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Gymshark's Founder Story
And 10 Naval insights that will change your life
John Apolinar
April 02, 2025
Words of wisdom we’ve found from Founders, VC’s and Investors.
Here’s this weeks top 5:
You're looking at one of the youngest self-made billionaires ever.
While Nike, Adidas & Reebok spent millions on outdated marketing...
He built a $1.4 Billion empire using methods they wouldn't dream of.
The Gymshark blueprint to blowing up any business is unmissable🧵
— Tim Carden (@timjcarden)
9:07 PM • Oct 29, 2024
Ben Francis, the CEO of Gymshark has one of the most impressive and inspiring Founder stories I’ve seen.
From delivering pizzas to building one of the most successful fitness brands - Ben took some wild risks and constantly pushed himself to learn more about every aspect of business to make Gymshark a household name.
He even STEPPED DOWN as CEO at one point to learn more about running a global brand.
He stayed authentic at every step of the journey and built a personal brand that others resonated with. I’ll leave the finer details for you to read through on the thread but I bookmarked this one to constantly look back at.
#2
Naval Ravikant's latest podcast with Chris Williamson is mind-blowing.
He revealed:
• Why he deleted his calendar
• Three decisions that determine 90% of your life's outcome
• Why most anxiety comes from a problem few understand10 insights that'll transform your life:
— Paul William Harmon (@TheHarmonX)
3:03 PM • Apr 1, 2025
More Naval wisdom. In classic fashion, he takes s lot of stances that are against the norm.
One insight that stuck with me:
Three decisions determine 90% of your life outcomes:
1. Who you're with
2. What you do
3. Where you live
Simplified, but really these 3 things determine a lot of your happiness. Don’t forget to focus on them!
#3
I interviewed 20 Entrepreneurs using AI in their business.
Not theory. Not hype.
One saved $100K. Another cut 10+ hours of work/week. And a few use it to drive $$!
Here are the 5 BEST use cases ANY business owner can use right NOW. (#2 might flip how you work forever 👀)
— CoFounders Nik (@CoFoundersNik)
8:10 PM • Apr 1, 2025
AI tools like Unstructured.io, Adobe Acrobat AI, and Make.com are turning complex doc processing into a few clicks—they’re able to extract invoice details or compare versions of giant contracts in minutes, not hours.
The really interesting part for me was niche solutions like AI receptionists for service businesses or customized workflow automation. Sounds like an idea worth building 👀
There’s so much opportunity in AI right now it’s wild. Sky is the limit!!
#4
Learn how to code a SaaS from 0 using AI.
I made this free course for beginners to build an internet startup:
1. Learn the coding fundamentals
2. Build a SaaS with a modern tech stack
3. Code and design 10x faster with AI(the video is 3 hours long, bookmark this)
— Marc Lou (@marc_louvion)
3:11 PM • Feb 25, 2025
Marc Lou at it again! Right off the bat we can see AI won’t replace us, but help our productivity immensely.
In just 3 hours he walks through how to use some light code and AI to build a solid SaaS app.
If you’re wanting to build your own app, this is a great resource!
#5
One of the signs of a company still run by the founder. Few hired CEOs would have the confidence to admit problems publicly like this.
— Paul Graham (@paulg)
10:06 AM • Dec 7, 2024
This is a bit older of a post but bookmarked it because I loved seeing a CEO admit to a problem their company has.
Authenticity has been an underlying theme in a few of our issues and this is a great example!
Feel free to share your thoughts on this issue! If there’s any topics you’d like to know about as a Founder let us know and we’ll get to work to cover it.