Ben Francis
Co-founder and CEO, Gymshark. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestor@BenFrancis1992 ↗LinkedIn ↗benfrancis.com ↗Wikipedia ↗Instagram ↗
Ben Francis is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the fitness apparel brand Gymshark. He launched the company in 2012, scaling it into a global direct-to-consumer business.
1shows
1appearances
22statements
4resolved
1supported
1contradicted
25%fully supported
Everything Ben Francis said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Gymshark found its wedge because no brands targeted bodybuilders and weightlifters
“No one made Clothing specific to bodybuilders and lifters, and it's less even, it was more around the branding. No one sold product that was dedicated to that sort of, that group that we were very much a part of.”
Gymshark's co-founders split over whether to hire management and scale aggressively
“My perspective was very much like, I was really happy to roll the dice time and time again, and just keep growing and growing and growing the business, and to bring in more people More management types at the time and build the business from that perspective. …”
The business split permanently ended the relationship between Gymshark's co-founders
“No, no, that, that, that was the end of our personal relationship there, which I think is a shame, but it is what it is ultimately.”
Gymshark employees tried to play the founder and new CEO against each other
“If people didn't get the answer they wanted from Steve, then they would come to me, or the opposite way around, so they'd sort of try and play almost like mom off dad sort of thing. So our relationship was really important.”
Gymshark refuses to expand beyond gym wear into soccer or basketball apparel
“It's really important to me that we retain a really narrow focus. So the easiest thing for us to do would be to double or triple the size of our range and start selling basketball wear and fashion wear and soccer and everything. That, that's not interesting to…”
Gymshark pivoted to handmade apparel by purchasing a sewing machine and printer
“Now at that point, we then bought a sewing machine, we brought a screen printer, we'd saved the money for it, and we started to basically to try to hand make, hand print our own clothing, basically, and that, that, that was where it all really started to kick …”
Gymshark's pivot to apparel increased margins from 4 percent to 50 percent
“We could sell, I make 50 pounds worth of supplements, make two pounds in margin, or we could sell 30 pounds worth of clothing and make 15 pounds.”
Flying American YouTube influencers to a UK fitness expo transformed Gymshark
“So, they flew out to the event, and that, that was a, we didn't even realize it at the time, that was a game changer for us.”
Gymshark generated £30,000 in 30 minutes after the 2013 BodyPower Expo
“The following week when we turned the website back on and we posted online that we were back live, we did 30,000 pounds in revenue in 30 minutes. Sold out of everything.”
Gymshark avoided early funding through high margins and upfront cash collection
“We, well, we were, well, we were, and we are a cash generative business. We sell products at a high margin, and we have the cash come in before we distribute it, and we certainly did then.”
Gymshark's first women's apparel range failed completely, prompting professional design hires
“We did our first women range, women's range, and it was terrible. It was absolutely terrible. No one wanted it. It looked terrible. It fitted terrible. It just didn't work. And it was at that point where we realized that if we're going to build, if we're going…”
Gymshark co-founder Lewis Morgan stepped down between £10M and £20M revenue
“So, so Lewis actually left the business in terms of his active involvement in the business. It was around We were doing a, it was somewhere between 10 and twenty million in revenue, so Lewis actually left the day-to-day of the business then,”
Gymshark's product strategy focused entirely on physique-accentuating gym apparel
“We'd always found that the product that performed the best was that
Physique accentuating product, both for men's and women's at this point, and that's, that was our real sort of bullseye, and that's what we just continued to double down on.”
Francis avoided imposter syndrome by personally doing every early job at Gymshark
“I don't think I ever did. That's not to say that I wasn't nervous, but I never had a feeling of imposter syndrome because, I mean, there was a point where I'd basically done every job, whether it's packing orders or customer support or product design, or I sor…”
Ben Francis increased his Gymshark equity stake during the General Atlantic deal
“No, so my, I can't remember the exact numbers, but I increased my shareholding through that event.”
Gymshark operated without a formal board until its General Atlantic investment
“So the board, we actually agreed to build a board after that deal. So before that, we hadn't had a board. It was just essentially me, Paul, Steve, running the business together.”
The United States now generates the majority of the UK-based Gymshark's revenue
“I know the U.S. So the U.S. Is now, the U.S. Is now the majority of the business.”
Francis flipped UK license plates from £300 to £3,000 as a teenager
“We would buy them. So it wasn't particularly sophisticated. We would literally, they would come through and you could buy them for 300 pounds or something, but you could sell them for two or 3000. So what we do is we'd sort of see what was coming up for releas…”
Gymshark operated with just two people for its first two years
“It was literally just me and Lewis for literally at least 18 months, probably even the first two years.”
Gymshark acquired its first customers using zero paid advertising on Facebook
“No, we had no money, no ads, no nothing. It was literally just organic Facebook pages with pictures of lifters and bodybuilding news and things like that”
Gymshark's first dropshipped supplement sale yielded just £2 in profit
“It was 52 pounds. The cost to us was 50 to the dropshipper, so we had a two pound profit.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ben's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Co-founder and CEO, Gymshark | 1 | 22 | 25% 1/4 | full record on How I Built This → |