How Muscle Republic Went From Cut-Off T-Shirts to a Global Fitness Brand

[00:00] Vic: He was like, “Holy you tripled the business.” Like we grew by 300% that year. Someone told me that I couldn’t do it. So I told them, “I’m going to show you.” You know,

[00:08] Liam: That is that the true fire for you?

[00:09] Vic: It has to be. I work from dark. I work from the bottom. if you tell me I can do something, I hate it because I feel like you’re giving me some sort of lip service.

[00:17] Liam: Like you feel like you really get fired up when someone tells you you can’t do something. What’s the thing you’re proudest of?

[00:22] Vic: The person I’ve become. I wasn’t fulfilled or adding much value to my family, my friends when I was at my lowest. And now I’m a person that people can come to ask for advice. I can help them. I can guide them. And my goal was to become the person that my dog thought I was. If I didn’t, then it would have it wouldn’t have been successful because a you know they say a brand would never outgrow its founder or leader. So I’ve had to become a much different person.

[00:51] Liam: Vic, incredibly excited to have you on today’s episode. But I mean, we’ve interviewed some pretty incredible people and excited to have you a part of that mix. I think your story is one that so many people will will resonate with and particularly being an Australian. Good to be back in Sydney and and talking to to someone like yourself. I mean, excited to really dive deep on the story of Muscle Republic today and your perspective on it. I interview so many marketing managers and people that are like operational at the brand but someone like yourself who is the founder and comes from the founding perspective I think will be an interesting take but for those who don’t know you why don’t you give a quick introduction

[01:33] Vic: Thank you my name is Vic Gigliotti I’m the founder and CEO of Muscle Republic we are a Sydney based activewear brand which I started back in 2013 as a side hobby with my dog at the time who we called our CEO and is now our forever CEO. we are now a team of 50 plus expanding rapidly into about 50 countries every month and looking to grow our footprint on the active wear market in the world.

[02:03] Liam: Nice. What what made you kind of even have the idea to start an active wear brand? Why why did you do that?

[02:08] Vic: It’s funny. It’s it never was intended to be an I never intended to create an activewear brand. I’m actually from a real estate background. So, finished school in 96, probably when you’re a twinkle in your dad’s eye. just showing my age, but fell into real estate naturally working from old man. went into commercial real estate two years later in the city doing office leasing for about 11 years. absolutely loved it, but met so many entrepreneurs building businesses. and this is pre the days of social. and I was kind of like, ah, I really want to do my own business, but I wanted to not break the norm and follow the footprint of, you know, wearing a suit and a business card and having a corporate job. Thought that was success, but wasn’t feeling fulfilled. Fell off into a life of sort of negativity and ungratefulness. naturally just making money, burning money. ended up sort of at rock bottom in my early 30s. when that happened, I decided that I was going to revert back to following some dreams and goals. and I ended up getting a dog at the time and wanted to make him proud. So, had a dream of doing a bodybuilding competition.

[03:24] Liam: There you go. Yeah.

[03:25] Vic: And

[03:25] Liam: That’s how you got into the fitness type of world.

[03:28] Vic: Yes. I was training twice a day, running out of clothes, cutting sleeves off old t-shirts, spending a lot of time not drinking or partying anymore. So, the gym was always my place to go to since I was about 15. and just fell absolutely in love with the process of having a goal in September and starting the process of training, eating, recovery, and my mindset changed. So obviously then you know doing so much research I found people starting businesses at the time online and I went to Bali at the end of that year to buy some dog jumpers went with some mates celebrate New Year’s and I never forget we’re in this dog jumper shop in Leyon Street and the lady wouldn’t bargain from her $40 price point

[04:15] Liam: And it was brand she didn’t she knew we were going to pay the $40 so we spent this hour of

[04:20] Vic: Hustling

[04:22] Liam: No budge.

[04:22] Vic: No budge at all. Walked out with six jumpers at full price. Stopped off on the way, picked up a Chicago Bull singlet and a Bintang singlet. jumped in the car and as good ethnic boys do, we start brainstorming business ideas and, we came up with the idea that I should do my own. So, I followed the motto of my bodybuilding journey, which was I had to train for today. and there is no tomorrow. It was my inspiration from a Rocky quote. And these things just sort of steamrolled into one thing after another. And the driver at the time who actually just came and visited me cuz his son’s studying in Sydney now.

[04:59] Liam: There you go. Danny moment.

[05:01] Vic: Yeah. He’s he made our first shirts. They were just like t-shirts without the sleeves.

[05:06] Liam: Okay.

[05:07] Vic: And we started sort of handing those out at the gym and to friends and we changed the brand was called Train for Today Gym Wear in February 2013. I thought that’s a terrible name. and a girlfriend that I grew up with and still friends with now. She’s graphic designer. She was helping me and I said, I think I’ve got the name. I want this brand to be about my original gym, which was called Tony’s Gym. And it’s where people came together from all walks of life, no matter what age, race, religion. We all were there to support each other on our physical journey, but we didn’t realize the physical journey was changing our mental journey. And I said, “It’s I want to call it the muscle republic, you know, like a place where muscle means heart, republic means community. We come together, we support each other, and show the world that real muscle is heart.” And she said, “Let’s drop the the It’s like a Facebook thing.”

[05:57] Liam: Yeah.

[05:58] Vic: It was the 1st of March 2013. We’re having a coffee at Mona Vale and never forget it. And that’s our birthday. So from there it stemmed a journey of building the brand as a bit of a side hobby and then left real estate in 2016 and went all in in 17.

[06:14] Liam: Very unconventional story. I think a lot of young people go through the or people in general in their lives. You constantly hear that people who have broken through the rock bottom moment have ended up flourishing on the other side. A lot of people get stuck in that forever or for a very long time and just never figure themselves out. Where did you really get that mindset from?

[06:36] Vic: If I revert back to my family or close friends, they were the ones telling me to stop. they were the ones like, “Look, just stay in real estate. You know, you’ve given this thing a bit of a try. It hasn’t really worked. You’re investing all the money that you’ve got into it. It’s going nowhere.” You know, we didn’t make a dollar or I didn’t make a dollar out of the business until about 2019, 2020,

[06:54] Liam: Right?

[06:54] Vic: A while after starting it. Yeah. you know, so I I went back and said, “No, I’m definitely going to commit to this thing and I’m going to make sure that I make it happen.” Cuz if I gave it everything and it didn’t work out, then I would appreciate, okay, that’s fine. But it’s really that continual relentlessness and grit that sees you through those dark moments. And it doesn’t get any easier once it starts to grow. You get new problems.

[07:20] Liam: Yeah. Do you think it’s really gotten easier as it’s gone on? I mean, it’s it’s different problems, right? I think what gets easier is you learn that you’re going to overcome those problems.

[07:28] Vic: Sure. it was funny. My brothers was talking last night or this morning actually and we had someone resign yesterday and usually we’d be like, “Oh my god, now we got to find someone else. We’re going to have this downtime.” But we’ve set the org chart up in a way that’s it’s totally fine. No problem. You know, we will overcome anything.

[07:46] Liam: Yeah. You think back to the early days, you know, someone resigning and it’s hits the fan and half your time your emotions are actually the worst thing. It all ends up being okay. Your existing staff that are great just fill the gap for a bit and you find someone great a couple of weeks later and you know they come in. but you just don’t emotionally know how to deal with it.

[08:07] Vic: You don’t. And it’s I think I was saying this the other day that entrepreneurship is a journey of self-development and self-discovery. you never know your true potential until you really push through those boundaries. We really encount I did encounter some significant challenges financially, mentally, personally. where anyone really should have given up. and you know, overcoming them, you be you build resilience and you’re like, okay, now I’m unstoppable. And they say like a man that can build himself back up in front of the people that want broke him becomes unbreakable. And I I think mentally, physically, business-wise, I become unbreakable because I know I can see the challenges coming. I can see where we need to protect the business. you know, we we run a really tight financial model in the business now. Something I was never very good at.

[09:02] Liam: But you’ve had to become good at.

[09:03] Vic: Yeah. understanding all your

[09:05] Liam: Only so many times you get punched in the face from a financial perspective before you make it good, right?

[09:09] Vic: It is the worst punch in the face. and it will really keep you down.

[09:15] Liam: I feel like once you’ve had the punch in the face of everyone gets the punch in the face of building a good product, then your customers like it. Then you get punched in the face with needing to be revenue obsessed and actually grow the business. Then you get punched in the face with people. Then you get punched in the face with good financial model. I feel like once you’ve got the four, you’re pretty good. you start to just have a different perspective once you’ve been once you’ve gone through a tough moment on all four of those.

[09:41] Vic: And, you know, we built that resilience. I think people is probably the most challenging part of a business. we now have a team of over 50. We have incredible talent that wants to come and work with us and is working with us from you know, global brands in terms of experience, but they love the culture and they love the mission that the brand’s on.

[10:00] Liam: How do you think how would you describe the culture today? What what do you care about most?

[10:05] Vic: Our culture is built on everyone’s growth in the business. I always tell my team progress gives me happiness. I don’t care if we stumble. I don’t care if we make a mistake. But as long as we work together, we had this cultural sort of charter last week and I said culture is like a muscle. You have to turn up and work with it every day. Some days I walk through that door and I don’t feel like coming in. I’ve got significant financial pressure, stress, things are breaking. We’re getting evicted or not evicted, but we need to move the whole operation from a warehouse and office point of view. I’m just thinking, we just got to overcame this challenge. How am I going to get through it? But I set the culture. So, I walk through that door and I’m like, hey team, what’s happening? And they know that. And I know they know that I’m there for them. And they come over to my desk like, “Hey, Vic, can I have a minute with you?” No problem. I sit in a workstation, no office. Everyone’s on the se equal level. If I don’t set that culture and there’s a feeling that there’s a distinguished between this department or that department or communication is really key in culture, then essentially it’ll break. And we’ve been through terrible culture in the business. and that came from me not being a very good leader at the time. So, in terms of where we’re at right now, we’re in a really good place. the team feel valued. It’s understanding what people want. You know, like I have some more senior team members that have come to me at the time of when we were employing them and their biggest fear was they were made redundant. They had no other way of financially supporting themselves and they were left on their own accord to go out and find another job and they couldn’t find a job. Maybe it was 3 months, maybe it was 8 months. Their sense of security in their job gave them a sense of belonging to the company now and they know that we protect the business. So if something went wrong tomorrow, we’re good for six months and we always have a monthly team meeting and educate everyone. This is where the business is at from a performance. This is where our gross margin is. This is where we’re at profit-wise. This is where we’re going. Our revenue target to sustain the growth of the business, but also to build a place where everyone can build their dreams in our business. No good that I’m driving a brand new car and walking around and you know act like these entrepreneurs do in some cases where they make a bit of money go buy a Lambo and everyone’s struggling no one’s getting pay increases no one getting bonuses. it’s comes from my like family upbringing that if you all work as one we and we move as one everything grows. If I’m the one pushing the cart and the horse there’s no point like it’s not really going to

[12:44] Liam: It’s a sense of winning right. I think that so many I always say to our team we have a bit of a saying like we are a company that is driven by the excitement of winning rather than the fear of losing. I feel like so many companies are driven by the fear of losing to their competitors. Everyone’s fearing losing their job. Everyone’s fearing missing targets

[13:02] Vic: Whereas let’s actually just be driven by the excitement of winning. Let’s just win. I feel like so many companies just aren’t focused on winning. They’re focused on trying not to lose. A good turnaround just recently is like I love rugby league and like the Manley Seagulls. So they had this coach and they were losing. Are they doing well? They’re doing well now and it came from just switching the assistant coach who was the next player Kieran for and something has shifted in the entire team. The players are a buzz and that comes from that leader. Nothing’s changed apart from one coach being removed and another coach sitting in place now. And that’s how you influence people. That’s how they turn up for you. You know, even the girl that resigned yesterday came to me and said, “Vic, I had a wonderful two years. I loved working for you. It’s time for me to move on for another challenge.” I said, “I’m here for you. You need anything? Let me know.” And she said, “This is why I’d loved working here cuz at any time I could come to you and talk to you.”

[13:53] Liam: I want to talk more about you bootstrapped the business, which is

[13:57] Vic: Still bootstrapped.

[13:58] Liam: Still still bootstrapped now. I would say a lot of people go down the path of doing but equally a lot of people once they have a bit of success start to go down the path of raising investment getting investors in etc. Talk to us a bit about the bootstrapping journey. What is that something you’re really passionate about keeping?

[14:14] Vic: I had no choice in the beginning. I remember my first investment into product was $5,000.

[14:19] Liam: Right.

[14:20] Vic: So I had that money saved. I bought these t-shirts. from there we went to a brand called local brand as color. We just bought some blanks and I had my real estate signage guy print them for me. People like myself be able to print a t-shirt with their brand on it and create something. I feel you know in the beginning everyone thinks they’re going to spend 10,000 and make a h 100,000 and you realize Jesus Christ where’s all my expenses you know like what happened to all the money? there’s discounts. so understanding the whole flow of business from buying a product to selling a product and operating costs and what you’re left with. I didn’t know any of that and I didn’t know any of that for a good 5 years. So I was really fortunate that I met a gentleman called Paul Woody who was the C who was the operations manager at Shopo and I’ll get to that in a minute but essentially like talk about people helping one another. that bloke, I met with him for a coffee. it was 2017. My P&L was absolutely atrocious to be honest. I didn’t even know what a P&L was. And he said, “Bring your P&L.” And I said, “Okay.” So, we met in Clarence Street in the city and I sat with him and I I was so passionate about growing this business, but I was losing money, you know, and he’s like, “Listen, you are a product guy, you are a brand guy. Don’t stop doing that. I’ll help guide you through the next phases.” And like I met with Paul, fast forward 3 years later, it was 2020 and he was like, “Holy you 3x the business.” Like we grew by 300% that year. And I said, “Yeah.” I said, “Someone told me that I couldn’t do it.” So I told them, “Fuck you. I’m going to show you.” You know,

[16:03] Liam: That is that the true fire for you?

[16:04] Vic: It has to be. I work from the I work from dark. I work from the bottom. if you tell me I can do something, I hate it because I feel like you you’re giving me some sort of lip service.

[16:13] Liam: Like you feel like you really get fired up when someone tells you you can’t do something.

[16:16] Vic: Yeah. You know, or when I see our competitors doing X and we’re it here and I’m like hell. Like they put their pants on the same way. We are the same people. You know, go back to culture and brand. Our biggest power is who we are as a brand. Like you’ve got it right. Don’t focus on your competitors. We’re the we’re we’re the team on the field. We got 13 players on the field. They got 13 players on the field. The ball just needs to get to the back of the net. But to get the ball to the back of the net, we have to pass the ball to one another. We have to support. We have to all play our position in that org chart to get that goal and get that win. But we went back and I had sold my car and listen 200 SX and it was like Porsche RS30 back then and I had 20 grand. So I was looking on Alibaba and I see a supplier in Bangladesh and as Color were making some product in Bangladesh. I saw it on the back of the swing tag. So, I go to Flight Center and I book a trip to Dhaka, which is the capital of Bangladesh. And I meet this supplier that I met on Alibaba, and he took me to a few places. We ordered 6,000 units. Cost me the whole 20 grand. I land those in my parents’ garage.

[17:20] Liam: Yeah. Filled it up.

[17:21] Vic: I filled it up. It was like six different SKUs in different colors with some Bunnings shelves, which we literally just got rid of recently. And I would hustle that product. We had a Magento site, which was atrocious. we would keep an Excel spreadsheet and my property manager and receptionist from work would come and help me sometimes pack the orders and people would come to the real estate and buy those orders. You know, you fast forward, I then end up selling the real estate business and invest all that money that I had in 2016 and I buy into Muscle Republic. We move to a warehouse which is about 130 m. and I exit real estate and the business is going down. It’s going nowhere. So, it’s 2017.

[18:09] Liam: So, you’re feeling the pressure at this point?

[18:11] Vic: Yeah. I’m like absolutely consumed with fear and financial loss. And I like I should have given up, but I was like, “No, I’m going to make this work.” So, I literally started following podcasts. So, I started following Andy Fisella’s podcast, MFCEO, and he talks about this thing called the power list, and you just write down five things to get you to your goal. And I’m like, okay, I can do that. and then I would break down the business from learning stuff at the entourage. You know, I went to the entourage. I’m in a room of 200 people, and they would talk about progress over perfection, which is now a value of ours. So, I’m like, okay, I can do that. I can things up and make them better. And they would talk about Shopify. I didn’t even know what Shopify was. So, I’d sit there quietly and just feel like the dumbest person in that room,

[19:00] Liam: But just it can absorb it all.

[19:02] Vic: And eventually it resonated and they would teach you a master do and that would teach you about your admin of the business, your sales and marketing, your operations, which includes your production, and I’d break down those things and set goals against each one of them. fast forward, I’m living in the warehouse 2017 for 6 months and I’m starting to make things happen. Selling directly from the warehouse. We get to 18. I remember we reconcile the the the accounts for the year. I’m in my accountant’s office and it’s a Saturday night, 1:00 a.m. we finish. I was putting all my purchase orders in correctly. I was recording all my freight correct incorrectly, AUD instead of USD. It wasn’t calculating. So I lose like 380 grand that year. And I’m thinking, I look at him and I said, “It’s okay. We’re at least we know where we’re at now. It’s only up from here.” So I drive home. I wanted to drive off a cliff, but I got my dog in the car with me. And I’m like, “It’s all right, Charlie. As long as we got each other, we learn to live with nothing. We will get through this.” And I just persevered with learning. And eventually we got to 2019 2020 we launch a collection and I’m reinvesting everything all all the time, right? I can’t get any money cuz the bank won’t lend me any money and we launch this collection. It’s the week of co March and it sells out in about 18 minutes. We make about 85 grand in 18 minutes but we oversold 150 orders cuz the inventory management system was broke. So, I’ve gone from the heights of exhilaration to the depths of depression again. But I was sitting there going, instead of buying 250 units, what if I had 700 units? You like I would always set the bar. What if we could get to this figure? What if we could get to what do we need to do that? And we moved to a new warehouse during co, it was August in 2020. And I sat there and I said to my brother, we need to reinvest in product. He said, well, no one’s given us any money. the bank would not knock me back. So Shopify have Shopify capital. So we took three loans over the course of those 12 months. First loan was 680. All bets in. You had to pay back 10% of sales every day. We’d run into a sale. We’d pretty much pay that back and reinvest the money again. And then we took another one of like 900. And the last one we took was 1.1. And eventually we had a company called Scottish Pacific come in and give us a trade finance loan. And that was every 15 days you had to pay them back. But we were just making buying product, making sales with a team of eight of us. I’d pack orders during the day with the team in the morning, get them set up, go upstairs, we’d go to photo shoots together, small marketing team.

[21:58] Liam: And so the wheels just started turning. And you just hustled. You went from one sale, you went from one customer to two with knowing what you know now and and turning it into a machine. What would have you have done different in the early days to get it to the spot where you are now much faster?

[22:13] Vic: Yeah, definitely. I would have got out of my own way a lot faster. I would have really asked for a lot more help in the beginning and I would have structured it in a way that with apparel for instance you work off categories and product types. So you look at what products do you want in the mix, what core product do you want in? What do you layer in as newness each year? We have a very strong product design planning system now. Like I have two merchandise planners that are incredible. They plan out the entire year. We set a revenue target. They set the OTB against that. They roll everything up. That goes to marketing. They build a marketing plan into that. I would have simplified that process a lot earlier if I wasn’t so much in my own way or probably trying to listen to other people. I think trying to do too many things yourself and understanding what’s going to really drive an ecom business and that’s traffic. it’s conversion and it’s making sure you got the you know obviously your AOV. understanding those three metrics a lot faster and how I could have got a lot more awareness and traffic to my website and that would have fueled the business a lot faster. We were focused on product too much instead of marketing,

[23:23] Liam: Right?

[23:24] Vic: So, realizing that no matter what

[23:26] Liam: I feel like something you did get right though and and something that’s in the name of the business is the community, right? You were always pretty obsessed about that from the very early days. and still remain very obsessed about that today. I mean, it’s in the name, right? Muscle Republic. that I feel like that’s the heart of the business. that’s a key differentiator for a lot of your customers that continue to come back is that feeling of community.

[23:51] Vic: They have to know, like, and trust you. there’s so many brands out there, then and until you can prove yourself with that customer. CX is a huge part of our business. We have five people in CX 24/7, always on. And I say to the team, we have the CX manager lives in Bali. this English lady who’s been with me just over three nearly four years now said to Rach, "No matter what happens, just make sure the customer stays happy. If they have a product, if they have a product issue, just send them another one. If they’ve if they’re trying to be fraudulent with us, eventually after the second or third time, we’re going to figure it out. but just give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them the same way you want to be treated

[24:34] Liam: Cuz it’s crazy how much, you know, you you start to piss off the customer and then they’re posting Tik Toks and Instagram, you know, content about the fact that they hate you and it just ripples through, right? That’s the someone thinks about Muscle Republic and you don’t want them thinking about that.

[24:48] Vic: Absolutely. But, you know, the other thing I realized with community, they want to do things people I’m an introvert like you leave me at home with and I’m fine, you know. for I have to go out and talk to people. It drives me mental. Like this is challenging for me going out and doing podcasts again. When we started doing events, people were rocking up. We’d sell out an event in two three in for two 300 people for a run club in 20 minutes. And I would say to the team, don’t worry about the ranger. Just let let the event keep growing. You know, we’ll deal with the fine. Who cares? but people really want to be connected with one another. particularly after the period that we went through in the early, you know, 2020s, people want to get out and and and network with others. They want to get out and do run clubs. They want to come to expose. They want to come to wear our sales. they want to go to gyms and do workouts. So, it’s our obligation as a brand. And this is something that if you really research like big brands like your Lulu and what have you, Lulu were doing free yoga classes in their shops in the beginning. They were doing education pieces with hiring better staff. That’s what brought people together and eventually like our brand mission is to connect the world through the heartbeat of fitness. The worst feeling in the world and feeling alone, you know, like I always had my dog. so I felt like I wasn’t alone during this journey. So that was a major part for me. but there were moments that, you know, when people feel alone and disassociated, it brings them to a really dark place. Fitness brought me out of that. having connection with good family and friends that have were there from day one and still there today that if I need something I can call them and say hey I need a hand with this can you help me the girls at work have this thing Vic has a guy for everything so it’s

[26:30] Liam: Just call him call him

[26:32] Vic: One of the girls our designer said Vic I’m looking at this rental do you know anyone at this particular agency cuz I was from real estate I said yeah my mate used to own another franchise maybe he knows him. I’ll text him. So I text him. I’m said, “Hey, one of the girls at work’s going for this place. This is the place. If you can, if you know anyone.” So he sends him a text. He goes, “Yep, he’s got it. He’s going to talk to the property manager.” And she got the place. Like it’s all referral and trust, right? And if you look after people, they’ll look after you. And that’s what business is about.

[27:05] Liam: Well, how do you think community building will change over the say, let’s say, the next 12 months? What are you guys focused on at the moment?

[27:10] Vic: Oh, it’s funny you say that cuz I’ve just resourced an entire events and activations team,

[27:17] Liam: Right?

[27:17] Vic: And we built that under our awareness and activation.

[27:20] Liam: That’s going to be my next question. Like I think you got to be so purposeful about community, right? You can’t just be all right, it’s a value. Let’s, you know, everyone just think about the community. Let’s bring it all together. Like you have to really make it a thing. It’s an element of it making it like ingrained in the company culture, but it also needs to be people responsible for certain things.

[27:37] Vic: The brand starts with the business internally and the community internally. So tomorrow we have a food truck rocking up in the loading dock. cuz I went to my accountant’s 40th birthday and had this awesome food truck with these chur burgers on it. I said that’d be a great idea to do with the team. And it just, you know, coming from an Italian background, we connected through eating together, meeting together, and that that rapport you build with one another when you break bread builds community, you know, and I try and instill that into my team. So, you know, we obviously start, we do workouts together. They made me do Pilates. Jesus Christ, that’s a hard workout.

[28:20] Liam: Not a fan.

[28:20] Vic: I love it. I just need to get better at it. Yeah. I went back and said, “Okay, look at all our tags on Instagram and Tik Tok. What are our community doing?” You know, she’s at HYROX on the weekend. The other BS, he signed up for a marathon. They’re they’re tagging us in their movement. So, I broke it down to movement. And if we look at really, we’re not really a bodybuilding brand where we started, you know, but we we actually are 90% female-based customer. So, she moves. When I say move, she does yoga, she does Pilates. I have ladies from Pilates Studios ring me and say, “I don’t know who you are, your brand, but I’m I’m doing my class in Ramwick, and every time I go to run the class, all I see is Muscle Republic across the back of the waistband, and can we do a collab? Can we do something? Can we do some give?” I said, “Yeah, sure. No problem.” that’s move. Then they train. They’re lifting weights. They’re doing those functional workouts. They’re now really starting to do high rocks. So that functional weights and fitness training and now they’re running. Like I was definitely not a runner and I tried to take it up and I’m stumbling through it. but everyone’s loving to challenge themselves and do a 5k run and they are, you know, doing half marathons and marathons.

[29:38] Liam: So you want to meet your customer where they are.

[29:40] Vic: So we function our movements around run clubs. What activation can we do from a run club? But it’s not about doing the same run club every week. I said to the team, take it on a tour. go across all the eastern seabboard, hit Perth, hit Tasmania, work from a base, engage that community and bring our community to that local community and connect. We have Pilates events that will sell out. Well, the so the signups will fill up within 20 minutes. 80 to 100 people in a beautiful space. and we try and replicate that across different locations.

[30:18] Liam: I think a lot of business leaders, particularly on the events front, I think it’s a long-term payoff in many ways. Like, you know, you’re turning up to the run club, maybe giving away some product, you know, you’re putting the brand there, you’re shouting the coffees, like whatever it is, but people aren’t purchasing there and then, and it’s so hard to attribute the ROI of that exact event to sales across the year, it’s hopefully paying off, and we all know it works, of course. but as a business leader, you’re constantly going, if we put a dollar here, you know, I want to see at least $150 out. And it’s so hard to see that. But

[30:51] Vic: I used to be like that.

[30:52] Liam: Yeah. You can’t.

[30:52] Vic: Oh, no. You can’t anymore because you can spend $10 on Meta and expect you’re going to get 50 back, right? But it’s going to burn out. And what’s going to happen? You’re just going to be a product on a show if you’re not going to be a brand. So brand is where people connect. Brand is where they connect with the feeling, the look. Like I said, this black hoodie is no different to the black hoodie you’re wearing. It’s not going to differ unless people feel connected to the brand. If we don’t add value outside of our digital strategy, so I I look at it like this. I recently stepped back and said like Paul Woody taught me this. Each phase of growth in your business, your org chart’s going to have to have to replicate that. So we have 25 people in marketing right now. We had about eight 3 years ago. Now, that was it’s a it’s a conscious decision to structure it that way. And how do you structure it? I used to run home at night because the boys from High Smile, Nick and Alex, we’re doing this series and it was called Growing Up with Nick and Nick and Alex, right? And they were educating their community on how they built their business. Cuz I’m pretty simple, like I’m not smart. So, it’s like, so I write notes and I take them into work the next day. I’m like, okay, you got awareness, you got relationship, you got conversion. You can’t ask for the sale here. You got to provide some value. So, how do we fill the top of the funnel? Educate them on the product. We educate them on the brand story. We educate them on the community and what we’re doing. Then, we hit them with this is a new collection. This is a core product. This is an event that we’re doing. Now, if you can build a 12-month timeline, I have this wall in the office. I had it in my original office. I have one in there now. And it’s our marketing wall. And it literally has a month column and in that month what product we’re dropping. Now I ask marketing to come back to me and say okay what are you dropping in that month in terms of your activation, your digital strategy, your ecom strategy. What are you doing to grow it? Don’t just go and expect that Instagram followers are going to come and grow. You have to provide more value. What influencers are we reaching?

[32:50] Liam: And you really challenge them.

[32:51] Vic: Absolutely. They think I’m crazy. But I think I’m crazy until they hit their target. Then I set the next bar. There’s no

[32:57] Liam: What’s the craziest marketing thing you’ve done?

[32:59] Vic: It’s funny you say that. Everyone thinks there’s going to be one thing that smacks your brand out of the market, but it never is. It’s consistency. So, we’re working with an influencer now, and we’re just about to drop a collab with her in July. She was in the office building the collection with the team 2 months ago. She came over to me and she was so proud to show me this old product that she was wearing back four years ago. Now, I would go home at night and I’d make a list of influencers and I would have a Google sheet and I’d put, you know, the same DM to them and say, “Hey, Jane, Vic from Russell Republic here. I’d love to be able to give give you some product. If you like it, you can share it. We can talk about, you know, and some of those influences are ones we’re still working with now.” Like this this influencer work is incredible. she has such an engaged reach and she’s so aligned to the brand. I think people, you can say you can do one crazy thing. It’s never going to work unless you take

[33:50] Liam: Consistency, experimentation, good people, good product, community.

[33:54] Vic: You know, it’s funny you said something to me before. What would you do differently? I would have learned digital a lot faster. That’s one regret I had. the power of digital and how it amplifies. And I’ll go back to that or structure. Sorry, I keep digressing, but I consider our first part of marketing is just awareness and attention. And if we don’t have awareness and attention, we are nothing. Cuz what frustrates me the most is when I meet someone new and they’re like, “Oh, what do you do?” And I’m like, “Oh, just it. I don’t want to tell them.” And I’m like, “Oh, I’ve just I’ve got an active wear brand. What’s it called?” “Oh, Muscle Republic.” H it sounds Yeah, it sounds familiar. It’s like

[34:28] Liam: And that really fires you up.

[34:29] Vic: It’s like this brand or that brand. I go back to work the next day. I’m like, “Listen, until everyone knows about us, we haven’t done our job.” You know, I was in New York and LA and the the sheer scale of that market, I get excited because I’m like, Jesus Christ, there’s 12 million people just in LA, let alone 29 or 39 in the whole of California.

[34:47] Liam: And that’s like more than Australia.

[34:50] Vic: Yeah. You know, I’m like, Jesus Christ, what are we doing over here? And there’s so I just see opportunity and growth and that’s what gives me happiness. But if you build your your team and structure of you know you have awareness and attention how do you get that that’s your creative that’s your socials that’s your events that’s your influences and you build teams that are specifically driven towards those your digital strategy comes after that you know it’s like where for I saw your YouTube videos when I was looking at different apps and stuff you know and I was like far out this kid’s so young and he really knows what he’s talking about and doing I wish I had that confidence to talk in front of the camera you know so like and that was maybe a year or two ago Yeah. So like see I’ve seen your content before we’ve actually engaged and met and that’s what we have to do as well.

[35:35] Liam: It builds trust and confidence and then by the time you finally purchase

[35:38] Vic: Yeah. You know my dad taught me this thing in real estate. I said to him when we had the real estate together I said dad our real estate signs are freaking terrible. They’re yellow. They got this calligraphy style of writing. My mates are bagging me. Can we get sign boards like McGrath? They’re cool you know. And he said are they talking about McGrath sign boards? I go no they’re not. And he goes cuz they look cool. And he goes, “That’s exactly the point. They’re talking about ours cuz they’re seeing them everywhere.”

[36:01] Liam: Yeah.

[36:01] Vic: And he taught me this thing I sort of resonated when I started muscle. And he said, “Well, if you control the signboard, you control the territory. So if you control what everyone sees and how much volume you can pump into that market, eventually you become the one that they go to.” So I said, "Okay, well, if I’ve got Muscle Republic in some capacity on a t-shirt in its environment, that’s our goal. Whether it’s a gym, a Pilates studio, a run club, people are eventually going to recognize that, you know, and they talk about 8, 12, 20 times before they actually buy your brand. What are the touch points across all the different channels that we can amplify into there? So, you know, obviously then you got your ecom part, which is all your website and everything else and your conversion. That drives me crazy cuz conversion can do these and send me to the

[36:47] Liam: Send you crazy.

[36:48] Vic: Where is it going wrong? Where is it going right? I’m like, tell me, you know. and then obviously CX is the finishing part where always make sure they’re happy. You know, parcel didn’t get there. It’s okay. Send them another one. Are you serious? I’m like, yeah, wow them. Send them beyond their expectations.

[37:07] Liam: Send them your product again and a sorry note or

[37:09] Vic: Exactly.

[37:10] Liam: You know,

[37:11] Vic: Because it’s not the first sale that you make the money on. It’s the second, the third, the fifth, the attempt. One of our

[37:16] Liam: I think a lot of ecom founders or a lot of brand founders forget that, right? like you actually don’t make the money on the first purchase a lot of the time.

[37:22] Vic: It goes back to what we were saying about bootstrapping the business. You know, you had to put 10 grand in. That was all the money in the world to me. Then I had to learn to live without money for quite a period of time. And that taught me a lot of lessons that money is not important unless you feel fulfilled and happy. Money isn’t an issue, but I really don’t spend any money. My brother teaches me. He goes, “You still don’t even spend anything.” And I’m like, “Yeah, because I don’t need much.” Like, you really don’t need much. You know,

[37:47] Liam: You get so caught up in it, distracted.

[37:49] Vic: Absolutely.

[37:49] Liam: And then the core just ends up going backwards. Let’s end on this note. I think it’s been incred, you know, you had an incredible story. We’ve spoken a lot about the the ups and the downs of the journey. Right now, where you stand, what’s the thing you’re proudest of?

[38:02] Vic: The person I’ve become. I wasn’t fulfilled or adding much value to my family, my friends when I was at my lowest. And now I’m a person that people can come to ask for advice. I can help them. I can guide them. And my goal was to become the person that my dog thought I was. And I lost him in September 2024. Absolutely broke me. And I actually was holding on to so much anxiety and stress from running the business that when I lost my dog, I ended up getting nerve pain in my leg and nerve pain in my arm. And 3 months later, we discovered through an MRI, it had nothing to do with the leg or the arm. It was all coming from the back. And my discs were broken. Or I had a busted disc in two places in my L4 L5. And I had bone spurs growing up here and I didn’t have any back pain. So running a business can be extremely stressful to the point that your adrenaline can run so high that it actually breaks you. And I had to go through three different back surgeries over 6 months. And eventually I came back in August last year and started to rebuild myself again physically. But the person I’d become so mentally strong and structured in running the business meant that the business held together while I was still recovering at those different times. And now like friends reach out, we’re able to rescue that we rescue a lot of dogs through a company called Rescue Hub. we support the Starlight Foundation, but that’s only because I learned that you get more from giving than you do from actually receiving. and I wasn’t that person 13 years ago. So, and the community that we’ve built resonates with that. Seeing them connect, understanding that we want them to know that real muscle is heart and that, you know, through fitness they can change their lives means the world to me. You know, like I was in LA and I saw this girl wearing Muscle Republic and I was like, Jesus Christ, that’s incredible. You know, that’s I still see it as me in the bedroom,

[40:02] Liam: But it’s the difference that you can make in the world for building a business and the impact you can have on lives. The tough moments are hard, but are you looking back, are you always glad that you went through them to Yeah. Cuz I think a lot of young people, I mean, people my age are pretty scared of like they don’t want to work hard, they don’t want to create something, they want to take the easy route, their parents pay for them, like whatever it is, right? That’s not everyone, of course. It would be wrong to say that’s everyone, but I think there are a lot of people that try and take the easy path and then they wonder why they haven’t created something that they’re proud of or they haven’t pushed through the tough moments. It doesn’t have to be your own business. It could be a career. It could be a university degree. It could be travel. Like whatever.

[40:42] Vic: If I didn’t then it would have it wouldn’t have been successful because a you know they say a brand would never outgrow its founder or leader. so I’ve had to become a much different person. I I was always the same person. when it was inside. I just had to unpack it a bit. So,

[40:57] Liam: It was always there.

[40:58] Vic: Absolutely.

[40:58] Liam: Vic, thanks for coming on today’s episode. I had no idea about the incredible story behind it. I think a lot of people just see the brand, they see the product, love the product, but they don’t truly understand the the story behind it. So, I’m glad we could unpack it today and people listen to it.

[41:12] Vic: And I hope they get some value out of it and keep doing what you’re doing. It’s amazing.

[41:16] Liam: Thank you.

[41:17] Vic: Thank you. You, too.

They cover:

• How Vic’s personal transformation became the starting point for Muscle Republic
• Why community was central to the brand before scale arrived
• What setbacks and hard decisions taught Vic about leadership
• How fitness shaped his approach to discipline, patience and resilience
• What Vic wants the next chapter of Muscle Republic to become

0:00 What drives Vic

0:51 The story behind Muscle Republic

3:24 Fitness, Charlie and the first shirts

6:14 Rock bottom and building resilience

10:00 Culture and leadership

13:53 Bootstrapping the business

18:03 Living in the warehouse and finding traction

22:03 What Vic would do differently

23:24 Community and customer experience

27:05 Turning community into a growth strategy

30:18 Why brand matters beyond paid media

32:57 Consistency, influencers and awareness

37:11 Money, fulfilment and the person Vic became