Entrepreneurs: How hard work left Tailored Athlete's Harry Simonis in great shape

AS a university drop out and wannabe entrepreneur, with bulging biceps from a gym obsession, Harry Simonis idolised a US fitness expert called Brandon Carter (maker of such viral YouTube hits as “GO FOR IT OR SHUT THE F*** UP.”)

He decided to pursue an internship with Carter, so blitzed him with a video job application, then emails, and then phone calls. Hearing nothing back, when he turned 18 in November 2015, Simonis decided to fly to New York and ask in person.

Carter said no (this wasn’t a Disney script).

But he did give him a reading list of his favourite business books. And Simonis soon had his own entrepreneurial idea: his weightlifting habit had meant he’d struggled to find a shirt that fitted well for his school prom.

“They were all excessively baggy or far too tight and uncomfortable, so I’d solved my own problem and designed a shirt fit for purpose. Then I thought, what about making it a business?” That was the inspiration for Tailored Athlete, a muscle-fit clothing business which is now two years old, and turns over £1 million a year. The company sells a range including jeans, shirts, polos and T-shirts.

Initial market research involved a lot of funny looks. “I stood in front of gyms taking measurements from hundreds of athletes,” the entrepreneur laughs. “Some people agreed, some thought I was mad.”

He compared those measurements with shirts from standard shops, then found a manufacturer in China, via Alibaba, who could fulfil his custom measurements.

Then Simonis’ old business guru Carter flew to London to do a talk. “I went to meet him and this time, he offered me a chance. So I flew to New York a month later with very little money, and worked for him as an unpaid intern for 90 days and living off $15 a day. I worked during the day, built up Tailored Athlete at night, and slept on the office floor.”

Simonis was offered a paid job with Carter, but couldn’t secure a visa, so he came back to Britain to focus his efforts on Tailored Athlete.

The first box of 200 shirts was delivered to Simonis’ mum’s house in December 2016. “It was a makeshift set-up, in my bedroom, and I distributed all orders from there, packaging them up on my bed for Royal Mail to collect every day.”

Orders began to take off. Although Simonis kept up his part-time jobs: first working in Argos, and then selling guttering via telesales.

He used his earnings from those jobs, plus an overdraft from his Halifax credit card, to develop new products and pay for manufacturing.