I’m sure that many of you here are frequent gym users & even if you have never been to the gym in your life imagine this… a skinny, timid 16-year-old year boy walks into a gym with a bunch of friends and someone comes up to you and tells you that boy is going to own a billion-dollar gym company. What do you say to them?

Well, this was the reality of Ben Francis, at just 28 years old, is the founder of Gymshark and has a net worth of over $700 million.

Ben Francis was what one would call ‘ a normal lad’. Growing up in the west midlands, His main passion had always been football and was a huge Aston Villa fan. Although as he grew older the dream of becoming a professional footballer faded and became unrealistic. Ben was never really mixed well with school, and not because he wasn’t able to learn but he more hated the system. Ben wanted to apply skills and school didn’t allow him to do that. Until he found IT... in his first IT lesson, he fell in love and that became his new passion. He claimed that the IT class was different from everything else because he was applying skills and creating things, not just writing about them. 

Around the same time, Ben fell in love with the gym. The thought of just getting bigger motivated him and his group of friends. However, he mentioned in a podcast that ‘at first the gym was extremely intimidating’, which I’m sure a lot of us can relate to. but just as many people would o when staring at the gym, he watched YouTuber nad from there learn to basic skills and structure needed in the gym. Ben learnt a lot from the gym, from the routine, structure and determination needed to reach your goals. He was able to apply this to his day t ay life, especially in school and went from C’s & D’s in GCSEs to A’s & B’ in A- levels. This changed his life forever.

From this ben had an ide to try and merge his two passions, IT & the gym. He was able to create two fitness apps that reached to the top of the App Store charts in 2011. This sense of accomplishment drive Ben to go on and soon after wanted to create a website. Soon after Ben wanted to sell items which also incorporated his acquired knowledge in the fitness industry. His first thought was to sell supplements. However, he realised that he didn’t have the money to invest in it so he ended up having to dropship them from other places.  In his biography, he states ‘ I called around different UK distributors and my £5 an hour wouldn’t even get me a foot in the door. At this point in his entrepreneur career, he was studying at Aston University and working at Pizza Hut. After 6 weeks, his first sale was made and then in July 2020, Gymshark was made. Once he started moving into clothing the apparel initially consisted of gym vests and t-shirts, which were sewn and printed by Francis, his brother and a group of friends after Ben's grandmother taught him how to use a sewing machine. Ben actually said that at first, they were making clothes they wanted to wear themselves and just priced items based upon what sounded right.

The target audience for gym shark right now ranges from around 16 - 25 year old who stays in and sound with the news of fashion, fitness and music. Gymshark constantly shows how they look after these customers as seen in 2015 where Gymshark suffered a website crash which resulted in some customers being charged for wrong orders and orders being sent to the wrong locations. Whilst this would have torn down some companies, Gymshark stayed strong as Ben personally wrong 2500 apology letters to customers who suffered during the crash. On a podcast, Ben explained how he wanted Gymshark to be perceived in the future which included inspiring anyone who wanted to go to the gym, from the young skinny Ben Francis at age 16 wanting to get started to the 45-year-old accountant who goes to the gym every week or so. It is no doubt that Gymkshark is now one of the top fitness brands, and it could be said that it changed the game completely, especially for women. Gymshark was one of the first brands to promote women's’ gym clothes as before going to the gym was perceived as manly which turned many women away. However, it is completely different the gym is a place for everyone to improve on themselves, no matter who you are. 

Gymshark were the earliest adopters o the influencer marketing area, partnering with many mainstream YouTubers and athletes such as KSI and Behzinga to Ryan Garcia and Ross Edgley. Francis said, “ From the point of view of the athletes we work with, we want to create a really strong team that peaks to our values. And we work with hem for a long, sustained period of time.” 

After the first year, Ben was looking at a £250,000 turnout but it was only until the 2nd/3rd year when he gave himself some of the money from it and even that was only £20,000 which may sound like a lot but was only a per cent of what the company was making. This show the motivation that Ben had to push his company to the top and the sacrifices he made. Living of a job at Pizza hut, and sometimes having to even use his personal money to make ends meet in the company. However, now the company is flying after it hit a £1bn evaluation after securing major investor, General Atlantic.

It is no doubt that Gymshark success story is an inspiration, and from a business and function perspective is going to live on for a while.