THE UNTOLD STORY
WYNER & DUPONT THE UNTOLD STORY By Kieran Lee & Dean Maier
How do you build a business from the ground up? How do you go from selling supplements out of the trunk of your car to working with some of the most elite athletes and bodybuilders in the world? How does one take an impossible dream and turn it into a reality? Just ask Nutrabolics founders Jayson Wyner and Rodney Dupont—they’ve done it. These business partners and long-time friends may have come from small beginnings, but their vision is anything but small. Their goal of providing a line of premium, completely transparent supplements to the world has been realized in a fierce brand with booming success. Not only has the inception, formation, and longevity of Nutrabolics been a great personal achievement for the two men, it has been a catalyst for change in the entire sports nutrition industry. What began with a simple dream has unknowingly sparked a revolution.
THE SPARK OF INNOVATION As a long-time fitness enthusiast, Jayson Wyner knows sports supplements inside and out. In fact, it was his uncanny knack for formulas that landed the young man his first job in the business over 16 years ago. When the manager of his local supplement store pitched him their best-selling Test Booster, Jayson came back with a pitch of his own, spouting off all the ways he would improve the product based on his
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understanding of its desired effects. He was hired on the spot and was propelled down a path from which there was no turning back. Joined later by his childhood friend Rodney Dupont who showed a strong aptitude in sales, the young men handily surpassed the store’s growth of prior months, all while getting to know the products and the big players in the sports nutrition game. The sales floor was their training ground and headquarters for one-on-one market research, intimately studying the target audience they didn’t know they had yet. Despite eventually surpassing Jayson in sales, Rodney decided that the time had come to live out his planned career path and head to university. Sticking to the supplement grind, Jayson continued to help equip fitness enthusiasts with products that would work as hard as they did in the gym. Yet however good his advice, every customer recommendation came with its own set of limitations. Every bottle was a wild card; for each product on the shelf that worked well enough, there were several others that would fail in delivering their promised results. It was “follow the leader” in an industry of relatively monotonous ingredients and mostly sub-standard quality. Jayson was baffled by the lack of products possessing true innovation and that actually performed the way they claimed they would. From this void of dissatisfaction sprang the vision for a brand of supplements that could stand above the crowd.
OLD FRIENDS TO NEW PARTNERS After his revelation, Jayson knew that if he was going to usher in a new era of sports nutrition—the massive undertaking of starting his own brand— that he couldn’t do it alone. He needed a scientific perspective and a sales edge to help put together the supplement line he envisioned. Catching a non-stop flight the very next day, Jayson came knocking on the door of his former sales partner, Rodney Dupont. At the time Rodney was in his sophomore year of university studying business and health sciences, living in a Toronto
apartment, and flat broke. Like every kid in his class, Rodney dreamed of landing a cushy job with some massive corporation where he would be making cash hand over fist. Yet when Jayson came to him with his “million dollar idea” and the offer to start a company of their own, Rodney thought he was out of his mind. While he had been close to athletics all his life – playing basketball in high school – Rodney had never been exposed to the world of elite bodybuilding and fitness. But Jayson relentlessly swatted back every critique Rodney served him about his pitch. Rodney saw value in Jayson’s vision, in his charisma and
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salesmanship, along with the potential for greatness and to do great things in the industry. Inspired by the glory and promise behind this venture, he dropped out of university and joined the cause. With Jayson’s dream and Rodney’s drive—with Jayson’s flash and Rodney’s formulas—the two forged an unexpected partnership and flew back to Vancouver to start building business and brand.
START-UP INTENSITY Now instead of one broke dude chasing lightning in a bottle, they were two. Fittingly the new duo set up shop at Jayson’s parents’ place in Richmond. Out of the Wyner family home, Jayson and Rodney outlined their mandate to develop the better products their customers deserved to fuel their training. The concept was simple: scientifically-advanced ingredients in clinical-strength dosages, creating intelligent supplements of the highest quality. From the crossroads of innovative sports nutrition and hardcore anabolic muscle-building emerged a name for their passion project: Nutrabolics. After months of research and scraping together all of their savings the co-founders were able to put together Nutrabolics’ forerunner products. On a shoestring budget of only $10,000, the guys launched their first production run of 500 units, including PRIMO GH STACK, CLENBUTICAL, and INSULEAN K. This triple-threat set stayed true to the team’s vision of supplement innovation and hardcore results, providing athletes with a cutting-edge new way to target fat-burning and muscle growth. What had started as
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a concept had manifested into a real, tangible product. As Wyner and Dupont launched their creations into the market, things were about to get very real! The next several months saw the partners working like madmen to run a full-scale operation as an army of two, and all out of Jayson’s parents’ games room. With only their passion, street smarts, and commitment to innovation guiding them, the pair were thrown headlong into the world of manufacturing and logistics knowing very little about either. On any given day Wyner and Dupont could be found filling out packing slips, adhering labels onto bottles with a blow-dryer, taking down orders on Jayson’s mom’s landline, and packaging entire shipments by hand on the billiards table.
GOING GLOBAL All of their hard work was about to pay off. Wyner and Dupont set out to unleash Nutrabolics upon the nation, selling their hand-packed goods out of the trunk of their car from coast to coast. Hitting up retailers one by one, talking to potential buyers firsthand, the partners weren’t just selling the product, but selling themselves and their philosophy of innovative, quality supplements. Their unique vision caught the public’s eye immediately. The moment their goods hit retail shelves they began flying off them. In four months the demand for the brand skyrocketed. Consumers were witnessing the birth of a new generation of supplements—something with real dosages that hit hard—and they liked what they saw.
Before long the partners had landed a massive Canadian distributor, Empire Health, and were able to move their operations out of the games room and into a brand new factory and headquarters. With their amplified production and cutting-edge product line, Nutrabolics was premiering at every major international fitness expo, from Mr. Olympia, to the Arnold Classic, to FIBO Germany. A year of touring and showcasing Nutrabolics in this way helped Wyner and Dupont break into several international markets, taking the brand to a global scale. Today Nutrabolics is distributed and sold in over fifty countries world-wide. The boys have proven that with the passion, innovation, and a product that is the real deal, success will chase you down wherever you go.
A LASTING LEGACY Wyner and Dupont continue to settle for nothing less than the best, keeping close to the pulse of the industry and always remaining focused on ever-evolving consumer demand. The brand’s current generation of tech-inspired transparent supplements is a clear demonstration of their continued commitment to ingenuity. Nutrabolics’ no-BS approach has consumers demanding more from their product than ever before, so their competitors are finding themselves having to come clean and
step up to the challenge. This added competition fuels Wyner and Dupont to maintain their edge, optimizing every ingredient ratio and taking every potential consumer benefit as an opportunity for innovation – the very quality that drove their inception of the brand in the beginning. Jayson and Rodney’s simple goal is to empower athletes and fitness enthusiast to demand better from their nutrition and this strategy has the whole world knocking at their door. They have a rich history of past athletes forging their brand legacy, from the likes of UFC champion Anderson Silva, and Hollywood actor Dave Bautista, to the current MMA superstar Bobby Lashley and rising UFC contender Khabib Nurmagomedov, just to name a few. The brand community they have grown is a dynamic one, driven by the energy and excellence of it’s thousands of loyal customers. More than just building a business from the ground up, Wyner and Dupont have evolved the sports nutrition game to new heights and set a new precedent for the market. In their journey to the top, the partners have refused to accept the average, ever reaching for the exceptional. From two kids with a dream, they have become market leaders with no signs of slowing down. They have proven their ability to create something from nothing, and that is the quality that separates the good from the truly amazing.