Gym+Coffee, a Dublin-based athleisure clothing business, is expanding into the Middle East and East Asia as part of its international growth.
Gym+Coffee was founded in 2017 by Diarmuid McSweeney, Niall Horgan and Karl Swaine.
The business has 110 staff and recorded revenues of €20 million in 2023. The unusual name for the company derives in part from the experiences the co-founders had in the process of setting it up.
“It’s neither a gym nor a coffee shop. It’s a clothing brand that focuses on sports and activewear, the category that is awkwardly called athleisure. The idea came from experiences the three of us had living in Australia and California prior to setting up the business,” McSweeney told the Business Post.
“We saw that working out and going for a coffee afterwards was becoming normal there. It wasn’t yet in this part of the world. Those trends were only emerging in Ireland and the UK at the time. So, when people ask us about the name we know it has a marmite effect. It really does come from us noticing what those trends were and calling it what it is.”
The first year or so of the business was focused on events to promote the brand and the lifestyle associated with it.
“That was our first chapter as a business, pre-Covid. In 2019 we started to see some real growth. We opened our first pop up stores followed by our first permanent stores. That chapter ended in March 2020 when Covid hit,” McSweeney said.
“We thought it was over. For about 10 days, we thought the business was gone. Then, just after that, over the course of 24-48 hours we saw more website traffic than we had ever seen previously.”
The pandemic, it turned out, led to more people wanting athleisure clothing than ever before. It was a boost to Gym+Coffee.
“We’re very aware that’s just how the cookie crumbled. Many businesses were suffering at the time. People sitting at home didn’t have much else to do but order stuff off the internet and focus on going on walks,” he said.
“We had set up the business as a digital direct to consumer company from the start. When Covid hit, we spent a lot of time helping other companies get online for the first time. We were lucky in that we were in the right place at the right time.”
The business has been supported by Enterprise Ireland and McSweeney said the agency had provided key assistance in helping develop the company.
“They’ve provided us with a lot of assistance around new hires. Some of the grants from them were really helpful for us,” McSweeney said.
He said the agency’s support will continue to be crucial as the company expands into the Middle East and East Asia.
“The next step is expanding internationally. That requires talking to people well in advance. Enterprise Ireland has helped connect us with potential customers and partners in those markets.”
This Making it Work article is produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland