26-year-old with £100m firm Former student took sportswear idea from parent’s garage to big things
HE is the former Birmingham student who began his business while working evenings at Pizza Hut and making clothes in his parents’ garage.
Fast forward six years and Ben Francis’s company Gymshark is about to turnover £100 million. So, how did he do it? The Brummie has revealed secret of his success to the BBC’s Boss series.
“I’d wake up and go to Aston University, then finish uni early afternoon, and work at Pizza Hut from 5pm till 10pm,” says Ben, who was 19 years old when he started his business.
“I could answer emails about Gymshark in between my deliveries. Then I’d go home and sort out the website, the The and design new products.”
It seems that Mr Francis has always been entrepreneurial.
He set up a website selling car licence plates when he was a young teenager, then built and launched two iPhone fitness tracking apps, one of which earned him around £8,000.
As a keen gym-goer, he initially set up online retail business Gymshark as a way of selling health supplements but realised he could make more money from selling gymwear instead.
“I was going to the gym and basically was interested in, and wanted to be involved in, the fitness industry,” he says.
“I remember looking around, and I couldn’t find any clothing I wanted to wear. So I said ‘Let’s make it ourselves.’”
He learned how to sew from his grandmother, bought a sewing machine and screen printer and would make about 10 products a day by hand – between his stints at uni and Pizza Hut.
“My nan made curtains, so taught me how to sew,” he recalls. she
“I remember thinking we had 10 orders to do, and to make 12-15 products it would take most of the day – but it was so much fun learning.”
His niche was body builder vests that fitted slim teenagers, having realised most of the items on the market were designed for older men who had already built up their muscles.
After two exhausting years of this, and with annual revenues hitting an impressive £250,000, Mr Francis eventually quit university and pizzas to focus on his company.
Today, the entrepreneur, now 26 and living with his Canadian fitness model girlfriend Robin Gallant, has 1.2 million customers and 215 employees at Gymshark’s Solihull headquarters.
He believes the key to his success has been using social media bloggers to promote the brand’s products to their millions of followers.
Mr Francis sent his products to fitness models such as bodybuilder Lex Griffin, who then raved about the brand on his Instagram page, which has 392,000 followers.
He also grew Gymshark’s own social media accounts to 2.4 million followers by using clever posts and attractive models. Today, he hosts events around the world and hires’ influencers’ to be brand ambassadors called “Gymshark Athletes”. His girlfriend Robin is one.
Sportswear industry veteran Steve Hewitt joined as managing director in 2015, before being given the chief executive title in April last year, but Mr Francis remains the majority owner. Now he’s considering opening his first store.
“I don’t go shopping very often, but I’m thinking of the best way to do a permanent location somewhere,” he says. “I’m not sure, we’d need a lot of space. I want to do a cool destination.”
They don’t come cooler booming Birmingham at moment.
My nan made curtains, so she taught me how to sew... Ben Francis
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