8 May 2021|Latest Posts, Launching a business
Founder of Gymshark Ben Francis shares his advice for young entrepreneurs starting a business, having experienced various challenges at the start of his career before hitting the heights of success and becoming a billion-pound company owner.
Here are Ben’s top 5 tips:
DON’T BE AFRAID OF INITIAL FAILURES
Although Gymshark is one of the fastest growing brands in the world, Ben discusses how his initial failures are what have made the company what it is today. Gymshark started out with the making of seven websites and four apps that were produced before Gymshark, all which had failed.
Ben says, “failures will allow you to succeed so I think people need to reframe what they think about failures and just give it a go. Go all in on something and see what happens. If it doesn’t go well, you can always try something new”.
START WHILE YOU ARE STILL EMPLOYED
Ben praised his former job working at Pizza Hut whilst he was still at the early stages of building the company. Not only did it give him an appreciation of hard work and doing long hours, it allowed him to be flexible and work on Gymshark in between doing shift deliveries and also invest money into the business. He only quit Pizza Hut when Gymshark hit £250,000 in revenue and hasn’t looked back since.
TARGET YOUR DESIRED NETWORK
Ben targeted the fitness exhibition Body Power to meet and understand his target audience and what people in the body building industry were looking for from a brand. Ben made the leap decision to buy a stand and launch a product at the show the following year, and Gymshark sold out of everything on the website following the event, and he went from earning £300 to £30,000 in the space of half an hour.
IT’S OK TO SAY NO
Ben tells UNILAD that when he was starting out , he said ‘no’ to a lot of people who were advising him on various aspects and decision making of the business, including working with retailers.
Regardless of what people were telling him, Ben continued to carry out and commit to his own unique vision for Gymshark, which paid off in the long run. This calendar year, Gymshark is on the way to making half a billion dollars’ worth of product through the website alone, without any retailer support.
LEARNING TO TRUST PEOPLE TAKES TIME
Ben admits to UNILAD that as a young entrepreneur, it hasn’t been easy to trust people to help grow the business as he describes it as ‘his baby’ and had been involved in every single aspect. Now, Ben surrounds himself with the people he needs and listens to those who can help him grow the business in ways he doesn’t have the time or knowledge to.
Interview source is UNILAD: Watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uNI24lNGAQ
Image credit: Alliance City Living
