The Gymshark story has been told by a lot of people in a lot of places.
The Gymshark story has been told by a lot of people in a lot of places.
It's never been told by us before. It's never been told like this before.
Warming Up
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A group of school friends - including our own Ben Francis - together in a local Birmingham gym, doing some bicep curls under the nattiest of lighting they could find, without any vision of what that would become. This isn't the opening screen directions to a sub-part Netflix Original (although maybe one day...); it's the foundations of our story. The Gymshark story.
In the early 2010s, Ben's life balanced lecture-attending at Aston University, pizza delivering across Birmingham and late-night lifting at the gym. But it was his appetite for fitness that he craved most. So much so that it drove Ben to want a slice of the industry for himself. It didn't matter what the 'in' to the fitness industry was; he just needed an in. A few workout apps and a social network were the first attempts in. Both to moderate success. A few thousand members, but nothing sustainable.
And then came Gymshark.
Incorporated in 2012, Gymshark began as a website domain and little more than that. Just an empty website with almighty potential.
Without any financial backing - pizza delivering wasn't proving the most lucrative vocation - Gymshark couldn't afford stock. Undeterred, Ben overcame obstacle number one with an agile solution. Gymshark.com played host to 1000s of performance supplements without actually stocking a single one. When a customer placed an order, gymshark.com simply triggered a third-party retailer to drop-ship the order, with Gymshark taking a small margin. And we were off. Kind of...
It did take two months for an order to be placed but, after a patient 60-day wait, in came order #00000001.
In a move of humble expansion, clothing started to be drop-shipped alongside supplements.
But there was one problem, and that brought about obstacle number two...
The clothing was, um… how do we put it. Questionable..
It Started With A Sewing Machine, A Screen-printer And Ambitions We Had No Right To Hold.
Okay, that might be a little harsh, but the baggy, rigid cuts built for 300lb architectures of muscle weren't quite the right fit for what we wanted.
From that, our first 'business plan' was born: make the product we want to wear. Fitted. Lightweight. Physique-enhancing. Sound familiar?
Ben began sewing, screen-printing and delivering all Gymshark product himself. By hand.
Shoutout to the Loudmouth Stringer.
Our Strength Was Instinct.
That business plan, while a little unpolished, was our superpower.
Gymshark's early moves revolved around building a brand and product that we wanted to see.
So, as lifters themselves, Ben and co. had got firsthand access to all the industry insights they could ever need.
Because we weren't building a community. We were part of one.
Because if we knew what we wanted, we knew what our community wanted.
After all, lifting and its people were what we knew best.
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