Ben Francis

“Young people only want to buy community-led brands that align with their values.”

“Ultimately I had all the difficulties of going into the gym the first time feeling like everyone's staring at you, not really knowing what to do. I felt like the clothes were just not right for me and ultimately that's where we have ended up going off and making our own clothes and that's how Gymshark started.”

“We realised very quickly that we were on to something brilliant and it was at this point that Gymshark started becoming a lot more of a business.”

“I avoid email as often as I can. In the office, I'm constantly stomping around; the last thing I want to do is to send an email. I use Slack a lot and iMessage. At most, I'll send a small handful of emails a day.”

“As a kid I was obsessed with football, but as I realised I'd never be good enough to make a living from football, that obsession moved to computer-based projects.”

“All of my heroes were in the fitness industry, so I wanted to be involved in the fitness industry however I could be.”

“We never sat down and said, 'We're going to use social media to do X, Y and Z and achieve this for the business.' Social media has always been an organic and natural process, because that's how we are connecting as friends and how we're following our heroes.”

“I think growing up in the West Midlands helped, it was fairly chill.”

“I wanted to create a line of fitness apparel I wanted to wear to the gym.”

“The most difficult thing for me was learning to trust others to do the things in the business that I used to do.”

“I'm massively into my fitness goals.”

“I firmly believe Gymshark has the potential to be to the U.K. what Nike is to the U.S. and Adidas is to Germany.”

“Seeing the sacrifices my grandfather made for his business made me feel comfortable with the concept of financial risk at quite a young age. It also taught me that I didn't want to be putting fibre over bricks in a warehouse for the rest of my life.”

“We are nothing without our community.”

“Our Regent Street store has performed fantastically well, but I'm learning as an online retailer that when you want to open physical stores, there has to be an element of opportunism about it because, unlike online, availability is not instant.”

“When I was getting into the gym, all the people I learned the most from were online on YouTube.”

“I started lots of other businesses I think seven other businesses that failed. There were websites selling license plates, iPhone, apps, lots of different things.”

“By hook or by crook, I want to be one of the biggest and best.”

“Having consistent grounding points like my morning routine, a hard break for lunch around 12:30 P.M., and the gym at 6:30 P.M., keeps me on track and motivated throughout the day.”

“Every success has been made possible by my endless support system.”