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In this first ever episode of Deep Dive, Ali sits down with Ben Francis, the founder and CEO of leading UK Billion-Dollar fitness brand, Gymshark. In the episode Ben and Ali have a candid and in-depth conversation about building a viral brand, self-development and why the age of entrepreneurialism is now.
Dr Ali Abdaal is the world’s most followed productivity expert and author of Feel-Good Productivity, the brand new book that reveals why the secret to productivity isn’t discipline, it’s joy. In his podcast, Deep Dive, Ali sits down with inspiring creators, thinkers, entrepreneurs and high performers to help listeners build lives that they love.
Ali’s cheerful style, positive approach, and well-researched content have made him a trusted voice when it comes to productivity. The internet means that we have access to more knowledge and information than ever before - but it can also be overwhelming. So, Ali and his expert guests focus on simple, scientifically proven, and actionable steps you can take to make real changes in your life.
Ali’s a firm believer that happiness isn’t the result of success - in fact, happiness is the key to success in the first place. Ali made this discovery while working as a doctor in a chaotic hospital ward. In the past, hard work had been the answer to every obstacle in his life. But no amount of hard work was going to combat panic and burnout.
So, Ali dedicated himself to figuring out a new approach to productivity - one that focuses on enjoying the journey and working towards truly meaningful goals. Deep Dive, with its authentic and engaging conversations, will give you all the insights you need to do just that.
Ali Abdaal 0:00
Hello and welcome to the very first episode of deep dive for the brand new podcast that delves into the minds of entrepreneurs, creators and other inspiring people to uncover their journeys towards finding joy and fulfilment at work and in life. My name is Ali and in each episode, I chat to my guests about the philosophies, strategies and tools that have helped them along the path to living a life of happiness and meaning. My very first guest on the podcast is Ben Francis, the founder and CEO of billion dollar fitness brand, Gymshark, which is one of my favourite brands in the world. In our conversation, we discussed his humble beginnings making clothes by hand in a shed with no heating and founding Gymshark,the age of 19.
Ben Francis 0:33
And this was the moment where it hit home because we went from doing 300 pound a day is initium revenue to 30,000 pound in the first half an hour of the website being live.
Ali Abdaal 0:42
How he built a viral brand and tips for getting started with entrepreneurialism. So please feel free to grab a cup of tea and enjoy the conversation. Ben, thank you so much for joining in the apartment, welcome to the podcast to the channel, whatever we're gonna call this.
Ben Francis 0:56
Thank you for having me. I've been watching you for a long, long time. So it's a bit surreal to actually be here. But yeah, thanks for Thanks for having me.
Ali Abdaal 1:02
I mean, that feels very bizarre because I've been following you for a long time as well. I think Gymshark came on my radar about like four years ago, four or five years ago, something like that. I just fell in love with with a clothing line. And then when I saw that, like Gymshark athletes were a thing, it sort of became a thing in my mind that oh, you know, one day I'd love to be a Gymshark athlete, just as a sort of something to work towards. So it feels very surreal that that we're sitting here now having this conversation. I saw something interesting on your on your Wikipedia page when I did a bit of a stock, which said that your very first business was selling licence plates.
Ben Francis 1:35
Yeah, what was the story that so when to when I was a kid, and next door neighbour who's some of my closest friends, basically, my best friend and his dad, they were just massively into cars, number plates, all that sort of stuff for whatever reason. And there was this bit where I think they move into a new style of numberplate, and you could spell names quite easily. And he would basically sell them he would buy and he would sell them. And at the time, because I knew how to make websites and stuff, he sort of came to me, he said, Can you make a website for this? And long story short, we ended up working together on that and selling plates for a few years. And it went quite well. To be fair, it was quite fun. And it was it wasn't like a direct passion of mine is something I just fell into because he couldn't take things online. It was something that I knew about.
Ali Abdaal 2:20
Nice. How did you get started with the website stuff? Initially
Ben Francis 2:25
Oh, so I was really looking. So when I was when I was a kid, I would do my GCSEs and I wasn't particularly great in school. Not that I wasn't I wasn't like a naughty kid or whatever it just it just for whatever reason I didn't he didn't identify with me particularly well. And I probably didn't put enough effort in and then as a result didn't get good enough grades. When I think is 16 when you finish school, yeah, in 16 finishing school. I basically ended up getting into sixth form. But it was under the idea that I did I had to do English literature. There's one a level I did businesses one a level. And they asked me to do English for some reason, cuz I just happened to do well, it was the wallet It was probably the one subject where I didn't have to apply myself to do well, which was weird Business Studies, and I did a B tech in it. Now the B tech and it was life changing for me, because anyone that's that, I mean, I'm not sure how it works now. But the old sort of rule of thumb was a levels was more test oriented, but it was more coursework oriented. And for me, that was quite cool. Because it was like it felt to me at the time, like a practical application of skill. Yeah. So in that one of the modules, you had like your standard modules, but one of them was around web development. And it was really cool for me because it was just a case of make a website and they gave us access to the Adobe Creative Suite. And that was one of the most pivotal life changing moments for me because that's when I ended up learning you had I think you could go down two routes you either made or you made a website and front page and you made a website using Dreamweaver. And he just gave me that basic knowledge of web development but because we got access to the whole Creative Suite I then know how to use Photoshop and Illustrator and all these different things which anyone that's made websites or anything on you know, any sort of digital products will know that you can't just have a website without graphics and know how to make all the different things so yeah, it was through it the betake it which I originally learned how to do things like that.
Ali Abdaal 4:16
Oh, okay, that's really interesting. So my my story is is kind of similar it was it classes in year eight when I saw I saw one of the kids in the year above was was leaving and I saw that he he got the Google homepage need right click to view source and it was all this code floating around Yeah. And I was like oh my god, this is this guy's a hacker I need to I need to understand how this code thing works. And then in ICT classes and then at break times and lunch times because you know all my friends were nerds go to the computer room and I started dabbling in web design as well. You know, started off in front page pirated Dreamweaver pirated Photoshop, back in the day, Photoshop, CS two things like that. But I think it's interesting how a lot of people I've spoken to who've ended up doing entrepreneurial things have started from the I knew how to make websites with front. Is that something that you've seen
Ben Francis 5:06
100%. But it's because you see this in a lot of areas, right? It's because not that many people were doing it. Because I remember because then the next step for me, which I didn't learn in it, but ended up learning myself was was app development. And I sort of it was around 1718 years old, I wanted to go into app development, because no one else was doing app development. So web development was cool. But like, it got to the point where it's almost like, you know, when you start to learn a new skill, you learn a lot really quickly, then you get to a level that it starts to slow down. And it felt like I'd sort of I was at a crossroads, I can either double down on web development, and really try and be great. It felt like everyone was doing it. Or I could try app development. I think it was like the apple SDK, you paid 20, 30, 40 quid a comment what it was you pay the fee, and it basically gives you access to like the SDK, basically. So then I moved on to app. So I think a lot of people did well out of websites, sort of in our era, because not that many people were doing it and there's so much opportunity. And then I think it went to apps. And you know, now it's sort of beyond that even Yeah,
Ali Abdaal 6:04
yeah, I think like, especially with like websites and apps, I think now things like Tick Tock and stuff are where as an individual, if you don't need to ask anyone's permission, you can just make something completely from scratch. Yeah. So nowadays with websites, and they've gone after now, these days, I feel like the kids are less into websites and it just more into content. Yeah. Once you have that confidence that you can make something from nothing, then the ideas start to flow, like licence plates are
Ben Francis 6:31
the thing that fascinated me about the web, right was, and it's still the case, I think, I think a lot of people, a lot of young kids now look at the web apps look at social and they'll think, Oh, it's all been done, everything has been done, no ideas left, whatever. But there's so much opportunity, we'll look back at this period in 10 2030 years, time is like the moment of opportunity, the thing that I loved about the web, or I'll never forget this. So when we first started the gymshark website, we couldn't really get traffic there. But we then found out that we could make 1000s of products in the back end, and call them all these different things. And Google Shopping would index them right at the top of the paid favourite. And it's like, almost like you couldn't do it now. But there's so so many little opportunities like that little hacks probably too, you know, strong word, but those little hacks and tricks that you could do to sort of get ahead. And I still think there's so many opportunities like that on all the different platforms that we're talking about.
Ali Abdaal 7:24
Okay, awesome. So you learn how to website a lot 100 websites with the with the ITV tag, then you started doing the licence plate selling, how did that business go? Like?
Ben Francis 7:35
It was alright, we did it for maybe a year or two. So I did it in that period where I was finished in school and then going into university with a guy's It was fun. It was a good learning experience. It was like, it was basically your typical website, it was just a select selection of pages, which showed stock and then all of the sales will be done on email on the phone. So again, it gives you that understanding of buying things, selling things, having websites, it wasn't a transactional website. You know, understanding deals on the phone, that sort of stuff. So we It was like, it was a great learning curve for me.
Ali Abdaal 8:08
Okay. And then what came next? You said app design came next?
Ben Francis 8:13
Yes so after that it was just make it apps. And I learned everything I know about app design, right? I knew about app design, I wouldn't know where to start out. Everything I knew about app design on YouTube. And I just watched different youtubers never do like tutorials. And the first couple of apps easiest thing I think, to make was like a web browser. It was like, it took like 10-15 minutes to make sort of thing, made a couple of different web browsers. And then this is where I started thinking I sort of built up my skills, and I could do different different things. And I thought, right, how can I How can I actually make this practical, and because by this point, I was really falling in love with the gym and fitness. That's when I thought right, maybe I could make some fitness apps. And again, very, very basic, like nothing extraordinary in any way, shape, or form. But there were apps where you'd sort of go in, and it would have workouts in the app. And then you could go into the conversation hit save this five day split, and it would automatically populate your calendar with with a workout basically, and give you a little reminder to do it. And for me, it was less around, always like the product. But it was me my sort of learning curve. And I had this aim of right, I want to make an app and I want to make an app that I can get live on the store because Apple had albeit fairly low guardrails, but they would definitely double check that the app was sort of robust enough to go on the store. So I really wanted to be able to do that and made two web browsers which was just basic has anything to fitness apps, and he was basically just around getting in shape. How was his university or when was the last year at high school first year? I think it was last year.
Ali Abdaal 9:41
Okau so you're like a full time student doing like, studying and stuff. And then I guess weekends and evenings and school holidays, like messing around on a computer,
Ben Francis 9:50
which was great because like I said, it just felt like you were doing stuff that no one else was doing you were doing something that because I just loved the apple brand. And I would be that kid that would watch all of the keynotes when Steve Jobs would walk out and I was just like, I just adored him and the brand so much. For me, it was like that thing of, I just want to be involved in any way, shape or form. And, you know, you'll know this as well as I do, then you start learning something going to get addictive. And then you start going on the forums, and you get involved in the little communities. And I mean, to this day, I love being involved in all the different communities like from I mean, at the time, it was app development, web development, I was what motorcycles and fitness but yeah, it sort of gave me a little bit of a home as well.
Ali Abdaal 10:29
Wow. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So then, you went to uni, what did you study at uni?
Ben Francis 10:34
So I went to Aston University, and I studied business management.
Ali Abdaal 10:37
Okay. So I'm, I'm considering potentially doing a business degree at some point, maybe like an MBA. And a lot of people have said to me that maybe it's not particularly useful. Because once you've run a business, you learn a lot more about business by running it then by doing a degree. What were your thoughts on on that?
Ben Francis 10:54
Yeah, I think it depends. So we basically what we did at Aston is they have a common first year, I don't know how consistent that is across different universities. And then the the aim of the common version of all business students was to give you a solid grounding on everything. So you did a couple of modules on legals, accountancy modules, finance, maths, business management, all these different things. So I actually think that gave me a great grounding, and it albeit we did make mistakes in the early days, the fact that I knew about trademarks, and how important it was intellectual property and had that basic knowledge, it actually really, really helped me. And I was confident enough in understanding the different sort of classes of trademarks. I was getting trademarked early. And you know, Gymshark. Yeah, so it definitely gave me a basic knowledge. But yeah, I do agree. I think if you are going to run a business, then you are going to eat, I think they're sort of slightly separate, you won't learn the things you would learn starting a business to a degree, but usually vice versa, it because really, in the business, you learn things as you do them. And the problem is, is because you don't know what you don't know, if you don't know that you need trademarks, or strong IP, then you'll never think about it, whereas the business cause will actually give you that ground.
Ali Abdaal 12:01
Yeah. So this is a problem we're having in our business right now. Whereby I've sort of been making making shit up as I went along for the last four years. And, you know, we've we've now got a team of 12 people, and we're trying to hire like five more. And just even thinking, you know, like, what is the Director of Operations was the Director of Marketing like that? Apparently, that's a thing. And I just don't know what I don't know. And it's only when I speak to people who run businesses. And I describe my problems when they say, Oh, yeah, that sounds like you needed a director of marketing. And I guess that's the sort of stuff that you got a kind of reasonable foundation and before before starting.
Ben Francis 12:34
Yeah, 100%. But I would also say that there's like this weird thing of there are there is a conventional way of running a business. And there's a, there was a way that you'll be taught. And that tends to be based on the old school business models. So yes, having a grasp of what a different the different areas of a C suite will do is, is very, very important. But equally, like in your business, you're doing something that really hasn't ever been done at a reasonable scale, like granted is as massive like people, there's huge companies that will do similar sorts of things. But compared to where there'll be in 10-20 years, it's completely...
Ali Abdaal 13:04
Yeah, I guess it's reasonable to make it up.
Ben Francis 13:07
The other thing as well, and I speak about this quite a bit. So I've been really lucky to be around some incredibly inspiring, talented and successful business people like running businesses Far, far larger than Gymshark. And all of them to a degree are winging it, but genuinely all of them. So that, again, is I always think about it, and it hit me in some way. But it hit me when I first walked into the gym, right? I was 1516 years old, and I walked into the gym, and I was trying to do a bicep curl. And I didn't know what I was doing. I felt really self conscious. You know, I it felt like the whole world was looking at me and going Who's that kid messing around with with those weights. But in reality, everyone was sort of working, like worried about themselves. And they were all thinking the same thing. And they some of them were probably looking at me thinking Oh, he knows what he's doing when he doesn't. And it's it's the same in many ways of business. Granted this some incredibly talented people, and they've learned a lot, but anything that's new, everyone is winging it and working out as they go along, even up to the multibillion dollar corporations.
Ali Abdaal 14:04
Yeah. Have you got any examples of like, when you when you realise that that was the thing in the world of business?
Ben Francis 14:12
So basically, gymshark has been built on Shopify since day one, pretty much like we we ended up moving off Shopify, it didn't go very well, we move back. And we've had a an incredible relationship with them for a long, long time. And I'm really fortunate because Harley, who's now president, and he's been he was the Chief Operating Officer for a long, long time at Shopify. There was a guy who ran Shopify plus called Lauren, brief conversations with Toby who founded the business. And the fact that they sort of took us under their wing in many respects, and sort of I would, I would ask Harley questions, and he would be like, you know, I don't know we haven't worked out either. And this is one of the largest, I think this is Canada's biggest company, or one of Canada's biggest companies, like 1000s of employees. Such an inspiring group of people. You know, there's other people that I've spoken to it as well as a good friend of mine called ajaz, who runs it runs a company Like a QA? Again, I would ask him questions and he just like, you can just work it out. So I think there's not this prescriptive rulebook, like, some of the greatest minds in the world might not know the answer to your problems, because they're unique, and they need to be solved in a unique way.
Ali Abdaal 15:14
Yeah. Yeah. I had a similar moment. It was it was a few weeks ago. So we've got we've got a guy on our team. Jakub, who helps out with marketing and stuff. Yeah, I was saying to Jakob, alright, yep. You know, we need this, like, you know, Dream director of marketing, I want to be able to basically say to them that we want to hit 3 million YouTube subscribers next year, and they'll be able to come up with a strategy. Yeah. And he was like, um, I'm not sure they would. Because if you imagine a director of marketing, maybe they've got an MBA or something like that. But he, when he was saying that, like, you know, you as a YouTuber, you know, far more about how to grow on YouTube. And these directors of marketing would be looking to you for how to grow their brands. Yeah. And I was like, Whoa, I just make it up as I go along. He was like, Yeah, but you know, people will literally hire you to be a consultant to tell them how to grow on YouTube, but just again, speaks to that thing that everyone's everyone's figuring it out.
Ben Francis 16:00
True. It's true. And so we have a similar sort of thing where we were looking at marketing, but marketing is, it's so many different things to different people, we've actually moved in a slightly different angle where we'll have like a chief of brand, and then marketing sits elsewhere in the business, because then we would split our organic approach in a more quantitative approach to marketing or like a paid approach. So listen, everyone does things in different ways. And equally, I know companies that have a more conventional model that are wildly successful as well. So I just think what works for you.
Ali Abdaal 16:28
Yeah. And I guess part of it is, I suppose part of it. It's just like the semantics, like, do you call it marketing? Do you call it brand? Yeah. Do you call it strategy? Like for us? It's like, we call it content? Because most of our content is most of our stuff is content. But then do you call it product? Do you call it operations or all this kind of stuff? And I think the boxes do have their place, but also just that recognition that Okay. Does this department belong in operations or belong in marketing? Who cares? Like the point is the research and content ideas?
Ben Francis 16:54
Exactly? Exactly what when you get to the nuts and bolts of it, that's what you need to be thinking about, rather than just the names.
Ali Abdaal 16:59
One thing I'm curious about. I saw your you did a video about Black Friday, I think it was last year where there was a lot of references to how you're working very closely with Shopify. Yeah. And that seemed really interesting to me, because obviously, I've been following Shopify for years. And I know Shopify is I paid $229 a month. Yeah. And I figure it out and doing myself and I messaged their support once in a while. Yeah, but it seems you guys have a much more like integrated, like, what does that look like at Gymshark scale working with a company like Shopify?
Ben Francis 17:26
So the I think one, so we were very culturally aligned with Shopify, the way that gymshark in Shopify works is very, very similar. And there's periods in time where there'll be a group of people from Shopify will fly over from Canada and spend time working in the gymshark office, particularly around Black Friday in sort of sales periods. And you wouldn't know they wouldn't stick out, you know, I mean, it's like everyone's very, very similar, because gymshark has very, very high levels of traffic anyway. And we have super high levels of traffic around timeslot Black Friday, for whatever reason, job becomes super attractive around those sorts of times. I think it's because we tend not to do too many sales. Now, because the spikes are so high. There's been periods in the past where we've broken all of Shopify as records in terms of people jumping on the website in a in a moment. So we basically need people on hand to make sure that the website is running in a robust way, because we've had periods in the past where it has fallen apart and hasn't gone well. Okay, so what will tend to happen? So Black Friday, that's just gone, Shopify will send a group of individuals over and we'll be managing the website live in our office, obviously, there'll be Shopify staff, so they'll have access to all of Shopify systems. And then you'll have the Gymshark guys sort of next to them managing that side of things as
Ali Abdaal 18:33
well. Haha. It's exciting.
Ben Francis 18:36
It's like Mission Control. Yeah, it's incredible just to see all going on, because a lot of the sort of extra things and add ons that we have on to our website, and a lot of even some of our analytics tools in real time will break just due to the amount of traffic that we're that we're receiving in that moment.
Ali Abdaal 18:50
Okay, that's pretty cool. I guess when you get to that level of scale, you're starting to solve these sorts of problems.
Ben Francis 18:55
Its stuff that I never thought we would have to solve for. Yeah, Shopify is such a great platform. That's why it worked for us is they do really support us and help us during those sort of peak periods.
Ali Abdaal 19:06
Nice. Yeah, I actually got an email from one of their marketing people the other day being like, Hey, we want to work with you about entrepreneurship content. And I was like, Yes. That's cool. Sweet. So. So if we go back to kind of you when you were doing the apps around around fitness, yeah. When did gymshark become a thing, like, relative to the app design stuff?
Ben Francis 19:26
So it was 2012 when the company was founded, and the reason it was started was one I wanted a website with that would that would track transact. Before that I've made the basic numberplate website, I did all these different basic apps. I messed around with a few WordPress websites, fitness forums, tried to make a little fitness social network. It was all just a bit messy. It wasn't particularly great. And then it was like, right, I've done all these different things as to a website the trend that will transact that's where I stumbled upon Shopify.
Ali Abdaal 19:54
Shopify right in 2012, but that would have been really early days.
Ben Francis 19:57
It was early days very basic, but it was just it. And it was just a simple solution of transacting online, which is great for us. Now, because essentially, there was, the time wasn't taken up with massive hours on development, then we were really thinking carefully about the product. And I really wanted to be involved in fitness by any way that I could. And at the time, I was massively into supplements, I think anyone that first gets into the gym, you like, look at all the different nutrition, you hear about how important it is. And I went to a mate of mine worked at a local company. And I said to him, I want to stock supplements on the website, what's your minimum order, the minimum order was 8000 pound for supplements. Now, I'd never heard of 8000 pound, let alone seen 8000 pounds at the time I was at Pizza on it was four pounds something an hour, it was just, I wouldn't have been able to afford that. So I sort of sat down and now dissolve the term drop shipping. You know, it's, it's, I think it's a term that a lot of people will understand. And for those of you that don't, it's basically you don't hold stock, someone orders from you. And basically, you act as a middleman, someone else ships out to the customer. Now, at the time, I'd never heard of drop shipping, but I had this sort of idea of, Okay, so I've got limited knowledge of a website. And I know around how Google works, I know that I want a large website, I want it to be broad, I want a vast product array, I want lots of pages, I want it to index while in Google. It's brand new, it's it's not gonna be seen otherwise. So what I did was I dropped shipped loads of supplements when the gym shot website filled up with loads and loads of supplements wasn't making great margin, but it was again, if we're looking back to the bar that was set the very low bar of I want to be involved in fitness. And I want to I want a website that transacts so it sort of filled that right even though we didn't own the stock, did that for a while and took a few months got a sale for sale. I was dancing around my bedroom like it was the best feeling ever
Ali Abdaal 21:40
First sale as in someone bought a supplement?
Ben Francis 21:43
a few months took about two months. I'd sort of is at the point where like you almost forget about it. It's really in the background. I think we were paying trouble via a few quid a month, the domain costed me domain cost me £3.50 whatever sort of my investment costs would have. Yeah, 20 quid round numbers has a guess. So you sort of forget about it. Got the sound I was just buzzing It was a 50 pound sale and we made two pounds profit on it. But it was a sale. I did that kept going started to get the odd sale like a sale every week and so on. And basically I bought a tank because I was obsessed with bodybuilding. I wanted to be on sort of realised I was never going to be a footballer, I wanted to be a bodybuilder. So I bought this tank online like an Arnold Schwarzenegger style stringer tank and it just completely drowned me basically fell through the middle of it because it was built for a big bodybuilder, not sort of someone like me with more of a slender frame. So at that point, I thought right I would love for us just to make our own clothing because no one makes the clothing that we want. Conveniently My name was doing a curtains cause my mom knew how to sew local lad knew how to screen print. So saved up for a screen print error. So machine and started to have made the clothes from there.
Ali Abdaal 22:53
So you went from supplements to clothes? Yes. Because you saw a problem that you wanted as clothing a certain way, like a selfish problem,
Ben Francis 23:00
right? Yeah, I wanted this stringer. I looked terrible in it. I was looking around online, no one was making the product that we wanted. So we did it. And it was at that weird time, right where I loved the California bodybuilding aesthetic. A lot of the American product just wasn't really coming over to the UK and that was it didn't fit in the way that we wanted things over in Europe in the UK were starting to get a lot more fitted and tapered it was that you know, top men to for 10 pound era when everyone wore skinny jeans a little tight tops. So it was like that weird morphing of, okay, so I want to be able to look like a bodybuilder but I just haven't got the size. This was like the fashion over here. So all of a sudden, the idea came, how great would it be to make fitness wear that would really accentuate your physique and tape it tape yourself. And that's when we started to make the clothes. Okay.
Ali Abdaal 23:46
So what was the trajectory then who started making the clothes when when did things start to really take off, I
Ben Francis 23:51
would guess 2015. Okay, about 2015 to about three years in. And that was when we did our first body power, our first event, basically, and that was the trigger point where all of a sudden, it went from being this thing that I did from 10pm to 1am to I'm now going all in on this, okay. And it was it was around that first event that we did a webinar, that first event so so as a kid, so about 20 minutes where I grew up just the burning of any seat, it's a large event space. And every year they would do an event called body power. So my heroes, these American lifters bodybuilders, they would all fly in everyone have a have a huge fitness event once a year. So I would go as a kid, and the one year that we went, which would have been 2014 I believe 2013 2014 and I was walking around and Gymshark existed and this time it was it was sort of dropship and supplements were in that bit where I'm about to buy the screen printer and sewing machine. And I'm walking around. I'm just thinking gymshark has to be here like, which was mental because we had no stock at the time. There was no physical manifestation of gymshark and I just had this gut wrenching feeling that we had to be here by any means. necessary. So I'm walking around, and I'll never forget it. So I'm in a bit of a rush because I'm there on the day. And I know I've got my pizza that shift at five and it was coming to like three o'clock, I'm thinking, right, I need to sort of make an action here and do something cuz I need to get to work. And I've gone to the show office. And funnily enough, the guy that runs it, who's now a friend of mine, called Ollie was Steve as well, he would there. And it just said, right want to stand cheapest, and you can get give me a stand, I want to be next year, what's the price and it was three grand. Again, three grand was a hell of a lot of money. But now it was more reasonable that within 12 months, I could earn 3000 pounds. As I got the job. gymshark was starting to get a few sales. It wasn't crazy. So there and then booked into the stand, followed it up on email, got it go in. And over the next year gymshark started, we started making the clothes, we started getting regular sales, we actually started to become a profitable business. So upgraded the stand, started to work more closely with some of my heroes who were YouTubers. And we basically brought those guys to this event. So we'd we'd stumbled upon the marketing mix that many online people use today, right we'd, we'd had a product that was only available at this event, we'd accidentally built scarcity because we turn the website off while we were there. Not through a strategic decision. But but because because we weren't making the clothes, we had to turn the website off because it was people might order and not get them sent. We flew these youtubers in who were, again, not strategic, just our heroes not really wanting to meet them. And then we would go to this event and we were starting to build a community because at the end of each day, we would just go and lift down the road in Ironworks in Birmingham and just get a lift in with, you know, me, my friends, the athletes, the local fans. And we were building this community. So as we were doing this lifting and whatnot, people were taking pictures, they will put it on Facebook and the brand started to go viral without us really knowing. So the event went incredibly well, we completely sold out of everything. And then after the event turned the website back on. And this was the moment where it hit home because we went from doing 300 pound a day, his initial revenue to 30,000 pound in the first half an hour of the website being live. And he just went It was like boom, overnight. And going back to that, like the website, everything was set to infinite stock because we would never get enough sales to ever triple the scoreboard. Yeah, so I'm there at one o'clock in the morning scrambling on my laptop trying to turn all the stock to zero to cancel everything cut off, because we were just getting so many sales. And there was a point where everything's out of stock on the website have close my laptop, It's one o'clock in the morning. Yeah, 30 grands worth of outstanding sales. And that was a moment where I was like, wow, I'm onto something here, something's something is really going to, like kick off with this company.
Ali Abdaal 27:38
What does that feel like? Like, can you remember the kind of your thoughts and feelings at the time as like this sort of your 100xing, basically overnight.
Ben Francis 27:46
So that was the period where sort of like I dropped out of uni, like the week before? You know, I was I was starting to really dig into I felt like I was then taken albeit not massive, I didn't feel like massive financial risk will be you know, the standard cost everything that we had to fly the YouTubes over everything we had we'd we'd risked everything we had several times. But it was I just felt really excited about it. And the thing that we did well, which I'm really proud of, is we didn't rest at that point, we did one great event. So then the next year we did to the next year, we did five and we just went and went and went and we kept spending everything we had on pumps that we thought might come off. But stuff that I got told us was the right thing to do.
Ali Abdaal 28:31
So between let's say 2013 and 2015. Like before this event, how were people finding the supplements and the clothing? Like what sort of marketing if any way you guys think okay,
Ben Francis 28:42
so Facebook was massive at the time, YouTube and Google were the main three things. So it was the whole Google Shopping thing was massive for us. There was a change where all of a sudden, you had to pay for your spot and Google Shopping which sort of affected us but it's sort of like a bit of an evolve or die moment. So then that was the point where we actually started getting involved with a little bit paid advertising. Facebook, Instagram wasn't really a thing. So yeah, Facebook, YouTube and Google, Facebook is in Facebook groups or Facebook ads, like what Facebook pages was changes. Oh, it wasn't like a shop page, which everyone would comment on. And yeah, I mean, we ended up building up to well over a million followers, which at the time was just yeah. And that was back in 2015 2016.
Ali Abdaal 29:24
Okay. I don't know YouTube wasn't a thing of like sending product to people. And
Ben Francis 29:28
so we didn't we've not really done too much on YouTube and at the time, so it was going back to my heroes that it was those guys that were great YouTubers, as a great YouTube as Matt, who was the biggest at the time and 20,000 subs, which by today's numbers are quite small. There are heroes they're uploading regularly on YouTube, I would love I remember thinking like Lex Gryphon, who's one of the first athletes. He lives up in Manchester. I remember thinking I'd love Lex to try and add our top try and our tank and give us some feedback. Yeah. And then he just happened to wear it on YouTube. And that's where I think He really kicked off for us
Ali Abdaal 30:01
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Ben Francis 31:11
Yeah I ended up quitting Pizza Hut around around the event around the event when things really started to take off. Yeah, and I quit beat University around the same time so it was a little bit like I remember my mom, my mom and dad being a little bit like he shows you what to do and it's like yeah, I'm gonna give it a go.
Ali Abdaal 31:27
So what one of the questions I get all the time and I know you've you've recently done a video about this is like how do you have time to do all these things? So you know, early days of Gymshark, you're running this business on the side working at Pizza Hut you're at uni like what was your What was your time management looking like at the time?
Ben Francis 31:43
Oh, I do want to say so my time management then and now are vastly different just completely different. So back then it was University which I mean universe University it's like it's not like a solid nine to five is it like you'll have busier days and quieter day so basically University in the day Peter shifts would always be 10 five till 10 normally half 10 latest 11 by the time you sort of washed up because as a driver you do the pot wash when you're in the in the building and then it would be 10 or 11 onwards I would work on Gymshark now I stream charts started to grow we'd have live charts emails and stuff so pizza was great for me because I could do a delivery than sit my car responded to other emails and carry on so I'm doing two things at the same time and that was that period where I think it was the iPhone 3g s i think it was my first iPhone and I got my hands on one and I'm like buzzing because I can literally work on the go so I was like always doing two jobs at once whilst I was at Pizza, which was absolutely brilliant for me.
Ali Abdaal 32:39
Nice. And what is your time management look like now?
Ben Francis 32:42
credibly well. Just scheduled organised everything down to the second I guess it's it's actually really calling for me at the start. It was really difficult to get used to because I just loved the whole thing of doing whatever the hell I want when I wanted to do it. But now I've learned to be really disciplined. And essentially because I am horrifically unorganised, essentially outsourcing that to people who are incredibly well organised and absolutely loved doing that sort of stuff. It's great for me because I, I basically wake up and it's like a set of train tracks, right? Every minute pretty much from seven or eight in the morning tends to be planned till seven or eight on the evening.
Ali Abdaal 33:18
So what does that look like on a standard day? Like, what are the day in the life I
Ben Francis 33:22
vary so much, it's well different now, because I'm not travelling. So it's actually really, it's simple, because it's like, there's one moving part was before moving around. We've got offices in Hong Kong, Mauritius Denver, events that we would do all over the world it was it was manic. Now it would be I'd usually, I usually try and get into the office around seven, half, seven, basically just meetings throughout, it could be there'll be a particular day, for example, with one on ones in the teams or people that I've worked directly with, there'll be certain projects that I'm working on, and then we may be on, there'll be certain days allocated to those things. Once a week, or every other week, I'll be in London. So they'll sort of batch up the London meetings and all the London meetings on a particular day, I'll get involved with all sorts of different things, whether it's, you know, content on my YouTube, the only thing I would say is now it's changed because I moved into a CEO role. So I'm now just one step slightly more removed, whereas previously, it would be product and or brand, whereas now I'm chatting with the people that are doing those things, which is again, just a slightly different thing to get used.
Ali Abdaal 34:21
Okay, I will go back to the CEO thing a bit, because I really want to kind of explore that. So going back to sort of imagining to kind of 2014 2015 before the NBC show, what did the team look like, at Gymshark ?
Ben Francis 34:36
Oh, there was myself and Lewis who started the business there was my brother. So with around 2015 I think it was my brother. So my brother was the first employee and the whole thing of Joe joining the business was we're at the event we need someone back at the back of the the ranch to sort of manage the stock and then that was it really like a few friends ended up Join in, I'm doing, you know, bits here and there. But it was just everyone would just get involved in everything. Like, if there was a busy day, we would jump on customer service, like everyone would finish the end of the day, sat in a circle on their laptops, and they would answer customer queries to really varied. Just remember, by the way, it was 2012 no 2015 that we did our first event of our 2013. So it was around that sort of error. Okay, apply.
Ali Abdaal 34:36
So you have sort of a team of maybe three or four people?
Ben Francis 34:42
Yeah, so it was in that first event, it was one, two or three. And then as it developed, then it was like, Okay, and then we started to invest more in the warehouse, because we had our own warehouse and we would ship our own product, then people would basically manage customer service and deliveries and stuff.
Ali Abdaal 35:39
At what point did you get the warehouse like that must been a big expense. Y
Ben Francis 35:41
Yeah so 2012 2013, just before that first event, that was when we got like a shed, basically. Okay. So it was it was actually not not particularly great. It was it was a shed on an industrial estate. And I didn't realise until about three or four months, and the whole thing was built out of asbestos. And like the bloke next door, like this lovely lad, like 80 years old, he was he was just like drilling through the walls through the asbestos walls and all our specialists was just flaking everywhere. So that's probably not great for my health. So it was an old asbestos shed in the middle of nowhere on an industrial estate, and it cost us about 300 quid a month, I think 250 300 quid a month. Okay, then after that, we ended up going into a more professional sort of place we went from that was 300 square feet. And then the next one, we actually upgraded to three a 3000 square foot warehouse. And what was great about that is it had a small room, at the front of it with a radiator and, and if anyone's work worked in like a shed through the winter, it was ice cold to have a radio, it was amazing. Because what we used to have to do, we'd have the front door of our old shed, we leave the door open, and we'd stick a diesel ceiling heater in there. So you go over next door, you get your diesel from the pump, and you basically you'd fill it up and then it would just blast heat in there. But again, sat in an especial shed, with a diesel heater blowing at you is not the most exciting way of spending your late teenager years early 20s. So I have a radiator was game change
Ali Abdaal 37:05
radio to the game changer. Right. And I guess you already made making the cloth. Yes. Like hand making? Yeah. So I guess, like cutting it up into this.
Ben Francis 37:14
So the sewing would be done at home, essentially. And then we would print generally at the the other one you call it warehouse.
Ali Abdaal 37:22
Wow. Okay. So when you're in those early days, and you're investing in things like the radiator, the warehouse and stuff, yes. What's going through your mind in terms of like the profitability of this, like?
Ben Francis 37:34
Don't think about anything like that. didn't think I had no idea how to pay taxes, I had no idea about finances. All we knew was more was coming in than was going out. Okay. And everything beyond that is just what at the time it was fluff. Clearly now that's not the case. But it was everything was purely instinctive everything at the start.
Ali Abdaal 37:54
So you start off with like a band of band brothers, like a handful of people in a shed. Yeah, a radiator is a game changing expensive, Game Changing addition to the business. And now Gymshark is a billion plus dollar company. You're the new CEO there. How many employees do you do? You
Ben Francis 38:11
know, we just over 700 700
Ali Abdaal 38:14
do you sell all over the world with offices all over all around the world. That's got to feel pretty wild to like,
Ben Francis 38:20
honestly, I still walk into the HQ. It's gorgeous HQ. And there's the sort of the big logo on the front over the road, we've got our lifting club, I've got like a gym manufacturing facility studios, I do walk in and like, I do still get goosebumps, because it's, it's such an amazing place. And there's a pause, like you've got a visit because as soon as you walk in the door, there's a buzz there and everyone's lovely, everyone's pulling in the same direction. Everyone really understands why we do what we do. Everyone stands the area that they sort of fit in with that sort of wider plan. It's It's such a lovely place to be.
Ali Abdaal 38:53
So it's interesting you say that, like everyone's pulling in the same direction. Because I think I feel like, this is an issue were having as we expanded from three people to 12 people, whereby I'm now having starting to do things like defining our vision. And where do we want to be an X number of years and KPIs and goals and all this stuff that in the past, I would have thought this is all just corporate bullshit. Like, who cares about any of that? Presumably, like, like, what was your journey through kind of being more business about it?
Ben Francis 39:22
So, what you're going through. Yeah, so we did that I used to hate the word corporate. And you're going through from reading between the lines, what I actually think is the most difficult change, I think this is one of the most difficult things for any entrepreneurial business person. And by the way, you're not even owning your own business. If you're running or working in a great business. It's so difficult to sort of distribute that control. And I think those that can do that, then after that, it's not plain sailing. But if you've then done that, it's like, you know, it's like a muscle memory. Right? If you continue to that, I think scaling becomes so much easier. I'll give you so my sort of breakdown. I sort of break it down into three areas, and I think every great business person needs to reinvent themselves. Over and over again. So you can't become too like, tied in or emotionally attached to sort of, say who you are in many respects. So, at the start, I found, I had a great creative vision, I didn't exist, I had a great idea of where I wanted us to be. And I, I felt like I dragged the business to where I wanted us to be. And that sounds a bit sort of direct. But you know, it could be having a great creative vision, it could be great at knowing product, it could be great at whatever it is, but you because you tend to be a one man band, or there's not many people involved. You just do what the hell you want, when you want. And it's very instinctive. Now, you'll then get to a stage where you've got people around you, it might be five people, it might be 10 people, it might be 30 people. And an instinctive way of running things is still great. But you can't just do things on a whim because you fancy it, you have to then learn to work in a team. And I don't mean when I say no team, I mean, you are part of the team. And anyone that's managed a team knows that the team doesn't work for you, you work for them. And you need to make sure that you're really understanding how to work with each different type of people's person. So some people will love to be organised. And they will love lots of different catch ups. And you know, some people will be highly creative, some people will be highly logical. Some people you'll have to spend six weeks trying to buy them into a new day a new idea, some people have to spend six seconds I need to about learning how to work with all the different people. So you've gone from dragging the business to where you wanted it to be how learning to work with new people. And then that's it sounds like to a degree, what you're going through slash the next stage, which is like, okay, you don't want to work with people. How do we galvanise them around a vision or a mission? How do we make them understand where they fit in with? How do we make them understand that? You know, the team that we're working with touchwood is greater than the sum of its parts? and really understanding how to articulate yourself and your vision and essentially learn how to inspire people. I think that's, again, it's very tough. And I hear people a lot of the time saying like, Oh, you know, one facet of their personality. I just mean what am I like? I'm a bit unorganised? Well, when you're at that level, there's not an there's no excuse for being an organised like, Yes, I am an organised, but you do something about it, you either fix it yourself, or you build the team in a way that negates that weakness. Does that make sense? It's, I think it gets a bit more serious at that point. And you have to learn new skills. And that's why I love the job so much and feel like I've got the best job in the world because you're constantly learning new things and constantly reinventing yourself. It sounds like that's what you're going through now. But yeah,
Ali Abdaal 42:31
it seems like a real a real shift in where my default used to be. I want to do something, alright, I'll do it. Now. It's like, I want to do something, okay. Let's figure out why I want to do this thing. Let's figure out like what the actual like what good looks like the guy who I can give this project to, let's give them ownership over it in a way that they'll feel more motivated to do it. Let me kind of get out of the way and be there to kind of consult them if they needed, but not like step on their toes too much.
Ben Francis 42:55
And you know, the most exciting thing about that period is right, you'll have it there'll be there'll be a few things that will happen. And it happened to me, someone to do something, you'll trust them with it, they'll do it poorly, and it will break your heart. But someone will do something that you didn't think was the right thing to do. And it will be infinitely better than any ideas that you would have come up with. And that is one of the most fulfilling and incredible experiences ever. Because then you're like, Okay, now we're a team.
Ali Abdaal 43:19
Yes, yeah, I've had that I've had that. I've had that a few times. I often describe this feeling when, because I teach people how to be how to be part time YouTubers, and one of the things I'm very bullish on is to outsource editing, ASAP. And everyone is very resistant. Oh, but I like editing. I like doing it myself, I I enjoy spending 20 hours a week doing my editing. And I'm like, because the moment you outsource editing, like just that feeling when you upload raw footage of yourself mumbling through a video on Google Drive. And the next day you get back an edited video. And it's actually really good. It's just like blows your mind or anything. Oh my god, like I've just like my whole world is now open. And I guess what you're describing is that at scale, when you have a team that can execute stuff
Ben Francis 44:01
Exactly. And I love it. I love working with so many different types of people. And there was a there was a point A few years ago, basically when I, I moved into a role as the Chief Marketing Officer at gymshark. In Chief Marketing, the time is all your quantitative market, and it was all your social media. And it was all data. I remember going into this role thinking, love marketing, love social media. Not a clue where to start with data. And to be honest, it sounds a bit boring. But I ended up working with a data team. And that ended up being the team I loved working with the most because they would run rings around me at the start. And like I would come in with all my stupid, irrational ideas that just made no sense and would have flopped instantly. And they would challenge me and it made me a better person and in terms of sharpening up my ideas and my concepts. But equally it meant I learned the power of what they do and you know the validity of it. So it was massively fulfilling to me to work with a team that I didn't expect to enjoy working with or be good at working with. And to be able to do that.
Ali Abdaal 44:57
Nice. So when you're when you the kind offounder of the business and like the owner of the business, how did you kind of get to that point where your role was Chief Marketing Officer rather than straight to CEO, like, what was what was going through my day.
Ben Francis 45:10
So we we started, the business grew rapidly, right, we went for I mean, we've gone from bedroom to half a billion dollar revenue in eight years, I think it was, it was like, rapid, rapid growth. So during that growth period, it becomes very evident that things start breaking if you don't have great people to manage things. So we what we started to do was we built essentially a chiefs team of individuals that manage and run the different areas of the business, our Chief Product officer, Chief brand officer, you know, people finance all these different things. And it's just through necessity, it's less of a case of Listen, I think, I huge applause to a business that can see ahead and build that team out in front of themselves. We were just at the point of we need strength in this business, otherwise, things are gonna fail.
Ali Abdaal 45:58
Okay. And so when you were bringing people on, you were bringing on like C level people, for like, executive roles, and for the people in HR and finance, and legal and the whole shebang. And we
Ben Francis 46:07
were and it was a balance, right. So some people we were bringing in with brilliant experience. And then we're also identifying great people in the business that were hugely devoted to the business incredibly intelligent and competent, that would then basically be able to make that leap up to that level as well. So there's a brilliant blend of sort of experience and an experience in that team as well.
Ali Abdaal 46:27
How did you because I guess you were the one doing the hiring initially. Yes. How did you get so-, this is a problem I'm having, like, how do you hire for a role that you don't have experience in where you're trying to hire someone who is like, good, good at that rock? If you get what I mean?
Ben Francis 46:44
Yeah, so we, I was really lucky. So I so our sort of current sort of out moving CEO, Steve, he joined the business purely on gut instinct, as it felt like he was the right person to be in the business. And conveniently, he was brilliant at all the things that I was bad at. So that one higher than allowed, every other hiring finance ops logistics, or the back end of the business, then went through him rather than the front end ones went remain. So it was like, one solve for everything beyond that, which was massive.
Ali Abdaal 47:18
So we like what were you looking for when you hired Steve? And what's his role initially,
Ben Francis 47:23
so I wanted someone that would basically help. We're gonna say professionalise the business school time, it was just there was no hierarchy, no structure, a group of people that, you know, went and did a bit of brand on the morning, but a social media event here and there package on the event under emails and go to bed. It was it was he just Carnage and chaos, as I think all businesses are in the early days, and then he came in, and he had genuine corporate experience. However, it didn't come across, like corporate experience. He wasn't like, you know, your typical corporate guys suited and booted sort of thing he'd worked in in Reebok. But he also, even though he didn't understand social media, particularly well, he understand the PAP understood the power of brand and growing a robust business, and a great brand. So we sort of got comfortable with him. And he ended up doing I think it was a day, a month, in two days, a month and three days a month. And it was a very organic sort of shift into him joining the business full time.
Ali Abdaal 48:18
So you started off with like a coach consultant. Yeah, exactly. That's
Ben Francis 48:20
it wasn't like, boom, you're in the business every single day. And that really, really helped us because it allowed us to get comfortable with him, him to get comfortable with us. And just to get to know one another.
Ali Abdaal 48:30
Oh, interesting. Yeah, cuz I've got a couple of kind of business coaches type people now who are mentors have been doing this for a few years. And I meet with them maybe once every other week. And every time I talk to them, it's like, oh, my mind getting blown by Yeah, just all of this stuff that all of the unknown unknowns, I just didn't realise. Things like, you know, restructuring our organisational chart and how when you have, you know, there was a time, I think it was about two weeks ago, where I was, I was chatting to this guy's name for him. And I was like, yeah, at the moment, this what the business looks like, looks like this. And it just felt felt a bit like a bit of chaos. And within about half an hour, he just asked a lot of questions. And we kind of on that whiteboard over there, and just like dropped it out to this structure, which just made so much sense and brought so much clarity. I was like, I can't believe how much clarity I've now got in my mind from just drawing this diagram on a board.
Ben Francis 49:19
So it makes such a difference. But you'll find like, if when you work with genuinely brilliant people like that they they revolutionise like, teams, businesses, brands, everything, like so many people talk about all the different nuts and bolts of businesses and brands, but ultimately, is literally just people it comes down to people and it's so important that you understand how to work with people, and you know, work with great people. I am similarly I was chatting to someone the other week, and I was talking about that he was he worked with one of the most successful business people who have sort of like my parents generation, and I just said, what do they do in a sentence like, cut all the bullshit or the one sentence what do they do really well, and they said, they attracted great people. And then left them alone. I just thought that was so cool. And I think you know, in its most simplistic form, that's what any great entrepreneurial business person does. And they do it in different ways. So some people attract through insane levels of competency. Some people do it through charisma, some people do it for being an incredible creative or an incredible organiser or all these different things. But ultimately, it just does come down to that.
Ali Abdaal 50:22
Nice. Okay, so you were a Chief Marketing Officer for how long?
Ben Francis 50:26
God? I don't know. I haven't got a clue. Two years. Okay.
Ali Abdaal 50:30
What was your role before then?
Ben Francis 50:32
So I did chief of brand. Yeah, then I came out a brand new guy called no did it then I sort of, I moved around a mess around with product for a little bit. And that was, that was a great period for me, because that was where I was like, really in the nuts and bolts, and I didn't actually have a job. And I'll never forget this, we wanted to, there was a particular product that we wanted to make. And I was typically I'm quite impatient. And it was a case of like, you can either wait for these guys for six weeks to make it or we can jump on a plane, fly over to Istanbul, spend a week in Istanbul sit in the factories and make it to fucking right, I'm doing that, you know, I mean, so it was like that sort of really impulsive role, product brand moving around events. I then went from that into the chief marketing role. Marketing was great, because I worked all with social, which I had done. Anyway, I've worked with a data team and really understood data. And then I went from there into a ditch Chief Product officer for a little bit, a little bit of work in tech. And this is where I am today.
Ali Abdaal 51:28
So when you're like, this is your company. Right? So do you, are you applying for the position of cmo? are you just saying, Steve, I want to be seen, but like, what does that look like?
Ben Francis 51:38
Yeah, so it depends. So some of them. So cmo, I was I was definitely the right person for the role. I went into product out of necessity, I wasn't like I mean, in terms of immediately available, basically found someone we did the whole interview process, we found someone who was brilliant, but they had like a really long period of time before they could join the business. So it was, it was like, it was like a 12 month period, basically where no one does the role. Or I do the role. So it was more out of necessity, marketing a brand. It was like it was my bag product. And then my limited time in tech, it was more out of necessity if I'm honest. Okay.
Ali Abdaal 52:14
And then so this transition for you now being CEO. What's, what's the story there? What's that? What's that been like, so
Ben Francis 52:20
far, been amazing. So two years ago, Steve mentioned to me that he thought Gymshark needed a different type of CEO to take it to that next level. And at the time, I didn't think he was right now I do. So he's got great foresight there. So I then spent two years working as best I could to get into a position where I was the right CEO. Because again, Steve, Steve would basically say, like you need to be, he genuinely thought I was the right person, and competent enough to do the role. But I needed to really prove it. And the alternative was to hire someone else. Now, fortunately, I got to the level of being able to do the role. So two years of making sure I could speak publicly towards the camera, understand the profit and loss properly understand, you know, long term strategic decisions and working with teams and all that sort of stuff, which, again, go into the different chiefs roles I've done, it gave me incredible grounding across the business, which really helped. And then more recently, the sort of official transition started may 1, and it completes August 1. And we're, we're what, July now may or July, so I'm about two or three weeks away from like officially completing that handover.
Ali Abdaal 53:26
So two years worth of kind of like training to be the CEO?
Ben Francis 53:30
Yes, I've like every single day, like writing a list of things I need to do. Working towards the wallpaper on my phone, we're talking about the things I need to get better, just every single day working towards that. I guess, like weirdly, not having not been able to tell anyone, which is really weird. So not really wanting telling one either.
Ali Abdaal 53:49
Why didn't you want to tell anyone?
Ben Francis 53:52
So listen, I'm more than happy to talk about my ambition, usually, but the CEO want I didn't want people to go oh ventures going to get it because he wants it. So it was it was literally a case of this is Steve's decision is solely Steve's decision. So I didn't want that to be you know, out there as it were, I wanted to always like work on my craft in silence and, and then almost people then almost be going, then you should be doing that wrong, rather than me telling them
Ali Abdaal 54:16
okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I guess it you, you must care about the brand, a lot to not put yourself in that position just by default. And knowing that you've got all these weaknesses and weaknesses that you want to work on. Yes.
Ben Francis 54:29
Well, clearly, it's my baby I love it more than anything, yeah
Ali Abdaal 54:33
Thyat's the thing that I was, I was most intrigued by when when I first started stalking you a few years ago. So like, I would have just assumed you were the CEO. But now I think that I've got a bit more experience in business and like, I wouldn't want to be a CEO right now, because I know that it would just be an absolute stranger.
Ben Francis 54:49
And it's like, so this is the thing. I talk about this a lot, right? So Steve came in and he was the best person to be the CEO. So anyone that has an interest in self development, jump at this channel, Because usually there's a decision where you focus on your strengths, or you work on your weaknesses. And it's, it's very difficult to do both in like, in like an efficient way, because Steve was so good at all my weaknesses and running the business, I could focus on my strengths, and then have a go at my weaknesses when I want, knowing that Steve would basically fix anything that I wasn't good enough. So I could, you know, Steve would do a lot of the all of the profit and loss work, but then I could just mess around and ask questions and learn as I go. So the best way I liken it to is like, I could focus on my strengths and my weaknesses, I could just keep taking the same exam again and again and again until I got the grade that I wanted. Because I could just try again, fail try fail, try fail, try fail.
Ali Abdaal 55:44
Yeah, cuz I think like, right now, one of the things I'm struggling with in the business is this thing of, do we hire people with experience, because right now, our team is very young, where it's like, and I've kind of brought brought them on for, in that, apart from I think, apart from Christian, our editor, like, no one on the team is like, I think better than me at doing the thing, because it's like, I've, I was doing the thing initially, and then I delegated to them. And that was sort of out of necessity at the start when we didn't have much money and not much revenue coming in. And so you have to kind of get people on the cheap as well, like at entry level positions. Yeah. But now that we're a bit more profitable, it's a thing of what my business coach says is, you really want to hire, for example, a managing director or like a marketing director or director operations, who has 510 years experience, because you won't know what that is like. But when you have the right person there, it will just be like such a breath of fresh air
Ben Francis 56:39
you want you want your I'm a firm believer, you want the opposite, true, you want everyone in their respective area to be better than you are. And you just amalgamate those people and you know, look at longer term strategies and visions, and, you know, be able to cohesive team, okay, but like, if you're the best editor in the business, then the business is only as scalable as you are, if you're the best. You're I mean, you need to be able to really think about
Ali Abdaal 56:59
And then when it comes to, like, let's say we would bring someone in with experience, and they would sort of come in at a level above other people who've been in the business for the last two years, how do you deal with that, like it was that like, weird, very difficult,
Ben Francis 57:11
very difficult, because what tends to happen as well is like, people will come in, and they'll be there from the start. And that's an incredible thing to do. And some of them will be able to grow with the business and some of the world and it's not a you know, it's not negative or positive on them. It's just the way it is. And like, reading between the lines, it sounds like your your business is, is elevating itself up a level, and anyone that's into football, will know that teams to get promoted in the championship for the Premiership generally try and hold on to the spine of the team and the core of the team. But ultimately, there's a lot of changes that have to happen for that team to then succeed in the champ in the Premier League, it's very rare, a championship team gets to go to the Premiership and succeed by maintaining the same team. So it sounds like you're almost championship to the Premier League, and you need to although it's not experienced doesn't necessarily mean competency. So I wouldn't sort of I try and separate those two things. And sometimes experience in certain areas can actually be a negative, because then if they've done or someone's done something in a particular way, for a prolonged period of time, it can be often very difficult and time consuming to try and move them out of their set ways. So I would be cautious about that. But ultimately, you need to understand like, I don't know, pick five key facet to the business. And then you need individuals that are better than you and every single one of those facets. And by the way, takes a long time. And it's very difficult. It's heartbreaking. It's gut wrenching, it's filled with horrible conversations you will never want to have here. But if you managed to do it, you as an individual will be incredible, incredibly competent, and brilliant as so many different things. And the business and the team will be greater than the sum of its parts.
Ali Abdaal 58:50
Nice. Okay, yeah, that's it, right. So one thing I was gonna ask you about, like you often hear, for example, tennis players that win Wimbledon at the age of 23. And now they've like made it and now there's no like, they kind of get a bit depressed because, you know, that's the pinnacle. What more do you go for? Do you feel like you're in the position of having won Wimbledon at 23?
Ben Francis 59:09
I was really scared of that. Like, no, no would have liked I was really scared because what we did when we when we, when we did this deal in general Atlantic came in and help tidy up the shareholding I did I essentially I earn, you know, I earn good money, and I've done okay, and I earn really good money now. And I was scared that Okay, so there is a point now, I'm at a point now where I'm gonna be completely candid. I don't know. I mean, I don't need to worry. I could comfortably retire happily. And I was really scared of when that happened, that I would lose the hunger genuinely. And I was really open minded with myself that I would react accordingly to however I felt, but I am absolutely buzzing, that I'm more hungry now than I've ever been to the point where I have to really carefully control the amount of work that I take on because I'm still prone I will just take on the word take on the word take on the work. And like genuinely I was I was worried about that. Why do you think it is that you're more hungry anymore? No idea? I think no. So first and foremost, I do think it might not be. But it could be something to do with it being in a grandparents run their own business, my parents is so ridiculously hard working like, they will, like, speak to my grandparents about they work and they work in their work. I also think I'm really driven by this, I'm driven by the team that I work with, and I want to do well for them. And I want them to do well, I want them to succeed. I also think we've got a once in a lifetime opportunity. So I don't think certainly in our generation, there's never been a brand that has had the opportunity to go from being, you know, a local brand, or a national brand, to a truly global brand. And one of the greatest brands in the world. And I think we've got that opportunity. And I'd feel I would kick myself in 30-40 years, 50 years time, if we didn't do everything within our power to become one of the greatest brands on the planet.
Ali Abdaal 1:01:00
Okay, that sounds like it sounds like even from the start, like money wasn't a particular motivator for you.
Ben Francis 1:01:06
No, I mean, listen, it certainly helps. And money gives you choice, completely. But the reason that the business was started because I wanted to be involved in fitness. The reason one of the reasons now it's around, I think we've got the chance to genuinely improve the world, improve people's lives. And unfortunately, I've travelled the world. And I've met individuals that the brand has impacted and is genuinely brought me to tears at times. It's incredible that feeling. And I want more of that. And I want it to impact more people. And ultimately, 16 year old Ben walks into the gym, and he didn't know what to do. And he was massively self conscious and skinny, and felt very alone. And the thought of being able to take that away from other people and give them a community and area to learn a product that makes them feel like Superman. I think it's amazing.
Ali Abdaal 1:01:54
What really strikes me about you and on like on the on the the interviews I've seen and on your YouTube channel and stuff is that you seem to like genuinely breathe the passion for the business. Because I guess if I imagine another kind of billion dollar business, like, for example, for example, they will have like their vision, they would have like their model for 'Oh, we want to make the world a better place by doing x'. And it can always feel a bit hollow because it's just like a corporate promise on their website. Yeah, it sounds like you genuinely like that is the thing.
Ben Francis 1:02:20
I genuinely love it. Like I said, I've stood in outside, I've been to every event that we've done, I love the large scale event. I've travelled the world, and I've met people that have lost weight, build muscle, improve their mental health. And I mean, I said at the start, like the product that we built at the start was it was for a selfish reason. It's because I wanted that product. And now is it. I don't know, I think because I've had that experience myself of not knowing what to do not be in a great place. And I've felt the positive effect mentally and physically of fitness. I would love other people to experience it. So yeah, it just it really resonates with me. I'm excited to hear more about your business, by the way, I want to see the structure you've drawn. Oh, yeah, I'll show you. I'm fascinated by what it will look like.
Ali Abdaal 1:03:02
Yeah, it's, it's pretty simple. But it's like before it was so like, kind of all over the place. And now it feels a bit more streamlined.
Ben Francis 1:03:12
Because you're in many ways your your business model is feels to me more pioneering than what we're doing. Because at least we've got, we can lean back on retailers, sportswear brands, tech brands, all these different things and amalgamated infrastructure. I wouldn't know where to start with you.
Ali Abdaal 1:03:28
I mean, the thing I've, I'm looking at recently is like TV and film production companies. Okay, because ours is kind of a production company. Right? And like, what does it look like? And in fact, the new org chart like before, the way it was, it was organised was, I was thinking, alright, well, there's me. And then we've got like, Angus, who's in charge of like, the YouTube channel, we've got Gareth is in charge of like the website. Yeah, coverage of this sort of splitting things up based on the platform. Right. So basically, channels split. Yeah, basically, child's play. Whereas now, I think what makes much more sense is splitting it like a production company would in terms of pre production, production, post production. Yeah, production is one of the idea generation and the writing, production is me and the videographer, which is currently Angus, who's also director of operations. And then post production is our editing team. Yeah. And just having that structure. It's like, oh, okay, whether it's a YouTube video we make or a tweet thread, or a blog post, or even me writing my book, or an online course or anything like that. It all has that pre production, production, post production. And therefore, if we've got anguses, Director of Operations, managing that, then theoretically, I can give a vision through our marketing team or directly to our operations saying, hey, I want to make a course about this thing. Here is my vision for it. Let's make it happen. Yeah. And then it goes through that kind of pipeline of pre production production, post production, in theory,
Ben Francis 1:04:51
and is it all so none of its hardware, as it were, it's all software or its content. It's all online. Yeah. Sort of tangible.
Ali Abdaal 1:04:58
We have a new like, we've got our product tivity on a river that we're launching a line of stationary gold, so that you're getting a sneak peek. This is like the proof versions, the part time productivity planner.
Ben Francis 1:05:11
So what's why part time productivity? What does that mean?
Ali Abdaal 1:05:14
Part time productivity is that so I think one of the problems again...
Ben Francis 1:05:18
Yeah. That's like, what was that? Like the Benjamin Franklin sort of things are quite Yeah, I
Ali Abdaal 1:05:25
Yeah. Like, one of the issues I have with these sorts of planners is that when they've got dates in them, yeah. And if I miss a date, then I just get so demotivated, and then I will never ever use the planner again. And it's gonna go in the bed here. So this one crucially, does not have any dates on it. So you can use it some days. You don't have to use it every day. Yeah, but every seven days, it gives you a weekly review and says, alright, just reflect on your week. And that might not actually be every seven days, you might actually fill it in for seven days. But yeah, it's it's better than not doing any kind of reflecting at all.
Ben Francis 1:05:54
You'vegot a might do list as well, which are quite nice. I've never seen it before. Might Yeah,
Ali Abdaal 1:05:58
I don't like to do this because it feels like you know, I'm being a slave to my to do list. Yeah. Whereas if I call it a mighty listicle. It's like, Oh, I could do this stuff if I wanted to. And then I feel more optimistic. like, Yeah, why not? Why not?
Ben Francis 1:06:09
That's cool. Yeah.
Ali Abdaal 1:06:11
So we're doing like a lot of low stationery these sort of like, daily to do this pads if, instead, I was gonna ask you about this. These are some of my mantras like journey before destination. It's it's the climb, Miley Cyrus. Yeah. And the theme, the kind of theme of the book that I'm writing is that, you know, it's cool message is that productivity and getting things done is not really about working harder. And like, the real secret, if there is one is to learn to enjoy the journey of what you're doing. Because when you're having fun and productivity takes care of itself. Yeah. I was gonna ask you, does that resonate with you? And do you have any examples from your life? Where having fun has led to productivity?
Ben Francis 1:06:49
Yes. So what so for me, it's split into two distinct areas, things I love doing. And I genuinely like adore. Now, by the way, also within gymshark within the under the heading of gymshark, because I loved gymshark so much, I would do anything within gym job because I just love it. And I love the fact that it speaks back to the greater sort of mission. Now within that, spend a day in product love to fly over to a factory all day, go to an event. Love it meet Pete join me mean athletes all that absolutely adore every set every second of it. Now, would I spend my Sunday afternoons looking at operational strategies Profit and Loss things? You mean accountancy finance stuff? No, I probably wouldn't, under the banner of gymshark, then again, then sort of get extra enjoyment from it. That the thing that's really helped me massively to motivate me to do the things in that second bucket of things I probably wouldn't enjoy as much is having the overarching an overarching goal. Yeah. So again, when I had this thing in my in my sort of sight of I want to be a CEO. Okay, a CEO needs to understand the customer, the product and the brand, fine, got it sorted, but also needs to understand finance and logistics, for example. So because I had this one, it sat under the banner, Gymshark until I had this broader goal of I want to be a chief exec. It gave me huge motivation to do those things. And all of a sudden, it was just so easy for me to spend hours on end, learning about them, because it spoke back to a gold I heard. Okay, so I think I have to have an aim, I have to have a reason for doing things. I'm not just going to learn about something for the sake of learning about it. I don't enjoy. Okay, which I would do with other things.
Ali Abdaal 1:08:24
Yeah. Interesting. So like having that kind of purpose that meaning behind the thing that you're doing makes the thing more fun. Yeah.
Ben Francis 1:08:30
And then, so what I did was I said, I want to be CEO, I need to do X, Y, and Zed. And then I would, I wouldn't, I've never been good at just like, battering something for like 12 hours straight, I would have to do just a little thing every single day. And then having that that goal in my head, like the best example I can give was, I want to be CEO. I'm terrible at public speaking. So I need to be I need to get better at public speaking. It's like one of my things was literally public speaking. And then I sort of navigate through life and as an event, whatever on the tube chatting to people as you go, oh, what do you do for a living, spoke to someone and I go, I'm a public speaking coach. And normally, I'd be like, if I didn't have the goal, it would be nice. Have a lovely day. See you soon. Because I had this goal. And it was in my list. I'm like, Oh my god, I'd love to be great at public speaking Can I take your number? Can we chat some more can I learn from you? So this is why I think it's so important to have that goal because then I think it helps your self development. So I think it's like if you don't aim at something you can't I just don't think you can get the heart just meander through life and expect to be something like you can't just you know, roll around and expect to be a premier league footballer the Premier League Football is a premier league football is delivered every single day and they dedicated their lives to it so I think it's the same with any endeavour and that's how I tried to dedicate my learning now
Ali Abdaal 1:09:42
have you have you have you come across this the the law of attraction stuff? No, I've heard about him I don't really know. Yeah, so it's it's the those his book called The secret that was published I think a few decades ago that like went viral back in the day. And the whole principle behind the law of attraction is that it's about like manifestation If you if you really set a goal, if you really believe something, then the law of attraction in the universe will like make it happen for you. Yeah, then they kind of goes a bit overboard, that you know, if you've got cancer and you believe you don't have cancer, then it will get cured magically. You know, the only reason you're poor is because you just don't believe in offset your relationship. It's all yeah, it's very, very wishy washy. But I think there is some truth to this stuff in that when you manifest when you when when you have a goal, like I want to become a CEO, you start seeing the opportunities. Yeah, that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. You see what you look forward to it? Yeah, like the public speaking thing. Or, you know, when I decided I wanted to buy a Tesla, suddenly, I started seeing Tesla's everywhere, everywhere. Yeah, cuz you just have that thing. And so your brain turns on to the various options here. Something that's really cool.
Ben Francis 1:10:44
Yeah. Honestly, I'm a massive, massive advocate for that, I think just whatever it is just set set a name. And, and the thing is that it's been really powerful for me is I haven't gone, I want to be a CEO. So I want to do these massive things, like set the bar so low, and it's only now looking back, I realised everything I've ever wanted to do, I've set the bar low. So gymshark was started because I wanted to be involved in fitness, the website was built because I wanted a website that would transact I didn't go, I want a multibillion dollar business is one of the greatest brands in the world, it was just those really little things. And by setting the bar low, it then you know, allows you to take those baby steps because nothing great is achieved in the short in the short term. It's over prolonged periods of constant progression.
Ali Abdaal 1:11:26
Okay, so what's your what's your kind of low bar now, these days now that you know that you see,
Ben Francis 1:11:31
obviously, consistency, okay, that's my biggest thing. At the moment, I just want to be consistent, Steve gave me some advice coming into the exact role was, he said, you just have to be consistent. So I was absolutely knackered yesterday, I went and watch the football on Sunday, traffic coming out of Wembley was an absolute nightmare, about three hours sleep. And I went in and I said, if I do one thing today, is I'm going to be consistent through the day. And I don't want anyone that sort of to notice that Ben is really tired today or whatever. I want to be consistent. So that's my, that's my low bar thick.
Ali Abdaal 1:12:05
Alright, a few a few more kind of random, unconnected things I want to talk to you about. So you're kind of like a celebrity now, in?
Ben Francis 1:12:13
I wouldn't say that. Oh, well.
Ali Abdaal 1:12:14
I mean, you're like, famous and like, what are the perks of that? Like? Do you get cool stuff for being you, like, you get
Ben Francis 1:12:21
to meet amazing people, like really, really cool people like like, this never would have happened like this is this is like a massive pro for me. Meeting I mentioned the guy got to jars earlier. Like, I get to meet really, really cool people. And like, so you've got the public world. So the thing I love about YouTube and podcasting, right, is it gives the mass audience access to conversations that they would never normally have access to. And that's great. But then there's a huge group of people, probably the vast majority of very talented people that don't really want to be on camera don't really want to do the whole YouTube public facing thing. They're just a quite happy to do their own thing. I get to speak to a lot of those people as well, that's really cool. Because oftentimes, that's where you I personally learned so much from, and like I'm trying to, I'm my sort of self development at a point where it's very niche, the specific things that I'm trying to learn. And so again, I'm now coming into the CEO role, I'm trying to find other people that have done a similar scale role have had different problems, similar problems to me. So that the the amount of people is, is significantly smaller. So I would say access is amazing. And choice, like you get, you do get a lot of choice within reason, is great
Ali Abdaal 1:13:31
for access, then you could just like email, like, I don't have a call and be like,
Ben Francis 1:13:36
probably not for you. But you want me like there is in the UK, there's so many amazing people that I've met, and it's, and it's so cool. Like, I got to a few years ago, we got to go and spend time on Downing Street. Like I never thought that would be possible. It was it was life changing for me to walk through the gates and see that because it was just something I never thought was possible. And those sorts of things are, you know, I find them really inspiring.
Ali Abdaal 1:13:58
Nice. That's cool. Why did you start the YouTube channel,
Ben Francis 1:14:01
I started the YouTube channel this is. So basically, I was very happy to not be the public facing face of the brand, very happy to do that. And anyone that's followed the story will know for the first five or six years, I just wouldn't have really posted anything online. Now I took loads of content, loads of pictures, loads of videos, I never posted them and then all of a sudden, like the core people started to understand and know who I was and what I was doing at the business. And a lot of people would ask a lot of people to ask a lot of people ask and I was in Dublin once and a lab came up to me and he said I'm doing a I'm doing a something written a written piece on Gymshark for I think it was a degree it was like a dissertation. And he said, Can you just give me an overview of video on how Gymshark started? I said, I don't really want to do I've been asked before when he said come on one video. That's it like it's what, a couple of hours of your time sort of thing. But I couldn't really say no and I hate I hate lying. I don't want to ever sort of make a promise that I can't keep up with it. You know what, fine, I will do it. recorded it two or three times ended up deleting the footage. And then my, my now fiance at the time girlfriend was a YouTuber, so she knew how to do it all. So she was like, right sit there, I'm putting the camera on a tripod, I'm gonna record you talking. And then she would basically edit it for me. And so we put that live. And it just completely blew up. The reaction was amazing. And it was weird, because it was like, it was big on YouTube, which is cool. And he was big on Facebook and Instagram and all the social networks, then all of a sudden, like newspapers would start writing about and he sort of went into that world as well. And I just kept doing it ever since Really?
Ali Abdaal 1:15:37
Because Yeah, like, this is an area in which I think like, there are so many like really cool companies and really cool like founders, the CEOs of those companies, but you never really hear from them unless they're being interviewed on a podcast. Yeah. And so the fact that you have got your own YouTube channel, where you're showing the behind the scenes of like, just the insane warehouse setup you guys have and like how Shopify works with you for Black Friday. It's all just so inspiring, and so cool to see because you never get that behind
Ben Francis 1:16:03
the scenes is important to me, because so I mean, similar to yourself, right? I love the thought of people being better in the business, that they're working in starting new businesses, and being entrepreneurial and creative. I love that I'm really passionate about it. So I, I thought like, no one else shows the the inside of a multibillion dollar brand. So I thought, you know, why don't we do that? Why don't we show people like, you know, there are things that we will mention, and will it give a competitor an opportunity to do something quickly? Yes, it probably will. But in the grand scheme of things, for me, the idea of inspiring people, to build businesses, start businesses and be better in themselves is is incredibly fulfilling. Nice.
Ali Abdaal 1:16:45
Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, every time I see that you put out a new video, I always get excited, like, yes. Because I find that, like you're operating at a level of scale that I can't even imagine. And the fact that you're making it public means that I can now sort of imagine that level of scale, I think was similar to when I first started listening to podcasts, and things like the Tim Ferriss show and stuff like that see hearing people like Gary Vaynerchuk, where these guys are operating at a level that most of us don't even know exists. And then
Ben Francis 1:17:14
you talk about productivity, those guys operate on a level that I didn't even think was possible.
Ali Abdaal 1:17:19
Yeah. Yeah, it's really, really cool. And I'm hoping that with this kind of podcast, I can, it's a pretty good excuse to like, hang out with someone and want to have a long conversation. I don't think I was gonna ask about is that a unique you know, as as Gymshark has gotten has gotten bigger. You know, as like, you know, as a YouTube channel gets bigger, you start getting, you start to get haters, you started getting negative comments, I guess, you sort of BuzzFeed has the has had this issue where people working at BuzzFeed or working for BuzzFeed will then make a think piece of why I left BuzzFeed. That kind of thing. Yeah. How does that stuff make you feel like how do you how do you deal with
Ben Francis 1:17:55
the use of there's a point where like, the whole thing of leaving gymshark? mostly on YouTube, it would like a mass. Yeah. Everyone wanted to hear about it. Isn't it's gonna happen? I just think. I think so the thing is, especially being in my position, I guess I'm public facing I'm not massively public facing there are people that are far more so. But just growing a business, it's so incredibly tough. I just feel like I've been beaten with a stick around the head. So many times now. You just sort of get used to it. You know, I've been on the receiving end of, you know, people send me messages on social media personally, in person. difficulties in the business, the growth phase, like, yeah, it's, it's part and parcel of the job. I also, by the way, think that in the long term, it's a very positive thing, because I feel like I'm held to a high level of account. And I think that only makes me in the business better health account as in, because on social media, anyone can call anyone out, right? And if it's validity, so the claim, then publicly, people are gonna know about it. Whereas maybe in yesteryear, in my parents generation, you would find you'd look back and you realise companies or individuals would do bad things and sort of get away with them. And I think it's great now that people can hold individuals and businesses to account online. Granted, sometimes it can go too far. And like cancer culture, I'm massively against, I think people need to look at things with a logical set of eyes. And like I said, you know, for me, sometimes it is very, very tough, but I think I'm putting myself out there, I'm saying I want to be the CEO of a large business, and a business that's in many ways at the centre of a culture and a community. And to do that, you have to have a thick skin and you know, you have to be doing the right things. And I think I'm, I think I will do that.
Ali Abdaal 1:19:45
Cool. Um, I guess final, final thing I wanna ask about, like, what is your what's your workflow for video production?
Ben Francis 1:19:55
It varies a lot, right? So sometimes, we'll have an idea again, so the CEO video we saw obviously, we saw Come in well in advance. And we said, we need to do this video, we want it to be special. We actually recorded it a few times and been the footage because I was terrible. Basically, I was not very good on camera. I didn't I just wanted to it was quite an emotional subject for me and my words, weren't it. I wasn't even speaking in coherent sentences. So that one will all sit in a room together, there are certain things which are more like Paul, ie some people, some people will message us and say, can you make this content? Sometimes I'll jump on Instagram and say, What would you like to see people message me? We've got someone who's brilliant called Lily in the team who will build out a brief So you start with title and thumbnail. That's something I was told actually a long time ago by a guy called john Olsen that we used to work. Oh, yeah. And I said, I asked him the same question. He said, I always start with titling them nice. If you don't click on the title of the thumbnail, then you have become you can make the best video in the world but no one's gonna watch it. So we start with a title and the thumbnail with the the purpose of the video, what do we want to get across and now just because of how busy the role is, I'll have a brief and I'll sort of read through the brief. Okay, so people want to see this video. I'll be sat down on a chair and we'll we'll record basically
Ali Abdaal 1:21:12
Okay. And then all of the drone fatigue or the time lapses of the warehouses? Is that all done by
Ben Francis 1:21:17
James Perry, who is an absolute wizard, absolute wizard, life changer. I mean, John's been working together for what two years now? Two years and yeah, it's been absolutely brilliant. Absolutely. But isn't it early days I edited my own videos so Robin did edit and I then learned to edit she taught me was very time consuming editing. I remember there was videos it's been 812 15 hours edit in and it would just wasn't an efficient use of time. And by the way, I wasn't even that good at it and then work with other people and James came in and just revolutionised the channel. What's
Ali Abdaal 1:21:51
it like having someone film everything you do?
Ben Francis 1:21:53
weird at first? Like me and James mate anyway, so the biggest thing when I was looking for someone to work with and it's almost like can you can you edit can you work a camera great, but like it needs to be someone that we get along with? Yeah. COVID obviously changed thing but we travel the world together we've been to the states been to Hong Kong we would we you know, be around the UK all the time. We spend a lot of time together. So we have to get on with each other and be comfortable with each other. Because if I'm rigid on camera, or he didn't like me, then you know Yeah, it's definitely
Ali Abdaal 1:22:23
a problem, isn't it? What about like, do you feel like literally everything like what if you're like having dinner with friends or like so we
Ben Francis 1:22:30
wouldn't film that would we it would be anything sort of extracurricular would tend to get filmed, any trips will all be filmed, would normally have a filming slot every week, where we'll sit down and talk to camera will occasionally So James is looking at, you're going to record an entire month away and you basically completely which is going to be really fun for me. So we're going to do an entire month, what we'll use for that I'm not sure okay. People love the day in the life they love. Yeah, we've been we've done some really cool. Hi, always high budget professional things. And then we do wander around with a camera for a day. And people just love that. So we want to bring people a little bit more sort of in behind the scenes nice.
Ali Abdaal 1:23:10
I do just wear the microphone a little at all times as well. So the James ends up with like hundreds of gigabytes of footage.
Ben Francis 1:23:18
The problem that the junior terms another problem, wasn't it during COVID it is that I would have my camera and I would film at home. I didn't realise just how big the footage is now, recording in 4k. You're talking about hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes, I would have to drive to yours with the hardware. I wouldn't give you the give you the hard drive all the footage. It was just too slow on our home internet.
Ali Abdaal 1:23:37
Yeah, so we do this whole thing where up. So we've got two editors in Romania. And Romania has ridiculously fast internet speeds. Everyone's like one like 1000 megabytes per second upload download, and instant internet speed in this place with like 20 meg upload download. It's just physically impossible to upload files. Yeah. So I got like the most expensive bt infinity option. I found this guy to kind of wire the router from over there, wire it around the house. So it feeds into this laptop over here. Yeah, we use that to upload files now.
Ben Francis 1:24:09
So what is your workflow like? So you record your videos? And then you send them out to be edited in Romania? Basically, basically. Yeah. And then and then your comment, I'd assume it's never going to be perfect first time or how does that work? Yeah. So
Ali Abdaal 1:24:20
for the first two years, I was I would, there was a random review where I would comment on things with uploaded to a website called frame IO, where you can like my own affiliate link in the video description if we go. But now like recently, Christian, who's my main main editor, and who was employee number one, he said that hey, you know, me, reviewing footage is always a bit of a bottleneck. Because if I'm out then, you know, whatever he was like, Is there any need for you to review it? I thought about I was like, No, you're right. There isn't really any need for me to review it. And so now many videos come out twice a week. And Angus is like, Oh, yeah, we've got we've got videos come out. Oh, yeah. I can't even remember which one that was because we filmed it three weeks ago. Yeah. And we're getting into this like production company.
I think one of the things that that resonated with, with what you said is finding, finding people and building systems to combat your own weaknesses. My weakness, ironically, is that I suck at motivating myself to film videos when I'm on my own. Really. It always felt like such a such a heavy lift, you know, work. I'd give myself I don't know, five hours to film a video and I procrastinate four and a half and then I film it right at the end. No way.
Ben Francis 1:25:27
I wouldn't expect that of you.
Ali Abdaal 1:25:28
Yeah I mean, I think when I was working full time, I had to film a video in two hours. And because you so you know, wake up early before going on call that kind of thing. But when I took a break from medicine, intending to travel the world, yeah. Which then didn't happen because of COVID. I was like, I've got the whole day to film a video. Yeah. And then it takes the whole day to film one video. Yeah. So now every Thursday we have a filming day where Angus comes over behind the camera, and it's like, Alright, alley chop, chop. Come on. Let's do another one. Let's do another one. Let's do the thumbnails. And that's been really good. It's just so nice working with other people.
Ben Francis 1:25:58
How does that work creatively then, like video ideas, thumbnails, obviously titles? How does that work?
Ali Abdaal 1:26:03
Yeah. So we've got a team. So we have every every Monday we have like a content editorial meeting with me, Angus are writers. And everyone rocks up to that meeting with three ideas for videos. Yeah, and also titles, thumbnails and talking points. And then I would look through them with Angus, and we would give them the green light be like read like that one during like this one. Here's some feedback about that one. And they would work on the video idea, the concept for the next week, and the following Monday, we'd have like the full video basically ready? Yeah. And then I would kind of go through it to be like, Okay, if I were actually filming this, based on these points, you know, I'd add a story about my life over there at Harry Potter reference over there. We'll put a story from medicine over there. And then the video is ready to film. You know that when it comes to Thursday, we can bang bang film four videos in a day.
Ben Francis 1:26:45
So when you say like Bang, bang, bang, you talking? Would they would what would you already like to use? So someone else has come up with an idea? Are you having a script? Do you have in key messages? Are you just having a title? What does that mean?
Ali Abdaal 1:26:55
Yeah, so title, thumbnail and talking points. Okay, so bullet points. I don't like reading from a script. It feels very inauthentic. And yeah, it's been a nightmare. Impossible. So I just like bullet points and the team like overtime. like they've seen all my videos. And so they know what examples from my life I could use for different things. Let's say we're talking about imposter syndrome. Yeah, someone they will have written. Oh, you can talk about when you were directing the hospital pantomime? Yeah, I was like, that's a good point. Yeah, I can talk about that. And it feels really weird and nice that people know my life so well, that they can tell me what examples of stuff
Ben Francis 1:27:28
Because that's, that's the thing that always fascinates me. So like, he's like, scalability, because ultimately, you are one person and I'm going to be recording, then they'll always that the guys will always need us. I'm really interested to see how that sort of becomes scalable. What do you do it through all the different arms of the business and the channels and, you know, the products and things like that?
Ali Abdaal 1:27:45
Yeah, so the thing that the the vision I set for us, I think it was this time two years ago, I wrote it on on a page a notion of being like, basically, I want us to get to a point where the only thing I'm having to do is talk to a camera. Yeah, because I think that's the only aspect of the business in which I add unique value and being me Yeah, to an extent in like audio generation, but like even even that can ease can be outsourced to someone who's who's good at it. And so now we're actually pretty close to that point where the only really the only thing I really do for the YouTube channel is talk to a camera once a week. What I didn't realise at the time is that being kind of the CEO kind of role is actually mostly about having meetings with people and organisational clarity and setting vision setting goals and tracking metrics and stuff hiring hirings, big one, we're looking to hire five more people. And that's been such a bottleneck for me, because we have no process for hiring we've just been making making it up as we went along. And now I've discovered as all these like the platforms like workable and stuff where you can post a job description, and they will do that applicant tracking and stuff rather than a Google that Google form, which is what we use before. And so that's kind of where we are ended up like once a week for the YouTube channel. But the thing I love about your setup, and when you mentioned you were going to bring the videographer I was like, Yes. Because what I'm imagining is I would love to have a James who can like travel with me, especially as I want to travel around the world and stuff. Yeah. And often I find that in conversations with the team, or in conversations with friends asking for advice about anything. I've just come out with bangers and I'm like, Oh,
Ben Francis 1:29:14
yeah. That's interesting. That's cool. That's really cool. But yeah, like I said, for me, the fact that we get onto massive, you should genuinely you should come to Gymshark though you should look around our studios. Granted, it's slightly different. But then we'll have the full creative sort of suite and team. I think you'd love
Ali Abdaal 1:29:31
it sick. We're actually looking for a studio to film an online course about productivity
Ben Francis 1:29:35
coming up. Can we do it genuinely come on over? Let's say we've got like, we've got all the e commerce videos and we've got something called studio x, which is basically an innovation studio we build for gym sets in there. So there's, there's campaigns we've done where you've got like people in the gym, yeah, but they're not actually in the gym. The whole thing should have been built in that studio. Nice. Okay,
Ali Abdaal 1:29:53
that's pretty cool. Definitely come have a look at because my personal trainer at the moment, he's got like a home gym in his garage. And so we've sort of been for Having a bit of content for the Instagram there,
Ben Francis 1:30:01
obviously whatever you'd love it we've done we've got all the studios, we've got the podcast studio. It's it's absolutely brilliant because similar to you so what you do is like we we consider content as much of a product as you know it has top it's exactly the same. So contents massive for us.
Ali Abdaal 1:30:19
Yeah, I think I don't I don't know any other any other brand new thing that does content as well as you guys. I just don't do content. They do like expensive advertising campaigns that run a single video and that's it.
Ben Francis 1:30:30
Yes. And like it's, I think it's just because it's been, it's been the lifeblood of the business since day one. And I think growing up, like, Yeah, I'd watch TV, I'd watch much of the day and stuff. But beyond that everything was on YouTube, it was all content. And all of a sudden, when you realise that you can play your part in that it just you end up building a business around and a brand around that content and community.
Ali Abdaal 1:30:53
So you who are who are the kind of mentors through either in real life books, podcasts who have inspired you over the years, people should check out.
Ben Francis 1:31:03
So we don't have like a defined group of mentors. I don't have people that I will regularly check in with as a mentor. I know some people in gyms will do that. And it seemed to work really well for them. Steve and Paul, who are the sort of original people to help professionalise the business in the early days have been massive to me, I've got a lot of friends. Again, I keep mentioning a jars, one of the most inspiring people I've met and like a very creative CEO, he's not the CEO, as you would sort of expect highly at shopper via sort of lean on occasionally if I if I have a problem that I don't know how to solve. Online, I'll watch anything. Can anyone buy it? The thing is, I'm a I'm a massive believer that, that you can learn something from every single person that you meet. And I think I learned more from the amalgamation of meeting 1000 people then sort of one individual, and I'll try and chat to people that are good at specific things. There's not like one human who I think is the average human being I'll try and pick things from so many different people.
Ali Abdaal 1:32:00
And are there any kind of books, videos, podcasts that you kind of find yourself commonly recommending to people that they want to ask you about? how did how did you do x? Oh,
Ben Francis 1:32:10
I get it. It's very similar. So I read a book ages ago, which I thought I would hate and I really liked. So I don't actually read that much. And it was called poor Charlie's Almanack by Charlie Munger, so it's not a book. It's like an amalgamation, isn't it? Yeah. Which I thought was amazing. There was one particular page which I can just about, remember where I think it was on what is on what are the one or two page where he broke down the entire success of the Coca Cola brand? I remember thinking, Wow, this is amazing. And I went into this book thinking is an investor is a financier. nothing in common is no loyalty. I mean, like, and I ended up thinking, well, this is amazing. She was very brand first. He's taught, he talks about lots of different sort of psychological models. And basically, it's almost like, imagine you've got like a problem here. And it's about attacking this problem from a load of different angles and a load of different ways. And it's exactly the way that we and I try and solve problems gymshark and in life, so I found that book massively inspiring, and then milling around YouTube. I love your channel, you introduce me to notion notion life, like genuinely life changing? We, I mean, we've run almost everything on notion. Now. Don't wait from a creative point in the entire entire business, by the way, not just me, personally, I run. I think you you coined it like a life. Oh, so I guess I have a pressure professional life, the different Gymshark stuff, everything from a notion to that was life changing. So thank you for that.
Ali Abdaal 1:33:31
You're very welcome.
Ben Francis 1:33:33
Yeah, that's it. I just want around the Jordan Peterson. Peterson, a massive, massive fan of him. I think he's brilliant. He's really helped me as well.
Ali Abdaal 1:33:42
I'd love to check out your notion. Behind seats.
Ben Francis 1:33:45
I'll just say I was one of the things as we were driving. Yeah, that's really cool.
Ali Abdaal 1:33:49
Yeah, that would be that would be pretty sick. Cool. And any sort of, let's say, someone's watching this, and they're thinking they're they want to get started being an entrepreneur. Yeah. Maybe they're sort of late teens, early 20s. Haven't really started anything yet. But I'm really inspired by you and your journey. Any kind of advice you'd give?
Yeah, I mean, it's fairly standard, right? You have to do what you love. Because otherwise you'll end up you'll end up giving up. I'm a firm believer now that there's no need to small like, especially with the internet being so vast. I always think it sounds stupid saying it. Now. If I'd have said, As a kid, I want to be a professional gamer growing up. Yeah, my mom would have been like, you're not whereas now it's like a legitimate sport career and everything in between. I gave it I guess with yourself, it would have been so difficult for you to articulate what you do now, as a kid. I just think there's no need to small so I think whatever it is double down on it and just genuinely give it a go, like Gymshark showed was the seventh business website product that I've made, and the other six failed miserably. Now, unfortunately, that's not a sexy story. So no one talks about the failed apps, the failed websites, they only talk about the one that did well, and it's a consistent theme on everyone else that successful that I've met. They've failed miserably so many times. And they've been endlessly optimistic about it. And they've just gone again and again and again.
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that like, I see this a lot with people starting YouTube channels where there's this sense of, I have to get it right first time. Yeah. And if you look at the stats, like the average YouTube channel takes 152 videos to get to 1000 subscribers. And I get messages from people being like, you know, like, I it took my channel 52 videos in six months to hit the first 1000 subscribers. And that was like, a lot faster than the average. Yeah. And so I get messages from people like 10 videos and being like, Oh, it's this YouTube thing isn't working, keep liking keep going. Just
Ben Francis 1:35:33
try things, right. Just keep trying new things. Like I'm, like incremental improvement, I think is so so so important as well. But yeah,
Ali Abdaal 1:35:40
sweet. Well, thank you very much for taking the time. Thank you.
Ben Francis 1:35:43
Good show. Good stuff.
Ali Abdaal 1:35:45
That's it for this week's episode of the deep dive. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to see how me and the team gone at Gymshark HQ, check out the link in the video description or in the show notes wherever you're watching or listening to this. And if you did enjoy this episode, then do hit the subscribe button. And whether you're watching this on YouTube or whether you're listening to this on audio if you subscribe to the podcast in whichever domain you'll be more notified of new episodes as they come out. So thank you so much for listening. Have a great day and always remember journey before destination. See you later.