Gymshark is a fitness and sports apparel brand founded in 2012. Ben Francis, the founder of the company, created this company with some of his high-school friends. He was only 19 years old when starting the company. He was a full-time college student and worked night shifts at a pizza shop. The money he earned helped him to start his company. Francis couldn’t find athletic apparel that he wouldn’t want to wear. He started making his own clothes after learning how to sew from his grandmother. He would work out of his parents’ garage and create around 10 clothing items a day. He created clothing pieces while earning a degree and working.
After two long years of hard work, he made over $320,000. He realized this company had potential and dropped out of college. After focusing on Gymshark full-time for eight years, he is about to make over $130 million in sales. Francis said the secret to his company’s success was “using social media influencers with large followings to wear the brand and spread the word online.”
Francis sold the company to Steve Hewitt, sportswear expert and Gymshark’s new CEO. Hewitt had experience in business and has helped the business grow, as well as their sales. Francis is still a major stakeholder in the company.
The three main values of Gymshark are family, progression, and vision. The family of Gymshark are athletes, artists, and visionaries. They are all around the world and all bring the visions of the company to life. Progression is making the products with a mindset of the future. Vision is bringing the ideas to life. All ideas are accepted.
I think it’s inspiring that Francis created the company at 19 years old. He found a way to balance college, work, and building a company. Francis shows us that we can achieve anything though hard work and determination.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6227737/Gymshark-owner-entrepreneur-Ben-Francis-26-Birmingham-tells-story.html
https://www.gymshark.com/pages/about-us
I think Ben Francis’s view on growing this business was interesting. Using influencers to get his brand out into the public eye is a very unique and new way of marketing. This kind of brand is nothing new, there re plenty of athletic apparel brands, however, I think with Ben using influencers really got his brand out there well and created a name for himself. Overall, I enjoy this story and how hard he worked to make it such a big brand.
The way Ben Francis was able to popularize Gym Shark is an awesome story. I own Gym Shark apparel and had no idea that the company was started when Francis was just in college and began by making the clothes himself. This rise to fame is truly inspiring and just goes to show that if you believe that you can fit a need in a market, that you should reach for the stars and try to achieve your goals like him. It definitely took guts and a lot of hard work for Francis to be able to juggle Gym Shark and attending college, but clearly his hard work paid off as the company is now huge and one of the most recognizable gym attire companies in the world.
I love the companies values, I did not know these were associated with this company but it is very appealing to see that and helps me relate to it even more. I have seen this brand everywhere and see how big its presence is online and I think it was genius of Francis to use social media in order to make people aware of his business. Ultimately, I think social media is what did it for the company. He used widely popular platforms to advertise his product and used social media influencers in order to do so who have a huge presence online and in influencing young people. He is truly innovative and created a brand that brings good quality clothing to athletes and people who work out in general (which is a wide range of people).
It is great to see people like Ben taking advantage of capitalism. As a person who frequents the gym often I can attest that this is an actual problem. By taking advantage of the emerging marketing technique he grew a huge business, I would just like to see businesses like these make clothes more affordable because at the moment buying them is out of reach for a large portion of the market.
Ben did such a great job with GymShark they sell such a great product line for the avid gym goer it’s a wonder that more people don’t use their products. As someone who uses their products I can say they really are a great company great job!