Classics: Ben Francis & Noel Mack CEO & CBO Gymshark

23:52Ben Francis:I've got to eat with them now. We've got to go to a photo shoot. So the jobs are disparate, right, compared to what they do. There's an external perception that to work at Gymshark, you have to go to the gym and you have to be this certain type of person. Yeah, there is jobs for those kinds of people, but there's also jobs for data scientists, right, and like product R &D innovation people and stuff like that. So it's a huge range. But yeah, the influencer one is definitely an interesting one just because we've never really met any other brands that do it in the same way that we do. But you're right.

24:16Ben Francis:It's like when you meet an influencer now or an athlete or whatever, content creator, whatever you want to call them, Generally, they've got a videographer with them, right, or a content person or their assistant or, like you say, there's athlete managers here. So, yeah, for one influencer, you're probably creating another five jobs to sort of prop that. It's a media outlet on its own, you know, a media platform on its own. So you're probably creating a whole bunch of other jobs around that. So, yeah, I'm with you. I think the government being uninspired by 30 % of kids wanting to be influencers is quite short-sighted, to be honest.

24:44Noel Mack:and on when it comes to products r &d and development ben where do you see the future of fitness being because it does feel like it's kind of going through this sort of revolutionary moment we've all been doing yeah we've all had time to reflect in the last year in terms of our fitness and so on what are the exciting developments that you can tell us about at least

25:05Ben Francis:in terms of what we're seeing in that space um oh i need to think about that um i mean like i said Similar to the strategy I mentioned earlier, we've got like a long term product roadmap. And I think I'd like to think we're we're pretty clear on where we think it's going. Like I said, ultimately, from from a apparel and accessories point of view, specifically, I think people will continue to want product that's more tailored for them. And I think you'll see more and more of that. You'll already see Gymshark doing a lot, a lot more fits, a lot more inclusive in terms of its sizing as well. So I think that's really important.

25:38Ben Francis:People want to understand where the product has come from more than ever. and a lot more about its sustainability. And I also think people want, I guess, a broader connection with the brand and the community that they're working with. So for example, with Gymshark, like yes, I wear all the apparel and accessories, but also when I go and deadlift on a Thursday night, I'm using the Gymshark conditioning app. If I want to learn about workouts, I'm talking to the Gymshark athletes and learning from them. It's a lot more of a sort of 360 relationship, 360 product relationship than I think maybe you'd imagine from a more conventional retailer.

26:08Noel Mack:And that's it. You have your daily newsletter as well, which talks about a lot of things. And it's something that you see a lot of people wearing in the gym and so on. But there is so much more behind it. And you just talked a bit about that, the kind of Gymshark app and so on. I mean, that is, you are becoming so much more than what people would just see as the kind of like T-shirts and shorts. So just talk us through a few more of the things you've...

26:33Ben Francis:Well, that's important to us. So if you were to walk into a conventional retailer, they would talk about the customers and the spend and how often they visit the website or walk into the store. Whereas at Gymshark, we want to have as much of an understanding about the people that maybe use the conditioning app. Don't spend a penny on Gymshark and follow Steve Cook, who's one of our top athletes, for example. We just want as many people as possible to be involved in the Gymshark community and to be improving themselves both physically and mentally. And listen, if someone then wants to use the Gymshark apparel and accessories to help support them on their journey, then to us, that's a bonus.

27:06Ben Francis:So I think we look at the community in a different way to what most of the brands and retailers will.

27:11Noel Mack:This may be an impossible question to answer, but how big would you put the Gymshark community at?

27:17Ben Francis:No, you'll have that. If you're including the athletes, you're looking at a massive number. Hundreds of millions of people including the athletes. We talk about it in terms of degrees of connection. so like a zero degree of connection is directly contacting talking with us on a day-to-day basis sort of one degree of connection is you know following us on social media two degrees of connection is one one of our athletes so at one degree of connection in terms of people who follow us on social media it's tens of millions right you're in probably sort of 15 20 million somewhere around that when you go to two degrees of connection where you're talking about the people who follow the gym shark athletes inspiration stuff then you're into hundreds of millions it's staggering when you think of it and to be honest it's not a there's no hard and fast rule on whether you're in or out either it's not like there's a there's not like a blue peter badge that you're wearing nodding nod at each other right it's just a it's just a combined sort of understanding and appreciation of if if you're doing something to be a better version of yourself tomorrow and you and you think gymshark in any way can help that whether it's through the t-shirt that you wear that you sweat in whether it's the content that you enjoy whether you use the app to track your workouts and stuff you're in it's just a sort of a commonality like that so there's no there's no thing like if somebody listening to this things right i want in where do i go where do i sign up and where do i get my entry pack it doesn't really work like that right we just think about community is like ben said earlier we think in the future people want to know more about brands i think when when they gen z spend in 2021 they don't just buy the product they they vote with their pounds i mean they want to know everything about it the fact that ben goes on his youtube channel and shows everything we do shows the shareholding at the company right how many companies have you spent with in the past week where you could you could know who all the shareholders are look them up online i mean see what they're doing on the weekend on their instagram page any that normally boards and shareholders and all that stuff are hidden behind some misty PR statements and whatever else, whereas he's jarringly transparent with the way he does things personally, which then plays out at the company as well.

28:54Ben Francis:But like you said, you could literally, before you decide, are these guys a good company, you could look into every single human behind the business because we're all extremely visible, do you know what I mean? And have a look at our personal ethics and see if it's something you align yourself with. If you do, then make your purchase and you're in. But I think that's important to Gen Z at the minute and we're doing as much as we can to just try and give them more and more info every single day.

29:12Noel Mack:Yeah, I mean, I noticed that recently you've really slimmed down in terms of the packages that you deliver and so on right now it's almost like yeah i've got a load of stuff delivered the other day and it's like it's tiny it's what it comes in now where do you think that gen z is is heading in that because that is it's a challenge in terms of i think of this now like as a new parent right in terms of purchasing decisions and so on end up congratulations thank you but it's like it ends up being so you know you end up making decisions based on speed and agility and so much more do you think that will change or are we seeing a proper kind of shift change in attitudes towards consumerism

29:51Ben Francis:um i mean things are getting quicker aren't they i mean a few a few years ago for something to arrive in the uk in two or three days wasn't the end of the world now i feel like if it's not next day then people aren't happy at all but i don't think there's a battle between sort of sustainability and speed i think i still think you can do speed sustainably but you're right the gen z are so much more conscious about the impact that everything has on the environment in the environment and from a societal perspective as are we so i think that's really important for brands to consider

30:22Noel Mack:going forward and when it comes to i just want to touch on i know we said we talk about the future but one point that i think is interesting that hasn't been brought out much um about your your story is how much of the company that you've been able to hold on to and you referenced it earlier in terms of you know you've had offers from channel places which would allow you to kind of double revenues and you've stayed tight agile flexible with it you must have had so many offers for investment at some point and there is definitely you know we're going through this entrepreneurial revolution in the uk we're doing really well at it but there is this element of lionizing the sort of venture backs businesses and so on it becomes a shortcut for people to say that they're on their way and say you know we've raised x amount from so on at such and such valuation yeah you'd never done that and i think that is part of the reason why perhaps you hadn't come across radars and so on as much as well being based in in birmingham and just your reflections on that i would love to to hear and your advice for younger entrepreneurs because you funded this all throughout yourself and the money and the cash revenues that you've made.

31:30Noel Mack:And that isn't something that's talked about enough. And I would just love for your reflections on that.

31:34Ben Francis:Yeah. I mean, everything that you see today is the snowball effect of the£3.90 I earned at Pizza Hut when I was 18. And I think Gymshark is almost like a bit of a super unicorn in that respect because you're right, we've gotten two unicorn status without any borrowing or funding or anything like that. that's because that's half luck and half skill so it's hard it's luck because we sell products that are higher margin and you know the stars aligned in terms of so many more people being into fitness nowadays people being more comfortable buying from online direct to consumer online brands all of the stars had to align for that to happen but equally we have been really careful and we built a really solid business and and brand for that matter and it's because we look at everything through the lens of we want to build a 100 200 300 year brand like i'm so inspired by some of the really old school british businesses and like you know there's brands like burberry or even more locally sort of jaguar land rover and companies like that to us are so inspiring so we're really cadbury's as well cadbury exactly yeah down the road so those old school brands that have lasted across generations are are the inspiration for us so i think we're sort of cautious with the decisions that we make um when it comes to things like that yeah you're going to run this company or be the majority um shareholder in it for 30 40 plus years i mean it's quite remarkable to to

32:58Noel Mack:think of that because a lot of those companies you have mentioned have gone through change of ownerships at various points and you know i know that you're not going to do just the way that you speak about it and so on and it's clear that you want it to become part of the of the fabric of the not just the local community but a global community as well and what i mean cadbury as well what it did for the local area is incredible right yeah what are your sort of plans for that i mean you i've spent the morning at the site here and it's amazing like how quickly you're growing and expanding what are your thoughts in terms of being that kind of yeah we talk about esg a lot and i often think there's sort of a c missing from that phrase um which is so important to hear you guys

33:44Ben Francis:talk about what are your thoughts and plans for it i mean listen we want to bring as much as we can not only to the west midlands but to the uk as well so when you when we're smaller we were sort of like it was super cool the fact that we would be able to hire people you know that would move maybe from London or Manchester and come here. Now we're hiring so many international people. And I think that's really great. I think it helps the economy. I think it helps the local area. I mean, it's not purely down to us, but this industrial estate, Blythe Valley that we sit on now, I mean, it pretty much didn't exist five, 10 years ago.

34:14Ben Francis:The construction and development has been amazing. I mean, anyone that goes into places like central Birmingham now, it's a completely different place. And that's really cool to be at the heart of. So yeah, I mean, like I said, it's super important to us. We're developing people in the area. I also think it was really cool because as we were growing, it was fascinating just how many super smart people there are in this area. There's always been a bit of a brain drain from the West Midlands where people would sort of always get sucked into London. And I'm really proud of the fact that now we're giving people the opportunity to have an amazing workspace, you know, in the West Midlands.

34:48Noel Mack:I went to the University of Birmingham, as you know, graduated 2009. And it has always been a reflection of mine being in the second city that no one really made the case to me to kind of stay which i think is a real shame and it was always something that i was going to go to london now look that's partly because i was in politics and that was inevitably where some of the um the action was at and it is i mean again it's different now with some of the west midlands combined authority mayorship and so on what work do you do in terms of you know connecting with other people in the area because now you are you know not only are you an icon for other for the whole of british entrepreneurs but that local ecosystem as well is so important what work do you do in terms of trying to support other birmingham entrepreneurs so i mean we do i mean

35:36Ben Francis:i did a video not long ago actually and it was it was more sort of uk focused but it's around supporting entrepreneurs so you know if you've got any ideas get in touch we open pre-covid we We had sort of, what's it called? The local incubator. Yeah, incubator. So we had, again, we do talk to a lot of local businesses, lots of young entrepreneurs. Funding office space and stuff for people in Birmingham who we thought had potential good business ideas up in Aston. We'd pay for their office for about a year or something like that. And help support their ideas. Opening up this place as well, so a lot of local schools will come in.

36:08Ben Francis:And again, that's a thing. So growing up around here, London was always like the area where almost things happened, whereas it's so cool to be able to bring local kids here and see that you can create something special and unique locally as well i mean we support the local nhs we've got an incredible relationship with the birmingham birmingham women's and children's hospitals as well and that's really important to us yeah i mean we we do everything we can not only to support the local sort of birmingham west midlands areas but as well the uk this is quite small but during during lockdown there was there was staff who literally couldn't do their job for one reason or another because of lockdown right now like i I mentioned earlier some businesses were furloughing and stuff like that if they physically couldn't do their job but it didn't seem right to us that we'd furlough anybody because you know our numbers were still good so we had those guys working for obviously we were still paying their salary and whatever else but we had them working for Birmingham Women and Children's Hospital delivering prescriptions around the UK we had some people going there in the morning driving to Kent to drop off some paracetamol or whatever it was and then bringing it back so wherever we can albeit it's sort of it's small in places we do try and do as much as we can for the local area you you're you're like personally a patron for those guys now aren't you yeah yeah so i'm a patron at birmingham women's and children's hospital which is amazing it was something that was to be honest i wasn't expecting at all and then they asked me probably about four to six weeks ago so and having so my mom worked in the nhs you know my entire life so to be able to give that little bit back to the local birmingham hospitals has been really important to me as well stuff like that i feel like if you're part of the business elite like you mentioned earlier and you move in those circles and you create a big business it's almost like no surprise but when a lot of the people here have come from working class backgrounds if it wasn't for what Birmingham offers you know the welfare state the NHS free education all that kind of stuff none of us would be sitting here today do you know I mean like Ben personally so it's not like it was not like it was this crazy privileged upbringing which has led on to all this stuff so it only kind of feels right now that we do as much as possible to try and give back to the same you know I mean services that sort of helped us get to where we are.

38:00Noel Mack:And how much do you think you know class and things plays a role in kind of what drives you I was talking to Don McGregor who we've had on the podcast the other day and he was talking about being from working class means that you know in some ways you've got less to lose and all to prove and it just that stuck with me you know a great deal in in that regard and you know it is something as british people we probably talk about and reflect on too much but it would be you know do you think that's kind of spurred you on um possibly to be honest

38:30Ben Francis:i've never really thought too much into it that i'll never forget the first time where jim shart I started to do well and I started to speak to people that were in maybe more of an upper class I started to realize oh wow these guys have significantly better financial education than anyone I have ever met and I didn't know if that was a schooling thing or a family thing but to be honest it's it's not something I think about regularly I mean my role models growing up were my parents and my grandparents and they were all incredibly hard working like my mum worked in the NHS and she would go and do nights and then come home and chop us off at school sleep in the day and all that sort of stuff.

39:04Ben Francis:So it's not something that I think about too regularly, but I think on reflection, having grown up around such an amazing group of hardworking people, it's definitely had a big impact on me as I think pretty much everyone that's from around here. I think looking at you from the outside, I think it impacts you subconsciously more than consciously. Yeah. I think that's why he's never started going down to London and hanging out with the business elite or the known entrepreneurs that you would think of. Like you said, he walked in that day and didn't really know anyone. is because I don't think you've ever aspired to.

39:34Ben Francis:I think you're comfortable around working class people. So you naturally sort of gravitate towards that. But equally, I think that's what's kept us and Ben personally with the blinkers on in our lane, coming back to Birmingham and just working hard. Because the second you start hanging out and it's all networking events and you're doing that, all the time you're doing that stuff, you're not concentrating on the mission almost, you know? So I think that's what's kept us quite sort of blinkered, if you like, and relentless on the mission. I remember as well, this is super minor, well, not super minor, but it didn't directly affect us because my parents didn't work there but when we were kids not far up the road from us in Longbridge is where sort of Rover MG were and then when that whole business went bankrupt there was like so many people that you knew that lost their jobs and I remember seeing the impact that that had sort of locally and even now like you can drive past where the old factories were and they still haven't filled it in it's still like you drive and you just see like emptiness they've started to put things on which is great to see I remember that having a massive impact as well and things like that it really makes you want to do more for the local area and you know try and give back because again like there's people on the road that lost their jobs and having to see that definitely impacts you in a way

40:43Noel Mack:when talking to people about gym shark over the last few weeks it's been interesting just how many people associate you now with that brand that is a big responsibility becoming a business personality similar to branson peter jones and lord sugar you've obviously had a taste of it doing those pm councils and so on but it's a very important role how do you feel about that yeah um

41:09Ben Francis:so i reluctantly got into it so i didn't i everything i took videos pictures everything of the gym chart stories we went along and i didn't ever put it out there until we did a world tour a few years ago and there was a lad in dublin who was doing a like a university um essay on gymshark and he just said hey i would love it if i've been trying to find out about the company and i would just love it if you could record a video that basically talked about the gymshark story how did it start what was the deal how did you get to where you were and people had asked me in the past to do this and for whatever reason i sort of listened to this guy and i said yep i'll tell you what i'll do the video and we flew home about a month later recorded the video i had to record two or three of them because i just was so terrible on camera and just recorded the video of this is how i started gymshark and the ambition was i'm going to do this one video and i'm going to put it out there i'm going to satisfy this lad that's doing his um his university course and i'll leave it there and the reaction was so overwhelmingly positive i think that's on multi-million views now i just ended up sticking with it and carrying on carrying on and doing it so i sort of reluctantly got into it if i'm honest and then even now i must admit outside of the sort of day-to-day of Gymshark it is one of the most cool and exciting things I get to do because I get to meet so many cool people um there are people that have businesses that I'll jump on calls with here and there and I'll help support them um and I just find it really enjoyable if I'm honest because it's nice for me to offer to other people what I didn't have um and I didn't have it because there wasn't that many local businesses in the sort of area we grew up that were doing anything similar and because we were you know in many ways we were pioneering and And there's so many things that I wish I'd have done in the early days sooner that would actually have allowed Gymshark to grow even more quickly.

42:48Ben Francis:So if I can have like a half an hour call with someone here and there and help them not make a mistake, then I think that's really powerful and that's important to me.

42:56Noel Mack:I know it's actually something that you, you know, despite building off a lot of social media and so on, it is something that you've only kind of taken to actually in the last five or six years, which I think surprises some people when they find out about that because it's so synonymous now with the brand they associate with you and i was also interested in terms of this like the way that you you've both changed because as noel indicated earlier i've been going through all your old kind of socials this week and so on um and your own kind of fitness journeys as well because you know you started off kind of in the powerlifting side of things and you're both really big guys and you've kind of like slimmed down on that a lot now and i just think it's interesting because i think it's really important to talk about this and I think it's been interesting the the prime minister kind of in the last year has been saying look you know I've been overweight and so on and actually kind of to a certain degree men talking about this stuff is not something that we've seen much of before and so I was interested in that and I also heard that you've been doing a bit more running in lockdown than you've ever done before and so just the way that that fitness is evolving and that journey and what your thoughts are on on the way that fitness is going but also your own journeys with

44:06Ben Francis:it i mean personally as a as a teenager all i wanted to do was bodybuilding so i was just wait wait wait and to be fair i'll still do that you know four or five times a week that that is my sort of core passion i do think i don't know if this is a covid thing or me getting an older thing but i do now really value having like a good cardiovascular system and sort of got into running if i'm honest just because there wasn't too much else to do during lockdown um that's a you get older yeah i think but i think more people are doing it i think and to be fair i think that's why things like crossfit are doing so well because people want to be like fit and healthy in like uh yeah exactly that functionally fit so i think that is a bit of a trend but the other thing is there's so many different facets of fitness now before it was just you're a gym guy whereas now are you a bodybuilder a powerlifter a crossfitter a runner you know all these different things and i think that's emerging in the fitness world now a lot more it's becoming part of people's identity as

44:58Noel Mack:well kind of explaining that and you know we all have multifaceted identities as well and it's just you know interesting depending on the different community that you're you're speaking to about that um what are your reflections on that no i mean i'm first of all i've been i felt ben glance

45:12Ben Francis:at the side of my head when you when you went you know you're both really big guys and i thought am i but anyway no i was there was a point you may have seen this picture or not there's a picture of me and ricky hatton somewhere at an event and ricky hatton famously in between fights got out of shape and in the photo i'm in the worst shape out of the two of us which is interesting so i was a big guy like that but then yeah i think i got i got healthier food like combat stuff i never really i'm like a i bite my nails like crazy right because i'm like a constant i can't remember a doctor called me high functioning or hyperactive or something like that i have to be doing something constantly so even sitting here not looking at my phone is killing me um so ben was into bodybuilding i could never get into it because i'd lie on a bench push weights up and down and think is this it i'm so bored and it was only one of my friends took me to an amateur boxing club and if i didn't concentrate i got punched in the face i thought oh this is quite good for me and i into MMA and jiu-jitsu and stuff like that.

45:59Ben Francis:And then I found that, especially in jiu-jitsu, which is like, for those who don't know, the stuff that you see them doing in the UFC when they're on the ground, choking each other out and whatever, that's it. The great thing about that is, I have, like, I figured out early on, I had a problem with ego. Like, it would hold me back in places. Jiu-jitsu is so great because you touch hands on the mats with this guy you've never met before and he's 60 kilograms and he's 17 years old. And he mangles you within an inch of your life and makes you tap out. And, like, if this wasn't a controlled sport, essentially that's you being able to kill me you could have churn within an inch of my life there and i have to tap and that tap is signifying like you could kill me then if you wanted to so getting handled by these like really small guys all the time instills i think these values are like this like white belt mentality and otherwise there's always something to be learned do you know i mean so even and i think it then i think there's joe rogan talks about this a lot i think there's um the way that plays out then in business is just because you've got a fancy job title and you know you might have a car parking space at the front or a corner office we have none of those things by the way but some people do um doesn't mean that you can't learn from the 19 year old intern do you know i mean and i think some of the most valuable things we've done at this business in the past two years have been thanks to young people who you know in a traditional business their voice isn't heard whereas here that sort of white belt mentality plays out it's like no you can learn from absolutely everyone do you know i mean so i think fitness is kind of i think that's the way it's sort of taking shape for me but yeah fitness for me is either on or off ben i'll tell you this i'm either cutting dieting hard and i've got abs and i'm running every night and all that kind of stuff or i'm massively off the wagon and you'll catch me in tesco with four bags of haribur just trying to sneak out so yeah i'm nowhere near as consistent as ben is i did notice

47:27Noel Mack:there was a good snack selection in the uh refuel canteen yes sir um just so coming into the final bits of it the what would your message be to the the government in this whole kind of building back better side of things yeah what is it that we can do because we are at this proper post-generational moment with the UK and the globe, frankly. So what would your advice be to the Prime Minister and Chancellor?

47:54Ben Francis:That's one hell of a way to put us on the spot. That's a big question. Honestly, I haven't got a clue. I'm not well educated enough to comment. Oh, that is... Politician's answer? Politician's question and a politician's answer. What I would say from a good instinct point of view is, and I need to do the research, but invest in what's for tomorrow. So at the moment you're seeing sort of the data fields absolutely flying digitization of some of the old clunky businesses we know for a fact that 5g and internet and online is going to power tomorrow so i think we need to invest in all of those things i would also invest more education around well financial education for youngsters i think i mentioned earlier as as gym sharks started to grow that was something that i was shocked by because i just didn't know it was a thing and ultimately you want to encourage as many people to start businesses as possible.

48:45Ben Francis:Now, I don't necessarily think you need to do that with money. I don't think you throw money at the problem. So I think if you throw money at something, you'll just get more of what you've already got. But I think there needs to be a step change in terms of allowing people to fail and just supporting people on their ideas. Cultural shift in that. Yeah, I think a cultural shift. And there's just little things, right? So having spent a lot of time in the States, it's like they're so much more optimistic about sort of like maybe starting a business than people are here. It feels a little bit like here sometimes people will talk about the reasons why not rather than why you should and i do think that i think that needs to change i mean i speak a lot about it right gymshark was the seventh website that i'd made and the previous six failed miserably um but you took something from each of those

49:25Noel Mack:failures which allowed you to kind of i think but people need to know about that and people need to

49:30Ben Francis:talk about that and that's something i'm going to make sure that we talk a lot more about is our failures um so yeah it would be about supporting and try and investing in tomorrow someone told me something i don't know if i was chatting to you about it a while ago jimmy but someone told me that the industrial revolution particularly exploded in the west midlands because the west midlands was the place that was best equipped for it california is the place where the sort of internet revolution has been built and computers and so on personal computing because it's silicon valley and it's where a lot of the silicon chips were made it was best equipped for what was to come so if i was in the government i'd be doing the research into what's to come and making sure that we are the best equipped for that create like fertile ground yeah and where

50:08Noel Mack:do you think that that is you know going to be happening over the next 20 years i mean like the nike story is interesting right in terms of what phil knight did in terms of going to japan right because that is where the innovation was happening in the 60s and 70s that wouldn't be it i mean pre-covid you were doing 50 flights a year around the world where's one of the most exciting places

50:27Ben Francis:you visited geographically where's the one of the most exciting places this is going to be such a crap answer but i still think i always me and i'll talk about a lot the most inspiring place in the world to me is london number one is london number two is new york i think they're so cool because it's such a an incredibly diverse and it's just such an impressive place to be and it's got such incredible history and culture but you also feel like you're at the center of the world when you're in one of those cities. So if you said to me right now, you need to disappear to anywhere in the world for inspiration and like a glance as to what tomorrow might look like, I really do think London will be that place.

51:03Ben Francis:I don't think it's a geo. Like I think it was before. Like where would you go next to start your business? I wouldn't go to anywhere but the place I'd go to would be the internet. I think that in previous years, yeah, there was these real hard borders between countries and you had to fly places to get things done. But I think the internet just melted the borders away. Do you know what I mean? And now if I was trying trying to, you know, again, like Ben said, make the most, let's say it was my kid or my pet project and I'm going to try and make him an entrepreneur. It would be spend all your time on the internet, hang out in forums, read tweets, read Instagram comments, immerse yourself in the culture of the internet.

51:36Ben Francis:Forget the culture of New York or London or whatever else. Hang out on the internet. That's why Ben's sitting here doing what he's done. It's not because I don't, Ben didn't start his business in the UK. Like that's why he doesn't know anybody at Downing Street. Ben started his business on the internet. Walk around Shopify and Ben is a king. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Walk around Downing Street and he's like, who's this kid who printed some t-shirts and delivered pizza yeah i mean i think that was a

51:57Noel Mack:joke but like you know but it's i will come on to information sources almost in a moment but just quickly on that like we do have a section called ducking disasters and you kind of refer to it we've all made the auto correct on iphone and whatever can you think of one particularly from the early days or even recent right of where you did something and you've just thought my god that

52:18Ben Francis:went badly wrong i'm never doing that again oh god i think that happens pretty much every day yeah all this morning oh god well there's a podcast with this guy called jimmy man i do remember so this is going back a fair old way now so we did this is typical gymshark fashion we did and i think i'm i'm to blame for this if i'm honest we did an event and it went really well um it was one of the first events that we did and i think we did another one and it went incredibly well and then we were like okay if we've done one event really well let's do 10 of the things and we spent everything we had on all of these different events around the world and we we did the UK again in Birmingham, Germany, we did Ohio, California, Australia, and we'd also booked on to do an expo in India as well.

52:58Ben Francis:And we'd completely and utterly just bitten off more than we could chew. We couldn't afford it. We didn't have the time. We didn't just understand how to approach it at all. And we ended up having to cancel out of that event. And that was one where I thought, oh God, we'd definitely bitten off more than we could chew there in terms of just oversubscribing ourselves to far too many events. And then again, in the early days, there was a lot of times where we did certainly just i guess take some very very large risks and we were super fortunate that they came off but like you said earlier about the six websites that you started or whatever it was before every one of them informed something else so like i've got a list of fuck ups as long as my arm i could tell you but i wouldn't go back and correct them i wouldn't duck them do you know i mean because they then informed the strategy going forward and sharpened our tool and got us better at what we do now do you know i mean and people always say like jim shark always seems to be able to get it right no we don't we get it wrong all the time but we're like gamblers.

53:47Ben Francis:You only find out about the wins. Do you know what I mean? We don't tell you about all the times we lost. There's 10 things we've tried. Oh, Jim Shah's so great on TikTok. How did you do that? How have you got this mystic ball of social media? We haven't. We tried seven of the social media platforms that we thought were going to be the next big thing and none of them worked and we wasted all that time but when one thing does work it pays dividends 10 times over and all of a sudden all those 10 things you tried before didn't really matter. So don't duck the disasters basically.

54:10Noel Mack:Yeah, exactly. A bit like you and I meeting on Clubhouse in terms of trying to find the next big thing. Just finally then, so you've mentioned information sources there. I think it's really interesting in a world now where so much more information is thrown at it. You know, when I was at school, university, like The Economist was a gateway to a lot of business and kind of like economics news. Where now do you get your information from? And also, have you got a book that you like? I know you've both become quite big readers, which isn't something that at the start of the Gymshark journey you did necessarily.

54:43Noel Mack:Is there a book you particularly recommend?

54:44Ben Francis:Can I admit something? I don't think that's true. What? I don't think we're both big readers. I think I've read a small handful of books and I just talk about them all the time. Yeah. But I think it's really respected in the world if you say, yeah, I'm a big reader and I really like this book. But if we're completely honest, neither of us are big readers. I know we're not. As soon as you started that sentence, the first three places I thought is YouTube, LinkedIn and Reddit. Do you know, and I went to, I went to Archbishop of Banterbury, genuinely. I'm just bait. Like these, these like Instagram pages that, you know, gossip and whatnot.

55:14Ben Francis:Like that's where I keep up with like cultural events 100 that's how i know what's going on with anton joshua and toys and fury at the moment it's through these like instagram meme pages and stuff like that but i think most people on a podcast like this wouldn't admit that and they go yeah you know simon cynic you know start with why i'm a big fan of that but we're not 100 like you you said to me recently that people always reference shoe dog to you and you haven't read it all the way through the first chapter or whatever it is but i i think it's i think it's hard for people to admit that but if we're being honest That's the truth.

55:41Ben Francis:My problem is I have to proper love the book, and then I'll read through it. And there's been a handful that have been amazing. So there's been, let's say, in the last couple of years, five books that I've just thought were absolutely brilliant, but there's been about 20 that I've picked up, and within three pages I've been like, no, this is not for me. So I just go back and... Literally every single day, first thing in the morning, every time I'm eating breakfast, driving to work, I'm listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos, and they're almost always sort of educational.

56:08Noel Mack:All right, okay. Okay, so what are the best YouTube channels? And I don't think people listening to podcasts like this, right? Because Ben just said it there, right? That he listens to podcasts and that's the information flow. And I do, you know, the whole point of this podcast is trying to kind of disseminate the social capital that I've built up, getting to meet people like you and trying to put it out there to a wider audience and realising that jobs of the future, like, are so varied. And you can...

56:33Ben Francis:Well, that's why I said it as well, because I don't want anybody listening, anybody, any budding 16-year-old to think, oh i have to read the legacy book about the all blacks because there's so many of these like clickbait videos out there saying like ceos get up at 5 a.m and they read this book every day and they do an hour worth of running and it's not true like it's just it just sounds good do you know what i mean whereas like the the new alan sugar has been sort of sits here as like doesn't do that stuff do you know i mean so if you are sitting there thinking well i get most of my stuff from instagram or from youtube or from twitter no problem because there are people who've quote unquote made it who do the exact same thing yeah but to give you a question because i know you're looking for an actual recommendation how i built this by guy razz yeah is unbelievable like genuinely unbelievable like i think he's like what you just said disseminating that social capital i think he's doing the exact same thing and being able to hear from the founder brian chesky from airbnb about how that what that journey was like it's crazy insight that like even i get super excited about kevin from instagram right the story between him and his girlfriend where she was annoyed saying oh our friend bobby his photos look really good he's He's like, well, he's a photographer.

57:35Ben Francis:He puts filters and stuff on. He's like, I wish I could put filters on. Instagram. Do you know what I mean? Like, what a story to be able to get that close to. You feel like you're sitting in a room listening to him. So yeah, How I Built This by Guy Raz. And then I'm a big fan of Joe Rogan's podcast. I think he gets some really interesting people on there.

57:49Noel Mack:It is. I mean, that story is the, what changed Airbnb was them getting professional photographers. That changed that whole game because they struggled for a long time as well.

57:59Ben Francis:And the cereal. Do you know what you hear about the cereal?

58:01Noel Mack:Yeah. Obama Rose. How good is that? and the mecanos um and i've now airbnb and what was the other one that we just uh instagram instagram yeah and the filters for instagram that that changed it all is there a moment with gym shark i think you know you put it down to the expo that you kind of went to that was the sort of moment that you know changed everything that was just the culmination of everything we'd done

58:26Ben Francis:previously so that's where we were like we realized that people other people followed the youtubers because at the time matt had the most followers on youtube and he had about 20 000 subscribers which in today's numbers is you know it's not a lot really matt was one of the first influences for us yeah and that was at that point where we were like oh wow so other people want to speak to these people too other people are interested in the product and there's a load of other people that lift because we you just live in your own little world right we went to the same gym every day um so you don't really see much outside of that and that was the point where we realized that we were onto something special and unique.

59:03Yeah.

59:04Noel Mack:Well, look, I cannot wait to see the rest of the story. And thank you so much for both giving up time to explain what it is, because I believe that you're building a great global brand here. And it's amazing to kind of share the story and where people can benefit from it and hopefully come and work here one day as well.

59:19Ben Francis:Absolutely. Thank you for having us. Appreciate it.

59:25Noel Mack:thank you for listening to this episode in the third series of jimmy's jobs of the future word of mouth is everything in the audio world so if you enjoyed this episode please rate us and send us to a friend you can find us at jimmy's jobs on linkedin twitter and instagram You can also check out our website at www.jobsofthefuture.co for our episode archive, blog posts and more. If you are a new listener, do look through our previous episodes. We've interviewed entrepreneurs disrupting industries from fintech to hospitality to modern engineering. So whatever sector you're interested in, there'll be something for you there.

1:00:09Noel Mack:If you'd like to get in touch, please email us at hello at jobsofthefuture.co. Thanks to our producer, Leo Danchak, and thanks to George Dick Cleland for the artwork.

1:00:39Ben Francis:This is a really interesting story. In 1949, 1950, the communist troops came to my province. Because this is the best history podcast you've ever listened to in your entire life? What?

1:00:50Noel Mack:They shot him live in front of the whole village.

1:00:54Ben Francis:My mouth is just hanging open. I can't believe this. And yes, it's sort of based on Billy Joel's song, but it's a history podcast. It tells us all the reasons why the world today is as it is, but it's more.

1:01:06Noel Mack:I killed a cactus recently. My connection to Marilyn.

1:01:11Ben Francis:Walter Winchell.

1:01:11Noel Mack:Don't you love Brando? If there was a movie, it was just Brando's face. I put it on in the background all day. I'd be perfectly happy.

1:01:16Ben Francis:Search for We Didn't Start the Fire. We'll wait for you.

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