E1 Delivering Pizzas to Managing a Billion Dollar Business | Ben Francis Gymshark CEO

2021/9/27

Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal

Chapters

Ben Francis started his entrepreneurial journey by making websites and apps, including a business selling license plates. He learned web development and design through IT classes and self-study, which led to opportunities in app development and eventually founding Gymshark.

Shownotes Transcript

💌 Sign up to LifeNotes here 👉 https://go.aliabdaal.com/lifenotes/podcast)

"We'll look back at this period in ten, twenty, thirty years time as the moment of opportunity"

In this first ever episode of Deep Dive, Ali sits down with Ben Francis, the founder and CEO of leading UK Billion-Dollar fitness brand, Gymshark. Ben founded Gymshark at only 19 years old while studying at Aston University. With only his £5 an hour pizza delivery shift money in his back pocket, Ben went from hand making and screen printing clothes in a shed with a group of friends to owning one of the fastest growing global brands in fitness.

Once the antidote to what Ben calls a "selfish-problem", Gymshark is now the host of a global community of athletes, artists, visionaries, and innovators with a mission to inspire individuals to achieve the extraordinary. But the question is, how did he do it? In the episode Ben and Ali have a candid and in-depth conversation about building a viral brand, self-development and why the age of entrepreneurialism is now. Ben also gives Ali advice on his new business structure, offering tips on hiring, distributing control and how to reinvent yourself as a business person.

Some topics of conversation: