609: From $0 to $20M in 3 Years Selling Suppliments | Damien Fitzpatrick

The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan

Nathan Chan

Marketing, Business, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 662 Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From professional rugby player to successful entrepreneur, Damien Fitzpatrick built a sports recovery brand trusted by elite athletes around the world. In this interview, Damien shares how he went from the highs and lows of a professional sports career to creating Pillar Performance, a multimillion-dollar supplement company now used by Olympians and major sports teams. Discover how he turned an untapped niche into a global opportunity, scaled distribution in Australia and the U.S., and built a brand that dominates the high-performance nutrition category. What you’ll learn in this interview: • How Damien transitioned from athlete to entrepreneur • The painful injury that inspired the idea for Pillar Performance • How he built trust and credibility in a skeptical market • Why focusing on a niche audience first accelerated growth • The marketing and retail strategies that fuelled their global expansion • What founders can learn from elite athletes about resilience and mindset • How to use brand positioning to stand out in a saturated supplements market By the end of this episode, you’ll learn how to identify a niche, validate demand, and build a trusted brand from scratch—straight from a founder who’s lived both the athlete and entrepreneur journey. SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend with the code FOUNDR50. Just head to ⁠⁠https://your.omnisend.com/foundr⁠⁠ to get started. HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SCALE YOUR BUSINESS FASTER Learn directly from 7, 8 & 9-figure founders inside Foundr+ Start your $1 trial → ⁠⁠https://www.foundr.com/startdollartrial⁠⁠ PREFER A CUSTOM ROADMAP AND 1-ON-1 COACHING? → Starting from scratch? Apply here → ⁠⁠https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-start-application⁠⁠ → Already have a store? Apply here → ⁠⁠https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-growth-application⁠⁠ CONNECT WITH NATHAN CHAN Instagram → ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/nathanchan⁠⁠ LinkedIn → ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanhchan/⁠⁠ CONNECT WITH DAMIEN FITZPATRICK Website → https://pillarperformance.shop/ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/damienfitzpatrick/ LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/damien-fitzpatrick-a27443114 FOLLOW FOUNDR FOR MORE BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGIES YouTube → ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/2uyvzdt⁠⁠ Website → ⁠⁠https://www.foundr.com⁠⁠ Instagram → ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/foundr/⁠⁠ Facebook → ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/foundr⁠⁠ Twitter → ⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/foundr⁠⁠ LinkedIn → ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/foundr/⁠⁠ Podcast → ⁠⁠https://www.foundr.com/podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey Founder Fam, I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with Omniscend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e-commerce founders. We've been recommending OmnisCent to Founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling the seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results.
0:24.0	Did you know on average, Omnysend customers make $68 for every $1 they spend, which is an insanely good return on investment.
0:32.6	And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code Founder 50.
0:39.3	Just head to Omnicend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started.
0:45.0	All right.
0:45.9	Now let's jump back into the show.
0:48.8	Welcome back to the founder podcast.
0:50.6	So what if three back-to-back career-ending knee injuries became the catalyst
0:55.4	for building a multi-million dollar supplement brand that's now sold in over 50 different
1:00.8	countries worldwide, all within just under five years? Well, today's guest, Damien Fitzpatrick,
1:06.3	former professional rugby player and founder of the supplement brand Pillar Performance has done exactly that.
1:12.3	After spending years as a citizen scientist desperately searching for products that could keep him on the field,
1:18.3	Damien realized the gap he was facing and it wasn't just his problem.
1:22.1	It was an entire category waiting to be reinvented.
1:25.3	So in this conversation, you're going to discover how to
1:27.9	navigate the world of complex supplement manufacturing, global regulations as a first-time founder,
1:34.2	why starting with retail and pivoting based on where customers actually want to buy your product
1:38.6	can unlock insane exponential growth and the counterintuitive strategy of cost neutral marketing that built this
1:45.2	multimillion dollar brand. This is a crazy story about turning adversity into expertise and
1:49.9	building a global performance health brand by solving a problem nobody wanted to tackle.
1:57.7	Hear the stories. Learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship.
2:05.6	Welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chan.
	...

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