After he graduated from high school in 1999, Jayson Wyner started working for GNC (NYSE:GNC), a U.S. health and supplements company that had stores all over the Lower Mainland and Canada.
Wyner, 36, who was working at the Richmond Centre mall location, has been a fitness buff since he was a kid, and it shows (Wyner is one of Nutrabolics’ brand ambassadors). He recruited his childhood friend Aaron Hefter, 37, to work at the store with him.
Hefter had a knack for sales, so the two were a good team. However, Hefter moved east to attend York University, taking night classes in business while managing a GNC location in Toronto during the day. At the time, the two were top salesmen in the country, and Wyner started thinking they might be wasting their talents working thousands of kilometres apart. So in 2002, he hopped on a flight to Toronto with the aim of persuading Hefter to come back and help him start their own supplements company.
“I just thought, ‘Let’s do this,’ and I flew over there, and we talked it over and mulled it over,” Wyner said.
Hefter came back to Vancouver, and they both scrounged up $5,000. Hefter got a credit card and Wyner sold his car. Hefter said he was persuaded by Wyner, who was taking classes at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in marketing at the time, because he knew they had the drive and hustle to make it work and because there was a significant hole in Canada’s supplements mareket at that time.
“Back when we started in the industry, due to import and export regulations, there weren’t a lot of the big-name brands being sold in Canada like there is today,” Hefter said. “There were a lot of local brands, and they weren’t really that high-tech, and so that’s where we saw the void.”
At that time Health Canada had strict regulations as to what ingredients could come across the border, which kept a lot of top-selling workout supplements from the U.S. out of Canadian stores. Nutrabolics, which now has its head offices in downtown Vancouver, was born.
Hefter and Wyner started the business out of Wyner’s parents’ game room in their house. They put their money into a 500-unit production run of their first three products, sold as a stack to fitness buffs looking to enhance their workouts.
“I didn’t have a car anymore, so I was borrowing people’s cars,” Wyner said. “We really hit the phones hard, and we pounded the pavement at all hours of the night. We’d set the alarm for three in the morning to call India or call Russia. We were true entrepreneurs. We really pushed it, and the brand started to take off.”
Aside from working the phones, Hefter drove across the country to pitch the products – nutritional supplements with “hard-core, cutting-edge type formulas” for the Canadian market.
According to a Zion Market Research study, the global sports nutrition market pulled in US$28.37 billion in revenue in 2016 and is expected to grow another 8% by 2022.
At the time Nutrabolics was getting going, the fitness and workout supplement industry was still on the fringes, but interest and sales were growing fast.
Professional athletes were also starting to sign major endorsement deals for protein supplements and workout mixes, bringing a mainstream element to the industry.
Hefter and Wyner said it was tough going for the first few years, with a lot of cold-calling, failed pitches and constant second-guessing as they tried to get their product on store shelves.
But, Hefter said, the entrepreneurs’ youth and naiveté might have helped them overcome obstacles.
“Every day is a struggle, but when you’re 22 years old, you think you’re fearless and that you’re the best in the world. So I think we always knew that we would do it and never look back.”
Hefter added that their long friendship, which stretched back to their childhoods, also meant sticking together through the tough times was never in question.
“You have to trust your partner,” he said. “And I’ve always trusted Jayson, and he’s always trusted me. He’s great at some things that I’m not great at, and I think I’m great at some things he’s not good at. So we know what our strengths and weaknesses are.”
Hefter said he handles the sales and formulation side of the business while Wyner focuses on marketing, and together they form a strong partnership.
“We let the other do our own thing, so we can thrive together,” he said.
In 2007, the two got their big break. Nutrabolics signed Dave Bautista to a two-year deal. At the time, Bautista was a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) star known for his bulging physique and intense persona. He’s now an A-list Hollywood star who has appeared in such films as Guardians of the Galaxy and Blade Runner 2049.
Hefter said the story of signing their first major brand ambassadors now might seem improbably uncomplicated.
“It literally came as simple as me calling the WWE, asking who’s in charge of their sponsorship department and telling them that we were a Canadian supplement company and we wanted to sponsor [Bautista]. I don’t think they expected a cold call like that, but it got us to the right place and to the right people.”
The timing was also perfect for Wyner and Hefter, as the next month they took Nutrabolics to the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic trade show in the U.S., debuting Bautista as part of “Team Nutrabolics.”
The two then headed out on the road with Bautista on a tour of North American GNC stores, at a time when the WWE was also pushing into the mainstream. Sales took off like a rocket.
“We were shutting down malls,” Hefter said. “Eaton Centre [in Toronto] and Lougheed Mall. It was just madness.”
Nutrabolics now has more than 45 employees and sells 100 products in roughly 50 countries. The company has a roster of brand ambassadors including mixed martial arts fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov, who is rumoured to be Conor McGregor’s next Ultimate Fighting Championship opponent.
Looking back, Hefter said he’s glad he took the leap with his best friend, dropping out of university to start a company.
“We’ve got so many stories, and it’s just been a whirlwind of a decade and a half.”
