The founder of a sportswear brand that began from a Birmingham garage nine years ago is about to cash in more than £700million – before he’s even turned 30.
Ben Francis was just 19 when he joined forces with school friend Lewis Morgan to start Gymshark from his parents’ house, while juggling university with a £5 an hour job at Pizza Hut.
The brand originated from Ben’s own frustrations with finding gym clothes – and all the ideas were sketched up from his bedroom.
The young entrepreneur asked his grandmother, a curtain maker, to teach him how to sew, before investing in his own machine to stitch his idea together.
Last summer, Gymshark was valued at more than £1billion, after Francis sold a 21% stake in the company to the US private equity firm General Atlantic in August 2020.
Now, the business, which is now based in Solihull and employs 550 people, is pitching to investors as part of a major London stock market listing.
Any float of the company is expected to take place in London and would land Francis – the biggest shareholder of Gymshark - a fortune worth as much as £700million.
A spokesman for Gymshark said: “We regularly speak to financial institutions to ensure we are connected to the business world and we continue to learn. Any recent conversations we have had have been about introducing these organisations to Gymshark and our journey so far.”
A spokesman for General Atlantic added: “We are working with Ben and the team to build Gymshark into the global leader we know it can be.”
Ben, quit his degree at Aston University in 2012 to become his own boss almost a decade ago while selling supplements as a side hustle.
He used the £1,000 profit from his supplements business to invest in a screen printer and sewing machine and started making fitness clothing from his parents’ home.
Speaking on his journey in his own blog, Ben said: “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.
"I was hand-sewing and hand-making and hand-printing products and hand-packaging them and sticking it in a bag," he added.
“And carrying it down to the post office and standing there while each one was stamped and sent out across the world."
Together with co-founder Lewis, the duo started attending body building exhibitions to help raise their profile.
They started using social media influencers, teaming up with YouTube body builders Nikki Blackketter and Lex Griffin to increase exposure.
In 2013, Ben exhibited Gymshark's products at the BodyPower fitness trade show in Birmingham.
After the trade show ended, a tracksuit went viral on Facebook, generating £30,000 in sales within 30 minutes.
The business moved to Moons Moat Industrial Estate, Redditch, before relocating to its current headquarters in Blythe Valley Park, Solihull.
Despite quitting higher education, Ben said his time in education gave him "a strong foundation on which to build a business".
Gymshark now has a social media following of more than 15million with Ben alone having 300,000 Instagram fans.
The business now plans to take on Australia with a new distribution centre this year.
Have you got a small business success story to tell? Tell us your story: emma.munbodh@mirror.co.uk
