About Us

I spent 10 years trying to build better businesses.

Eventually, I realised I needed to build a better operator.

My name is Ricky. I'm the founder of the Operator State framework and the creator of the Operator 24-Hour Protocol. Along with my awesome team, we are building Operator to support entrepreneurs, leaders, creators and builders.

For more than a decade, I've been building businesses while raising three children.

Like a lot of founders, I became obsessed with optimisation.

Better advertising.
Better systems.
Better technology.
Better teams.
Better productivity.

I was constantly looking for another way to make the business perform better.

But there was one thing I wasn't optimising.

Me.

There were periods where I could work with incredible focus and energy. And there were periods where I felt mentally overloaded, distracted, exhausted or simply unable to switch off.

The business might still have needed me at 3 P.M. — but my brain didn't always cooperate.

And when the working day finished, the work often came home with me mentally.

Over time, that starts to compound.

Poor recovery affects tomorrow.
Tomorrow affects the next day.
And eventually you begin operating with what I now call Recovery Debt.

That was the point where my thinking changed.

I was optimising the wrong things.

I started looking at performance from the opposite direction.

Instead of asking:

"How can I get more work done?"

I started asking:

"What biological state allows me to do my best work?"

That led me into research around sleep, cognitive performance, attention, energy metabolism, stress, recovery and male biology.

And one idea kept becoming clearer:

Your output is constrained by the biological state of the person producing it.

You can have the best strategy in the world, but if your attention is fragmented, your energy collapses halfway through the day and you cannot recover properly at night, your ability to execute eventually suffers.

That became the foundation of Operator State.

What is Operator State?

Operator State is the condition in which your biology, attention and intent align — making it easier to focus on what matters, sustain meaningful output and recover properly so you can perform again tomorrow.

It isn't about working every waking hour.

It's about being able to enter the work, stay with it, then disengage and recover.

That thinking eventually developed into the Operator State framework and the Operator 24-Hour Protocol.

From framework to formula

I didn't want to create another generic "energy" supplement.

Operator was designed around the full 24-hour performance cycle.

Operator AM supports the part of the day where you need attention, mental energy, clarity and sustained performance.

Operator PM supports the part most high performers neglect: switching off, sleep and overnight recovery.

Together, they form one system.

PM builds tomorrow's capacity.
AM puts that capacity to work.

Where I am today

Today, I run a successful clothing company alongside Genetikz Labs, the company behind Operator and Fourmula, our women's sports supplement brand.

But Operator State came from the years before that — the failed ideas, the long hours, the pressure, the family responsibilities, the periods of burnout and the constant attempt to find a more sustainable way to perform.

I don't believe founders need another productivity hack.

I believe we need to understand the biology behind performance.

Because ultimately:

You can optimise the business all you want. But the business still depends on the operator.

Ricky Harewood
Founder, Genetikz Labs
Creator of Operator State