Gymshark founder and CEO Ben Francis has been named Britain’s youngest billionaire at 30 years old.
Just 11 years after he created the sportswear brand in his parent’s garage in Bromsgrove, near Birmingham, Francis has amassed a fortune of $1.2b, according to Forbes rich list.
This latest achievement marks another milestone in the entrepreneur’s incredible journey. In 2012 he dropped out of Aston University to focus on his business full-time, while initially keeping his job as a Pizza Hut delivery driver.
The very same university welcomed him back last year to present him with an honorary doctorate in recognition of his achievements. January also saw the Brit awarded an MBE for services to Fashion and to the Retail Sector.
Gymshark – which now sells in 230 different countries – is worn by some of the world’s biggest celebrities and boasts a huge roster of sponsored athletes.
The brand recently expanded into the supplement market with Gymshark Pre and has continued to innovate with the Gymshark Lifting Club.
Such is its popularity that it has also recently opened a state-of-the-art store on London’s famous Regent Street.
But much of this wouldn’t have been possible if it hadn’t been for the Bodypower Expo in 2012. Francis set up a stand with some stock and several YouTubers who would stop and talk to people walking by.
Reminiscing on a seminal day, he said: “At 9am on Friday, the first day of the event, I was still stocking up the stand with products. I thought running a few minutes late wouldn’t be a problem – no one knew who we were anyway… I was wrong.
“The second the doors opened, people flooded to the Gymshark stand. We were inundated with people there to buy the product, to see it for the first time, touch it, and try it on.
“To meet the athletes, to speak to us. It was three days of none stop restocking, talking and meeting people. It felt less like a business-to-customer relationship, and more like a group of mates hanging around at an expo. It felt like everyone who stopped by our stand had something in common.
“After the event, athletes, staff and customers would head to Ironworks and lift together. We didn’t realise it at the time, but this was the beginning of the Gymshark community.”
He continued: “Over the weekend, we sold out everything we’d taken. Our stand was the busiest stand of the entire event. After the event, we all lay on the floor, shattered from the non-stop work we’d done over the last three days. More exhausted than I can remember being in my entire life.
“I’ll never forget someone walking over from a nearby stand and asking, ‘How did you guys do that?’ We just responded, ‘No idea’.
“After the event, I returned back to my parent’s house and late that night decided to switch all the stock on the website back on. I posted on Facebook that the store was live again and thought nothing of it. All of a sudden, notifications were flying in on my phone, orders coming in by the second.
“I watched the orders come in and quickly excitement turned to dread as I realised the volume of orders was so high, we may not be able to fulfil all of them. I clawed at my laptop, going through each product to reduce the stock levels to zero (back then each product was set to having infinite stock levels). Finally, I managed to zero all the stock and the orders stopped.”
Francis revealed the brand had gone from selling roughly £300 a day of handmade clothing to £30,000 in one go.
“In the first 30 minutes after turning the website back on, we’d sold more Gymshark products than in our entire history. We’d completely sold out of everything we had.
“Sat in my parent’s living room, in the middle of the night having just seen the Gymshark website blow up for the first time, it was at this point I knew we had created something truly special.”
