The Power of Doing One Thing Exceptionally Well with Gymshark CEO Ben Francis | A Bit of Optimism

Simon Sinek 0:00 I don't think I'm your core Gymshark customer.

Ben Francis 0:03 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 0:03 But I'm absolutely in love with your company-

Ben Francis 0:06 Mm

Simon Sinek 0:06 ... because I preach these models of infinite mindedness-

Ben Francis 0:11 Mm

Simon Sinek 0:11 ... and that committing to something bigger than yourself and ensuring that it can outlast you in its current form-

Ben Francis 0:16 Mm

Simon Sinek 0:17 ... is very rare.

Ben Francis 0:18 I think, you know, getting a bit older, we've got three kids now. Everyone wants to be a cool dad, right? And I think there's nothing cooler than building something that really stands the test of time.

Simon Sinek 0:28 I am an idealist. The things that I write about, the things that I speak about are about an ideal version of the way the world and business could work. But every now and then, every now and then, I get to meet a company that, well, it's hard for me to be accused of being a crazy idealist if what I imagine exists in reality. People are always asking me what businesses really exemplify the things that I write about. Well, one of them is Gymshark. Gymshark makes one thing for one audience. They make amazing gym wear for people who go to the gym. "We do gym," as they say. And Ben Francis is one of the most remarkable young leaders I've ever met. He's the founder and CEO of Gymshark, and he's only 33 years old, and in 13 years he has built an iconic global brand. And how has he done it? By keeping it absolutely pure and wanting to build a company that can outlast him, in fact, one that can last 100 years. And given how so many young entrepreneurs start their businesses and try to build their businesses, waiting for the IPO, waiting for the exit, trying to have a liquidity event, Ben is the complete opposite. He is driven by the purest form of entrepreneurship, to make great products for one community as best as he can, and the result is profound. This is A Bit of Optimism. I think you know this, I'm a huge fan of yours. Um, we've only met once before.

Ben Francis 2:01 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 2:02 Um, I knew about you and I knew about Gymshark, and it was... I- we met last year for the first time just 'cause I wanted to, to meet you. You are what is, I think, the purest form of what an entrepreneur is-

Ben Francis 2:15 Mm

Simon Sinek 2:15 ... and entrepreneur should be.

Ben Francis 2:17 Thank you.

Simon Sinek 2:18 Uh, and you've built a company that has that same purity. Gymshark was born in a gym.

Ben Francis 2:25 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 2:26 You made the product yourself-

Ben Francis 2:28 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 2:28 ... which is, like, this quintessential entrepreneurial story.

Ben Francis 2:31 Mm.

Simon Sinek 2:31 Other people wanted the stuff that you were making for yourself.

Ben Francis 2:33 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 2:34 And before you know it, you're selling more than you can sew yourself.

Ben Francis 2:37 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 2:37 And thus is born Gymshark.

Ben Francis 2:38 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 2:39 How are you able to maintain sort of, if we use the word purity-

Ben Francis 2:44 Mm

Simon Sinek 2:44 ... you're now a huge company.

Ben Francis 2:46 Mm.

Simon Sinek 2:46 You're a global company. I'm at your headquarters here. There's three buildings-

Ben Francis 2:50 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 2:50 ... worth of offices.

Ben Francis 2:51 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 2:52 You know, how are you able to make it still stay so focused and not be tempted to go do everything else?

Ben Francis 2:58 Oh, well, we're definitely tempted, uh, and we have been over the years. Thank you, by the way. I think that was really kind of you to say. But I think the, the business is... Well, we're 12, 13 years old now, and there's been so many different versions of our business since Gymshark first started. It's difficult at times to recognize what is a temptation and what is a really viable and valuable opportunity, because the business has changed so much since it first started. So if I think back to 2012, 2013, uh, Gymshark only sold supplements. We didn't even sell apparel. And then we... It was only through running the business we sort of fell in love with making apparel, to your point, literally for ourselves, 'cause we couldn't find the clothes that we wanted to wear, and then that naturally then removed... We would then remove supplements because it was, it... That then became a distraction. Particularly over the last sort of year, I think we've really hit our stride in knowing what is and isn't Gymshark for us, and this is more of a, a medium to larger business problem. I don't think this is a problem that maybe too many startups would have. But it was really about defining what is Gymshark, and that's where the We Do Gym campaign sort of started. It was about making sure that we're, we're laser focused on what really makes us special. And again, that sort of We Do Gym campaign, that all came from a desire and ambition to be what we... We talk a lot internally about being a 100-year brand. We wanna be a brand that lasts longer than, than myself or anyone here at this business. That, that's the real, real ambition. And I admire a lot of brands that really do stand the test of time. So if we look at it from a top-line perspective, if we wanna build a brand that will stand the test of time, to do that, we have to be really good at one thing, and it's we're really focused on the gym. We're laser focused on the gym in a way that, that almost no one else is in the world. That's what makes us special. That's what we're gonna focus on, and that's what we're gonna make sure we're the best in the world at.

Simon Sinek 4:57 So you... So all of your stuff is made for proper use in the gym, and you may wanna wear it for fashion, but that's up to you.

Ben Francis 5:03 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 5:03 Where I think a lot of brands are the other, the opposite, which is, "Look how fashionable and beautiful our stuff is," and it may or may not actually work in the gym.

Ben Francis 5:10 Yeah. Or, or-

Simon Sinek 5:11 I'm thinking about some of your, your sort of hiring competitors

Ben Francis 5:13 ... or, or spor- sportswear focus. So I'm a massive admirer of some of the really big sportswear brands, and like, they, they were very much around sports. Even we... If we look at Nike, for example-

Simon Sinek 5:22 Yeah

Ben Francis 5:22 ... Nike started with a running shoe.

Simon Sinek 5:24 Right.

Ben Francis 5:24 And then obviously then it's, it's heavily a, a sports-focused brand to me. And yeah, people wear it outside of sports for fashion and so on, but it's, it is a sportswear brand, and so are many of the other big brands. Whereas we've said that we're not gonna get into sports. Sport, competitive sport, team sport isn't-

Simon Sinek 5:40 Mm. Mm

Ben Francis 5:41 ... a Gymshark thing. The gym is the Gymshark thing, and it's, it's interesting because the gym in many ways is a solitary pursuit, but it's also aided by a broader community, and I think that's what we've really noticed. And I noticed again, um, I first went to the gym when I was about 16, and it was so intimidating to me. 'Cause I walked into this gym and there was all these weights, and I didn't really know how to use the machines. I didn't know what I was doing. I went in, I was trying to do things, and I thought everyone was looking at me 'cause I was doing it all wrongIn reality, everyone was sort of more worried about themselves than they were about me, and everyone was probably in their own heads as well. And then I actually went online. I was on bodybuilding forums and things like that, YouTube, to learn exercises and to find people that were basically going through the same thing as me. And again, that's where Gymshark was born out of, building the apparel that no one else was making, but then also trying to offer that community to kids very much like myself at the time that were getting into the gym.

Simon Sinek 6:33 How long in before you started thinking, "I probably need some sort of vision. I probably need some sort of strategy"? Like, these words that-

Ben Francis 6:39 Mm. Like, a while

Simon Sinek 6:39 ... you know, get thrown about in the entrepreneur world. I think a lot of people don't realize that it's not really how it happens.

Ben Francis 6:45 No. At minimum, five years.

Simon Sinek 6:46 Yeah.

Ben Francis 6:46 So if I th- so if I think back to how Gymshark first started, so before Gymshark, I... So I loved making things, websites, iPhone apps, things like that, and I actually had, I think I had about six or seven that I'd started prior that had failed, that just I'd tried, and it just hadn't quite worked. Gymshark, when it first started, was I had the, an ambition to build a website that would sell things and transact. Every- nothing else at that point had ever sold anything. It was a forum or a s- it was a mini sort of social network. It was an iPhone app, and they didn't really make money, and the whole idea was they would through, through ads. It, they were all free, and they would make money through ads. So I thought, "I'd love to sell something." Um, and the Gymshark website was a website that sold things, and when we, at the time, we found Shopify, and that just made life 10 times easier than, than what it was prior. So the, the ambition was actually incredibly low. The ambition was to make a website that would sell things, and then once we'd done that, again, which was actually relatively easy, then it was, let's sell something on the website. And then I sort of thought at the time, I thought, "Okay, now-"

Simon Sinek 7:49 Like, instead of selling other people's things, sell our own things.

Ben Francis 7:50 Well, no, just sell something.

Simon Sinek 7:52 Just-

Ben Francis 7:52 'Cause, just because w- I thought that once we've made a website, it's almost like having a shop on the high street. People would just find their way there-

Simon Sinek 7:57 Right

Ben Francis 7:57 ... and someone would buy something, and no one did for months.

Simon Sinek 7:59 Yeah.

Ben Francis 7:59 There was, there was not enough stuff on the website. So it was supposed to sell supplements, and there was a friend of mine that worked not far from here, and he worked as a salesperson in a supplement sh- uh, supplement brand. And I called him up, and I said, I said, "Dan, can you, can you get us some supplements to sell on this website?" And he went away, and he said, "Yeah, I'll get you a de- I'll get you a deal," on mate's rate sort of thing. And, um, he rang me back, and he said, "Right, I've got you a deal. I can get you some supplements. You can put these on your website and sell them, but the minimum buy is eight grand." Now, I'd never heard of eight grand, let alone seen eight grand, right? I was at Pizza Hut, £4 something an hour at the time. And I loved the job, by the way, but I just, I wasn't gonna get that sort of money together. And I thought, "Oh, God." So th- this whole idea of selling things online's great until you need product, until you need inventory. Anyway, with that problem, I then happened to fall upon a concept online called dropshipping, and then that was great. That was music to my ears 'cause I thought, "Wow, this website that's gonna sell things, I can now sell things without having to buy those things in the first place." So I basically had hundreds of supplements on the website, and they would dropship from another website. Now, the margin was really low, but at that point, the ambition wasn't, it wasn't to make money necessarily. It was to sell something. I think it took a few months, and eventually we sold something, and I remember it to this day. It was a five kiloga- five kilogram tub of USN Hyperbolic Mass.

Simon Sinek 9:18 [laughs]

Ben Francis 9:18 Someone bought it, and it was £52, and, uh, of the £52, uh, £2 was profit.

Simon Sinek 9:25 [laughs]

Ben Francis 9:25 And it took two or three months to get to that point, so it took two or three m- making a pound a month in profit from that one order, right? But it didn't matter to me because at the, at the, the, at that point, the ambition-

Simon Sinek 9:35 You're still working-

Ben Francis 9:36 Yeah, the am-

Simon Sinek 9:36 You're still working your pizza job.

Ben Francis 9:37 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 9:38 [laughs]

Ben Francis 9:38 Uh, actually, I was for a long time after that, but I think the ambition was literally to sell something.

Simon Sinek 9:42 Yeah.

Ben Francis 9:42 And I think there's, there's a lot to be said when starting a business, going back to your original point, not to have these massive ambitions-

Simon Sinek 9:49 Yeah

Ben Francis 9:49 ... to build a 100-year brand. I think there's a lot to be said about having incredibly low ambitions. Set the bar so incredibly low-

Simon Sinek 9:57 Yeah

Ben Francis 9:57 ... and just incrementally build that thing because then that sale, I remember being at my mum and dad's in my bedroom, dancing around the room, and I was so happy. And a lot of people that sell things online will never, ever forget that first sale-

Simon Sinek 10:08 Yeah

Ben Francis 10:08 ... that first moment.

Simon Sinek 10:09 Yeah.

Ben Francis 10:10 And a lot of people that sell in markets or at shops, they'll all have that same feeling.

Simon Sinek 10:13 Yeah.

Ben Francis 10:13 And I'll never ever, ever forget it. And then that's where that sort of momentum, that excitement builds, and then it's let's, let's sell, let's try and sell. We've gone from one sale. Let's try and sell one thing a month. Let's try and sell two things a month. Let's try and sell four things a month. Let's try and sell something every week, every day. Let's try and build product that's to a margin that would allow us to run a sustainable business, and then it just grows and grows and grows and goes from there. So we didn't start the business with the ambition to build a 100-year brand. We didn't have a vision or anything like that. We hadn't set out our values. A lot of the things

Ben Francis 10:43 that a lot of bus- big businesses really need, I think, to, you know, manage themselves, particularly directionally, and, you know. We just started a business to sell things and then to sell more things and just to slowly build that business. And then it, it... We then just started getting regular sales, and it was really obvious to me, because of the low margins in dropshipping, that it just, that just wasn't a viable business. And, um, my nan was actually doing a curtain-making course at the time, and she had a sewing machine on her dining room table, and it was seeing that that made me think, "Well, maybe we could make clothes, and we could make our own clothes." And then we literally just started making clothes for ourselves and our friends, put them online, and, and that's where it all started.

Simon Sinek 11:24 It goes back to purity-

Ben Francis 11:26 Mm

Simon Sinek 11:26 ... which is I think the model for a lot of young entrepreneurs are, you know, the, the unicorns.

Ben Francis 11:33 Mm.

Simon Sinek 11:33 Uh, and a unicorn, the definition's changed slightly, but, you know, it used to be a company that, that achieves a billion dollars in revenues.

Ben Francis 11:41 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 11:41 And I think it's market cap, which is a lower standard.

Ben Francis 11:43 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 11:44 Uh, um, and there's only, if you go by revenues, you know, for a new business to achieve a billion dollars in, in sales is, it's a very small number.

Ben Francis 11:53 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 11:53 It's a very, very small number-

Ben Francis 11:54 Mm

Simon Sinek 11:54 ... which is why they're called unicorns-

Ben Francis 11:55 Mm

Simon Sinek 11:55 ... out of the millions and millions and tens of millions of businesses that exist.

Ben Francis 11:58 Mm.

Simon Sinek 11:59 And I think a lot of young entrepreneurs, you know, they, they look to Silicon Valley-

Ben Francis 12:04 Mm

Simon Sinek 12:04 ... as their model, and they look, and they, they, you know, the, the ambition is, is the IPO-

Ben Francis 12:09 Mm

Simon Sinek 12:09 ... and the ambition is wealth.

Ben Francis 12:10 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 12:11 And the, you know, um, and so it's very rare to hearA CEO to hear a founder say, "I, I wanna build a hundred-year business."

Ben Francis 12:20 Mm.

Simon Sinek 12:21 When did that idea come and why did that idea come? Like, why-

Ben Francis 12:25 And-

Simon Sinek 12:25 Why build a hundred-year business? Why not build, you know, 20 years? Why not just-

Ben Francis 12:29 Yeah

Simon Sinek 12:29 ... you know, Steve Jobs even said, like, "When I leave, if Apple collapses, who cares?" You know?

Ben Francis 12:36 Yeah, I think, I don't know, I don't-

Simon Sinek 12:37 Those weren't his exact words.

Ben Francis 12:37 Yeah, no.

Simon Sinek 12:38 But [laughs]

Ben Francis 12:38 I don't know where the idea came from. I, I, I think it's a lot, lots of different things. I think I've always been... The, the th- the thing that really, I really enjoy is obviously speaking to customers, building a great brand, and really focusing on the product. I just, I just love those three things. And that, if you said to me, "What is your perfect week?" It would be that. It would be a, a Gymshark event with the community, with the athletes, talking about the product, you know. It would be that sort of thing. I, I also think maybe it's as the business has continued to grow, you, you def- you know, you look around and you think, what, you know, what, what are we trying to achieve here? What are we, what are we trying to build? And I think, I also look back to probably the first job I ever did. So when I was a teenager, I did work experience with my grandad, and we, I worked with him a, a fair bit. Uh, we would go around the Midlands, where we are today, and we would line furnaces. So we'd line furnaces with brick, with ceramic fiber, and, you know, they were long days. Um, but in those long days, you would end up just, just talking and, you know, I learnt so much from him. I learnt all about, you know, taking risks, taking business risks from him. He was a, he's a one-man band. He still works today. So I think I learnt a lot from him, and he taught me a lot about being really grateful to have work. Um, you know, I think a lot of people, certainly around here, uh, you know, w- don't always have work. So I think being in a job that I really love and having so much to do, I think is an absolute blessing, and I feel so fortunate to be in this position. So I think there's a bit of that. I think as well, I, I sort of looked at what we're building, and I sort of recognize that it is quite unique. We're so brand and c- community-focused. There aren't that many businesses in our, that have the opportunity that we now have. So I think it's a bit of that. But I'm not really sure. But the one thing that I have known, sort of as this hundred-year brand vision has sort of come to fruition in my mind over the last few years, that it's definitely changed the way that I think about things quite a lot. It's, uh, it's changed the way that we think about our brand, the way that we think about our product development, even the way that we think about hiring. And again, I don't know exactly where it came from. I think it's just... I, I know I've been inspired by lots of businesses local to here. So if you think within just a few miles of where we are now, you've got Jaguar Land Rover down the road. Land Rover is an incredible brand. It's a brand that I've been around literally my entire life. I love Land Rovers. I love the authenticity of their product, and I love that they build the best off-roaders. I, I love the fact that they've built the best off-roaders i- since the 1940s, when they were founded, still to today. I think that's really inspiring. Uh, you've got Cadbury in Bournville as well, which a- ga- which is a chocolate brand out of the UK, and I think seeing those brands that have really stood the test of time is really, really cool to me. So I think it's a combination of lots of things. It's lots of things of being really happy in the job I do and loving it, the opportunity of the brand that we've got, and then being inspired by, being inspired by other people that have done a similar thing. Um-

Simon Sinek 15:26 Th, th, hold on. Let me go down that rabbit hole for a little bit. Again, I'm going back to sort of what entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs, sort of what their models are.

Ben Francis 15:33 Mm.

Simon Sinek 15:33 And they're looking at the companies that had the exit. They're looking at the company that-

Ben Francis 15:36 Yeah

Simon Sinek 15:36 ... went public. They look at the company that, you know, th- that, that's, that's their model.

Ben Francis 15:40 Mm.

Simon Sinek 15:40 And you're talking about the companies you admire.

Ben Francis 15:42 Mm.

Simon Sinek 15:42 You know, Cadbury's is, what, 100 years old-

Ben Francis 15:45 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 15:45 ... or plus, you know.

Ben Francis 15:46 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 15:46 It's a very old company.

Ben Francis 15:47 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 15:48 And they're still making chocolate, you know.

Ben Francis 15:50 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Simon Sinek 15:50 That's, that's still their thing.

Ben Francis 15:51 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 15:52 And Land Rover, that iconic Land Rover.

Ben Francis 15:54 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 15:54 You know, yes, they've done a l- things on the side here and there for different markets, but they've always had that core-

Ben Francis 15:59 All four-by-fours

Simon Sinek 16:00 ... you know, the four-by-fours-

Ben Francis 16:01 Yeah

Simon Sinek 16:01 ... is their bread and butter.

Ben Francis 16:02 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 16:02 And they've never veered from it.

Ben Francis 16:04 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 16:04 And as you said, it's like we do one thing, we do one thing really, really well, and we can do stuff on the sides-

Ben Francis 16:08 Mm

Simon Sinek 16:08 ... but we'll never abandon this.

Ben Francis 16:10 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 16:10 But the, how did you come to it? Is it just because you grew up in Birmingham? Is it, is it-

Ben Francis 16:15 No

Simon Sinek 16:15 ... like, how did you come to use as your model for the kinda company that you wanna build these iconic brands, but they're not just iconic, they're old?

Ben Francis 16:24 Yeah, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's a combination. I think, again, the more I thought about it, even just selfishly in terms of me, I love my, I love the job that I do, and this is, this is all I wanna do. I don't wanna, there's, I've got no ambitions to be doing anything else, and if I wasn't doing this, I would, I would be basically doing something that's very similar to this. I saw a, I saw a video of Mark Zuckerberg the other week, and someone asked him, I think it's quite an old video, someone asked him, you know, "You get loads of money for it. You just sell it. You can go and do something else." And I think his response was, he said that he did a lot of thinking about it, and he, he, he came to the conclusion that if he did sell it, he would just use the money to start something that looks a lot like what he was doing then, or like, a lot like Facebook. And I sort of feel like I'm in a similar position. But I also think there's a level of, if you're building for the long term, or, sorry, do you know what? If you're building anything in general, there's a level of separation that you have to have between your personal ambitions and your, your ambitions for your business.

Simon Sinek 17:20 Mm-hmm.

Ben Francis 17:21 I think that's two slightly different things.

Simon Sinek 17:22 Say more.

Ben Francis 17:23 Well, so when, and this, I learnt this years ago in my early 20s. The, the business started to grow really quickly, and I very quickly realized that I wasn't the right person to be the CEO and run the business for that period, for that, that specific period of growth. Um, so brought in a CEO called Steve, who did a really, really good job, and that was really great for me, because he would do the CEO job, and I could then go in and spend so much time on brand, on product. I was traveling the world, going to events around the world, spending time in the gyms with the consumer, building product in the factories, working with athletes, brand teams, and marketing teams. And I could do all the bits that I was really good at, but then I could also learn operations and finance and supply chain, and bits that maybe wasn't quite as exciting to me, knowing that I sort of always had that safety blanket or that sort of cover with having a CEO that could then help-... fix any of the problems that I had sort of thing. And I, I always, I liken it to, I could go into the finance department, and I could make a thousand mistakes, and know that between the CFO and Steve as the CEO, they would sort of fix those mistakes. But that meant that I had a period of rapid learning. And I- it's almost like being able to do... If I said, "Simon, you do this exam," and you did it, and you got 50%. And then a week later I said, "I'm gonna give you the same exam, and you can do it again." Then the week later you might get 60%, and then 70%. And you can just keep learning at a, a rate, and have a better output, you know, just 'cause you're doing it over and over again, and there's no consequence of failure with it, within reason.

Simon Sinek 18:54 Yeah, yeah.

Ben Francis 18:55 So that was important to me, because then I, I quickly learned that even though I have ambition, you know, I'd love to run the company. Everyone wants to run their own company. There's almost, I guess, to a degree, there's nothing worse than not running your own company.

Simon Sinek 19:05 Yeah.

Ben Francis 19:07 But I realized that because of my ambitions for the business, I wanted the business to succeed more than I wanted to be the CEO.

Simon Sinek 19:13 Right.

Ben Francis 19:14 Then that, that then paid back in dividends, 'cause the business grew far more quickly. I could learn more quickly. I enjoyed my job. Steve enjoyed his job. And, you know, now I moved back into the CEO job three years ago, I think it was, four years ago, and I feel so much more well-equipped to do the job.

Simon Sinek 19:28 And, and, and the reason you came back is not because Steve was doing a bad job. The reason you came back is because you got the education you needed to have the job that you wanted, but weren't prepared for.

Ben Francis 19:36 Correct. Yeah, yeah. So it was that. I, I had learned on the job, which was great. Steve came to me, and he was, his self-awareness was incredible. He said, "I'm... You know, I, I don't wanna run the business at the, you know, at the next scale," or, "I don't feel like it's right for me to run the business at the, at, at the scale that it is now." And he actually said to me... We were work- working away in Hong Kong. I remember he, he said to me, "It's not right for me to run the business at the ne- in the next phase." And I was like, "Oh, God, so who's gonna do it then?" And then he said, um, he was like, "I think you can do it." And I thought, "Oh, God." And I don't, I don't think I really responded. I said... We flew home. I don't know how long the flight is, sort of eight or nine hours or whatever, and then I think it was the next day or two I said, "Do you know what? Yeah, I'm d- I'm gonna do it. I feel... I don't, I'm, I don't necessarily feel ready, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it," because, you know, I, it's, I g- it felt like the right time for me to do it.

Simon Sinek 20:25 Yeah.

Ben Francis 20:25 So I think, again, having real bold ambitions for the business, but then also being really realistic about your own skill set is quite important to me.

Simon Sinek 20:33 Yeah.

Ben Francis 20:33 Um, and yeah. And then I guess through those years as CEO, I then was thinking what... I sort of then, I s- I started to think more critically about what do I want this brand to be and where do I want it to g- where do I want it to go? And I think, you know, getting a bit older, we've got three kids now, um, you know, everyone wa- everyone wants to be a cool dad, right? And I think there's nothing cooler than building something that really stands the test of time, that the kids can look at and go-

Simon Sinek 20:58 Yeah

Ben Francis 20:58 ... "Oh, wow, you know, my dad built that," or, you know, "The, the Gymshark team built that."

Simon Sinek 21:02 Yeah.

Ben Francis 21:02 And I think that to me, this... I, I don't know. I've just got a real admiration of brands that can really stand the test of time.

Simon Sinek 21:09 Yeah.

Ben Francis 21:09 There are so many brands that come out of nowhere and explode, and then they disappear. But there are very few that really stand the test of time, and I'd, I'd love for Gymshark to be one of the few that does stand the test.

Simon Sinek 21:18 I've met a lot of, um, founder CEOs who did have an exit-

Ben Francis 21:22 Mm

Simon Sinek 21:22 ... and they've moved on, and sometimes they start something new, sometimes they don't.

Ben Francis 21:28 Mm.

Simon Sinek 21:28 Um, and their companies, um, whether they're become public or whether they b- get bought by some private equity firm-

Ben Francis 21:36 Mm

Simon Sinek 21:36 ... they, the, you know, some of these highly, highly ethical CEOs who built a company to have an impact on the world and, and be- build strong cultures that, you know, are great places to work-

Ben Francis 21:45 Mm

Simon Sinek 21:45 ... I bring them their companies in their current states, and I say, "Look at what your company's become."

Ben Francis 21:50 Mm.

Simon Sinek 21:50 "It's doing unethical things."

Ben Francis 21:51 Mm.

Simon Sinek 21:52 "It's not a great place to work."

Ben Francis 21:53 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 21:53 "They've changed the ingredients of the products that they're not pure anymore."

Ben Francis 21:56 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 21:57 "I thought you cared so much about impact, and clarity, and great place to work. This is, this is, this was your company."

Ben Francis 22:04 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 22:05 And they all are able to rationalize it away.

Ben Francis 22:08 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 22:09 "Well, you know, it was good while it was, and while I was there, and I..." But basically what they did is they took the money.

Ben Francis 22:14 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 22:15 You know? And, uh, and again, there's a, there's a, there's a reason why you're one of my favorite CEOs. Uh, and I'm not a hardcore gym rat. Like, yeah, I go.

Ben Francis 22:27 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 22:27 But, you know, I'm not your tra- I don't think I'm your core Gymshark customer.

Ben Francis 22:32 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 22:32 But I'm absolutely in love with your company-

Ben Francis 22:35 Mm

Simon Sinek 22:35 ... because I preach these models of infinite mindedness-

Ben Francis 22:39 Mm

Simon Sinek 22:39 ... and that, um, and that committing to something bigger than yourself and ensuring that it can outlast you in its current form-

Ben Francis 22:47 Mm

Simon Sinek 22:48 ... is very rare.

Ben Francis 22:49 Mm.

Simon Sinek 22:49 And the reason I wanted to have you on here, and the reason I was so glad that you said yes, is because you're not an 80-year-old c- former CEO going, "In my day, this is how we ran companies."

Ben Francis 23:01 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 23:02 You're a young CEO running a very, very popular company-

Ben Francis 23:07 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 23:07 ... that is beloved by your employees, and your, and your mentality of how to run that business and the way you, and the way you're trying to build it-

Ben Francis 23:14 Mm

Simon Sinek 23:15 ... are completely opposite than what is considered, I would say, normal-

Ben Francis 23:20 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 23:20 ... standard. And I think that the, the reason I'm rooting for you so much is that if you succeed, and you share with people different ways to make decisions based on having this 100-year mentality-

Ben Francis 23:31 Mm

Simon Sinek 23:31 ... my hope is that your model of building a business becomes standard again.

Ben Francis 23:35 Mm.

Simon Sinek 23:36 You know? Where building these short-term companies where you're only driven by the quarter becomes something we read about in the history books-

Ben Francis 23:43 Mm

Simon Sinek 23:43 ... or those, those become the minority.

Ben Francis 23:45 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 23:45 You know, you shouldn't be special.

Ben Francis 23:47 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 23:47 Um, uh, because as you said, Cadburys and, and Land Rover-

Ben Francis 23:50 Mm

Simon Sinek 23:51 ... and some of these iconic brands, they've done something differently-

Ben Francis 23:54 Yeah

Simon Sinek 23:54 ... and something that's important, and something worth protecting and holding onto.

Ben Francis 23:59 Mm.

Simon Sinek 23:59 Um, decision-making. You, you, you said before we turned on the cameras-

Ben Francis 24:03 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 24:03 ... you said, "Since I decided to build a 100-year company, it's changed the way I make decisions. It's changed the way I hire."

Ben Francis 24:09 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 24:09 Can you share more about what that lens has done for you, and what kind of decisions you would have made that you're making differently now?

Ben Francis 24:17 I guess product would be the most obvious one. So again, as you grow, it's so easy to get tempted to... And we did this for a bit, right? So we built, we broadened our product range-Massively. And the whole idea is the broader the product range, the more people that you can appe- appeal to, and obviously the bigger you can build the business.

Simon Sinek 24:33 And what do you mean by broader product range? Give me an example.

Ben Francis 24:34 So as an offer, we could offer, uh, sportswear and swimwear and hiking wear and all these different things, and lots of different things that sort of come out and are closely associated to, but not quite the same as gym wear.

Simon Sinek 24:45 And people were asking for it, right?

Ben Francis 24:46 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if we go on the website, there are lots of searches for a lot of these different things.

Simon Sinek 24:50 Yeah.

Ben Francis 24:52 But what we've since done is we- we've launched the, the, you know, our, our new sort of campaign, which is We Do Gym, and we've said, "We're just gonna be the best at gym wear, and we're gonna focus solely on building the best gym wear in the world," not by going into all of these different things. And I think going back to some of the big brands is they're, they're really good at what they do. The- there's, you know, uh, Nike are probably the best... Well, they are the best sportswear brand in the world, and we're never ever, ever gonna out-compete them on that. And also, it's not my personal passion. My personal passion always has been the gym. Since I was 16, I fell in love with the gym, and I fell in love with the gym because it was the first thing in my life where I directly got out of it what I put in. And I knew that if I... I went to school, and I'd try really hard at certain subjects, and I'd get terrible grades. I wouldn't try other subjects, and I'd get good grades. And the whole input to output thing just didn't quite make sense to me until I was 16, and I then realized if I go to the gym five days a week, if I, you know, if I'm on the treadmill or if I'm lifting weights, whatever it is, I will get out of that what I put in, put in.

Simon Sinek 25:52 It's a one-to-one ratio.

Ben Francis 25:53 And that's, that's really re- that was really important-

Simon Sinek 25:54 Yeah

Ben Francis 25:54 ... for me as a, as a moment. So I'm really passionate about the gym. We're really passionate about the gym. So we're gonna fo- focus on the gym. That's it. That's where our consumer is. That's where our product should be designed around. That is our, that's our USP, that's our competitive advantage, and that's what we're really good at. Now, obviously, there's more to it, right? So when the brand was first started, we, um, we'd grown up in the UK. We would buy, um, like, T-shirts, Topman two for 10 pound T-shirts, which was the thing.

Simon Sinek 26:20 [laughs]

Ben Francis 26:20 So two T-shirts for 10 pound was amazing, so affordability's really important for us.

Simon Sinek 26:23 Right.

Ben Francis 26:24 Because when you're joining the gym, you don't wanna be spending loads of money on really expensive stuff.

Simon Sinek 26:28 Right.

Ben Francis 26:28 You want really good quality, um, and you want it to perform, but equally you don't wanna have to pay loads and loads of money. So affordability's really important for us.

Simon Sinek 26:36 Yeah.

Ben Francis 26:36 We have to build affordable product for our consumer, and it has to be the best gym wear in the world. And if we do those three things, everything else then tends to fall into place-

Simon Sinek 26:44 Right

Ben Francis 26:44 ... as long as we're thoughtful about our business.

Simon Sinek 26:45 So you were tempted to go in all these directions, swimwear, hiking-

Ben Francis 26:48 Yeah

Simon Sinek 26:48 ... all of these things.

Ben Francis 26:49 So we said, "No, we're just gonna focus on-"

Simon Sinek 26:50 So, but... And you said, but you did try those things, right?

Ben Francis 26:53 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 26:53 You did start-

Ben Francis 26:54 Yeah

Simon Sinek 26:54 ... expanding your product line.

Ben Francis 26:55 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 26:56 But-

Ben Francis 26:57 And then we ended up just-

Simon Sinek 26:58 Did it, did it not-

Ben Francis 26:58 ... basically having a, a longer tail, basically. So we had lots of products that would sort of, um, sell less, basically. So we was, proportionately sold more. The business obviously continues to grow. But then rather than selling 50 of two products, we were selling, uh, you know, 10 of a, uh, 10 of 10 different products. So it's, we, we were selling a similar amount but, you know, across lots of different things. And, and then-

Simon Sinek 27:22 But isn't that, isn't that a good business? Isn't that what everybody, every company wants? To sell more of everything. The, you know, uh, traditional business would say, "Ah, that's sticky," because now our customer wants our hiking gear, and they want our swimming gear, and they want our, you know, gym gear. Look, we're creating stickiness and-

Ben Francis 27:35 Look, I think the second... There's the, there's consequences, and to us the consequences are, are the brand is watered down, and then also what you've got is you're splitting your sort of reason to believe for a product across lots of different things. And it's, it's interesting. We launched a product about a month ago, two months ago. Um, it's our, it's what we call our Onyx product. It's the most extreme Gymshark product that you can possibly sell. It's, it's a thick, seamless product. It's all around bodybuilding. It's all, it's a men's product all around accentuating your physique. The, the audience size for that is 1, you know, 1% of that in hiking or in lots of different, uh, lots of different things. It was by far the biggest launch that we've ever done. We had over 400,000 people sat on the website waiting to buy this product. And you would look at it, and you would think, "Most people I know probably wouldn't wear this product," but it's because we were speaking to our core, core audience, the lifter, the bodybuilder that wants to really accentuate their physique, wear the Gymshark logo, uh, seamless, tight-fitting product. And it, it's a, it's an incredible product. It's a brilliant product that we're so proud of. But it is a very niche product. And again, what we found is we win or we do the best and we, I guess, build the most clarity with our customer is when we just focus on doing what we're really good at and not trying to be-

Simon Sinek 28:47 So you-

Ben Francis 28:48 ... similar to everyone else

Simon Sinek 28:48 ... so you did expand. You went to hiking and swimming and all that, but then you contracted. You, you closed all those down?

Ben Francis 28:54 Yeah. We said, "We're gonna do gym wear really well," and then we basically narrowed the product range massively.

Simon Sinek 28:58 And what is the benefit of selling 50 of one versus, or 50 of two versus 10 of 10?

Ben Francis 29:05 So, well, one-

Simon Sinek 29:05 What's the benefit?

Ben Francis 29:06 ... it's really focused on the gym, which we, which is what we wanna be.

Simon Sinek 29:08 But I mean you aside, like as a business concept.

Ben Francis 29:10 Mm-hmm. Oh, is it? So, well, you get far better economies of scale with suppliers, which means you get, you get more purchase leverage. You can obviously, uh, work more closely on the product, so you've got, you'll have a higher quality of product, I would say. So, you know, you, you, if you need 10 developers to build 10 products, you need five to build five. So it's, you then get far more economies of scale and efficiency through the business, and you've got your entire business focused on something that's really specific. So it's not only you don't get, you only get brand benefit. You build a better product. You have a more efficient and effective business, and it's everyone's marching in the same direction.

Simon Sinek 29:45 This is genius. Here's the analogy.

Ben Francis 29:47 Mm.

Simon Sinek 29:47 It just occurred to me now because even me, like, my knee-jerk reaction is if you can sell 10 of 10-

Ben Francis 29:53 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 29:53 ... then you can expand.

Ben Francis 29:54 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 29:54 My goodness, you get all these new customers.

Ben Francis 29:55 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 29:56 But the analogy is I hate restaurants-

Ben Francis 29:58 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 29:58 ... that have very big menus.

Ben Francis 30:00 Mm.

Simon Sinek 30:00 Because how can you make all of these dishes taste good?

Ben Francis 30:04 Agreed. I've read about it.

Simon Sinek 30:04 There's just no way.

Ben Francis 30:05 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 30:05 You have ingredients sitting in the fridge for too long.

Ben Francis 30:07 Mm.

Simon Sinek 30:08 There's just no way.

Ben Francis 30:08 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 30:09 Right? And the best restaurants in the world-

Ben Francis 30:11 Mm

Simon Sinek 30:11 ... have quite small menus.

Ben Francis 30:13 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 30:13 You know, there's a very limited selection because they've a limited amount of very high quality ingredients.

Ben Francis 30:18 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 30:19 And so this is what you're saying, which is-This is your menu. It's a small menu.

Ben Francis 30:23 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 30:23 And that way I can, I can absolutely guarantee that this will be the best food you've ever eaten-

Ben Francis 30:29 Yeah

Simon Sinek 30:29 ... the best product you've ever had because I am not distracted, and I don't have to try and sell 'cause I've got excess, you know, uh, merchandise sitting over there. I've got excess chicken that I gotta push the chicken-

Ben Francis 30:39 Yeah, yeah

Simon Sinek 30:39 ... before it goes, before it goes off. It's exactly the same.

Ben Francis 30:42 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 30:42 It's a small menu.

Ben Francis 30:43 And I think, and then to your point then on that, if we've got a narrow product range that is really focused around gym, it means we can better leverage our finite resources to being the best in the world at that.

Simon Sinek 30:53 Right.

Ben Francis 30:53 But then the, I guess the second order con- consequences of that are, or looking to build a hundred-year brand, is then the people that are involved in Gymshark are really focused on that. And then when you think about hiring, if you're hiring for a short-term goal, if we're hiring just to get to X by three years, then you'll hire, you're... I, I found that you're far more likely to hire externally, and you'll always then bias towards have they done it before. I need someone that's done what I wanna do before externally. Hire them in. Can you do what you did there here? When I think about building a hundred-year brand, I don't want people to come in, particularly, you know, into leadership or senior teams, I don't want people to come in for three years, do what they've done somewhere else, to do it here. I want people to join for 10, 20, 30 years. I want people to build a career here and to be really focused around the long term of the business and to really put the business first, rather than just this be a stepping stone on, in their career. So you've got product effects, you've got sort of hiring effects. So then if you think about our brand, the We Do Gym campaign is perfect. It's three words, but it says exactly what Gymshark is.

Simon Sinek 31:54 Yes. It's on the tin, yeah.

Ben Francis 31:55 It's all about the gym. And then for us then, it's not about we do gym, we do this, we do that. It's literally we do gym, and we wanna land that message-

Simon Sinek 32:02 Yeah

Ben Francis 32:02 ... as regularly as possible-

Simon Sinek 32:03 Yeah

Ben Francis 32:03 ... so that it's really clear as to what we are.

Simon Sinek 32:05 But going back to the hiring practices, right? A- and again, you know, we're having a problem in X.

Ben Francis 32:11 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 32:11 I'm gonna hire somebody who's done this before.

Ben Francis 32:12 Okay.

Simon Sinek 32:12 I, I've made this mistake.

Ben Francis 32:14 Mm.

Simon Sinek 32:14 I've hired somebody who's done it before. They come into our culture, and I'm like, "Okay-

Ben Francis 32:17 Mm

Simon Sinek 32:17 ... you've done it. Please do it," and it, it rarely works well-

Ben Francis 32:21 Mm

Simon Sinek 32:21 ... because they try and force us to do things the way their old company did it, not, you know.

Ben Francis 32:25 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 32:26 Or, or the, the... There's an insecurity, right?

Ben Francis 32:29 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 32:29 Because their whole sense of self-worth is I have to repeat that.

Ben Francis 32:32 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 32:33 And their desire to push their boundaries, do things differently, cha- challenge themselves, throw out the playbook-

Ben Francis 32:37 Mm

Simon Sinek 32:38 ... is dramatically reduced-

Ben Francis 32:39 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 32:40 ... because they have to repeat their success.

Ben Francis 32:42 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 32:42 But their success is the past. There's a great story. You might appreciate this. I w- I got a tour of Apple for... an Apple historian took me around.

Ben Francis 32:49 Mm.

Simon Sinek 32:50 And he was telling me, like, you know, they've hired some remarkable people, like this person invented this for Google, and this person-

Ben Francis 32:55 Mm

Simon Sinek 32:55 ... invented that for Facebook, and now they all work at Apple.

Ben Francis 32:57 Mm.

Simon Sinek 32:57 And they walk around with these inflated egos, and then sit in meetings and go, "I don't think you know what I did at Google."

Ben Francis 33:02 Mm.

Simon Sinek 33:02 And somebody invariably at Apple will lean forward and say, um, "We don't care what you've done.

Ben Francis 33:08 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 33:08 We care what you're gonna do."

Ben Francis 33:09 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 33:11 Uh, how do you hire young people where, uh, you know, culturally it's much more acceptable to bounce from job to job to job?

Ben Francis 33:18 Mm.

Simon Sinek 33:19 Are you very clear that, you know, we wanna hire somebody who wants to stay for a long time? Do you... Like, do your young, do your youngest employees find themselves working here for four, five, six, seven years, and they can't believe they've been here longer than any of their f- have held a job longer than any of their friends?

Ben Francis 33:32 We're definitely seeing more of that. I think this is a transition that we've made in the last two years, so we're starting to move through that.

Simon Sinek 33:37 Starting to see it.

Ben Francis 33:37 And we're definitely seeing that.

Simon Sinek 33:38 Yeah.

Ben Francis 33:38 The other thing that we've noticed is, um, we, we sort of in a way bring in more in-house than what a lot of other people would do as well. So I don't know if, if you saw over the road, we've got a full sampling facility.

Simon Sinek 33:49 Yeah.

Ben Francis 33:49 And we've got great technical expertise here. Now, a lot of other people would just outsource all that and just give that to factories, but it's really important to us, whilst we work really closely with our partners, that a lot of the sampling, a lot of the development, a lot, a lot of our innovation projects-

Simon Sinek 34:02 I saw. You have like a mini factory across the street.

Ben Francis 34:04 Yeah, and it's all-

Simon Sinek 34:04 Yeah

Ben Francis 34:04 ... but we wanna own that internally. And again, if you were doing it purely on a short-term P&L, you wouldn't run that because that, if you took all that cost out, then obviously that would just increase profitability. But for us, the profitability that we have is there to be reinvested into the long-term future-

Simon Sinek 34:18 Yeah

Ben Francis 34:18 ... of the business, and it's really important for us to have genuine product developers and technical experts in-house rather than outsource that because that's our, that's our, our most powerful asset, right, is our, our people, but our technical ability to build our product.

Simon Sinek 34:33 Yeah.

Ben Francis 34:33 And I, I don't wanna be constantly outsourcing some of the most special things of our, of our brand.

Simon Sinek 34:38 You told me a lovely story about your, your grandfather-

Ben Francis 34:41 Mm

Simon Sinek 34:42 ... that at the end of every year-

Ben Francis 34:44 Mm

Simon Sinek 34:44 ... he calls you up and asks you one question.

Ben Francis 34:46 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 34:47 "Did you make any money this year?"

Ben Francis 34:49 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 34:49 And if he... All you have to do is say yes.

Ben Francis 34:51 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 34:52 And he's-

Ben Francis 34:52 He would never ask how much.

Simon Sinek 34:53 Right.

Ben Francis 34:53 Just say, "Did you make any money this year?" "Yeah." "Well done, lad." That's it.

Simon Sinek 34:57 Clearly you have financial goals.

Ben Francis 34:59 Mm.

Simon Sinek 34:59 I mean, you're a sophisticated company.

Ben Francis 35:00 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 35:01 If you've missed that financial goal but you're profitable, are you happy or are you angry?

Ben Francis 35:06 I think it depends. Um, again, in the last few years, because we've been changing our strategy and the way that we wanna approach things, I, I think if, if we moved in the right d- right direction, which we absolutely are, then I'd be happy. I think it's really important to me to remember that forecasts are forecasts. Forecasts are a, you know, it's a best guess at where you're gonna be generally at the start of the financial year, and we'll reforecast as we go through the year. The important thing for me is did we stick to doing what we said we were gonna do in the really important parts of our business that matter. So did we continue to nail that We Do Gym campaign? Did we continue to really invest into our product in the right way? Um, you know, is the shape of our business where we want it to be? Have we had that really nice, incredible new product development which we're really proud of? Those are the things that really matter. Now, what you can't do is then just completely alienate yourself from all financial results because that, that would not build a 100-year long-term sustainable business.

Simon Sinek 36:04 Sure.

Ben Francis 36:04 I think by definition to be a long-term 100-year business, you have to be profitable 'cause profitability allows you to invest in the long term of the business, but it also insulates you from all of the inevitable macroeconomic surprises that will come up.

Simon Sinek 36:17 But in the, in the, in that infinite-minded 100-year m- mindset, and based on the advice or, or the question from your grandfather-

Ben Francis 36:23 Mm

Simon Sinek 36:24 ... so long as you're building the business the way you wanna build it, so long as you're following your values-

Ben Francis 36:28 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 36:28 ... you're sticking to your core-

Ben Francis 36:29 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 36:29 ... so long as that purity remains-

Ben Francis 36:31 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 36:32 ... if you miss that projection, but everything's going in the right direction, you're not angry. You're fine.

Ben Francis 36:37 As long as we can continue to fund our own growth, build the business, yeah.

Simon Sinek 36:40 Yeah.

Ben Francis 36:40 I wouldn't... So, so if the profitability, ability dropped too low-

Simon Sinek 36:42 So when your granddad says, "Did you make money?" and you say, "Yes"-

Ben Francis 36:44 Yeah

Simon Sinek 36:45 ... to some degree, you are okay with that.

Ben Francis 36:47 I'm happy, yeah.

Simon Sinek 36:49 The, going back to, um, there's a, I don't wanna call it an irreverence, 'cause I don't think it is irreverent. There's an honesty-

Ben Francis 36:55 Mm

Simon Sinek 36:56 ... that I see on the walls here.

Ben Francis 36:58 Mm.

Simon Sinek 36:58 I mean, um, I always think a lot of companies waste space in their offices-

Ben Francis 37:02 Mm

Simon Sinek 37:03 ... because they have all this magical space, and they don't use, they don't remind everybody why they're here.

Ben Francis 37:07 Mm.

Simon Sinek 37:07 There are words all over your office that remind-

Ben Francis 37:09 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 37:09 ... people why they're here.

Ben Francis 37:10 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 37:10 Both your values, and just these nice sort of-

Ben Francis 37:12 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 37:13 ... reminders. But they're not, they're not sweet.

Ben Francis 37:18 Mm.

Simon Sinek 37:18 You know? Um, they're reminding people, take care of the people in the gym.

Ben Francis 37:22 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 37:22 You know, uh, one of them says, "Give a shit."

Ben Francis 37:25 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 37:26 It's one of your values.

Ben Francis 37:27 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 37:27 It's just very honest, and it's written, there's no asterisks.

Ben Francis 37:29 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 37:29 It says, "Give a shit," on the wall. In fact, right behind us, I love this one. Right behind us, you can't see it.

Ben Francis 37:35 Mm.

Simon Sinek 37:35 It says on the wall, it's the only thing written on the wall, in big letters, it says, "Don't be a dickhead."

Ben Francis 37:39 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 37:39 Um, and it's reminding everybody-

Ben Francis 37:42 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 37:42 ... like, this is how you show up at work.

Ben Francis 37:44 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 37:44 I mean, this is their office, and it says, "Don't be a dickhead."

Ben Francis 37:47 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 37:47 Like, wh- where does that come from?

Ben Francis 37:51 Uh, I think-

Simon Sinek 37:52 It, 'cause a lot of people, I think, they say those words-

Ben Francis 37:54 Mm

Simon Sinek 37:54 ... but they would never write them on the wall.

Ben Francis 37:56 Yeah, I think there's a few things for, so we al- so we, there's four things that we sort of build ourselves around when it comes to our values and the way that we work. One is hard work, and again, going back to-

Simon Sinek 38:04 To the gym.

Ben Francis 38:05 Yeah, going back to the gym, going back to-

Simon Sinek 38:07 Sweating

Ben Francis 38:07 ... what it's like building-

Simon Sinek 38:08 Yeah

Ben Francis 38:08 ... a business, where, you know, it is, it's incredibly hard work. And to build a business in the way that we want to, it is hard work.

Simon Sinek 38:16 Yeah.

Ben Francis 38:16 And I think it's important to recognize that. One team, again, going back to what you said on the, on the, in terms of what it says on the wall, one team is really, really important. That's not your function. That's not your department. That's the entire business. Um, we've got community first as well. Everything that we do is all around serving our community. That's the most important thing. The reason that we build product, the reason that we build events, the reason that we build the brand is to serve the customer and the community in the same way that I was, you know, you know, when I was a kid, and I-

Simon Sinek 38:41 Yeah

Ben Francis 38:41 ... first joined the gym. That, that's what Gymshark's there for. Um, and then humility as well.

Simon Sinek 38:46 What-

Ben Francis 38:46 Humility's really, really important, because I think humility then allows us to be always learning. And again, us getting to where we are today has been because of so many failures and things that, you know, we haven't always been focused on building a 100-year brand, whereas now, we really are. And I think it takes that humility to recognize when you're not going in the right direction in order to get yourself in the right place.

Simon Sinek 39:07 Can you tell me a specific story where when you look back now, you're like, "We, I don't know what I was thinking."

Ben Francis 39:14 Mm.

Simon Sinek 39:14 "And I would never make that decision now." And are you able to look back and say, "Here's why I made that incredibly bad decision"?

Ben Francis 39:19 Oh, God, yeah, loads. Um-

Simon Sinek 39:20 Give me, give me one specific one that if you look back now, it's a little bit embarrassing that you chose it, and you were so confident in that choice in the moment-

Ben Francis 39:26 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 39:26 ... but it was misdirected for all the wrong reasons.

Ben Francis 39:31 I'm trying to think of one that wouldn't be... So we've made loads of sort of operational mistakes. So I'll give you, I'll, I'll give you a, a good one, and this is probably more specific to being a British business. So most of our, most of our business, most of our customers are in the United States, and we've had incredible growth in the US. Now, I'm so lucky, right? Since the business started, since I was in my late teens, early 20s, I've been going to the US constantly, and I absolutely love it there, and I feel so lucky every time I'm there. And there was a period about five or six years ago where everyone said, "If you wanna win in the US, you've gotta open up an office out in the US, and you've gotta give, give the US that freedom to run the brand in the way that they think is right to grow in the US." Which I think, to a degree, is right, but obviously me being probably more higher propensity to risk as an entrepreneur, I was like, "Yeah, let's do it. Come on. Let's open up the office. Let's build the team. Let's give them the freedom, and they can just run with it." And I made a few hires that were wrong. I m- I hired people that had come from bigger businesses that maybe weren't as attuned to the entrepreneurial way that I thought that we wanted to, to build. And then we started to go into, like what we said earlier, sportswear and all of these different things, and all of a sudden, the product then looked very different. The brand looked very different. And there was a point where, I remember me and Noel, who's our chief of brand, we went to the US, and Noel put on the screen, and he said, "This is Gymshark in the UK." And I looked at it, and I thought, "Wow, that looks great. That's Gymshark through and through." Bodybuilding, lifting weights, and, you know, g- people in the gym. And then he went, "This is Gymshark in the US." And it was a guy, uh, who was playing football, and he just didn't look like Gymshark to me. He almost looked like Nike with a Gymshark logo on. And what we'd done is I'd given far too much freedom for essentially the American team to build out the, the, the business in a way that they thought was relevant in the market. And I felt so bad, 'cause I thought, "I've just completely done this wrong." And what we've actually learned is a real centralized control of brand in particular, and products globally, 'cause our brand and product needs to be relevant globally, not different in different markets, with a more nuanced sort of, uh, commercial approach. So in the US, you know, we, we're probably gonna open up more stores, as an example, whereas in the UK, we'll be more e-commerce focused, 'cause it's a far smaller country, and pretty much everywhere in the UK, you get next-day delivery. So we're not, we don't need as many stores. And I'd done it the wrong way around. I'd been tight on the commercial approach, and then I'd been really open on the go-to-market brand, and it meant that the brand looked completely different. And basically, what we had to do was completely relook at the entire office. We actually ended up moving the office to New York, and we just completely started again. We probably lost 18 to 24 months just because of that mistake, and I'd just been, I just hadn't thought it through enough. And I think, again, with the learning for me there is, given how important the brand is to a business like ours, to be so relaxed about it was such a huge mistake.

Simon Sinek 42:27 Are there entrepreneurs now that you sort of, I won't say model yourself after-

Ben Francis 42:32 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 42:32 ... but you look to and be like, "I, I, I," you know, formal and informal mentors?

Ben Francis 42:39 Well, I'll always, obviously, my grandad. My grandad, when he started his business, he, he basically had to risk everything, and he had two kids, my mom and, uh, her sister. Her sister has, um, my auntie has learning difficulties, so there's a level of cost, uh, with her care.Uh, my granddad was working in factories, BSA factories in the Midlands and things like that, so he took a massive risk to start his business. It was actually that... It was hearing as a kid about the risks that he took that made it so easy for me to start businesses when I was a kid, 'cause he was telling me about all these massive risk, and he had to look after my nan and the kids. And when I'm 18 and I didn't have to take... I had no one that I had to worry about really other than myself, that made it... That really made me realize the opportunity I had to take risks. So I definitely learnt sort of risk-taking from him. Obviously, my parents have been... I've got incr- I've just got such an amazing family. My mom and dad are incredible as well, and I learnt so much from them. My mom worked in the NHS her entire life, one of the most hard-working people-

Simon Sinek 43:40 National, National Healthcare

Ben Francis 43:41 ... National Healthcare.

Simon Sinek 43:41 Yeah.

Ben Francis 43:41 So she's, she was a, a nurse, ca- uh, cor- coronary care, so a heart nurse. Again, my dad, incredibly hard-working and incredibly... Just mental strength like nothing I've ever seen before. Um, but then in, more in terms of industry, um, so there's a guy who lives in London called Ajaz Ahmed, and he actually founded a company called AKQA, which is a... Basically, it was a big marketing agency. He's, um, he's st- since started a, another agency since, and I learnt a lot from him, and he's so brand first.

Simon Sinek 44:12 What did you learn from him?

Ben Francis 44:13 I learnt... I remember we, um, we were doing our first ever restructure of the business, and I remember it was killing me. It was absolutely killing me, the thought of, um, people losing their jobs and having to restructure our business. And, and it was the right decision in the more appropriate way for the, the sort of post-COVID market that it was at the time. And I remember we went out for food one day, and I was like, "Ajaz, I d- like, come on, help me out here. Have you ever done this before?" And he, he... And he's the kindest bloke you'll ever meet, and he just gave me some advice, and he said, "Just, just make sure that you do things in the right way. You know, just make sure you do it in the right way." Um, and he actually told me that he'd done a similar thing earlier in his career, and it was the best thing that he'd ever done, and it really helped his business then to grow. Because the way that he described it to me was around your business needs to move as quickly as the market, and you're in a market that's constantly moving. If you're slower than the market, then obviously things are gonna get away from you, and you won't be able to effectively serve your consumer. And he also was constantly talking about building long-term brands. Being in an agency role, he's seen great brands, he's seen not great brands, um, and he sort of really has an enthusiasm for brand that a lot of people don't, and I think a respect for brand that a lot of people don't. So speaking to him and learning about pushing through the hard times, doing things in the right way, and really focusing on the long term was really important to me. Um, so I definitely learnt a lot from Ajaz. Um, Harley and Toby at Shopify, I haven't seen them in a, in a while, but again, just listening to the way that they think about business is incredible-

Simon Sinek 45:48 What did you learn from them?

Ben Francis 45:50 I learnt... It was really funny actually. So years and years ago, they did a competition, and we won the competition 'cause we were one of the faster-growing businesses on Shopify, particularly in the early days. And they flew us out to New York to see the stock exchange. That was the first ever media training I had. It was the scariest thing I've ever done. And then we went out to Fiji, um, and we were sat around loads of incredibly successful entrepreneurs. Obviously, Toby and Harley that were there. There was, um, Tony Robbins, and there was a, a handful of other people. Um, there was the guy from Airbnb. There was, uh, Tim Ferriss, I think, was there. And I'm just sat looking at all these people thinking, "I've seen you on, like, YouTube on the internet, but I can't believe I'm seeing you in real life." And then I d- wasn't really saying anything, I was just listening. And then, um, I think someone said, someone said, "Oh, have you got..." He was talking to someone else, and they were like, "Oh, do you have a plan for that?" And he said, "No, I'm just winging it." And then someone else went, "Yeah, I'm just winging it, too." And I remember looking around thinking, "You guys are running businesses that are probably bigger than our business will ever be, and if you're just winging it, then that makes me feel so much better about myself 'cause I feel like I'm just winging it." And I'm just looking at all these people, and I had this moment of realization thinking, "If you're winging it, I'm probably always gonna be winging it." And then it made me realize that I don't have to feel like I've always got everything together. There was a recognition around the table that everyone's doing a lot of things for the first time, and there's a level of comfort that then that gave me that I don't always have to have everything together. I can explore new ideas, and I can fail at things, and it's not defining of me or nor the business. W- And then we can... Equally, when you do succeed, that's not defining. It doesn't mean you're always gonna be successful. There's this real nice feeling I had where it was almost like pressure off from this moment. I'm doing a lot of things for the first time, and I'm just gonna try my best to do it right, and I'm gonna, uh, build a business that I'm proud of.

Simon Sinek 47:37 As you're talking about it, you know, I'm realizing there's two types of winging it.

Ben Francis 47:40 Mm.

Simon Sinek 47:41 And this is... And again, I'm gonna sound like a broken record, which is there's a reason I admire the purity of your business, which is it is a... The foundation is so strong, the values are so strong, the clarity of who we are, what we do, and who we serve is so strong-

Ben Francis 47:53 Mm

Simon Sinek 47:53 ... that I think when you have strong foundation-

Ben Francis 47:55 Mm

Simon Sinek 47:56 ... strong values-

Ben Francis 47:57 Mm

Simon Sinek 47:57 ... then you can wing it.

Ben Francis 47:58 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 47:58 Because it's based on s- it's not... It's based on something down here.

Ben Francis 48:01 Not on quicksand, it's-

Simon Sinek 48:02 You know?

Ben Francis 48:03 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 48:03 It's based on something down here. And so you're, you're, you're making these decisions, but it's coming-

Ben Francis 48:06 Mm

Simon Sinek 48:06 ... it's born out of something, and there's a, and there's a code-

Ben Francis 48:09 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 48:09 ... that's guiding those reactive decisions.

Ben Francis 48:12 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 48:12 Right? Companies that I think are winging it based on market opportunity, pressure from investors, they're still winging it, but it's not stuck to anything. There's no code.

Ben Francis 48:23 There's no trail, yeah.

Simon Sinek 48:23 There's no values. And those are the ones who are chasing market share, chasing trends.

Ben Francis 48:29 Mm.

Simon Sinek 48:29 And they may have little spikes and little short-term successes. They may... You know, y- you throw enough spaghetti against the wall, some of it does stick.

Ben Francis 48:36 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 48:36 And, and, and that may even propel them to be viewed as, quote-unquote, successful because-

Ben Francis 48:40 Mm

Simon Sinek 48:41 ... they h- they won a lottery on one of those guesses.

Ben Francis 48:43 Mm.

Simon Sinek 48:43 But it's not sustainable.

Ben Francis 48:45 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 48:45 You know, you look at a lot of companies that were on the covers of magazines that barely exist anymore.

Ben Francis 48:50 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 48:50 You know, and they've all been on the covers of all the magazines.

Ben Francis 48:52 Mm.

Simon Sinek 48:53 Um, so I think there's two types of winging it, you know? There's winging it based on, based on values and based on knowing who you are, and there's winging it-Taking your cues not on, on that purity of our customer and ourselves-

Ben Francis 49:07 Mm

Simon Sinek 49:07 ... but winging it based on-

Ben Francis 49:08 That's true

Simon Sinek 49:08 ... based on an investor or some, some market trend that you're chasing. 'Cause when you were winging it and chasing swimming and hiking-

Ben Francis 49:16 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 49:17 ... that was externally.

Ben Francis 49:18 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 49:19 You know, uh-

Ben Francis 49:20 Whereas now when we're really... It's funny. Uh, my, my mom went to a- we got a shop in London on Regent Street. My brother took my mom to the shop a few months ago, and they, uh, he said they got to the end, and Mom went, um, "Do you know what, Joe? I'm not, I'm not really a fan of a lot of the product that you're making at the moment."

Simon Sinek 49:36 [laughs]

Ben Francis 49:36 And Joe went, "Too right. You're 50 some- 50-something years old, and you've never, you haven't been to the gym in 20 years."

Simon Sinek 49:42 [laughs]

Ben Francis 49:42 And it was a bit, it was a bit of a funny moment where he sort of told my mom. And it was like-

Simon Sinek 49:46 [laughs]

Ben Francis 49:47 ... that, that, that's right.

Simon Sinek 49:47 That's right.

Ben Francis 49:48 You know, the, the, our customer goes to the gym all the time. They're in their early 20s, and they wanna wear product to show off their physique. We're not building product for my 55-year-old mom-

Simon Sinek 50:00 [laughs]

Ben Francis 50:00 ... who was a nurse in Telly Oke.

Simon Sinek 50:02 [laughs]

Ben Francis 50:02 Do you know what I mean? So it was quite, that was quite a funny moment. I was quite proud of him because it was a bit like, yeah, this is, this is who we are, and this is what we stand for. And I know that's a, you know, a funny sort of extreme example, but that, that's, that's what we have to continue to build our business on.

Simon Sinek 50:13 You know, there's a, there's an irony in your brand, and the irony is, is a lot of your clothes, as you said, are made to show off.

Ben Francis 50:20 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 50:21 Like, your T-shirt that you said-

Ben Francis 50:22 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 50:23 ... that's-

Ben Francis 50:24 Physique-accentuating, yeah

Simon Sinek 50:24 ... is a v- physique-accentuated. It's tight. Let me show you-

Ben Francis 50:27 Mm

Simon Sinek 50:27 ... the result of all my m- my hard work.

Ben Francis 50:29 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 50:30 You know, h- I, I've, I've bought your stuff and sized up-

Ben Francis 50:33 Mm

Simon Sinek 50:33 ... because it's too tight. [laughs]

Ben Francis 50:36 Mm-hmm. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 50:36 Uh, but that's what it's supposed to be. Um, uh, you know, v- you can, degrees of how much your bum you want accentuated, you know?

Ben Francis 50:46 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 50:46 I, I mean, like, it's all about showing off-

Ben Francis 50:47 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 50:47 ... the hard work.

Ben Francis 50:48 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 50:49 But as a company, you're not a show-off company.

Ben Francis 50:52 Mm.

Simon Sinek 50:54 Reconcile-

Ben Francis 50:55 I'm not, no, I dare you

Simon Sinek 50:55 ... that your products are for showing off, but you don't like showing off. You're the opposite. You're totally humble and sort of on a journey and know you have more to learn, et cetera.

Ben Francis 51:03 Yeah, I know. I think, well, we have product, right? We have the oversized product-

Simon Sinek 51:06 [laughs]

Ben Francis 51:06 ... as well, that you can just sort of throw on and you can wear in the winter months, where you're just trying to build up your physique. But no, I don't know. I don't know. I think-

Simon Sinek 51:13 If I had to guess-

Ben Francis 51:14 Yeah

Simon Sinek 51:15 ... if I had to guess, I think it goes right back to why you like the gym.

Ben Francis 51:19 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 51:19 Which is, and you said it right at the beginning of this interview, which is if I do hard work-

Ben Francis 51:26 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 51:26 ... I will see-

Ben Francis 51:27 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 51:27 ... the results of my hard work.

Ben Francis 51:29 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 51:30 And I think if somebody's gonna spend the time to go to the gym and put in that effort, part of the reward is being able to-

Ben Francis 51:39 Yeah

Simon Sinek 51:39 ... see-

Ben Francis 51:39 Yeah

Simon Sinek 51:39 ... what I've done.

Ben Francis 51:40 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 51:41 And the best way to see it is with a ... Naked is one way, but to-

Ben Francis 51:45 With the right product

Simon Sinek 51:46 ... but to wear a product-

Ben Francis 51:47 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 51:48 ... that, that you can see my hard work.

Ben Francis 51:51 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 51:51 'Cause I mean, it, there aren't shortcuts.

Ben Francis 51:55 Yeah. But it's, and it's great 'cause we do these events.

Simon Sinek 51:58 [laughs]

Ben Francis 51:58 Um, you should come to one at some point. It's, we've got one. We've got, we've got a couple coming up, one in the UK, one in the US. And you go there, and you'd expect everyone to be massive and shredded and bodybuilder.

Simon Sinek 52:09 Yeah.

Ben Francis 52:09 But there are all sorts of physiques, and there's a recognition that if you're in the gym, you're on the journey, and everyone's on that journey together.

Simon Sinek 52:15 Yeah.

Ben Francis 52:15 And I really, really like that. And it's just a really nice place to be. And again, it's great because that's what I grew up doing. I remember, I remember I went to BodyPower in Birmingham. It was the best... It was, I think it was the best fitness event in the world at, in the sort of 2012, 2013 time.

Simon Sinek 52:31 Yeah.

Ben Francis 52:31 I remember being so annoyed because I had to leave the event early to go to my shift at Pizza Hut sort of thing. But it was, it was such an in, an inspiring event for me. So yeah, to be able to do this day in, day out, that was great.

Simon Sinek 52:42 The, m- I mean, the more we talk about this, the more I realize that your community... I, I, when I started running-

Ben Francis 52:47 Mm

Simon Sinek 52:48 ... or actually not even when I started, when I was a full-on runner-

Ben Francis 52:50 Mm

Simon Sinek 52:51 ... uh, I would be running around Central Park. I'd be, I'd run around Central Park, you know, whatever it was, three, four times a week.

Ben Francis 52:57 Mm.

Simon Sinek 52:58 And there was something magical about runners, and I assume it's the same people for gym rats-

Ben Francis 53:03 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 53:03 ... which is I would run past someone who is not in shape.

Ben Francis 53:07 Mm.

Simon Sinek 53:08 They are really struggling to go at-

Ben Francis 53:10 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 53:10 ... a very, very slow pace.

Ben Francis 53:11 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 53:12 You know? And here we are.

Ben Francis 53:13 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 53:14 We're all s- you know, fit and running fast-

Ben Francis 53:16 Yeah

Simon Sinek 53:16 ... and keeping our pace and-

Ben Francis 53:18 Yeah

Simon Sinek 53:18 ... all of this stuff. And I, I remember, and to this day, you run past them, and you go-

Ben Francis 53:23 Yeah, the level of respect you have. Yeah

Simon Sinek 53:24 ... and, and you lift your head. You're out here doing the work.

Ben Francis 53:26 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 53:27 And n- the thing that I loved about that community was nobody thought they were better than somebody else.

Ben Francis 53:31 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 53:32 We were, some of us were in better shape, and some of us were in, in lesser shape.

Ben Francis 53:36 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 53:36 And you said, different shapes, different sizes, but there was-

Ben Francis 53:39 We were all on a journey

Simon Sinek 53:39 ... such respect that you're out here doing the work.

Ben Francis 53:41 Mm.

Simon Sinek 53:42 And you got a, you got to head... And I remember when I was huffing and puffing-

Ben Francis 53:45 Mm

Simon Sinek 53:45 ... some elite runner would walk past me and give me a head nod.

Ben Francis 53:48 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 53:48 Like, and I loved that. The only other time I've seen that, I, I... This is a funny... I r- I worked out with, uh, the 82nd Airborne.

Ben Francis 53:57 Mm.

Simon Sinek 53:57 I worked out with the, the, the, the military-

Ben Francis 53:59 Mm

Simon Sinek 54:00 ... the, the army. And I remember we were up at the crack of dawn. It was still dark out, and we're up, we're in the, in the car park doing, uh, press-ups, doing pushups, and it was, like, gravel. So it's like u- unbelievably painful-

Ben Francis 54:12 Mm

Simon Sinek 54:12 ... on your hands doing-

Ben Francis 54:12 Yeah

Simon Sinek 54:12 ... doing pushups on a gravel. Uh, and we'd, like, do all this work, and I'm like, "Whew. Ha. Good workout, guys."

Ben Francis 54:18 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 54:19 It turns out that was the warmup. And then we actually-

Ben Francis 54:21 Mm

Simon Sinek 54:21 ... went and did the workout, which was a, a, a circuit, and you had, we had to do the circuit a number of times. And what I found... The, the... It was one of the best workouts of my life, and I'll tell you why, which is absolutely we were all competing.

Ben Francis 54:35 Mm.

Simon Sinek 54:35 Like, when we were running, guys were pushing hard, right?

Ben Francis 54:38 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 54:38 But nobody was competing against each other. They were competing against themselves.

Ben Francis 54:42 Mm.

Simon Sinek 54:42 Right? Like, if somebody who wanted to win, it's not because they wanted somebody else to lose.

Ben Francis 54:46 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 54:46 It's because they wanted to push themselves to be-

Ben Francis 54:48 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 54:48 ... the fastest that day.

Ben Francis 54:49 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 54:49 But I remember guys would run past me, and they'd tap me as they ran past me like, "Keep it going. Keep it going."

Ben Francis 54:54 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 54:54 And so even in competition-

Ben Francis 54:56 Yeah

Simon Sinek 54:57 ... they were pushing and rooting for, for the others.

Ben Francis 55:01 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 55:01 So again, it was pushing themselves. It was, they were trying to... They were competing against themselves. They weren't competing against each other.

Ben Francis 55:07 Mm.

Simon Sinek 55:08 And it was the most amazing-Experience with hyper A-type competitive people-

Ben Francis 55:13 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 55:14 ... that wouldn't gloat 'cause they beat you.

Ben Francis 55:16 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 55:16 They would be proud 'cause they won. There's a big difference.

Ben Francis 55:18 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 55:19 But they were pushing everybody else to, to, to, to run harder-

Ben Francis 55:22 Do you think-

Simon Sinek 55:22 ... push harder, pull, you know, lift heavier. It was kind of amazing.

Ben Francis 55:25 But don't you think that's the sort of thing that would be nice to see more in general business, is in people just trying to build the best business that they possibly can, rather than constantly comparing to A, another business that is similar in one specific way, but different in every other specific way? 'Cause I often see a lot of that, of, of, oh, Gymshark have a, I don't know, they, they're great at e-commerce, or they've got a great social following. And, and I think so many people will come and ask me, "What, you know, how should I build my business?" I, I think so much around you just need to build your business for you-

Simon Sinek 55:56 Yeah

Ben Francis 55:56 ... around what is important to you and around, you know, your community and your customer, rather than trying to build another version of Gymshark. And I'm sure-

Simon Sinek 56:04 But it goes, but it goes back to that foundation, right?

Ben Francis 56:05 Mm.

Simon Sinek 56:05 You gotta know who you are and what you stand for.

Ben Francis 56:07 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 56:07 And then you build from there. I don't think you can build a 100-year business-

Ben Francis 56:11 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 56:12 ... trying to compete or beat somebody else.

Ben Francis 56:13 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 56:14 I think you can only build a 100-year business trying to outdo yourselves.

Ben Francis 56:18 Yeah. I agree.

Simon Sinek 56:19 What's your approach to managing your time so that you get the most out of your professional and personal life?

Ben Francis 56:25 Ooh, this has changed. So this has changed a, a lot since we had kids. So before, I would just work all the time, and fly whenever, go anywhere at a moment's notice. Um, my wife said to me, since we had kids, she was like, "I want you home on the weekends." And it's really important to me that I am, 'cause I just love being with the kids and being at home with the family and, and Robyn. Um, so within, generally I'll be at home on the weekends, and that, again, that's important for me to protect. In the week, I generally really try and focus my time around, uh, product and, uh, essentially the, the direct sort of team that I, I work with. Um, I also just love going... Something I love to do more than anything is just to go to loads of different gyms. So if I'm in New York, I'll just try different gyms, 'cause you end up just chatting to people all the time, and you end up learning something that you would never, ever normally pick up. And again, quite fortunate now doing, I guess doing the job I do, 'cause sort of people come up to me as often as I'll come up to them. But I absolutely love that. But no, generally I'll focus my time around obviously being in the office every day. I, I am not the sort of person that I could ev- could ever work from home. Um, but generally it'll be around being with the team and, and focusing on the product.

Simon Sinek 57:33 But, and, and when you're at home on the weekends, you're not at home just working. You're at home with the family.

Ben Francis 57:37 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I will avoid work at all costs on the weekend if I can.

Simon Sinek 57:40 Love. Um, one of the things that's interesting is, um, uh, you have on the wall-

Ben Francis 57:46 Mm

Simon Sinek 57:46 ... uh, family first-

Ben Francis 57:47 Mm

Simon Sinek 57:47 ... as one of the values. What can people who are not running companies-

Ben Francis 57:51 Mm

Simon Sinek 57:51 ... do to, to have an impact on the world, but still make sure that they're providing for their loved ones? Like, how do you strike that balance? Because at some point s- one of those things has to get sacrificed.

Ben Francis 58:01 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 58:01 Right? People who make an impact, as you said-

Ben Francis 58:03 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 58:04 ... aren't necessarily at home all the time.

Ben Francis 58:05 Yeah. How do you... Well, I think the-

Simon Sinek 58:08 What, what, what can the rest of us do? Do you have to pick one?

Ben Francis 58:11 I mean, I don't know. I think the thing that I've, I've noticed, and this is both with myself but also with friends and colleagues, is if you do a job that you really, really enjoy, you genuinely enjoy, I think you'll often be better at it, and then I think you'll be happier, happier in your general life. And even if you have to w- there's periods, I think, where you have to work more. There's periods where you can probably get away with working a little bit less. And I know it sounds cliche, but I do think focusing on what you love. I've got friends that, that... I've got a friend, actually, who moved on from here not too long ago. Uh, he wor- he was one of the first employees who worked here for about 10 years, and he just sort of ran out of mojo. He sort of, we were chatting, he wasn't really enjoying the job as much as he was, and he sort of wanted to be here 'cause he always was, but then he sort of didn't 'cause there's a load of other things he wanted to... He wanted to travel, and he wanted to do work abroad and stuff. And we were just sat there, and we said, um, "Just go off and do it. Just go off and do it, and you can always come back. You know, if you don't, if you go off and you go and work in Spain for a bit and you don't like it, you can always come back." And, and that's what he's done, and he seems so happy. He's loving it, and it's, it's really nice to see. So it's, it's an interesting thing for me, where it's the difference in him in making that decision. He's just like a different person. He seems so excited and happy and that, you know, I've got lots of other friends. And don't get me wrong, I'd rather a, a lot of them have not left. I'd ra- I'd much rather them just be with me and stay here, 'cause we're friends and I love being with them. Focusing on what they love is really important. And then there's he- people that have been here for 10, 11, 12 years, literally since day one, that love it just as much, if not more than they did. And I think for me, doing what you love is really important. Um, I think to... It's interesting because w- we and I have had some highs at this business that are incredible. Being the fastest-growing company in the UK, some of the global events that we've done, some of the incredible things that we've done out in the US. Um, and they're genuinely incredible achievements that I'm so proud of. But then when you get home, and one of your kids runs up to you and gives you a massive hug, and he's happy that you're home, it trumps all of them.

Simon Sinek 1:00:17 Mm.

Ben Francis 1:00:17 So I think it's also worth remembering that as well.

Simon Sinek 1:00:19 Ben, it's such a treat for me to sit down with you. I could talk to you forever, and, you know, this is the second time we've hung out, and-

Ben Francis 1:00:24 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 1:00:25 ... I've learned from you more this time even than last time. Um, I, I really, really am rooting for you 'cause I think how you're building your business is the way all businesses should be built from now on.

Ben Francis 1:00:37 Thank you.

Simon Sinek 1:00:37 Thanks, man.

Ben Francis 1:00:37 Appreciate it.

Simon Sinek 1:00:38 Really appreciate it.

Ben Francis 1:00:38 Thanks for coming.

Simon Sinek 1:00:39 So good. A Bit of Optimism is brought to you by The Optimism Company and is lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbinus and Devon Johnson. If I was able to give you any kind of insight or some inspiration or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to simonsinek.com. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. [outro music]