on take this on um yeah i'd say that the organization bit of sorting yourself out sorting your life out so you're not then um you know you're setting up a meeting and you're late or something like that affects other people if you're not on track yeah so i think that yeah a hard fast track learning curve in those 10 months of like right this is actually these are business standards because you don't know what business standard is.

5:01You could turn up five minutes later, that would annoy someone. It annoys people in sport as well, but that's probably a poor example. But yeah, there's a lot of different areas which are completely different from sport to business. And what stopped you from doing it sooner then? Was there anything that was stopping you and Dom from pressing go on this project before then? um i think really like we didn't really know about cbd until pre pre um pre uh 2018 but there was also cbd as a as a banned substance came off the banned substance control list right in january 2018 so kind of all aligned quite quite nicely yeah so you've got like in a cannabis plant you'll have a number of different cannabinoids and THC is the one which is like gets you high CBD there's lots like CBN CBG load of another cannabinoids CBD got taken off the banned substances so kind of like all aligned at once really yeah yeah and what interested to know again so how do you split up different roles that you you don't do one of you go I'm I'm CEO I'm MD I mean how did that way again what's that combo like there's a big hat at the start of the day and we just go and we're like oh i'm on sales today um that i think it kind of just um probably like it just falls into your personality or your work types i guess i think um uh so dom's a bit more on the sales side um i will do more investor comms networking business development bits are probably a bit more team oriented bits.

6:45And yeah, I think it just goes from there. But we're actively looking for an MD at the moment who can basically, like I shouldn't be doing a lot of the team management bits. I shouldn't be sorting out, you know, EMI, those sort of bits. I should be going out selling and all those. So I think at the moment, like that's a huge step for us and I'm super excited to get that person on board. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, but people, you know, you've got to do everything at once at the beginning. And then, you know, as you grow, you section out different things. I think that's our next one, which I think will make a huge difference because, like, we've got good contacts, you know, and love speaking to people and, you know, and selling as well.

7:26So it's about that time will be good for us. And what was the first hire you made? Day one, there's, like, YouTube, The Kitchen or whatever. First hire, yeah. It was a very hard-working South African. I've actually only left there not too long ago to go into a completely different sort of, I guess, career path. But yeah, a good, hard-working South African. More just to do everything that we couldn't really do in sort of, you know, packing and all those sort of things, which was like a, yeah, it was brilliant. It was really good. And we're at like maybe eight or nine staff now. One over in South Africa as well.

8:09So, yes, we're growing. Yeah. And what were your attitudes to risk, like you compared to Dom as well? Yeah, different. Different. I put different. Dom likes a punt. Yeah. And I'm sort of, I guess, probably a bit more risk adverse. But that's the beauty in having, you know, founders which are different. And you can't be the same founders, I think. You've got to have differences. Definitely. so he'll come to me with something and be like that's mental that is off the table and I'll go to him with something and he's like mate come on we've already done twice as much as that so I'm like oh ok fine so there's a lot of conceding we haven't actually had a decent blow up yet that's disappointing I keep trying to poke him who would win I keep trying to poke him But yeah, no, they've got a good, strong relationship.

9:09Good relationship. And what were some of those first actions that you took? Maybe you can give some examples to the audience that, you know, when you started the business, was it an email? Was it a phone call, a conversation with somebody? What kind of kicked things off, you know, from that initial idea and going down and seeing what, you know, products were in the shops? um it was yeah like it's all product led for for ages isn't it um but it was then just trying to find like suitable agencies to to fit certain things like we didn't want to hire like immediately because we need to do a lot of learning so using the agencies to learn and then finding people who who can then take certain bits in-house um yeah a lot of it was just network building and like we're incredibly fortunate with the I guess the sport we're in it is it is a probably a

10:09it's a sport with a lot of people who you know you look at Twickenham you look at the people who go there in the in the corporate lounge and so on there's a lot of like CEOs and so yeah true C-suite from a lot of big companies which you know can can really really help out so it's very aware of that uh of that and you know the efforts that i guess um i've taken to get to that so this was one of my favorite episodes first time one of the first times that we went out um and we went to the guest's house we sat up there we recorded there um really enjoy meeting my guest in person wherever possible um and look for me george's lesson you can't rely on yesterday's identity, right?

10:52You've got to rebuild your routine. You've got to redefine your goals and you've got to find a new team that pushes you.