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For most entrepreneurs, reaching billionaire status would be the marker that you’ve finally made it. But Gymshark’s founder and CEO—and Britain’s youngest billionaire—Ben Francis insists that money is not a “real” measure of success.
Francis, now worth over $1.3 billion, founded the sportswear brand at just 19 years old in 2012.
As the company has grown from a business in his parents’ garage to a $1.5 billion business, his own personal wealth has ballooned with it.
The 31-year-old was recently named one of the few self-made billionaires on Forbes’ World’s Youngest Billionaires list—but he has moved to make his feelings on his newly minted status clear, by resurfacing an interview with Gian Power on The SuperPower Podcast on his social media channels.
“People assume there is some bank balance with my name on it that has billions in which is just completely untrue,” Francis said in the interview.
“None of it is real”, he stressed, adding that his wealth is “all on paper” and tied to assets that could fluctuate in value. After all, Francis still owns 70% of Gymshark.
“It could double, it could half,” the millennial entrepreneur added. “That’s why I think it’s important that no individual should ever pin their self-worth on things like wealth, net worth, or anything financial.”
When asked directly by Power how he feels about being just one of four self-made billionaires under 30 (at that time in October 2023) Francis responded: “I never think about it. I don’t see it as a measure of success… It’s never been the goal.”
Money doesn’t buy happiness—to an extent
Defining your success by your net worth is “a wildly unproductive way to live” in Francis’ eyes.
Instead, he thinks aspirational people are better off evaluating what their day-to-day life looks like as a measure of how successful—and happy—they are.
“I get to wake up every day and do exactly what I want to do with really cool people, I get to see parts of the world I never thought I would see and I get to connect with people I never thought I would get to connect with,” he said. “(Wealth) is great. But it’s certainly not the be-all and end-all.”
He’s not saying that money doesn’t buy happiness. To a certain extent, even he admits, it does. But he argues it shouldn’t be the only reason you go to work, if happiness is your end goal.
“There is a level where as long as you can pay your bills, you’re in a nice enough house, you can cover food and fees and whatever it is for your kids and you don’t have to panic as you get into the third week of every month, then the link between happiness and wealth diminishes,” he says.
“But if my wealth increased or decreased by 10%, that wouldn’t affect my feelings of self-worth and so on,” Francis added.
“Because I don’t do it for that, I do it because I work with great people and I am working on a cause that I genuinely care about and I’m passionate about.”
How did Ben Francis make his billions?
While working as a delivery driver for Pizza Hut, Francis and his friend Lewis Morgan launched a website selling fitness supplements for a small profit, called Gymshark.
But after getting fed up with his ill-fitting weightlifting clothes, Francis suggested pivoting the company to sportswear.
The duo used their savings to buy a screen printer and sewing machine—which Francis’ grandmother taught them how to use—and just like that, they were making each order by hand as it came in.
A year later, Gymshark had its big break at a BodyPower fitness trade show where the brand’s tracksuit went viral on Facebook, generating over $38,000 in sales within 30 minutes.
From there, the brand became an early adopter of influencer marketing when Francis—who was a big fan of YouTube—started handing out free products to popular fitness gurus on the platform.
That strategy seriously paid off: Some of those influencers went on to wear the apparel on their channels, sending Gymshark’s sales from just $450 per day to $45,000, according to Forbes.
Francis dropped out of college some months later to run the company full-time.
Since then, Gymshark has gone from strength to strength: It has over 18 million fans on social media, serves customers in over 230 countries around the world, has over 900 employees, and has reached unicorn status.
Meanwhile, Morgan offloaded his stake to private equity firm General Atlantic in a 2020 deal that valued the company at $1.5 billion.
Forbes’ top 10 youngest billionaires
1. Evan Spiegel (33)Source of Wealth: Snap Inc | Net Worth: $3.1billion
2. John Collison (33)Source of Wealth: Stripe | Net Worth: $7.2billion
3. Shunsaku Sagami (33)Source of Wealth: M&A Brokerage | Net Worth: $1.9billion
4. Jonathan Kwok (32)Source of Wealth: Real Estate | Net Worth: $2.4billion
5. Mark Mateschitz (31)Source of Wealth: Red Bull | Net Worth: $39.6billion
6. Ben Francis (31)Source of Wealth: Gymshark | Net Worth: $1.3billion
7. Andy Fang (31)Source of Wealth: DoorDash | Net Worth: $1.2 Billion
8. Michal Strnad (31)Source of Wealth: Weapons | Net Worth: $4.4 Billion
9. Palmer Luckey (31)Source of Wealth: Virtual Reality, Defense Technology | Net Worth: $2.3 Billion
10. Stanley Tang (31)Source of Wealth: DoorDash | Net Worth: $1.2 Billion
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