The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Gymshark CEO: How I Built A $1.5 Billion Business At 19: Ben Francis
Episode Date: December 27, 2021Ben Francis has achieved incredible success it is easy to forget how young he still is. Founding Gymshark, a leading gym wear brand, when he was still in his teens, the company is now worth over $1.5 ...billion. But it hasn’t always been easy for Ben. He is naturally shy and introverted, and public speaking is something that didn’t come naturally to him. Naturally resilient and sure of his mission, Ben had to learn how to transmit these feelings within himself to leading a top team. It took a lot of work and dedication, but through time and effort Ben was able to overcome his fears and inspire those around him. Ben has gone from earning £5 an hour at Pizza Hut to pay his way through university to running one of the most exciting and fastest growing companies in the country. It was an absolute pleasure to sit down with him and hear his wisdom, and I know that you’ll think exactly the same way. Follow Ben: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/benfrancis Twitter - https://twitter.com/BenFrancis1992 Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo
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Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want
to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can
say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would
expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America,
thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack
and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to amazon music who when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and
i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um
for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you
that listen to this show let's continue if we go right back to the start i had a vision i had an
idea and i was so passionate about it.
I just want Gymshark to be a truly iconic, great brand, a leader in culture, and helps inspire people around the world.
That was a period of great self-reflection for me.
What am I bad at? What am I good at?
And I decided to lean into my strengths.
In the early days, I'd have gone, I'm introverted, shy, and I'm not good at people management.
But I didn't want to identify with those things.
You should be able to look at those things and try and solve them.
Everything came crashing down around me because there was nowhere to hide.
That definitely hit me and it definitely hurt me.
And I really felt like I was carrying that burden.
Honestly, just keep trying and keep trying and don't be afraid to fail.
I think that's so, so, so important.
I've never met anyone who was genuinely successful that wasn't hardworking.
Ben Francis, the guest that you requested again and again and again. He is the founder
and now the CEO of Gymshark, the global gym brand worth billions and billions and billions
that started right here in the UK. Founded by Ben who was in his early 20s and who is still in his
20s now as he's leading the global brand all around the world with 900 employees. This is a
conversation I have honestly looked forward to for a long long time because there is nobody else in the uk like ben that has built such an iconic company that you see everywhere
that has maintained its integrity while they're still in their 20s ben's net worth is probably
pretty close to or over a billion dollars and remarkably he's one of the most humble individuals, one of the most introspective,
self-aware people I have ever met. A really good guy and if you're someone that someday might want
to follow in his footsteps or you want to build a business or just pursue the thing that matters to
you the most then this is the conversation for you. I can't wait for you to hear this.
So without further ado I'm Stephen Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO. I can't wait for you to hear this. So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett,
and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this
to yourself. Ben, when I look back on my life, I only in hindsight have managed to start piecing together some pieces that have enlightened me to why I became the person I went on to become and why I had the
interests and skills and all those things. And also like the insecurities. When I look at your
early years back in Bromsgrove at school, I started to like connect a few dots, but I wanted
to know in your own sort of self-assessment
whether you you can now see any patterns from your early years that you would consider an anomaly
that caused you to become the anomaly you are today um so so I think I had two sort of really
lucky moments so the first one was at about 14 years old.
I think it was about 14.
You know when you do work experience?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So everyone does sort of work experience at school.
And the work experience that I did at that age
was basically with my granddad.
And what my granddad would do is
he would travel around the Midlands
and he would line furnaces.
So furnaces, big ovens basically,
where we would stick airplane parts in.
It would heat them up, loosely speaking. And then what he would do was go around and fill them with either ceramic fiber
or brick so i basically did work experience with him did a bit of laboring and i would be sort of
on the sort of cement mix of the drum and i would basically pass him cement or um he would teach me
to like push in ceramic fiber or lay bricks or whatever now Now, it wasn't actually the work that was important as such
other than the fact that it did teach me hard work.
But it was more the fact that they were long days.
And through those days, we would have conversations that like,
to be honest, in hindsight,
probably not too many younger kids would have been exposed to.
Because it was all about like the risk that he took in the business
and the intricacies and so on.
He would just talk to me about that.
And I'd ask him questions and stuff. And there was one particular
job that he did that he told me about. And it was building a furnace to be shipped off to Germany.
And he'd basically risked pretty much everything he had on this one particular job.
And he told me about all the worries, the concerns, the worries that he had in terms of keeping the house for my nan,
my mom, her sister.
And at the time, it didn't really, I don't know,
to me it was just a story that my granddad was telling me.
But then as I grew up and then I started taking business risks of my own,
I do remember thinking, oh yeah, but my risk and nothing compared to his.
So I think that certainly helped.
And like I said, just learning that hard. So I think that certainly helped. And like
I said, just learning that hard work. I think watching my mom, my mom's worked in the NHS my
entire life. She was incredibly, incredibly hard working. I also got fortunate at school because I
did, so I did my GCSEs and I wasn't, I didn't do particularly well. I was sort of like a D-ish
student, sort of like pretty average. I ended up getting into sixth form. I was super lucky. And
one of the classes that I took then was a BTEC in IT. And I don't know if you remember the BTECs. You had A-levels or BTECs.
I'm not sure if it's still like that in the day. And loosely speaking then, A-levels were you'd
study, you do an exam, and BTECs were coursework or practical work. To do IT or tech in a practical
way for a BTEC for me was amazing. And that was a huge moment because
through that B-Tech, I learned how to use Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, all of the
like the nuts and bolts that actually I ended up using to build Gymshark. So the combination of
learning those bits of software alongside the fact that watching my grandparents and my parents work
incredibly hard, the risks that my granddad took to build his business,
all of those things I think certainly helped me
when it came to starting up the businesses that I started.
What does that say to you about the type of learner you are though?
That it was the practical?
Definitely practical.
Yeah.
And that's been evident even today, right?
Because I remember you saying in a conversation you had
that one of the real privileges of your job
is you get to go and learn from the experts in your inside of your business so Gymshark was started in 2012 and for the first few years it
was sort of like I mean it was me and a bunch of mates basically and my brother came on and we sort
of started to build a business and everything resolved in many ways around around myself
and then as the business started to grow,
it became clear to me there was a genuine opportunity, right?
And listen, we were doing well,
we could do decent revenues and so on,
but there's a difference between doing well
and doing, I don't know, a few thousand pounds in revenue
to, oh, wow, this could go into the hundreds of thousands
or the millions.
And as the business grew,
I then started to realize that I
needed to surround myself with great people. So that really helped. And I think I got lucky at
the start as well, because the people that I then surrounded myself with helped the business grow.
So I was sort of positively reinforced as well from an early age doing that.
Where did those people come from? I've always wondered this because you,
last time we spoke and in subsequent interviews
you've always cited those people like Stephen who was the CEO of Gymshark yeah and others as being
really really instrumental and it almost felt like they were like mentors yes they were yeah
so how did you find them so I'll tell you what happened right so and this is this is interesting
as well so maybe I don't think this is probably spoken about enough.
As an entrepreneur,
particularly of a growing business,
and you'll know this as well as me,
not only do you have to wear
loads of different hats on a daily basis,
but people don't talk enough about the fact
that during the growth of the business,
you have to completely change
who you are as a person,
not only because you're developing
and you're trying to improve,
but because the business
is a separate entity from yourself and the business requires different things of its founder or chief
exec, depending on the size of the business. So in the early days, and I don't know how to put this
in the nicest way possible, but I think I was a bit arrogant, right? It was a bit like, this is my
baby. I know where I want to take it and I'm going to drag it there.
And I don't, I don't really care what you say because this is my vision. And that worked to
a point, right? I had, I had a vision. I had an idea and I was so, and I still am so passionate
about it. And then all of a sudden, I don't know how this happened. I think it was just,
it naturally happened through just asking questions. I've always been quite inquisitive.
Then sort of you start surrounding yourself with, you know,
with great people. And I would, I would go to the gym, right. And I would find like a guy called
Paul, who was like the business guy. And I'd go and ask him questions and stuff. And all of a
sudden, when you surround yourself with those people, you realize this whole thing of, I don't
care what you say, I'm going to do what I want anyway, that doesn't work or it works for a period
and then they disappear. So then I realized that I then can't be arrogant, single-minded, moving
where I want to go. I need to retain a bit of that, right? But what I need to do is one, learn
to work with people and more importantly, learn to work with great people. So that happened and
I met Paul at the gym and that was just for asking questions. Paul introduced me to Steve
because Steve had previously worked at Reebok and that sort of fitness sportswear sort of thing
um made sense i ended up meeting uh a guy called niran who worked in uh like a local company
funny enough actually on that i um i hadn't spoken so i'd met niran when i was a kid i don't know i
was like 13 14 years old or something.
And then we just sort of never kept in touch.
We went to uni and whatever.
And there was a point where I was really struggling with something.
I can't remember what it was.
It was something to do with like selling things online.
And I knew that he worked in another e-commerce company.
So I sort of messaged him, I think it was on Facebook at the time.
Hi Niren, long time no speak.
Do you mind if I pick your brain on a few things?
He ended up coming in, advising us greatly. And then he ended up joining the business. So I think looking back, I think
one, I think I managed to learn the ability to really sell the vision of Gymshark. But secondly,
I think the single thing was just asking questions. Like I would always just ask questions
of anyone, whether they're in the gym. And I know there's people, right people right there in the gym that I've asked questions to that probably rolled their eyes and
thought oh god it rears again but I just want to get on with my workout but I was I was that person
just asking questions I think that's really unappreciated about you it's because because
when I was looking through as I was saying like when I was doing the research on your
trying to find these threads throughout your story. This one thread kept coming up in my mind, which was like,
Ben is really like an insatiable learner.
He's always trying to learn.
Even in that,
you did the conversation with Jake Humphries
on a high performance.
And at the end of it,
when he asks you about the worst things about your role,
you basically flip it and say,
I'm like the luckiest person on earth
because I get to learn from the best people in the world.
A lot of people,
like if we think about the impact that being in it like a really keen learner has on someone over
10 years it's just such as like an unfair advantage if you're and then I reflect on the
world of warcraft thing as well and I'm like connecting these dots I'm like a lot of people
don't get obsessive about world of warcraft where you're building and you're learning and you're
competing tell me about this world of warcraft thing because only for a couple of
lines how old i was then i was at school i just listen i just loved it i thought it was great i
loved so the three games i loved i love world of warcraft i loved call of duty modern warfare and
um gears of war and those are like the games world of warcraft was the one that i think i played for
the longest period and the thing i loved about it was it was open world for one.
It had like its own economy in it.
So you could like learn a trade and like, you know,
do things, sell things on the auction house.
But you were working with people from all,
you were playing with people from all over the world.
You had to learn sort of teamwork.
The other thing that was cool about it was there wasn't really one.
So you had like different like classes of character, right?
So one was like a warlock and one was like a warrior.
One was like strong and had loads of health and could protect.
One would inflict loads of damage on the enemy.
The thing there was with teams was there wasn't one person
or one individual that could do everything.
It was the group that could do everything,
but you needed like all these different like facets.
It's like the Avengers, right?
The Avengers assemble into this great group, group individually they're not as strong and again all these lessons
i think definitely helped because even when we talk about today jim shark sort of leadership team
that's the exact analogy we use avengers assemble like i don't i don't want a you know a chief of
product who is the most wildly intelligent financier or whatever or commercial person but
knows brand like it's useful that they have an understanding and respect of those things
but we want a chief of product who's really good at chief of product right and then we want a chief
of brand who's really good at brand and a chief of finance who's incredibly good at finance and
then all those people come together to create a team. Do you notice that at the start of the company,
you're talking about the requirement of specialists there.
At the start of the company, was that...
It's very different at the start, no.
So at the start, if we go right back to the start,
it is literally a case of we need a group of ambitious individuals
that truly believe in the vision
and will essentially do what it takes to achieve that.
And there are so many corners that are cut along the way
because you just have to do what you can to sort of get by.
And I think the other thing as well is in the early days,
more often than not, especially if you're sort of,
they call it bootstrapping, isn't it?
When you're not sort of borrowing money or such.
You need to find a way around it. Like if you have 50 quid to do advertising you work out how
to advertise with 50 quid there's no like oh never mind let's go home you just you have to have great
problem solvers in the business at that stage um and to be honest the one of the things that
as we move through the sort of nine-year history of Gymshark one of the things
that I'm what I'm proud of myself for doing is being able to adapt from that point of view
but some of the most difficult times have been that inevitably there are some people who can't
maybe make that switch from what was to the future so that's an incredibly difficult thing
to manage as well and that's the sort of thing that like no what you don't go to business school or whatever and get and get taught how to
understand where the level of an individual is or how to have a certain conversation or how to be
self-aware enough to know what you i should and shouldn't be doing yeah or where my level is so
yeah there's a hell of a lot of challenges along the way i can agree more i always said i've
said this on this podcast before but i ended up hiring like just really ambitious people that
would like sleep on the floor with me that had no experience and then obviously as the business
scales and as you said there like the the challenges of the business become different
and you really are looking for experienced specialists especially to like lead key
departments and uh i remember that challenge in like year three of now looking at the people
that have been so loyal to me and thinking, I don't know where you fit anymore because we need,
you know. And it's heartbreaking, but that's where you need self-awareness in both camps,
where you can sort of have the conversation that says like, our relationship is our relationship
and I love you to bits. However, I need to take a step back and I need to build this business
in a way that's best for everyone that is going to help grow it.
So those are the sorts of things that I think you can never truly be prepared for
and it's always hard.
And yeah, it was difficult.
I started the social team with a co-founder.
You did too as well, from what I understand, Lewis.
There's very little written about why he's no longer with you.
I'm guessing, I'm guessing from what I've read,
that there was just a difference in opinion about the future
and you decided to go your separate ways.
Yeah, and I think to be fair, I think Lewis was great, right?
In the early days, we were literally inseparable.
And I think there came a point where, you're right,
I had my vision and I think he had
his vision. And I just want to be clear is like, I don't think one is better than the other. It was
just a difference of opinion. And to be fair to him, he had so many other interests in terms of
investment and property and all these different things. So Lewis essentially left in, I'm going
to say 2014. I could be wrong. Maybe 2015. The business was founded in 2012.
I think he left the business in 2015.
And then he basically retained 20% of his shareholding.
And then in the deal that was last year,
he then sold out the rest of that.
And now he's investing and doing other things.
And were you friends before?
Yeah, we were.
So we met in that IT class that I spoke about.
So we met in IT when we were yeah well so we met in that it class that i spoke about so we met in it when we were 16 17 whatever the first year of sort of post-school is college so i think sick form
we met then and then we just went to the gym together and then there was a group of like
six seven eight of us that would all go to the gym sort of every day together and had you decided
who did what so were you the ceo and he or you both ceos Were you both CEOs? No. So in the early
days that never really happened. It was just a bit like
it was a bit like
right, this is a list of things that we need to do.
Let's just tackle them as we go. There was no
organisation in those days. And I think
as the business then got more
organised, that's when
I think that's when
our vision started to maybe move in separate
directions.
Could that have been why then?
Because there wasn't clear like structure at the start that... Could well have been to be fair, yeah.
Because that's what you need, right?
You need clear roles and responsibilities.
And listen, regardless if you don't have that,
it just muddies the water, doesn't it?
What do you think of having the importance of having a co-founder
and the role it plays in those early stages?
In the early stages, I think, listen, I think it's important.
I don't know the stats on how many businesses
are founded by individuals or not.
I know when Lewis left in 2014, 2015,
the six months after that was difficult.
Not in terms of the fact that he wasn't doing X, Y, and Z.
It was just more the fact that it's just different, isn't it and it's this whole new world and it's a bit like
like i then naturally well i i then naturally sort of i didn't lean into this as such until
later on sort of 2018 ish i then very much became the face of the business in many ways and then it
was like if people wanted to talk talk about the business or to the business, then they would come into myself. So yeah, I definitely noticed that. And then I
chose to obviously start pushing that on YouTube and stuff. And then that happened more and more
going forward. So talk to me about that. So first time we met, it was actually on a different
series I was running at the time called like Everyday Entrepreneurs or something.
And when I met you at Gymshark's office, I did notice that you were very nervous.
Very different from how you were today. That was about 2015, wasn't it? That was in the early days. Yeah. So hopefully you can see the change that's happened in me from then to here.
Yeah. 20 times different. And that, so that was the period, that was a period of great self-reflection
for me. And that was when I was literally going, right, what am I bad at? What am I good at? And
what's my choice? So actually around that that point I'd split the two out good bad
and I decided to lean into my strengths I did that for about three or four years and then I was like
right now I'm really comfortable with my strengths I know what I'm good at now I'm going to lean into
my weaknesses and I'm going to become good at public speaking I don't know people management
all these other things so the yeah when we met I was definitely a lot more nervous um I it's so
because I I literally remember meeting you and I've had this this idea of meeting you this young
guy's made this killer business whatever whatever whatever I was my anticipation was that you were
going to be like loud and like really whatever and you were so quiet and I could tell you when
you were nervous about the conversation um And I would never have guessed that.
You're totally different now.
And which I think is incredible
because it's just like, for me,
it's like very, very different people.
And it's a testament to your growth.
But I was really, really surprised.
And I want to share that
because I think there is a lot of people listening,
young entrepreneurs or people that think,
you know, how you are now is how you will be. And's no there's no development or no and this is the thing where
i think what what you need to do again even more i think i think everyone should do this whatever
field of work they're in or whatever but particularly as an entrepreneur because i feel
like as an entrepreneur everything's just amplified right your your wins are bigger your losses are
larger again um your weaknesses are you know Again, your weaknesses are, you know,
are exposed because you are exposed to the business and the world in many respects.
But what you need to do is you need to write down like your character traits. The best example would
be, and this is one that I'm currently working on, right? Is people would be like, I don't know,
I'm messy or I'm always like, Oh, I'm always late. I'm messy. What am I like? And it's a,
the conversation for me is a bit like, okay, you're messy and you're always late,
but those things should be up for grabs, right?
You should be able to look at those things and go,
don't roll your eyes and say, that's just me,
because it's not, or it doesn't have to be.
Because if I'd have done that in the early days,
I'd have gone, I'm introverted, shy,
not good in front of cameras, terrible at public speaking,
and I'm not good at people management.
But I didn't want to identify with those things.
I didn't want to say, Ben is that, but I didn't want to identify with those things. I didn't want to say Ben is that because I didn't want to be that. And I think everyone,
if you can somehow, I don't, I think I was lucky because I was surrounded by great people, right?
So it's definitely easier said than done. But if you can try and not identify with those things,
those parts of yourself that aren't maybe ideal, and you can, again, look at them in a logical manner,
as you would any other problem in life, and try and solve them. So I'm not good at people
management, fine. Who's the best person I know that is? I'm going to go and chat to them,
I'm going to pick their brains. Or even better, I'm just going to watch them. Because some people
learn from just watching. Some people learn just by watching. And Steve for example who's the who's the CEO at Gymshark previously we didn't have that many Steve teach me how to people manage Steve teach me how to
public speak like we didn't really do that but by him doing it I just watched him and I understood
the traits or the things that he would do that helped him be great at that and then I just
basically learned them and tried them and tried them and tried them and eventually got
reasonably good at doing those things one of the things linked to that that I
always say is um there's no self-development without self-awareness and like I still to this
day I've spoken to a lot of people on this podcast I have no idea how you make someone genuinely
self-aware and when I was and when you're talking there about sitting down and writing a list of my
goods and bads how do we know that our own like delusion and ego isn't writing that list on our behalf I mean you could ask someone
else to do it the the first really the time it hit home for me and it was like a ton of bricks on the
top of my head was I did a 360 feedback so anyone that doesn't know what a 360 feedback is you this
I could I'm sure you can find it online if you Google it.
But basically you ask the people around you to describe you
and it prompts you as it goes.
So Ben is, I don't know, X, Y, and Z.
Those people fill it in anonymously,
then it comes back to you and you have this thick wad of paper
that basically fully describes yourself.
And I actually did this in, it was around when we met,
so around 2015.
And I had it and I printed it off and I actually did this in it was around when we met so around 2015 and I had it and I printed it off
and I read it
and I was so upset
and annoyed
and I remember thinking
this is not me
and I took it home that night
and I
it was just
erratic
hot-headed
arrogant
poor manager
like all these things
from your employees
yeah
and it's one of them
like
so the first thing and completely natural is who said that. And it's one of them. So the first thing,
and completely natural,
is who said that?
I want to find them, right?
That's the first thing.
Now, fortunately, it's anonymous.
You can't do that.
And that would be terrible anyway.
But then I read it,
I took it home,
left it on the side,
and I think,
I don't know what I'd done,
I'd gone to the gym or whatever else.
Now, my other half,
who's now my wife,
ended up reading it
and I'd come home
and I'd seen her
literally just finishing it
on the last couple of pages.
And I was so angry, right?
I literally grabbed it off her and I said,
don't mind, don't read it.
It's not even me anyway, is it?
Blah, blah, blah.
Left her alone and we carried on with our day.
And then later on, I said the same.
I said, that was a load of rubbish, wasn't it?
That's nothing like me.
And then she said, she said,
that's the most
you thing I have ever read and then it was like that was it it was like I I didn't even say
anything I was just I remember like everything came crashing down around me because because
there was nowhere to hide like she knows me more than anyone and like I can kick and I can scream
and I can say no it's not true but in my heart of hearts I
knew it was true and that was the moment I realized I have to change I have to improve
I have to develop and if you're talking about becoming self-aware I think that was my moment
so incredibly true how our partners know us and they can be the most hurtful but as you
completely accurately said there like my girlfriend said something to me I might on the surface but then I get back to my room and I'm like oh my god like
once your ego's had like a couple of seconds to chill so you get this list of feedback I remember
doing the 360 thing with my team as well um and I remember the same feeling like who the fuck said
that like and trying to work it out and looking at everybody like, I know it was you.
It's my assistant. So you get that list of things back and you can see areas where you need to
improve and you agree. You say, okay, right. I'm going to start listening. What happens,
like how would you go about improving on those things? Because a lot of them are so like deeply
ingrained in you from decades of your childhood or whatever. And especially when you're a winner,
when you've been successful in one thing,
it validates you. It almost appears to be like validation of everything. So what do you do then?
What do you do next? Yeah. And you're right. So that's the dangerous thing. And I think that's
why I was so fortunate because Gymshark for the most part, not entirely, had been very successful
until that point. So it was difficult for me to go, well, wait a minute, I can't be that bad.
Right. But but yeah I think
the the thing with Robin where she literally put it on me that that was the moment um so what I did
then and I was actually watching it was a Gary Vee video that I was watching actually so what I did
was I had the weaknesses which were both self-defined but defined by other people
I also had my strengths because by the way that come your strengths come back with a 316 no one
reads them you only look at the weakness right But there is a list of strengths in there somewhere.
And I realized that my strengths, particularly at the time, were around creativity, around product,
around brand, around marketing, around understanding the industry, the customer, and so on.
So I was mulling the idea, do I work on my weaknesses? Do I focus on my strengths?
And to be honest, I don't really know the answer
to what the best way of doing this is.
But I decided through, I think it was a Gary video,
to focus on my strengths.
And I said, right, do you know what I'm going to do?
I'm 20, whatever it is, three, 24,
I'm purely going to focus on my strengths now.
And that's when I went into a brand role,
a product role, a marketing role,
everything that was front end and creative at Gymshark, I completely lent into. That was when
Steve came into the business, Steve became the CEO. So I was sort of like the responsibility
of maybe some of the areas I was weaker at, finance, ops, management, that was then like
moved away from me. And I purely, completely, innately focused on those things.
And that was your decision?
Yeah.
It's a pretty amazing decision.
It was heartbreaking as well
because again it's
one thing moving yourself
out of a role. It's another thing moving
someone then into that role who does it really
good and like I'm looking at them
and I'm like you're way better than me and I just have
to like know that
and to be honest I think I used that as motivation to
one day be as good as that
that was the that was the inspiration I think maybe because I was young I knew I had time
and I think that helped but it was heartbreaking because the other thing as well is that doesn't
mean to say exclusively everything Steve did for example I thought was right it just there was
things that he did well I thought maybe I wouldn't do that or I would think
differently. And sometimes he would be right. And sometimes he would be wrong, but what I can't do,
and this is the weird balance, right? Cause I'm founder and I am like a majority shareholder of
the business. So ultimately I have control of the business, but there's no point in me putting him
as CEO and then just overruling what he says. He's in the CEO cause he's the best person for the job.
And I have to trust his judgment and opinion.
And it's that weird balance of that.
And I never, and I never have to this day,
played what we'd call like the shareholder card.
I've never come in and gone,
this is the way it's going to be just because.
So yeah, then I was fortunate enough to watch Steve,
learn from Steve and that really helped him.
And this was the beginning, I think,
of the period where I was sort of becoming a CEO
because I started off as the chief of brand, right?
So the business was smaller at this stage.
I can't remember the exact size.
We'll say 20, 30 million in revenue maybe.
And I managed the creative, the imagery, the videography,
the athletes and sponsorships
and all these different things, the events events and that was cool because i just i got a real detailed understanding of all those things
like really detailed i was in the nuts and bolts of everything um funnily enough it then happened
again a guy called noel came in who was way better than me and he came in as the chief of brand so
again i'm sort of left a little bit high and dry i was CEO now I'm not chief of brand now I'm not um you brought him in as well yeah so he actually came in and reported into me but it was
clear within a I don't know a year or so that he was better so I vacate the seat he comes in and
he's done a great job since then I think after that I did I think it was product for a little bit
which was great fun oh sorry I did marketing which was great for the marketing is all that's what it says in the tin, right? All the marketing, all the ads that you see online,
everything that comes with that. And that was great fun. And I learned a lot there. I traveled
the world. I spent time with Facebook's, Google's or the partners like that. And I learned a hell
of a lot there. Did you feel a bit lost at this point? Because having gone from CEO to brand to
marketing, typically when an employee in my company does that,
I tend to get the impression that they kind of know
they're being moved around a little bit like a chess piece
and it's like they don't feel like they ever fully own something.
Yeah, so I've had that, but I've had that for five or six years
because then it was branding to marketing to product.
There was tech for a little bit.
I've moved around a lot.
So this CEO role, it's the first genuine
home I've found since sort of running the business back in 2013, 2014.
And why did you, so you've recently announced that you're now the CEO. I think it's been
roughly about four months since you kicked Steve out and evaded the office and slammed the shareholder card on his desk
and told him to do one.
I'm joking.
But since you sort of regained your position
and made the decision with Steve
that you wanted to do the role again,
what was the thinking behind that?
Because a lot of founders,
when they own the business,
it's doing really well, it's flying.
They know that they're,
in terms of the financial incentives,
they're going to do just fine and they can have a really easy life.
And I've seen it happen. They just step back.
They just tiptoe out the door and let other people do the hard graft.
Why did you want to step back into the hardest role of all?
So first and foremost, I think, like I said, I've done all these roles
and I'd built up to a point where I sort of thought I won't be able to do it.
And I think the fact that Steve came to me two years prior to coming to the job and he said
if you almost like I think you can do this so that was a huge vote of confidence because we'd
had this wasn't like an overnight thing right this was a two-year build-up from the first
conversation Steve had to me that's and his conversation was I think I've taken the business
to a point where I can which is which was great, that he would be so honest and open about that.
And then we had a two-year period of,
okay, are we going to bring someone in from the outside?
Or, Ben, are you going to be able to do this role?
And again, similar to what I did in 2015,
these are the things that I now need to do
to be good enough at doing that role.
So there was a long, almost warm-up handover,
whatever you want to call it, to that.
Now, the other thing I would say is the business today is a very different place So there was a long, almost warm up handover, whatever you want to call it to that.
Now, the other thing I would say is the business today is a very different place to where it was.
I don't know what the numbers are, but prior to Steve,
we were maybe 30 employees.
Now we're 900.
We were one office in the Midlands.
Now we're several offices around the world.
So it's a very, very different place.
But doing the chief of brand when the business was this big
and then product at this big,
then marketing at this big and tech and so on.
Having the intricate understanding of those areas,
not every area of the business,
but many of the areas has really helped as well.
One of the things you said is that you're linked to that is
I'm scared of being someone that can only just start the business
and not run it.
Yeah.
What do you mean by that i so i i'm listen i'm i'm so proud of the fact that i found a bit uh jim shark i am it's
it's it's so great but i don't want i don't want it to be a bit like ben founded the business and
that's all he did like i want to do way more than that and And for me, with my personality and the way I'm built, I think
it's a far bigger challenge for me to run Gymshark at the scale it is now as a chief exec
than it is to start the business, right? Like there are so many businesses that are started
that die after year one, after year two, after year three, after year four and five.
For me, I'm proud of the fact that I founded the business. I'm proud of the fact that I've worked in the chief roles. But to be in the front seat in the
CEO role, a business like Gymshark moving forward is one, it's the most exciting thing in the world
for me. It's the biggest challenge that I could possibly like go for. And for me, that's exciting.
Like I want to aim high both for the business, but also personally for myself as well. And for me, that's exciting. Like I want to aim high both for the business, but also
personally for myself as well. And like you said at the start, I love learning. That doesn't mean
I sit there reading books 24 seven, but I love learning and being amongst it. And there's no
better role for that. But the apparent downside to that role is that you then the buck stops with
you. Yeah. Which means when there's problems, when there's crises, they stop with you. And you could sail off into the distance.
You'd get a really big boat
with your shareholding in the company.
And you could just relax
and just maybe, you know, chill out.
Maybe even invest in some stuff.
And, you know, you and Robin can have a great life.
Yeah.
Why not?
Because it's like you're choosing...
Stress and long hours and busyness over...
I think Robin probably asked me the same question regularly,
if I'm honest.
I genuinely love it.
I love the people that I work with.
And you're right, I do not have to do this job.
There is no two ways about it.
I do it purely because I absolutely adore it
and I want to challenge myself
and I want to be the best version of myself possible.
And I have genuine ambitions to be a great chief exec for this business one day. I don't think I'm
anywhere near there now. And it's a bit like, you know, someone has to be a great CEO in 5, 10,
20 years time. So why not me? And I'm always ambitious on behalf of the business more than
I am myself, right? So I'll always put the business first because it is my baby and I've been there from sewing the clothes in the early days, going to
the first events, like looking at having no money in the bank because of the risks that we take.
And so the business for me always comes first and the people within the business always come first.
But personally, I'm also ambitious myself as well.
Who is Hurricane Ben?
Hurricane Ben. That would have been the Ben that would have been described
prior to my 360 feedback.
So I'll give you an example, right?
So there would be a particular product that I didn't like
and my opinion would be just direct, brutal
and probably not take into account other people's feelings or thoughts.
And that's not to say that everything that you should do in business
should always be stepping around people's feelings because I definitely don't think that's not to say that everything that you should do in business should always be, you know, stepping around people's feelings, because I definitely don't think that's
the way. But equally, like, don't be a dick. And there was definitely times in the early days when
I was a bit of a dick. And you and so what happens now in terms of how have you learned not to be a
dick? Learn to give feedback, examples with feedback, feedback empathy understanding why people do certain
things like understanding the fact that like you know no one is perfect certainly not me nor anyone
and pretty much never have i seen someone go out of their way to like damage the brand like people
are doing things for good intentions no one's designed a product in a particular way because
they you know they want to see the brand negative intentions. No one's designed a product in a particular way because they, you know,
they want to see the brand negatively affected.
No one's posted on social or done something in particular
because they want to see the brand negatively effective.
It's essentially a difference of opinion.
So I think like understanding that and being aware of it
whilst I'm giving feedback, I think it's important.
What in your, because I have this a lot as well.
What are some of the character traits you see
in people that work with you in your organization
that you don't like?
Oh, don't like?
Yeah, you don't like.
Because if I asked my team, if I said to them,
what are some of the things that Steve doesn't like
in terms of character perspective,
they would know.
I feel like they would know.
So to be fair, I don't get too much of this,
but I just don't want people to agree with me
because I want to be fair I don't get too much of this but I just don't want people to agree with me because like
I want to be challenged
all the time
like for me
we want the best outcome
I don't care
if it's my opinion
or your opinion
I want the best outcome
and if my idea is crap
tell me
it's cool
it's fine
I will not take it personally
so I don't want people
I don't want like
you know the whole thing
of a yes man
yes person
whatever you want to call it
I think
it's not to say that I don't like it,
but I know that individuals that really struggle with change
don't tend to do well at companies like Gymshark.
If you just want a nine to five
that is going to be consistent and stay the same,
then it's definitely not the right place for you
because it's so rapidly changing,
not only because of the business itself,
but because of the world that we're in.
Like 10 years ago, Facebook was only small. Snapchat didn't really exist. Instagram barely
existed. Shopify was very small. The ecosystem in the world that we play in was completely
different. So change as well, I think it's important. Yeah, I can completely agree. And
I've heard a few of your friends and people within your team describe
you as being a bit of a perfectionist as well in terms of having a high sort of attention of detail
is that do you consider yourself to have to be a perfectionist i don't know i don't think so
i definitely don't have a massive attention to detail i've got the attention span of a net
really um i try if if it's something that's really
I don't know something that just
aligns with me then I can obsess over it
for months on end
if it's something I don't find particularly
interesting I have to use every ounce of
strength of every cell in my body to
remain focused on it like I find that really difficult
I don't know if I'm a perfectionist
I'm probably not the best person to comment on that
I wouldn't say so I don't look like aist. I'm a bit scruffy and I,
you know, I sort of meander. That's interesting. For those that can't see Ben now, he's wearing
his, it's all Gymshark, right? Other than the shoes, right? Yeah, exactly that. And you wear
this outfit a lot. Yeah. You pretty much look the same every day. Yeah. Why? Speed, efficiency,
just simple, no messing around
I don't have to sit and think about I don't know what am I going to wear today or I don't know
anything like that it's literally just a case of it's simple comfortable and I like it one of the
things you've started recently as well as your vlog online um and if we go back to when I'm that
day that I first met you and I could tell that you you know you were nervous in that context and
the guy you are today two questions for you yeah. Did you have professional support in developing your ability
to speak so fluently and articulate your ideas so well? And then we'll move on to chatting
about why you're doing the vlog.
So there's two things. So public speaking, one in front of a camera, two in front of an audience, or whatever you want to call it, to a group.
I found those as two very different things.
And it's weird, right?
Because if I, so Steve would be great in front of an audience,
but struggle in front of a camera.
I was fortunate, my other half, Robin, was a YouTuber,
so she's brilliant in front of a camera.
And she taught me how to work in front of a camera, basically.
Not through, I don't know, I don't know.
It was just through brute, just keep going, keep going,
sticking front camera in front of me.
In the first vlog, she recorded and edited the whole thing.
So she taught me how to sort of work in front of a camera.
I did have public speaking lessons.
And that was massively life-changing for me.
And going back to that list of things, by the way,
when I said about these are the things I'm good at,
these are the things that I'm bad at,
one of those things was public speaking.
And this is why I'm such a massive advocate of making a list, right?
Because public speaking was one of the many things on my list
which was a weakness,
but I didn't then immediately go and draw out a plan.
I just had that list and I said,
I know, I think I had it as my wallpaper on my phone.
Public speaking is something I'm bad at. And then I was at an event or something. I can't
remember what it was. I think there was an event at Gymshark and I'm chatting away to people,
chatting away, chatting away and said, hello, I'm Ben. How are you? Have a great day. You know,
what do you do? And someone said, I'm a public speaking coach. And then all of a sudden I've
gone, boom, light bulb. I'm terrible at public speaking. You're a public speaking coach. I was
like, can you teach me? And that's literally how it happened but if I
hadn't have sat there done that work and written it down it probably would have gone gone on right
I probably would have said oh okay enjoy your day I'll see you soon it was lovely to meet you
and then I had public speaking lessons I did I did actually um Shopify actually put me on a public
speaking sort of camera uh, which was cool.
Then I did some here back in the UK and just slowly worked it. And then the thing that really helped me was just, and I wouldn't probably do this now due to time, but it was just saying yes
to things, just saying, yep, I'm going to do it. And you know what, I'm going to make a fool of
myself. I'm sure there's some footage somewhere of me sweating and shuffling around a stage
somewhere, like falling over my words and being terrible at it. But you know, that's just a sure there's some footage somewhere of me sweating and shuffling around a stage somewhere like
falling over my words and being terrible at it but you know that's just a necessary evil to get
get good at anything really what did the public speaking lessons was there like key principles or
key exercises that that you you felt actually moved the needle for you was there anything
there that maybe someone listening to this that's a really bad speaker might be able to steal.
There's a few bits.
So there's one that they told me, and there's a quote I've said online.
I think it's a Wynton Churchill quote, whether or not it's true.
You know, you see all these quotes and whether or not they're true or not.
There's one where he says, I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks,
which is like, obviously, impromptu remark is a quick sort of like thing that you've sort of made up on the spot.
And that really stuck with me because then,
I know a lot of other people do this as well,
is when we're talking about a particular subject.
Now, I'm fortunate now because I've done so much of this.
I've got like all these different sentences and phrases
and things that I can draw on.
But in the early days, it's like, so Ben, you're going to talk about,
you're going to publicly talk about the Gymshark story.
Now, historically, even though I knew the Gymshark story inside out
because I was there, I'd struggle with that.
So what I'd do is I'd prepare phrases, sentences, words, reminders in my head.
So if someone said, I don't know, talk to me about the first event,
it would just sort of roll off the tongue.
And granted, I probably wouldn't do that anymore.
But in the early days, that got me over that hump of that nervousness,
that frog in my throat, I don't know where to start. Because that's the main thing is once you've started, it's fine. Right. It just
goes. But even just having that first sentence of, Oh, the first event was body power and we did this
and this and this. And then it, yeah, that, that really helped me. That's so funny because that's
exactly what happens from practice, isn't it? You'll know that now. Just go back to it. Exactly.
I, you know, when I, I do a lot of interviewing interviews stuff too and there's like keywords trigger a story
so if you said to me
rejection I'd be like
oh and then it's just the same old
and that's so funny because that's ultimately what you're saying
your coaching taught you
so first and foremost prepare impromptu remarks
whatever you want to call it, prepare stories
prepare things, make sure you're well prepared
and generally you want to
if you're not very good at it, like for me I had to over prepare i had to prepare you know this many things for a conversation that was this
long um and then the aim of that is to become comfortable that's the main thing and that was
that was the biggest difficulty for me become comfortable so now i'm super fortunate you could
put me on a stage in front of a thousand people and i would it would be a bit peculiar if I wasn't prepared but I'd you know I'd be fine and I'd be comfortable because then
once you're comfortable what you do is you buy yourself time so then if we're on stage and you
ask me a question five years ago I'd probably like panic and answer as quickly as I can with
whatever whereas now I'm going to process it think about it and then come back with a response
because I'm comfortable and like I think the stage stages to all different types of learning and that was it for me one preparation once I'd done that
I'd learned to be comfortable and then I learned about you know different things as I go on and
you know so this has led you to now because do you know what you're at I watched your videos back
then and maybe this is why I was surprised when I met you because on your videos, I genuinely thought you were amazing.
Take 10,323.
I watched your videos on YouTube.
I was like, this guy's an unbelievable speaker.
And then I met you in person
and it wasn't that you're a bad speaker.
You're like he's a shuffling mess.
No, so the crazy thing is you weren't a bad speaker
and your stories were amazing,
but I could just tell you were nervous.
And that's what you were speaking to there
about being comfortable.
Some people are just naturally comfortable and that's and that's cool and i
think that but that's the main thing and i do think for whatever reason i think it's probably
maybe we're not taught it maybe it just doesn't feel natural if you can and by the way if you
can speak publicly if you can speak to camera and if you can speak to groups that is so powerful
so powerful it's untrue you now run what was voted, I think, 2016, 2017,
the fastest growing company in this country.
It's still one of the fastest growing companies in this country.
It's worth billions and billions and billions.
And you've decided that you're going to vlog inside the company.
This is not what CEOs do, Ben.
You don't see them.
You never get to, you know,
like think about all the big
companies. It's very controlled PR. Why do you think that matters? Because if we go back to me
on the inside, working with my granddad, and being able to learn about those stories that
eventually led to, in many ways, the Gymshark we see today.
I think I would love to be able to provide that to other people around the world, particularly here.
First and foremost, it can be done, right?
So you can start a business in the UK, whatever,
in this world, online,
and it can become a unicorn in under 10 years.
And if you don't want to,
you don't have to go and borrow a load of money.
You don't have to highly leverage yourself.
If you're a problem solver, you're open-minded,
and you're self-aware, it can be done.
And I think that's the first sort of like step for me.
Let me come at that one then,
because I know what people are saying.
They're saying, Ben, no, that's, you know,
it's all well and good you saying that because you've done it but I can't I can't do it
I'm I don't know what you know and I'm uh I don't you know I don't know anything about computers and
it's all well and good you saying that but you were this is what people will say because they
said to me well you were lucky you know your timing and by the way I was incredibly lucky
massively lucky you're and that would be completely right.
And listen, I would completely understand that.
But for some that want to,
then that to me is a proof of when it can be done.
Now, I am very well aware of the fact that I was very lucky.
One, in the people I've met.
Two, in terms of timing.
So fitness was on the up, right?
In the early 2000s, all over the news was obesity rates are rising.
So fitness was on the up because people were encouraging people
into the gym and fitness.
Direct-to-consumer came out of nowhere.
People were more comfortable in the sort of 2010s
than ever buying things online, right?
In the early 2000s, people weren't that comfortable
buying online from a company they'd never heard of,
let alone one from another country abroad.
But number three, we had social media.
Those three forces converging at the point where Gymshark was founded
is completely and utterly luck, and I do understand that.
But I'm also aware of the fact that there's loads of those things
happening elsewhere in the world right now
that probably aren't being completely taken advantage of. So I am aware
of the fact that it's luck. But I also think as well in me doing this, I'd like to think that
regardless, even if you don't want to start your own business, which by the way is completely cool,
like, and I probably say in many respects, that's probably a good idea, because it is very difficult
to do this. I still think there's lessons that can be learned.
And I love the thought of people being able to take something away from the Gymshark story and
create something cool of their own. It also gives you this weird type of defense because you can
see that so many CEOs have been attacked because they are, in essence, I think what we're talking
about here is being like a glass box CEO or the old model of
being like a black box CEO where your image is painted on the outside by your marketing or PR
people and no one ever gets to really know you or see inside. You've taken this really glass box
approach where if someone writes something bad about you, Ben, I can like, well, I've seen 65
interviews of him and I've seen his blog. So I have my own reference point to know that that's
actually not him. And some CEOs out there like Elon and these really public ones have that. And then Zuckerberg
hid Nikkei for the last 10 years. And in 2019, he announced that he was finally going to start
doing interviews because of how everyone just thought he was this emotionless robot. Cause
that's what the press said. And it's, and it is this, this incredible defense mechanism that I
don't think people really appreciate. Yeah. and I think I can also empathize.
I mean, listen, what Zuckerberg's done
is like on a completely other world
to what pretty much anyone else has done,
certainly myself.
But in the early days of Gymshark,
I didn't want to be plastering myself
on social media, by the way.
I didn't want to be on YouTube.
I wanted to just knuckle down
and focus on building the business.
Because remember, I didn't know what it would be at that point.
It was only when people started asking for that,
that I then decided to do it.
So I do also understand the idea of just knuckling down
and focusing on what you're good at.
But you're right, the problem that that comes with is
other people get to control the rhetoric or the language
or the description of yourself.
And we're seeing that in the UK.
A lot of big companies in the UK
that are being attacked at the moment.
You don't know whether the articles are true
because you don't know the person they're talking about.
And that's why I literally have a picture in my office
over there of Elon smoking a joint
on the Joe Rogan podcast.
Because for me,
and this is going to sound like fucking bonkers,
like that's the CEO I would want
to be is where I cry on Joe Rogan's podcast smoking a joint and for everyone to know that
that's how open I am and yeah much the reason why I started this so the pandemic comes around
um talk me through how it was being a CEO throughout that because one of the really
remarkable things is you didn't furlough anybody you didn, we didn't. So I wasn't CEO at the start of COVID.
I came in in August.
So that was interesting.
So we were lucky again because we were completely set up for Zoom.
Everyone has laptops.
We're a digital business.
So working from home, thanks to our tech team and the investments they made,
from a systems perspective, it wasn't tough.
I know there were other companies that not everyone had a laptop and so on.
So that I couldn't imagine where to start there.
And we had that moment where,
so what we have is because we have,
we have an office in Hong Kong,
we have offices in the UK,
we have offices in the US.
And we literally saw,
because COVID sort of came from the east to the west,
didn't it?
And we saw Hong Kong closed, right?
Everyone went into lockdown. And
there was this bit where I know I was thinking, never happened here, never happened here until
it did. Right. And then boom, lockdown, everyone working from home. And I was in, what was I doing
at that point? I think I was just finished up in marketing. And I think I was moving into product
at that point. And the moment that caught me which
was within like 24 hours of being locked down I was lucky I have an office at home I shut the door
I've got a desk and I can just work through that and when I'm finished I can close the door at the
end of the day I was chatting to someone and they were like they were in a studio apartment in
Birmingham city centre and their partner was making their breakfast behind them and they were
sort of like like balancing their laptop on the work surface. And it was all
just, I remember chatting to her and thinking, okay, this is going to be really, just really
tough for some people from a professional perspective. And then I'm chatting to my mom
who worked at the QE in Birmingham city center, uh, hospital in Selly Oak. She was telling me
about what was going on there. And I was like, and I was like I became very aware very quickly that this was a
big thing or it was going to be a big thing
so yeah managing through that
was really really really tough
and commercially
the business did okay
people were shopping online
there were more people working out from home
they were cycling, they were running
that side of the business did well
but managing hundreds of staff around the world,
working from home, mental health,
making sure that we're supporting them
through complete uncertainty was definitely difficult.
And where do you land then?
So having seen that member of your team
on that ironing board in that studio apartment,
where do you land on this whole remote working debate?
Where does Gymshark, what's your and Gymshark's? So engine so we we I mean listen there are people at Gymshark that work remotely
and it works for them and that's fine personally I'm a little bit old-schooling I'm in the office
pretty much every day unless I'm you know out at meetings I just love to be in the office
um that doesn't mean it's right or wrong I'm sure I would probably do a day maybe a month or a
quarter working from home if I need to like work through things. Because when we did work from home,
I found that I finally got to my to-do list, which was useful. And I'd never really got to
that previously. We're sort of open-minded. There are some people that remote work,
it makes sense for them. As long as it makes sense for the business as well as them, that's cool.
Personally, I like to be in the office. You have this big, amazing office in the UK, especially.
I mean, you have a few, but the one in Birmingham?
Yeah, Solihull, yeah.
Solihull is a tremendous, like newly built campus almost
that you've built.
What role does that play?
Because I'm in the camp of I love the office as well.
And I think it's more than just a place
where you come to do your work.
I think it's community.
I think it's culture.
I think it gives especially younger generations a place where you come to do your work. I think it's community. I think it's culture.
I think it gives especially younger generations who haven't figured out their lives yet
an opportunity to learn, meet people, get married.
Exactly.
So how do you see the office?
And have you set parameters for your employees?
We're working on it now.
That's what we're trying to work through.
There are some people that are on remote contracts
or they choose to work remote. There are many,
the vast majority are on contracts, which means
they're based in HQ.
Personally, you're right. The whole thing
about, like I said earlier, being able to watch
Steve, right, is massive
for my development. So if I'm a
youngster that's coming in to work
at Gymshark, I want to be in the office. I want
to learn and I want to grow and I want to be around
people. Because, and that's not to say you can't learn on Zoom. I think you can. And I think there's
great utility for Zoom. And I think there's areas where it's really helpful and useful.
But if I'm a young product designer, I want to be around designers. I want to be able to be
inspired and I want to have that conversation. I want to be able to share ideas in the moment
rather than having to jump on Slack, forward slash resume, jump on a call and so on. Hopefully they're free.
So yeah, for me, like I said, I like to be in the office.
I think it's a great place to learn.
And the office for us,
which is why we're investing in this campus
and this larger office is, it's a hub of Gymshark.
When you're there, you're in it.
We work together, we eat together and refuel.
Many of us go and lift in the gym after together
and it builds that genuine community in the bill in the uh in the business one of the things you
you know when when i hear your story um no matter where i look it it does feel like you're just
incredibly good at dealing with shit like it it appears on the surface that you're just incredibly
good at dealing with the hard times
and it also kind of appears that other than the one moment you told me about where
yeah the website went down and you had to write out the apology notes and stuff that there's really
not been a lot of like chaos and I'm like how every every day is chaos that's why tell me about
that part of it oh I don't know where to begin like in terms of like starting the business we there were several times we invested everything we had on a particular
event or a particular product line um covid was tough it's like what when the business the business
is growing at the rate that we're growing even just making sure that we've got enough stock to
fulfill the forecast for the following year is it's tough to manage and work out moving from you know zero to 900 staff in nine years
that's so hard and it's like every day hard because in many respects when a big problem
comes in and it just hits you in out of nowhere you look at that problem and you try and solve it
whereas people forget about the everyday nagging problems
of making sure that like the majority of the people
that currently exist in Gymshark
weren't in Gymshark 12 months ago.
So the majority of people in Gymshark
maybe aren't as aware of the story
or the way that the business works
or haven't been truly immersed in the culture
both because they haven't been here for a long time
but also because we have been working remote for so long. So those problems in terms of making sure that everyone is
truly bought into the brand are really important. Because when you've got a team that big, we want
to make sure that they're working efficiently as well. Steve said that the former CEO said that
pressure is a privilege to you. So I think it's true. Do you think it's a privilege for you as
Ben or do you think it's a privilege for everybody?
I think it depends on what the pressure is, right?
Right.
I'm sure there are people in this world
that are under a lot of pressure
that certainly doesn't feel like a privilege.
But in the context of Gymshark,
it is a privilege.
Like we all choose to be there.
We're all a part of something really special.
Something that I really believe this.
I think, I do think books will
be written on this story and I think maybe if we do what we think we can maybe like there'll be
programs and movies too because it is so unique and so special so within the context of Gymshark
I do think pressure is well and truly a privilege for us when I when I reflect on um early days of
starting my business there was a lot of unknown unknowns a of things that I wish someone had just told me sooner
or a lesson that it took me three or four years to learn.
When you look back at some of the things you wish you knew sooner
that would have maybe even put what is a phenomenal business
even further ahead, what are those things that come to mind?
I'm interested to hear what you think.
But for me, given my skill set,
we didn't invest in the foundations
of the business early enough i i was going back to being arrogant at the start i didn't really
respect what maybe the ops or finance people of this world did i the the foundation elements of
the business to me were nowhere near as exciting or fun as the front end element of the business
the product the brand and the marketing.
So I think if we'd have better prepared ourselves for that
from a, like I said, data ops, finance, all these things,
I think Gymshark would have grown far quicker.
And I mean, in terms of,
especially with what you guys did,
particularly at Social Chain,
you were ahead of your time in that
in terms of bringing all these pages and channels together
and almost packaging them up
for different businesses and
brands so you must have struggled with that as well oh my god my answer is the exact same as
yours it's just i was exact i was exactly the same guy i thought that the thing that would move the
needle most was what i did and what i knew and then it wasn't until you hire one really great
person and you go fucking hell that's that's what looks, and look at all the things I don't know.
And I think it took me two,
maybe three years
to realize the importance
of really great talent
and that my skills
and my talents
weren't actually
going to matter that much,
especially at a 700,
800 people business.
That's the thing,
great people are amazing.
We did a trip
to Fiji
years and years ago
and it was the first time I got
to spend time with Harley Shopify, Harley Finkelstein and Toby at Shopify. So like,
these are like some top, top entrepreneurs. And there was, there was a load of other people there.
I remember sat, I didn't even barely say anything. I remember sat listening to them
and I was thinking to myself, Gymshark's like, or the people, or
certainly even me, I felt like I was like a local football club player. These are like Premier League
international stars. They were like another level compared to what I was and we were in the business.
So to be able to see those, when you see a great operator, like look at Zuckerberg, people just
look at Zuckerberg as like a guy or Elon or whatever.
These people are going to be
so efficient
and frighteningly intelligent
and adaptable
and resilient
that
without meeting them,
I genuinely don't think
you'd be able to fathom it.
I obviously haven't met them.
Having met people
like Harley and Toby,
they were on another level
to anyone
that I'd met before.
So true. And they were just like us at one point I'd met before. So true.
And they were just like us at one point, right?
They've had to work.
They weren't just born hyper resilient, super intelligent,
open-minded and blah, blah, blah.
Maybe a little bit in terms of intelligence.
But a lot of the skills that we see from them,
they had to learn and they had to work on.
That was massively inspiring.
So yeah, I think you're right.
I can't stress enough how important it is
to just try and surround yourself with great people.
But I was lucky, right?
That trip, most people don't get to go on trips like that.
They don't get to have their eyes opened.
But there's still, there's great people in every community,
every gym, every whatever.
You can definitely find them.
I completely agree.
Again, I came to now learn in the business as I start and I say this to my teams
all the time in Flightster and Third Web that we are basically a recruitment company and I never
forget that the most important thing here and the thing that is behind and initiates every decision
is a person a talent obviously it's bound together with culture and a vision but fundamentally
it was actually one day I read on somewhere that the definition of a company
on Google
and in the Oxford Dictionary
is actually group of people
like that's what they said
as a company
it means a group of people
and I started thinking about that
in fact
like a football team
we are starting 11
and in competitive industries
and we're all in competitive industries
I start thinking about it
like a football team
like this is the guy
I've got up in left back
or right wing against my competitor's guy or woman.
And I started thinking,
fucking hell, fundamentally,
I just need to be the best talent.
Steve Jobs says,
the best talent scout in the world.
And I wasn't until this chapter of my life.
Like it's too late.
Yeah, until too late.
And for me, I think like in terms of getting so you can talk about getting great people becoming self-aware becoming
the best version of yourself that you possibly can be and even that all of those things if you
did that incredibly well that by no means guarantees success all that does is increase
the likelihood or the probability of success even then then, you've got a fairly slim chance
because like I said, so many small businesses fail.
And that's the other thing that I think anyone starting out
or working in the business needs to understand
is that failure is inevitable.
Don't be defined by your failures.
It could be an operation in the business.
It could be the business itself.
It's inevitable that it's going to happen.
All you can do is do everything within your power to minimize the likelihood of that happening talking about
doing that which is within your power you've managed to seemingly avoid um the the toll of
business getting to you my business partner has been very open on this podcast about how
the stress of business made him anxious and then he suffered with depression and then he became
in his own words basically like a functional functional alcoholic yeah um it doesn't seem to have
touched you in the same way I mean have you ever experienced anxiety or yeah I've listened I've
definitely struggled there were points where again when I was first sort of I felt like I was first
going out on my own um in 2015 There have been periods where, you know,
social media maybe has turned on the business and myself.
It's definitely been really difficult at times.
There's been points where...
Social media turned on the business.
So there was something that happened last,
I think it was last year or the year before,
where someone at Gymshark on the channel,
on the social channel,
basically commented back to someone.
I can't remember exactly what was said,
but basically it was around a Blue Lives Matter.
You know, you had the Black Lives Matter thing
and there was a Blue Lives Matter thing.
Someone commented something on our page
saying Blue Lives Matter.
And someone at Gymshark basically commented
something sarcastic back to them.
Which, to be honest,
it just shouldn't have been posted. And then at that point that I, that whole group
of people started to converge onto Gymshark. Um, and then before long, they then started to converge
onto me and I had thousands of comments, thousands of messages, death threats, everything you can
imagine. Um, and that, that was in, that definitely hit me and it definitely hurt me. And I really
felt like I felt carrying and I really felt like
I felt like I was carrying that burden
at that point
Talk to me about that then
so the world piles on
because if something someone else has done on Twitter
whatever, we won't go into that too much
but the world piles on
you're going on your phone, that's popping off
people are probably texting you, your family
this is the worst part, your family checking
and it's like
you just don't want to look at your phone yeah and that's that like I said that
was really difficult for me really tough um did you feel anxious you felt that sense of like yeah
I felt horrible I felt like yeah I have a lump in your throat you feel sick you don't look at it
yeah as in you don't want to look at your phone. I struggled with that, but I think I had support at work.
And there's a quote that I've heard.
Noel was the one that told me about it.
And the quote goes something like,
to whom much is given, much is tested, I think.
It's roughly like that.
And I do think about that a lot.
I'm in this role, I'm in this job, and I'm so privileged
and fortunate to be here. I've worked incredibly hard, but I am fortunate. And inevitably,
much has been given to me, so much will be tested of me. And that to me is one of many,
and there'll be more in the future. That will happen again. And I have to be well aware of it
and open to it and understanding of it. What did that moment teach you?
I think it's, it was a, so that
was a bout of resilience. So going back to what I said earlier, every day, I feel like I have to be
resilient in terms of having hard conversations, in terms of challenging people, in terms of,
you know, trying to move the business forward in the right way. Whereas that was like, boom,
you need to be resilient now. Because the other thing as well, that again, I'm sure you will know
this, that happens and I'm sure you will know this, that
happens and I'm feeling terrible as it's happening, but there's still a business with hundreds of
people that need help, support, you know, all these things. So I can't like, I can't just shy
away and feel sad for a week, or at least it can't appear to be like that. I mean, I can feel those
emotions, I can process them, but ultimately the business comes first and I have to support the business and the individuals within it.
And that was an interesting challenge for me to face
because again, I can't just mope around the office.
I come into the office and to me, it's like a game of football.
I'm there to perform, to deliver, and we want to win.
We want to create great things
and I don't want to let
this thing rightly or wrongly sort of drag me down two questions then how do you handle the
situation with the employee that posted that comment which ended up getting you piled on and
you know felt at least like you were being cancelled they had no bad intention so yeah
they stayed at the business and now they do an incredible job.
They were a great person.
So I really don't believe in cancelled culture.
I think especially when people do things by mistake
and this certainly was a mistake
and they learnt from the mistake
and now they're a better, stronger, more educated
and informed person because of it.
And I think that's the way it is.
What you can't have at gymshark or anywhere you can't have someone that fails particularly with
good intentions and then you just move them out of the business because what we're trying to do
is we're trying to create change we're trying to create progress and a great business and
if every time someone failed you just move them out the business, then all you'll be left with is with a group of people that have never failed. And that's
dangerous. So yeah, they're still in the business and they're doing great work. And the other
question was when you go home that day and Robin's there, what's that like? She's incredibly supportive.
I think she gets it because, and this is, this helps as well because she has had time online.
She did do the whole YouTube thing and the social media thing so she does understand
what it's like so she's um incredibly supportive did you rant to her did you did you tell her so
that's probably something I'm not very good at I'm not I don't talk about my feelings massively
I'm not that sort of person I don don't know why. I don't know.
It's just, if I look at the way my dad is, my grandparents are, the males that were around me
growing up, they're very strong individuals. They're very, like, I wouldn't often hear them
talk about feelings, which is fine. And it's cool. I get it. It's probably not the most optimal
solution. And I'm learning to do that. But it's given me great resilience. It's made me strong. Definitely made me mentally strong.
So yeah, I'll, I'll chat to Robin. I think she'll try and pry information from me and I'll chat to
her as she asks questions. But I mean, my girlfriend does the same. My girlfriend is
the ultimate person in my life of trying to make me express how I'm feeling emotionally. And again,
like you said, naturally, it's not my default state, especially, it almost makes me feel
uncomfortable. And I'd love to sit here and talk to you about how I am completely open and in touch
with every single feeling that I'm feeling. I wish, and maybe that's something I need to work on,
but that certainly isn't true. I do understand that I process those feelings.
I'm definitely not as communicative as what I probably should be on those things.
I like to sort of internalize them and process them
without talking about them too much.
We've seen obviously in headlines and stuff
around mental health and men in particular,
not talking about the feelings,
the adverse consequences of not sharing your feelings.
The other thing which I learned recently
is from Patrice Evra when he came
and we talked about toxic masculinity.
And again, he was telling me his girlfriend was the one
who helped him open up his feelings
because he was very, you know, growing up on the streets of France,
drug dealing, trying to survive, etc.
The risk is it becomes a generational cycle.
You've pointed to the fact that it probably was a generational cycle for you.
Definitely was for me.
I've never had my dad express a feeling in his life.
So now you're married and, you know,
one would assume that there's going to be kids
at some point potentially.
Is that something you think about?
Like the...
I don't know.
I mean, listen, if I had a kid,
I would definitely want them to tell me about how they're feeling
because I'd rather know what's going on than not.
So yeah, maybe that is something I would push with them.
Robin certainly will.
Yeah.
Robin will, yeah.
And the other point on the kid thing,
it just triggered something I've been thinking about lately in my life,
is how present are you going to be? I'm going to be honest. I'm scared. And the other point on the kid thing, it just triggered something I've been thinking about lately in my life is,
how present are you going to be?
I'm going to be honest.
I'm scared.
I'm scared because if things carry on as they are now,
I'm like, sometimes I forget to walk my dog
and my assistant does it for me.
And when I have kids,
I don't want to be that business guy
that's never seen his kids.
I want to be present in their lives.
I want to take them to school, pick them up again.
So do you think about that and the change you might have to make?
Because we don't have kids.
I haven't thought about it massively.
I think there was a few things.
So Steve advised me.
He said, be there for the sports days.
I don't think he means be there for the sports days.
I think it's like a thing like be there, be present,
and be there when the kid wants you to be.
So that's something I would definitely like to do.
I don't know.
My dad worked away a lot as a kid
and I don't feel like I was adversely affected by it.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I have been.
But it's not, even when I,
so when I started traveling
and being away for long periods of time,
there was periods where I'd do 30, 40, 50 flights a year and I'd be away all the time and that wasn't like
abnormal that was like my mom was like cool with that she gets it it's fine my dad would work a lot
in like the states and Europe and stuff and then my mom would look after us or I'd go and stay with
my grandparents for a while um again I'm not saying that's optimal but I I was I felt like I
was fine growing up I I actually spoke so I've got uh I'm working with a's optimal but I I was I felt like I was fine growing up
I
I actually spoke
so I've got
I'm working with a new EA called Zoe
who's absolutely been life changing for me
like genuinely life changing
and she has two kids
and we were talking about it actually the other day
um
and we sort of
we do this thing
Monday morning first thing
we look through the calendar for the week
and then she sort of made a bit of a comment
she was like are you still going to be able to do this if you have kids?
And I was sort of like, is that a loaded question?
Like, are you telling me that I won't be able to do this?
And what helps having Zoe is I think because she has kids,
she knows what it's like.
I think she'll help me manage it as it comes.
And then her thing was, no, you won't be able to work like this.
But if we plan for it and we work things out, then we can work out a way to make it work, which is great. I'm
sure Robin will be happy with that as well. If I'm in the CEO role, which I hope I am,
I'm not going to be at home every single day at half five, Monday to Friday. It's just one of the
things that comes with the job. There's been a lot written about
what the future of Gymshark looks like.
A lot of speculating, a lot of guessing
as to what route you're going to take.
A lot of people at this point
probably would have already sold the company
to a bigger Nike or an Adidas or whoever it might be.
What can you tell me about the future of Gymshark?
So my ambition is to make...
So in Canada, you've got Lulu.
In the United States, you've got Nike and Andromeda.
And in Germany, you've got Addy and Puma.
So first and foremost, I want Gymshark to be the British fitness brand.
Why?
I think it's really cool.
So growing up, I grew up not far away from the Rover MG factories in Longbridge.
It was a really cool British brand.
Unfortunately, it didn't end.
I mean, MG's still going.
It didn't end probably as they would have liked.
Over in Solihull, Jaguar Land Rover.
Cool British but international brands.
Burberry, Aston Martin, like Bentley,
and Rolls-Royce.
Like, these are so cool.
And I think I love the thought
of a brand that was grown here.
He's headquartered here, but he's a truly global brand. And I think that's really,
really cool. I love the thought of that. Now, emphasis on the fact I want Gymshark to be a
global brand. We sell into like the entire world at the moment. Like a lot of the revenue and the
customers and the community of Gymshark are international.
The UK is a small area of that now
because of the growth we've seen in North America,
Europe, and so on.
So my ambition is for Gymshark to be
a truly, truly global brand
and one of the most iconic brands in the world.
I think that's so, it's so cool,
the thought of Gymshark being a truly iconic brand.
A brand that sort of like,
like genuinely pulls people together and inspires people, a brand that sort of like, like genuinely
pulls people together and inspires people to be the best version of themselves, both physically
and mentally. And is in many ways, the like the manifestation of this journey that I feel like
I've gone on from joining the gym and trying to improve myself physically and then mentally
through the business and so on. I think that's really cool. But ultimately, I want it to be one
of the most iconic brands in the world. And then however you structure that in the back front, whatever you do to make that happen, I'm almost
like channel agnostic. I just want Gymshark to be a truly iconic, great brand that is like a true
leader in culture and helps inspire people around the world.
10 years time we wake up, Gymshark is a truly iconic British brand globally.
He's done it.
Now what?
I'll be really sad.
I have nothing to do.
No, I'm not sure.
At that point, I don't know.
It's so funny because your answer there
is exactly what Gary Vaynerchuk said.
He said, he was like,
that will be the worst day of my life.
Oh, when he buys the jets.
Yeah, the jets.
I don't know.
Isn't that funny? The thing you aim for will be the saddest day of your jets i don't know um isn't that funny the thing you aim for
will be the saddest day of your life that is scary isn't it but will you i don't know how you would
put a pin in that like if gary bought the jets he owns the jets yeah how would you put a pin in the
fact that jim shark when does jim shark become iconic it's true like when when does that tipping
point happen um you'll have to let me know if that happens i think that's so that's a really
interesting point there because what it actually says
is that all the fun is actually the journey.
And if you do want to set yourself up
to never have that awful day,
then create a goal that,
like they say the best journeys
are the ones with no destination.
And so you're right.
There's no day.
There's no measurement of that.
It's a continual process.
And also at times you'll get things,
the world will change
and we all might go to the
metaverse yeah and that's going to be a whole new challenge for you to maintain the position so
like through the yeah this that is mental we were talking about that the other day about how
just how much the world's going to change in the next 10 years and then going back to the start
about someone that's starting up so once he considering starting a business or or anything like that is
like that becomes easier it happens with change and like looking forward the amount of change we
are about to see is unfathomable i'm convinced of it it is going to be crazy and the opportunities
will be huge you have 900 people roughly now right how do you turn a 900 person company in a new direction?
It's really hard.
What are you doing in a very practical sense
to set the team up for?
So in terms of the nuts and bolts,
we'll have something that we call a brand book,
which is brand guidelines.
This is what we do.
This is what we don't do.
We'll have a strategic page,
which says these are the core things that we want to do.
These are four sort of strategic initiatives that sit outside
of the day-to-day, outside of what you might see
that Gymshark are currently
doing. And then we'll basically put
resource behind those initiatives
to basically
see what happens. Some of them might fail, some of them
might win, I'm not sure.
That's a really boring way of explaining how
we do it. And is there like a cultural thing
as well around?
Like, you know, because so many companies,
they get big doing one thing.
Web 2, let's call it, you know, social media,
whatever it might be.
And then the world changes.
And because they are so big, as you've said,
it becomes actually their biggest weakness.
Especially in advertising, like in our industry,
the reason why social chain did so well
was because the incumbents were all into like billboards and TV and radio.
And it was like a mindset thing.
They couldn't change fast enough, which gave us this window,
like you've described, macro factors,
where this surfboard we surf in,
and we'd capitalize on them at the moment.
Is there a mindset thing, a way that you speak to your teams
to make sure they're like mentally?
Well, no, but like I said,
as people are joining the business and coming in,
we're super, we make them aware
that this is a place where change is inevitable.
And oftentimes you don't even know what that is, right?
Like the biggest problem Gymshark will experience
in the next five years,
we've got no idea what it is.
And one day, whether it's tomorrow
or in two years or in four years,
it's going to hit us and blindside us in the head
and knock us for six
and we'll have to adjust adapt and change
to deal with it um and we're aware of that we talk about that a lot we we do talk about change and we
try and like prime everyone to be prepared and ready for that fact that things will change like
on a day-to-day basis things change from structures to the way that we want to you know achieve
certain things and sometimes they can be difficult but ultimately that's a lot easier to deal with.
But I think those things happening,
the constant change of a growing business,
creates a culture of change.
And when these things do happen,
I'd like to think we're in a reasonable situation
to deal with it.
And we are agile as well.
We're thin.
We're like, we don't have,
we're 900 people is a lot,
not compared to some of the larger competitors.
They have thousands and thousands and thousands of employees
all around the world.
They have lots of different distributors.
They have lots of different stores,
like hundreds if not thousands of different moving parts
all the way around the world.
Today, Gymshark is, in its most basic form, a website.
One website, and that is where you buy Gymshark from.
Speaking of change then,
the High Street shut down this year.
Fortunately, as you've described,
you're in a good position
because you are a direct-to-consumer.
Yeah.
And why have you never opened up a store
on the High Street?
Why have you always, you know,
stayed away from that?
Just time, resource.
There are... In a fast growing business,
you will, you'll have to say no to so many things
because if you said yes to everything,
you would end up just watering your business down.
It would end up just being, you know,
it would be to, Gary uses this term,
we spoke to him the other day.
He said, you never want Gymshark to become a vanilla boulder.
Just, you don't want to become vanilla, right?
So it's purely down to
a resource thing historically.
So if I look at what we would
coin as offline, Gymshark's been heavily involved
in offline since day one. The first
ever blow up of the brand
was through an offline event.
And then we did expos
around the world and we spent every single penny
we had flying around the world
in our early 20s doing these events. Then after we wondered are the people come into the event because to see
Gymshark or are people happen to be at the event and they come to Gymshark so we thought how can
we find out how many people really want to come and see Gymshark we actually did a test in Covent
Garden we wanted to do a one month store in Covent Garden. Two weeks in, COVID happened and
we had to close the whole thing. I'm massively inspired by different businesses and what they do
in their offline. So I think the opportunities on the high street are massive.
Would you ever?
Well, we will at some point. So Touchwood, we are,
I'm hoping in the next
sort of few days
to be able to sign
a lease on a store
in London.
Our first ever store
will be a flagship
and it will be
hopefully a community hub
for Gymshark.
Our first ever
permanent offline
store, hub,
whatever you want to call it.
This is so early
in the process.
Like I said,
we haven't even signed a lease yet. So fingers crossed that will go through we're just working
through that now and again we've got a vision of this being a a true gym chart community hub
that's so interesting because that really does feel like the future of the high street
really experienced base not somewhere you're going to buy and sell things but
truly experienced base and community centric because as well what we need to think about street really experienced based not somewhere you're going to buy and sell things but truly
experienced based and community centric because as well what we need to think about is what we're
trying to build here is a brand and what we don't want is something that is purely based on utility
and what i mean is i don't want people to buy gym sharp because it's quicker cheaper and easier
like i think we should try and be those things to a degree,
but it's not purely a utility thing.
If you want that, go to Amazon, right?
Amazon will give you everything that you need,
rapid, cheap, and that's cool.
And I love the business.
I shop from them all the time.
But for me, Gymshark is a brand,
and it is a brand, and it's a feeling,
and it's that badge of honor that you wear.'s that that that dedication to self-improvement
both physical and mental and to do that we need a community and that's the wider Gymshark community
the people that follow us all across Instagram, Snapchat, you know TikTok all these different
channels and then the events have always been the culmination of that community when you're there
and it's just like everyone's there and they have these sort of inherent similarities
and they've got that same mindset and it's such an amazing place to be.
So we thought, what if we could do that permanently,
which is what hopefully this store will be.
When your brand gets bigger and brands, you know,
many brands have kind of fallen foul of this,
it's really hard to hold on to the brand piece, right?
What's your strategy towards, as you scale all around the world
what's going to happen right is if I walk into my gym muscle works down the road and everyone is
wearing Gymshark I might be like oh fuck that I don't want to be that guy right like yeah and then
your brand is almost doing a lot of work for you on the ground because of the scale so how do you
hold on to that core specialness I think well first well, first and foremost, I think, so Gymshark,
it's still quite a niche brand in the sense that we're not doing sportswear, right? You won't see
people on the football pitch wearing Gymshark. You won't see people on the basketball court
wearing Gymshark. Gymshark is built to be worn in the gym. Like granted, you know, there's odd
bits, the sort of to and from stuff that I'll wear in the office and in the gym as well.
But I think by staying true to that core,
by focusing completely and utterly on building the best gym product,
whether it's clothing, whether it's accessories,
whatever it is we might create down the line, I think by doing that, I think we shouldn't water our brand down too much.
And you know that specialness because you've been there since the start.
So what if I remove Ben, what happens?
In your honest opinion,
if I was to remove you from your business,
what happens to your business in 10 years time?
I think it would continue.
I'm not sure who would immediately,
like being four months in,
I'm not sure who would immediately step into the role.
Probably the best argument would be Steve.
But we've got a proper management team.
Like we've got, like our chief of product
is infinitely better than I will ever be at product.
Our chief of brand is infinitely better than I will be.
The commercial team that we run across
international and NAMM,
they're both way better than me.
But there's a specialness with a founder
because they can see all of the dots.
They've been there for 10 years
and they can see why this,
truly from day one, why this brand is special.
Like I genuinely believe no one can, even in leaving my business. I'm going to be honest.
I know the specialness my business has lost. It doesn't mean my business isn't going to
make great revenues for the next five, 10 years, but I know that there's going to be a loss in
vision and culture and like specialness that it's hard to replace.
And is that this?
Maybe, I don't know.
Because I know that a lot of people like to work in the business because they're so close to it.
Like it feels like you're in a movie.
Like it genuinely feels like that
because we'll sit at lunch and we'll talk about
like the stories of Gymshark.
Like we'll go and lift in the gym after work
with just random people that have just joined the
business and maybe maybe that would disappear i don't know you're right in terms of the commercials
of the business wouldn't change the brand is so well run and the vision the plan is so robust
like they'll present brand plans for the next two years to me and i just sit there nodding
and and that's amazing that's really That's really, that's really amazing.
That's like a testament. Again, I know you're going to give the credit, but that's, that's
the promised land for all founders is to be, to build such a team that you're effectively
redundant, right? And you've done that. I want to, I know that there's going to be a lot of
young entrepreneurs watching this and I know that they typically ask me the same question.
So I want to ask you just a couple of them before we wrap
one of them I get a lot is you know there'll be someone listening to this they've not got any
money yeah um they want to start a business they don't have an idea but they want to start a
business what would you say to them they go if you don't have an idea or money yeah but they want
to they want to be an entrepreneur I get this a. So the first thing for me would be to find out
what you're truly, truly passionate about.
Because for me, when I started Gymshark,
I made two fitness apps beforehand.
I made two fitness apps, both failed miserably.
I made a little fitness social network, failed miserably.
A little fitness sort of forum that failed miserably.
And then Gymshark was,
I wanted to be involved in the industry more than anything. I wanted to be involved in fitness because it changed my life. It was the thing that got me from being a D student to an A student.
Literally, that was the thing that changed my life. The discipline. Yeah, the discipline that
I learned, the structure, the fact that if I was tired on a Monday, the gym doesn't care. Go in
and lift. It doesn't matter.
And most importantly,
that if January 1,
I joined the gym
and I lift five days a week,
every single week,
by December 25, whatever,
I am better than I was a year ago.
Those lessons to me were massive
because previously I didn't really realize that.
And I do this thing in school
where I would be like,
I'd try really hard and I'd get a bad grade. And then there'd be another thing that I wouldn't try out and I'd
get a really good grade. And I just, it didn't, do you know what I mean? It didn't add up to me.
So for me, I was in love with the industry and fitness was and is my passion. And that's carried
me through some of the difficult times because I remember the difference it's made to my life.
And it's this inherent passion that drives me every day. So if you've got no ideal money,
just lean into that community, whatever it is, it might be boxing, it might be golf,
it might be videography, it might be motorcycles or bicycles or whatever, lean into it. Because
inevitably, there will be an opportunity, especially now because of this new social
media world that we live in. There's a massive, there's so much room for people to create brands.
So yeah, I would just lean into whatever your passion is. world that we live in there's a massive there's so much room for people to create brands so yeah
i would just lean into whatever your passion is it's so true because look you can waste a ton of
time procrastinating and falling into indecision by trying to guess and as you said there i read
that gym shark was actually like the seventh apple website you created so you like leaned into the
industry did this process of like failure and exploration and stumbled across the winner, right?
And you have to fail.
If you're a young entrepreneur,
just do not be afraid to fail.
Just all names out of boxes,
ideas out of boxes aside,
the likelihood of an individual starting a business
and that one being the one that strikes gold
is ridiculously low.
What we've got to remember is you could start 30 businesses
and you are still more likely to fail than you are succeed.
So just honestly, just keep trying and keep trying
and don't be afraid to fail.
I think that's so, so, so important.
And everyone I've met, by the way,
from the people that run businesses that are 10 times bigger than Gymshark
to every entrepreneur that I've met,
every business person,
every successful person in sport, in business,
whatever, whether they've started a business or not,
every single one of them has failed
time and time and time again.
And I think then people look at the final product
and just assume that they've just,
they were either this incredible human
who was born this way or, and it is just never, never, ever the case. More often than not,
all the most successful people I've ever met are all winging it. They're all literally just
working incredibly hard and they're just giving it their best shot.
Can I ask you one more on this point? I think that was a superb answer as well,
because it's just incredibly true.
The other question I'd get a lot from young entrepreneurs is something like, you know,
they're in a job at the moment and they've got an idea.
So this is an example where they've got a business idea
that they want to pursue,
but they're just, you know, they've heard you say that,
they want to pursue it,
but there's something holding them back.
And they're, you know, I know you get this a lot as well.
It's probably most conversations. What do you say to those people oh i think if if it's your passion then i think you
should jump in the the other thing i would say and this is i think this is this is a dangerous thing
i do see people online go in quit your job jump in go and do something and it's a bit like personally
i'm sat there thinking no don't don't quit your job. It's fine. Like, I worked at Pizza Hut for whatever,
I can't remember what the amount was.
It was four or five pounds an hour.
And Gymshark was doing hundreds of thousands in revenue.
The utility of having a job whilst running the business is huge.
One, because you can earn money to survive,
so you don't need to remove money from the business.
So two, you can then reinvest all the profits
that you can make in that business.
And two, by the way, if business number one fails,
you've still got your job, you try number two, number three, number four.
And I think whatever it is, find your passion.
I genuinely don't think it's a good idea just to jump out of your job
just on a whim.
You'll hear about the one in a million that succeed and congratulations, more power to you.
I'm super happy for those people, but you don't hear about the 99% that ended up quitting their
job and it didn't go as well as what they would like. And then they ended up having to go back
and find a new job. So use that job as a superpower, as stability and invest the money you earn from
that job in the business and
just keep trying, trying, trying. And hard work, where does that fit? What's the importance of it?
Because there's a narrative I talk about a lot in this podcast that hard work is maybe a little bit,
the narrative you see online from the hustle porn stars, a little bit toxic.
Yeah. But would you be sat here without hard work?
Oh, definitely not. No. It's that combination of hard work alone is definitely
not enough. You have to work hard, but you also have to work smart. There were periods where
we were finding out ways to manipulate Google in a way that got Gymshark to the top, which
gave us huge revenue for next to no cost, right? That was smart work. But there were days when we
would work 12, 14, 16 hours sewing and printing t-shirts every single day. There are
days like that now where I just, we just work and work and work to get the job done. So exclusively
hard work won't solve your problems. You definitely have to work smart, but I've never met anyone
who was genuinely successful that wasn't hardworking. We have a new tradition on The Diver's CEO. I've heard about this.
Oh, you have?
Okay, they told you.
Okay, so the previous guest
writes a question for the next guest.
And this is the first time I've seen the question.
I don't know if people believe me when I say that,
but their question to you is,
what is the greatest gift
that another human has given you?
Ooh, that's intense. i didn't see that coming what is the greatest gift that another human has given you i'd have to i'd really have to
think about that the first thing that comes to mind would be time because i really so there's
so many people that have given genuine time to me, to teach me, take me under their wing,
robbing time to support me emotionally,
my parents' time to teach me and bring me up,
grandparents, the people that I work with every day.
So yeah, it would definitely be something around time.
I love that.
And it speaks to, I think,
your understanding of the importance of time as well.
And I think being a CEO, you quickly learn.
Oh, yeah.
Very quickly, you learn that time is a finite resource.
And every second is planned.
I'm really careful about how I spend my time.
And I want to spend it in the most effective and productive way I possibly can.
Well, thank you for giving me your time today. Because you're a you're one of the, you're really, you're a real anomaly, as I said at the
start of this conversation in the UK, for so many reasons. I mean, the business you've built is an
anomaly, as you've described, like to have a brand like that, that's reached such scale from the UK,
from a, from a guy that was 20 and you're still in your twentiess now right um is just i mean doesn't there's not another
example in the uk right it's just it's staggering and i think you've done this tremendous service in
doing the public speaking training you did and really putting yourself out there because now
everybody gets to see this this person and also you're one of the most relatable people i've ever
met in every way um which means that you're just by doing conversations like this by putting yourself
out there you're empowering 18 year old Steve Bartlett's or the future you know Ben Francis to
to that they can too and when it's relatable and when you're a guy like you are and when you're so
like I wouldn't say self-deprecating but but more like when you're so humble, it just feels like whatever position
the listener is in on this podcast,
they have a way out of that
potentially unpleasant situation.
So thank you so much
because it's nice to have you back on
and to observe your growth over the years.
It's been super inspiring for me.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thanks for watching!