Most teens wanted to drink – we wanted to make money
How I Made It:What next for the 29-year-old fashion tycoon worth £100m
IN summer 2012, a young Lewis Morgan co-founded Gymshark with his school friend Ben Francis and embarked on a journey of rapid growth, taking the fitness clothing and equipment brand from their family homes in Worcestershire to a global audience.
This culminated in Lewis exiting the Solihull-based business in 2020 following a deal with US private equity firm General Atlantic which enabled him to offload all of his shares for £100 million.
Lewis is now turning his hand to investment and backing the next generation of up-and-coming business stars, including taking a stake in and becoming executive chairman of clothing firm AYBL Group in October.
In the second of our new How I Made It series, we catch up with the 29-year-old to learn about his history and what the future holds...
What is Gymshark and how did it first start?
Gymshark is a global ‘athleisure’ brand (clothing worn for sport and other activities).
Now valued at more than £1 billion, Ben Francis and I started the business as teenagers, working out of our parents’ garages.
At the time, I was studying business at University of Worcester and had two jobs – a pot washer and a retail assistant at Burton.
We initially focused on sports supplements but began looking at clothing when we couldn’t get the products we wanted in the UK.
It started with stringer vests and quickly grew from there.
Within a few years, we were two kids running a multimillion-pound business and, with the help of some great people, doing it surprisingly well.
What was your ‘eureka moment’ when you realised you had a good business?
That came in June 2013 when we launched our first tracksuit called ‘Luxe’. We had saved enough money to take recognised athletes with a large social media following, all dressed in our clothing, to the Bodypower fitness expo where we had an open stand.
Having famous YouTubers wandering around and launching a product was an untried tactic back then – and it worked.
We sold out of everything we took to that event.
When we launched the tracksuit online a few weeks later, we couldn’t believe the reaction.
We saw more than £30,000 in sales in 30 minutes and the rest, as they say, is history.
With the beauty of hindsight, what would you tell your younger self when you were starting out?
I would tell myself to focus on the idea of building a brand sooner. My teenage years were different. Most people wanted to go to university to go out and drink.
We wanted to make money, however we could.
Our friendship group became very small pretty quickly. I’d tell myself to focus on building my dream because it would all be worth it.
What does the future hold?
I joined AYBL Group in 2021, which consists of women’s fitness brand AYBL and fashionwear label Because of Alice.
For me, AYBL offered an exceptional investment and personal growth opportunity, having seen turnover grow to £10 million in just three years.
To put that into perspective, Ben and I had achieved half that in the same time at Gymshark.
As a group, we will remain focused on women’s fitness but expand beyond clothing.
Crucially, we will also invest in other young entrepreneurs who are a good fit for us – that means founder-led companies with a big vision and scalable business model.
If you weren’t involved in AYBL, what would you be doing?
I would be solely focused on my
investments in property and public companies. Above all, I would still be seeking out young entrepreneurs to invest in as helping others to achieve their dreams is my real passion.
Who is your role model in business?
I don’t have a role model as such but I have definitely benefited from knowing an amazing group of people who all went to South
Bromsgrove High School with me.
From my year alone, there was my fellow Gymshark founder Ben Francis, Reiss Edgerton who, with his brother Kris, has made millions at AYBL, and Reece Wabara, who runs another business I invest in – fashion label Maniere De Voir.
This last one is set to turn over £25 million this year.
This group also includes Liam Molesworth, who co-owns two businesses, Mprove and Woodrow Mercer Healthcare, which are also turning over seven-figure sums.
Which business or business person is getting you excited at the moment?
Nike is still the business to watch for me. That a company of that size and scale can keep innovating at the speed and regularity it does is truly exceptional.
Finally, which business idea do you wish you had had?
I wish I had been the brains behind OpenSea. The platform enables trades in NFTs (non-fungible tokens), unique pieces of code that can be associated with a digital asset, like a work of digital art.
Last year, the owners reported a 600 per cent increase in trades on the platform and the company is now said to be worth £9.8 billion, not bad for a business that was founded by two people in their 20s just four years ago.