How did Gymshark begin?
BEN FRANCIS
At age 19, Francis founded Gymshark out of his bedroom in his parents' house. Now the fitness apparel and accessories brand is one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.K. The Instagram-savvy brand's revenue reached $50 million last fiscal year and is expected to hit $120 million in 2018.
When Ben was still a young teenager, he created an online store to sell car license plates. He developed two iPhone fitness tracking apps, and then made around £8,000 from one of which. He also worked as a pizza delivery man at Pizza Hut.
In 2012, his idea of Gymshark was born. At that time, he was just a full-time, 19-year-old student. At first, Francis focused on only health supplements. Since he started with zero funding, he had to dropship the products from other retailers. “You have to be creative with the front end and back end of your business when starting”, he said.
Not long after that, he realized the profit margins of this business were too low and had no potential in the future. So, he decided to switch to clothing.
Francis admitted he didn’t have any immediate grand business plan. He just thought “it was more a case of ‘I really want to wear this,’ so I made it,”. He also had no idea how to price items. “It was literally a case of what would we want to pay for something… There was no considered approach. We were like, ‘we would pay £20.”