Gymshark: Building a $1.5 Billion Sportswear brand...
This week's newsletter is a deep dive into Gymshark, the British sportswear brand and how they have been able to build such a successful business in such little time...
Happy New Week,
This week's newsletter is about the UK’s most successful sporting brand Gymshark, and what you can learn from their success. Gymshark began as a supplement company, before moving into clothing. Their clothing, in the beginning, consisted of gym vests and T-shirts that were sewn and screen-printed by founder Ben Francis, his brother, and a group of friends.
At first, they were just making clothes they really wanted to wear themselves. Eight years later, following a major fundraise, Gymshark is now valued at over £1 Billion. Fewer than 25 British companies have been able to achieve unicorn status since 2001. (Ceotoday,2020) There are many reasons why Gymshark has grown so much at such a fast rate, but here are three main reasons why:
Focusing on community
Gymshark was one of the first brands to really take advantage of influencer marketing. They worked with Instagram and Youtube influencers at their early stages and turned them into brand ambassadors. They sent items of clothing to influencers in hope that they would love the brand, start wearing it and promote it to their large following and that’s exactly what the influencers did. Having brand ambassadors helped Gymshark humanise its brand and build trust with consumers. When an influencer shows authentic passion for your brand, it is contagious, consumers will start to buy into your brand, and this will drive more sales to your products.
Gymshark does a great job fostering their offline community by hosting meetups, pop-ups and expos where fans can meet Ben, some of their favourite influencers, and also buy from the brand. Ben tells an interesting story of how after a trade show, his team, customers, and others from the trade show will all go to the gym to work out. Community engagements like this help you build rapport and closes the gap between the brand and customer. Being on the ground helps Gymshark grow a lot in revenue too. After their first event, Gymshark went from generating £300-400 in revenue a day to £50,000 in revenue in 30 minutes, (Entrepreneur, 2022) completely selling out the website.
Customer centred
Great customer service is at the heart of everything Gymshark does. Gymshark is very data-led, they are focused on truly understanding its customers and making strategic decisions with them rather than for them. Gymshark was created to solve one problem - affordable gym wear for young gym goers. Gymshark has a clear understanding of its target audience, 16-30-year-olds. They don’t deviate from their audience and everything they do is aimed at their needs.
Gymshark launched Gymshark insiders, a community of customers that provide honest and open feedback on marketing campaigns, product innovation, and more. The feedback they receive from the Gymshark insiders gives them a clearer picture of how to make improvements to their customer experience and brand as a whole.
Documenting the journey and building in public
Ben Francis isn’t the only founder of Gymshark, but is the face of the brand and does a great job as the face of the brand. Ben is very relatable which makes it easy for people to buy into him and the brand. Ben has been documenting his journey on his Youtube channel which currently has 244K subscribers as well as on Gymshark’s Youtube channel which has 398K subscribers.
Building in public is a powerful marketing strategy because it gives people an insight into your journey, story, and how they can support you. It’s also a great look when people come across you later on in your journey and can see how hard you worked to get to where you are. Ben has been able to differentiate himself and Gymshark as a brand that highly values trust, honesty, and transparency.
There are still many more reasons why Gymshark has been able to grow this big at such a fast rate. An important reason not mentioned is their strategic partnerships. In 2020, Gymshark entered a strategic partnership with General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm. Building a billion-pound business isn’t just luck, great products, and timing, there’s a certain science to it.
Ben has been able to build a dream team of staff and advisors able to get him to this level. For example, he’s got serial entrepreneur and king of marketing, Gary Vaynerchuk, as a board ambassador. Gary is able to add his expertise in digital marketing and business strategy to help Gymshark keep on growing with a specific focus on America. Ben understands that Gymshark is bigger than him and for him to get it to the level he wants it to, he needs people better than him at specific things on his team. It takes great humility and self-awareness to do that. I can’t wait to see where Gymshark will be in 10 years’ time.
Have a great week!