I'd Regret Not Giving It A Go

0:00Alex Chisnall:What stops founders from building something meaningful isn't the lack of ideas, it's the fear of getting started. I'm Alex Chisnall and this is Screw It Just Do It. A podcast for people who are ready to stop waiting, take action and make things happen. The best things that have happened in my life and the best experiences I've had have been on the other side of like fear. have you always been an action taker in life or is that something that you've kind of leaned into as you've kind of morphed into this new career it was kind of stale like i wasn't pushing myself and i knew that something had to change my contract was up i had a offer from bath and i was like terrified to leave wales like i hated it i hated the first like two months and i was like i was owning my brother and I was like, I think I'm just going to ask Scarlett so he'll take me back.

0:51If I was to look back in 30, 40 years, what would I regret more? Like giving it a go or not giving it a go? And 99 % of the time, I'd probably regret not giving it a go.

1:05Alex Chisnall:Before we get into today's conversation, this is genuinely relevant for a lot of founders listening. Are you running a business that pays supplies abroad, receives international payments, or operates across borders? World First helps founders manage global payments and FX more efficiently with access to competitive exchange rates and tools designed specifically for growing businesses. World First have given us an exclusive offer for podcast listeners to get 50 transactions completely fee-free for 60 days. Head to worldfirst.com forward slash screw it to create a free account and claim now. Now let's jump into the main conversation.

1:43Alex Chisnall:Today's guest is Dom Day, former professional rugby player playing for bath and internationally for wales now co-founder of four five alongside george cruz who's been on the show before what i'm interested in today is that transition from elite sport into building a business from scratch dom welcome to screw it stir thank you so much pleasure thank you for coming in um let's kick things off with with life towards the end of your rugby career what was what was that like at that time and a couple of years back yeah um I think it's a strange sign for any professional athlete. You never think it's going to end when it's your job.

2:23And it's all I'd ever known from 15 to 34, 35. So it's like a 20-year span there of being in academies, going into professional teams. And I think in hindsight, I was wildly unprepared for retiring. but I just remember those last few years were both brilliant and really hard because it was brilliant in that I was at Saracens which was a great team like a brilliant team to be at culturally um and in terms of performances on the pitch as well won a lot of silver it's always the end of the career um but I was also I always flash back to I wish I could have played longer but then also how I felt at that time and I was just in like a lot of pain like my knees my back um like every morning it would just be waking up and being like right what's it going to be today really yeah just like swinging my legs over the side of the bed and being like just grinning and being like oh this is my back or and like you just know you just know when it's time yeah um as much i'd actually already signed a two-year extension uh ordeal in to play professional rugby in America.

3:41Right. But the business was starting to pick up, so I had to make that tough decision. Yeah. It was in San Diego as well. Was it? That's part of the world. There was nothing I would have wanted to do more than go to San Diego for a couple of years, but I made that tough choice, and it was the right one. And are you in pain today? A lot better, actually. Okay. Yeah, and I think about that quite a bit. I don't train religiously, but I can get in the gym and I can work out, but I think the volume of training is a lot less. When I retired, I did nothing for like six months, and it was really strange because it actually got worse.

4:26I was like, right, I need to not train. Really? But I've kind of figured it out now in terms of I need to just... stay to a certain level and as long as i'm not tackling 120 kilo men and uh jumping up and down

4:43Alex Chisnall:in a line out all day then my body can cope with it yeah um and you said like you had that offer um to go and play in the states so you started the business remind me whilst you were still playing yeah have you how many years like before the end like towards the end of your career did you start that was it like the last year yeah it would be around yeah the last year so about 12 months we were going okay um and it was it was it was an interesting kind of launch where we we had quite a lot of pr at the beginning it was quite an interesting space cbd as it was at the time so derived from a cannabis plant or hemp um and then rugby players getting that we picked up quite a lot of pr off the back of it so we actually launched pretty well um more more by luck than design uh so we um we saw some good good sort of growth over the first year uh revenues were good and um we're like yeah this is something that can probably could it could could go somewhere so it was like right let's do it and then i remember from from chatting to george before uh again like first portal call was maybe the network you already had so like rugby players and then investors possibly came from that pool of people as well, right, who wanted to get involved.

6:02Yeah, yeah. So like any startup, you've got to pull, like find out your unfair advantages, I guess, as people. And for us, our unfair advantage was, we know hundreds of professional athletes. So we... Yeah, not just rugby, right? Yeah, not just rugby. So as we went out maybe about 12 months in and just get a bit of seed money to try and grow things. So we just outreach to cricketers. We've got guys like Jason Roy and guys like Owen Farrell, Jamie George, Gabby Logan. Like some really interesting investors. And still to this day, it's something that we know that we need to probably talk about a bit more.

6:52But they're super helpful. they're like a great bunch of people like they'll help us whenever they can um and and probably something we might be keeping in our back pocket a bit to to bring out for the next stage yeah um

7:04Alex Chisnall:was there a moment that you can kind of reflect back on where you knew that you needed to start thinking about the next stage life after rugby um it's probably when i got to saracens to be honest and this is something it's quite well documented in how professional athletes struggle when they transition out of sport and I personally don't believe it's the fault of the clubs every club I've been at has had a system in place to support players the issue is it's probably just there and it's the players responsibility to go and do it whereas Saracens it was a little bit different it was probably pushed on players a little bit more they would have very regular sessions and bring people in to talk to the guys and make people very aware of this is coming up and it could be three years, five years, ten years it could be tomorrow because you could get an injury so it was when I was at Saracens that I always thought that I was prepared but I was like actually no I'm nowhere near here and like 4.5 was something that

8:35like I said we launched it in the last year so it just happened to be the one that we really sort of led with when we left rugby Yeah.

8:46Alex Chisnall:There's an interesting part of that. I was chatting to a guy called Gerthro Steenkamp who won the Rugby World Cup with South Africa and has been scrum coach at La Rochelle for a couple of years. And known each other now about six or seven years to become really good mates. And he's just, you know, left coaching and, you know, started up his own like media channel. and he was saying again like for the second time he's had to kind of redefine who he is and what he kind of stands for can you kind of relate to that yourself oh yeah yeah right only too much so i um there was a couple of sort of big life moments for me when i retired so my daughter was born six months um prior to me retiring um started a business and retired and all this kind of happened at the same time and um like I mentioned earlier 20 years of just being in that rugby environment um like still today um I'm actually not sure who I am at the moment I'm like right am I am I a dad am I an entrepreneur am I a business owner like am I an ex-rugby player yeah and and it's it's kind of just um i still struggle a little bit with that in terms of um identity i guess yeah it is isn't it identity and and throw that into the mix moving from one country to another as well right yeah we change yeah we're well i'm well well based in moving around uh during rugby but um yeah yeah we thought we were so when i retired my wife's from dublin And COVID happened as well.

10:29So we were like, right, we need to get some help. We've got a child here, get near some family. We ended up staying there for three or four years and then four or five kind of picked up. So it was like, right, move back. So we're just trying to sort of stay still for a little bit.

10:45Alex Chisnall:And you can be all those things, right? You can be father, ex-professional rugby player, entrepreneur, business owner. And you can always just find you're switching on different parts of that identity at different times you know there is there is no balance between work and life especially when you're door seven now did you say so really busy age right yeah it's going on yeah after school clubs weekend stuff and all the rest of it yeah yeah it's uh that uh switching them on and off that's a bit i'm not very good at right and was there anything like early on that that nearly stopped you from making the jump into business or was it kind of seamless once you'd started it um it's there's probably a hundred times where we as rugby players would have sat in a changing room after a session or on the physio beds and being and just like chatted about like oh what if we did this what if we did that and i can't tell you why exactly george and i were like this was the one and we did it but it was just it it was just like there was just a moment where um like we were we were injured for maybe three months the two of us at the same time so we were spending quite a bit of time together um I'm probably a bit more adventurous than George so I was like right and I was closer towards the end of my career so I was all right I'm gonna try anything I can't here to get back on the pitch um cbd was the one i was all right i'll give that a go there was a few articles about it um and i was like george you should try this george gave it a go like found it good and uh we just kind of went for it and it was like we've got a bit of spare time here uh like signed up made a business bank accounts and all that and then kind of just like snowballed I can't say there was any particular moment that it was like a firm yes until we were like meeting manufacturers and doing all this stuff that we're just trying to figure out on the fly.

12:55Alex Chisnall:I was going to say, was there also then a moment that you thought, this can actually work now?

13:03The CBD, well, when we launched, we had a bit of PR, a bit of press. I think it was like the Times or something. and we didn't even have the website up and running. Really? So we were like, right, let's just try switching on the website and see what happens. And we switched it on, and three orders came through. And it was like, what's happened here? We were like, oh, my God. And you can imagine two rugby players trying to figure out how to put payment systems into a website and all this type of stuff. It was like, oh, my God, it's working. So it was like that moment was just kind of like, well this is this is easy yeah which is certainly not i was gonna say then you regret those words

13:48Alex Chisnall:instantly because there's so much to do right yeah um if you hadn't made that shift then what do you think life would be like now oh um that's a good question i think uh like a lot of rugby players it was uh they seem to like lean towards either like finance or property it's a lot of people like you i think you're probably at bath with like reese priestland and that yeah went into that that kind of yeah reese is a good friend of mine so is he yeah and um like he's he's made that leap he's done all his studies um so yeah that's a tough question um but like maybe on a site somewhere laying bricks really you reckon it's funny isn't it like you see finance probably because i know like ollie barkley and he like went into the property he was at bath as well um it's interesting isn't it where rugby players yeah or coaching obviously like yeah yeah like girthro did um so when you kind of reflect back now and i guess you're you're still in it right is how much of your identity was tied to being a rugby player for like 20 years outside of that what did you must be quite an all encompassing career especially when you make the leap to international and then you're playing in European games as well must be kind of all encompassing what did you do outside of rugby yeah it's you do live and breathe it right yeah it is first of all it's amazing yeah and as players we would sit there and moan as you do sit there and just be like oh got another training session it's like well what's the alternative lads it's like laying bricks on the site right so it's like um but yeah it it's it's intense um and you have to perform like not just weekly but daily um like as as i I would always, if I want to switch off, like I grew up in West Wales, a small village in South West Wales.

16:02And that for me, and it still is actually, it's like a place to go to, to like decompress. Like I grew up just like surfing and skateboarding.

16:10Alex Chisnall:Whereabouts were you again? Pembrokeshire. Yeah, okay. I'm from Cardiff, not that you'd know from the accent. Oh, really? I was just having that conversation. Yeah, with Dane, who's a Kiwi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so we would, And it's always nice to just get back. And that was my decompress and then back on the training pitch. Back on the training pitch. And what's maybe surprised you the most about making the transition then from rugby to business? Probably a bunch of things, I guess. Yeah. I try to make a point of saying this to lads whenever I see them who are still playing. but I'm like lads you obviously you get paid reasonably well as professional rugby players nothing like football obviously but you get well rewarded and when you really realise the value of a pound and what it takes to earn a pound when you're in the real world the real world as we call it and I always try and harm at home when I speak to lads I'm like, look, it can be a bit rubbish sometimes.

17:22You might not get picked. You might lose a game. But you're in a good place. And leaving rugby, it's tough.

17:37And people might be like, oh, this privileged rugby player. But I've just got so much more. I guess I'm in reality now, living in reality of what the real world is like.

17:52Alex Chisnall:It's interesting. I hadn't thought about it before, but it just reminded me. I remember, and you'll know him, Andy Goode, Saris. I remember we recorded at his house somewhere in North London, I think, near Saris. Again, it was probably maybe three years ago. He was considering retirement then and ended up rolling on for another couple of seasons. but the moment I caught him, he was in a really interesting state of mind, I guess. He just had no idea what he wanted to do beyond rugby and was just the thought, I just want to keep playing for another year. And then I think he did another year and retired last season.

18:28Alex Chisnall:And I guess from the outside looking in, I played rugby up until I was 30 and never got to the standards you do. I got to the third team in Bath. That was as high as I went after uni, right? But I loved it, right? Playing at the rec. but um yeah can you kind of can you relate to that as well your own experience like is he coming towards the end of your career and he hasn't didn't have anything like at the time you know business idea like that but he's obviously gone into some some media work and stuff as well yeah um i guess the closest i can relate to it is when i went to ireland um i'd not long retired and obviously you're going on to a much smaller salary and I moved over to Ireland and there was a couple of club teams that were like do you want to come and play?

19:22We can sort you out here and I was like well maybe and I pulled the boots back on for a little bit just to help pay the bills but that's probably the extent not for long but the body started moaning at me again yeah

19:48Alex Chisnall:talk to me about I think that's probably when I first came into touch with you guys when you had that initial press when you launched the brand who was the first hire you made outside of YouTube because as you're saying two ex-rugby players you switched on the website trying to figure out the business how did you approach that as a conversation I just had with Joe Woodward right about how you you build the team right so yeah maybe who was who was the first hire and what kind of skills did you identify that between the two of you like you didn't have I think at that point we needed we needed someone who's just can be able to like get down and dirty and get things done there wasn't a particular process in terms of the hiring at that point again we were we were still playing rugby so we needed someone in there who was going to just pack orders, get them out just giving them a list of things to do for the week and his name is Mike Hans, he's actually a brilliant South African lad and he just moved to London so he would just come up and get stuck in and help us out and I think he's since moved on but talking about hiring

21:08I just can't emphasise enough how important it is to take your time and George actually said this to me I think one of his mentors said it to him is higher slow, higher quick

21:20Alex Chisnall:that's the one, yeah 100 % and the difference that someone who really wants to do their job and is good at their job makes compared to someone who's like just okay yeah it's like 10 times the difference yeah so it just noticeable movements in like the business when when you get that higher right um so we we we our process is a lot better now um and we built the team out and like culture has been a massive thing that luckily has attracted a few like good employees as well I was going to say, you pull that from Bath, from Saracens, from Wales, etc., all the different camps you've been in. Yeah, Saracens just had a brilliant culture.

22:13And we absolutely try and instill a lot of those values in how the business is run today. And I think the main thing that's really strong with our current team is no one wants to let anyone else down. they don't want to be like the weak link and everyone everyone's willing to also help other people yeah um like roller sleeves up and just get stuck in um and it's just a good blend mix of people that have both got the expertise to do their job but also like are willing to just like knuckle down and pack orders if they need to and it's like we've just got that really great culture

22:52Alex Chisnall:um and when you when you started that and you start putting putting the team together just before that that moment then or maybe you kind of leaned into that um the gap in the market that you saw because i remember at that time i interviewed a couple of people who were who had different different um cbd brands um what did you see like in in the market and where you could kind of exploit it in in a good way obviously by helping more people who you know had similar traits to you that needed ultimately fixing enhancing recovering etc yeah i think when back to the point where i was kind of looking for something um to support with my injuries um that was really difficult um in that in that space that cbd space that there wasn't anything that to be quite blunt i didn't trust that i trusted sorry yeah so it was like right i kind of rolled the dice a little bit and kind of went for it um but really i shouldn't have uh if the nutritionists or the physios knew what i was doing they'd be like don't do that right so um it was more just like saw great benefits or wanted people to be able to have that choice like a a trusted like choice that they could go to to get the same benefits um and trust is something that we we we lean on massively like our all our products are tested like to the highest standards um and that's not just for professional athletes that we believe that everyone deserves to have like trusted products right it's not like there's i think um maybe 10 years ago it's very much like if you if you're not a professional athlete you go and get like uh own brand vitamin that costs like three quid and it's like that's good enough for you and then the professional athletes have got these like all singing all dancing supplements and for us it's like right no right everyone deserves to have like quality products and ones that they can trust and like transparency is really important for us.

25:06Alex Chisnall:Yeah. So I wanted to let you know about something that I see trip founders up all the time. If you're running a business with international payments, one of the biggest hidden costs is often foreign exchange. World First is built specifically for businesses operating across borders, helping you manage payments, hold multiple currencies, and reduce unnecessary FX costs. They're not a high street bank trying to do everything. They focus purely on international business payments and currency exchange. That's their thing. Switching providers is a commitment, which is why they're giving our listeners 50 fee-free business transactions to properly test their service.

25:43Alex Chisnall:Plus, signing up for an account is completely free and there are no ongoing monthly fees. You've got 60 days from sign up to use them. Head to worldfirst.com forward slash screw it and get your 50 fee-free business transactions. Now back to the podcast. And like everyone I've chatted over the years, like um it'll be 10 years next year so it'd be like you know it'll be coming up to like 800 interviews i think next year um and it's it's that the hiring's super important but also timing right and whether i've spoken to um like a julian hearn from from from fuel or an al barrett from grenade um stephen bartler they've all spoken about and people frame it differently some people call it luck and I'm like I think it's more timing right and it's it's having your eyes and ears open for the opportunity so you know when you launched four or five off the back of the time that you launched that I've never seen such a you know people be more interested in their in their in their health their wellness whatever name you want to kind of put into it and you've clearly like leaned into that right you know but you've you've had your eyes and ears open for that opportunity and you're bringing out new products to address different parts of that wellness market that you see right yeah yeah like we we always have our ear to the ground in terms of what what might be coming up um timing is um initially i would say it was uh more luck than judgment okay uh but you know i like to think that um like we mentioned about the pr that we got that we kind kind of helped bring that to the forefront as well in terms of highlighting what that product itself could do.

27:33Off the back of that, there is, as we've developed the range, a lot of market research that goes into it. We look to the States, we look across the world, what's trending, what's coming up. And more recently, like creating, we were chatting about creating. Yeah, you just launched that right recently. Yeah, which is a funny one because creatine has been around for like 30 years. I remember using it 30 years, but buying it in America at GNC.

28:02Alex Chisnall:Yeah. The only place I could get it. So it's been around for 30 years and it's having this like rebrand almost. But for us, we never want to just like put something out on the market that's already been done. So we look at ways that we can make it better. so our creatine we blend it with magnesium bisglycinate more as a overall wellness product rather than like a performance product whereas like when we were in rugby it would be like right we use creatine in pre-season yeah um like it helps you put muscle on get stronger get leaner um and then we kind of like stop taking it during the season which is something that i'm like how I use it now I just take it every day because it makes me feel really good and I'm kicking myself a little bit because I wish that during my career I had the knowledge to take it every single day because I would have felt better and maybe performed better but in hindsight it's a great thing it is isn't it remind me maybe because as I said to you before I think we started running.

29:13Alex Chisnall:Ever since I interviewed George, I've been taking the hydration tablets and CBD. But just remind me, what's the full range now? Because you're in, where did you just get into? So we're in Holland and Barrett, Sainsbury's, Boots, David Lloyd's Gyms, we're in a number of gym chains, hot pod yogas. Nice. Yeah. And what does the range encompass now? so you've got creatine you've got hydration tablets you've got CBD functional mushrooms ah okay yeah yeah yeah yeah okay yeah yeah so like again like functional mushrooms is an interesting one I'd categorise that close to like the CBD sort of market as a whole yeah but we were a bit more calculated with that in terms of like they're all blends like we lead with the sort of lion's mane being like the one of the best sellers yeah but we'll blend that with like B vitamins and um guarana and like just other like nootropics and like just to really like make that really a good product so it's not just like standalone lion's mane um it's just an example of like how we how we try and i guess go the extra mile i guess with with with those kind of products but leading into sort of electrolytes like that's obviously i mean we're seeing electrolytes everywhere now right yeah it's like the market's like blowing up and super competitive at the moment um and that although we're like really doubling down on mushrooms and electrolytes we're also kind of and creatine as well there's like that like it's quickly become like our best seller creating a magnesium but has a yeah oh wow yeah really and it's that boom again but you've leaned into it again right we've kind of gone at it from that sort of different angle not performance yeah yeah um in terms of like physical performance or gym bros it's like more like your overall health and well-being greetings for everybody right yeah yeah yeah whether you're i don't know whether you're you're i think like my daughter's like a teenager who's a dancer like at 19 or whether you're you're in your 60s and you're you're just going to the gym right you're just going to david lloyd for example it's for everybody yeah so you know it's it's got it's got great benefits all studies coming out in terms of like cognitive benefits and then you you couple that with magnesium bisglycinate and that sort of can help you calm down and like rest and sleep really well in the evenings so in terms of like the overall benefits for the body it's brilliant yeah and what i like as well is that you you've you've got a range of different flavors that go with it as well so i like a daughter goes i don't like that flavor it tastes like yogurt and i was like okay well here's the other one and i had like four different flavors yeah yeah and you're bringing another one out soon i believe yes we are yeah yeah we work really hard on the taste because i i think uh a lot of brands kind of just get them out there um but yeah the the taste wise it's like we know if we want that repeat custom like it has to taste good yeah yeah um you don't want it to be tasting like a medicine so no and it was like i remember chatting to al barrett from grenade um last week or the week before and it was um you know before they launched you know their protein bars everything else just tastes like wallpaper paste right yeah and it's just like that was the only choice no one actually thought to actually make it taste good but if you get the product right you get the taste right and then it becomes i guess for you guys it becomes um distribution and it becomes marketing right yeah yeah well yeah and repeat customers are because people they won't come back if it doesn't taste very nice so that's a difficult part for us because across all our ranges we don't use any artificial sweeteners or bulking agents so we are using natural sweeteners or plant based sweeteners we work really hard on getting that flavour right and the new watermelon I have to say is unbelievable it's going to be your favorite tasting yeah you're going for a tasting today aren't you yes that's brilliant um where do people um people are listening people watching who are thinking that they want to start a business right um and for me always kind of drill down into i'd be interested to get your take in it where do you think people overthink things instead of just starting you know this kind of procrastination thing because you obviously took that leap you dived in with with with both feet both of you um is there anything that you wish you'd done faster or do you think it was just organically at that time

34:06um there's probably a couple of occasions where um i wish we'd got the right people in the business a bit quicker.

34:14Alex Chisnall:Okay, yeah. I always joke about it. I talk to George and myself down quite a bit in saying that we're just two old ex-rugby players. I like to think that now we offer a bit more than just being the older ex-rugby players in the room. But we have a very limited skill set. And when you're trying to grow a business, you do need some of those expertise. and have had such just like brutal experiences and luck with our agencies. And it's like, we've always found that like finding the right person and getting them in-house is the best way for us. There's definitely founders out there who come and start brands with a set of skills, like marketing, for example, or digital skills.

35:07We didn't have any of that. so we we almost have to hire a bit ahead of the curve sometimes which if you get wrong is brutal because you're paying out for no growth yeah but when you get it right it's like brilliant yeah um so yeah there's probably if in hindsight i could probably pinpoint a couple of times where i'd be like oh we should have got someone in a bit earlier there

35:33Alex Chisnall:yeah um and what do you think i mean ultimately yeah i suppose what is the before i ask that question what's the vision now uh for four or five where where do you want to get to um we're very much still focused on the uk as a market uh we are we have had some sort of inbound um interest from like europe yeah but like our main focus is on the uk and we we want to we want to be the most trusted brand in like wellness um and distribution's like a big thing for us so just getting out there and getting a product as accessible as possible to as many people as possible so that's obviously done through maximizing our marketing and getting as many touch points of people but also in terms of like retail um distribution and just like upping that yeah um and what do you think you need to get there for the goal what what do you think um you need to bring on board like what if it if is it somebody is it skills is it is it um is it funding um is it more distribution what do you think you need yes good question um if I was to boil it down to one thing that could unlock.

36:58Yeah, what's the big domino? Then I'm sure the other one's over.