Ben Francis: From Pizza Delivery Guy to Billionaire Brand Builder (And Why Dropshipping is a Smart Place to Start)
You’ve probably heard of Gymshark. That ultra-sleek fitness apparel brand worn by influencers, athletes, and gym-goers around the world. But what you might not know is that it was started by a broke 19-year-old pizza delivery guy in the UK named Ben Francis. Yep, that’s right. He wasn’t a fashion mogul, he wasn’t a marketing genius, and he definitely wasn’t a trust fund baby. He was a college student who lifted weights, delivered pizzas for some extra cash, and taught himself how to build websites.
Fast forward a decade, and Ben’s now one of the youngest billionaires in the UK.
What changed? He took a chance. He started small. He built something from scratch.
That’s what makes Ben’s story so damn inspiring. It’s not just the billions, it’s the journey. The scrappy start. The learning by doing. The pivoting. The obsessive focus on customers. The relentless execution.
And here's the thing most people miss: the skills Ben developed along the way, web design, branding, social media, influencer marketing, customer support, supply chain are all skills you also learn when you build a high ticket dropshipping business.
One of the biggest accelerants to Gymshark’s growth was influencer and ambassador marketing. Ben realized early on that if he could get fitness creators and athletes to wear his gear—without paying huge influencer fees—he could tap into their credibility and audiences. He sent free apparel to YouTubers and micro-influencers he admired, many of whom shared it with their followers. That grassroots strategy helped Gymshark go from a few hundred pounds in daily sales to tens of thousands overnight.
But it wasn’t just sending free clothes. Ben leaned hard into community building, content, and feedback loops. Every gym selfie, user transformation photo, and behind‑the‑scenes video became free content that fueled Gymshark’s narrative. He openly shared the brand’s journey—struggles, wins, pivots—and made fans feel like co‑builders. He also involved ambassadors in product feedback: when Gymshark moved into women’s wear, they brought in fitness creators to test fabrics, patterns, and sizing, and used that feedback to refine the designs before scaling.
On the operations side, Ben consciously kept things lean and agile. In the beginning, Gymshark even used drop‑ship and print‑on-demand tactics to manage inventory risks and cash flow constraints—before fully investing in manufacturing. As demand spiked (e.g. after the BodyPower fitness expo, when a tracksuit “went viral” on Facebook and sold out astonishingly fast), the brand reinvested into larger orders and logistics infrastructure.
Over time, that balance between scrappy growth tactics and operational scaling is what turned Gymshark from a garage side hustle into a billion‑pound brand.
That’s exactly how I got started too.
Before I built my own brand, I ran a high ticket dropshipping store called eBikeGeneration.com. It was a niche store that sold electric bikes for hunters in the US. I didn’t start with a garage full of products. I started by selling other people’s products online, focusing hard on branding, content, partnerships, and customer experience.
Eventually, I sold that business, and with the skills and confidence I gained, I went on to build LongevityColdPlunge.com, Italy’s first ever cold plunge brand. Is it as big as Gymshark? Not even close. But it’s growing. And more importantly, I know how to build a brand now. Because I’ve done it. I too started with leveraging micro influencers and it really made a impact immediately.
That’s why I’m such a big believer in starting with high ticket dropshipping. It’s the ultimate crash course in ecommerce. You learn how to:
Build and rank a website - I recommend Shopify. Get a Free Trial Here
Pick a profitable niche
Run ads that convert
Sell without needing inventory
Deal with real customers (and real challenges)
You’re not just flipping products. You’re building a business. A skillset. A mindset.
And once you’ve got that? You can apply it to building your own brand, just like Ben did with Gymshark.
So if you’re sitting there watching entrepreneurial success stories on YouTube or Instagram, wondering how the hell they pulled it off, just know this: they didn’t start with all the answers.
They started.
If you're ready to take that first step and learn high ticket dropshipping the right way, I highly recommend checking out the Dropship Breakthru program. I’m a member and a resident coach, and I can honestly say it’s the best place to get started if you want to build real ecommerce skills (not just chase shiny objects).
Remember, nobody’s born knowing how to build a billion-dollar brand. But you can learn. You can start. And who knows?
Maybe your story will inspire the next generation of brand builders.
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