Ben Francis – Gymshark

Ben Francis started what would be arguably the biggest lifting apparel brand of all time at the age of 19. In 2012 in Birmingham, England, he bought gymshark.com domain and started trying to sell anything fitness. He started by dropshipping lifting supplements, and then began dropshipping clothing too. This initial phase of growth was extremely slow; Ben ran into many obstacles. The first is that the clothing was not good quality. It also costs a lot more for the customer for clothes that are drop shipped. To combat this he bought a sewing machine and began manufacturing the clothing himself, by hand.

Next, Ben sent samples of his clothing to some of his fitness heroes, hoping they might possibly like them. This was a very good decision. These people loved them, and grew the Gymshark’s audience a lot. Next Ben took a big risk in spending a lot of money to get a spot at the BodyPower fitness expo in 2013. This was also a huge success.

Over time, Gymshark accelerated quickly. Launching the Luxe tracksuit was a monumental moment which also helped grow the business. 

Ben Francis wanted Gymshark to not just be a clothing company, but a community. In 2016, Gymshark launched a world tour. They grew the community to entire cities, and this was probably the cornerstone for their success. In 2019, Gymshark opened a gym called the Gymshark Lifting Club. 

Today Gymshark is easily a billion dollar company. In a 10 year span, Ben Francis took Gymshark from a shirt sewing business out of his garage to a household name for any gym goer today.