Muscle Nation is aiming for a $50m turnover this financial year

The Brisbane man behind one of Australia’s fastest-growing retail brands, with a five-fold revenue increase in three years, has revealed his “secret weapon” behind the success.

One of Australia’s fastest-growing retail brands, specialising in the design and supply of activewear, supplements and accessories, has notched up an almost five-fold increase in revenue over the past three years.

And for Muscle Nation co-founder and chief executive ­Nathaniel Anthony, success in the highly competitive activewear market can be attributed to hard work and family support.

With Mother’s Day firmly on the family calendar, Mr Anthony said his mother Maria, a former Westpac home finance manager before owning three Coffee Club franchises in Brisbane’s Bayside, had been his “secret weapon” for Muscle Nation.

“When I was growing up I wasn’t very academic. I never did too well at school or even university. I kind of just got by,” Mr Anthony, 30, said.

“But my parents were always there for us and my mum was such a strong role model because she was also running her own businesses.

“She always taught us how to manage our money, how to invest our money and how to think outside the box. That’s when I started thinking a bit more about what I could I do with my life. A lot of business comes down to finance and cashflow and investing money and that’s something that I learnt from her.”

Maria Anthony with son Nathaniel at Muscle Nation, Tingalpa. Picture: Richard Walker

Mr Anthony bought his first property at 21 and started his first business at 23, before he and good friend Chris Anastasi launched Muscle Nation in 2016.

Since then the company has taken off. In the past three years, with e-commerce taking up an increasingly larger chunk of revenue, the business has gone from $11m turnover in 2018-19, to $27m in 2019-20 and it is expected to generate $50m this year.

Once housed in a small bedroom at Mr Anthony’s grandmother’s house and then his parents’, the company graduated to a 1700sq m warehouse in Tingalpa, on Brisbane’s southside, and this year will move into a nearby 4000sq m facility being built by father Chris, who has a construction business. It aims to open the warehouse in time for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday in November, which last year attracted almost $10m in total sales alone.

Models showing the Muscle Nation Endurance Collection.

Mrs Anthony, 55, said the ingrained small business ethos of hard work and customer service was taught to her by her father, and she had passed it on to her three sons.

“That’s how I grew up. My ­father was an migrant from ­Cyprus and he had a corner shop. When I was a little girl I had to work in there and do my shift with my sisters,” she said.

“The three boys all started working at the Coffee Club while they were still at school and what I wanted to instil in them is how to do customer service, how to work hard, how to communicate with customers, run shifts and manage staff and things like that.

“Nathaniel had a lot of training when he was working for me in customer service and how to drive loyalty and keep customers coming back, and I think he carried that forward.

“Anyone can make a cup of coffee and a meal but customers keep coming back because they like the people who are running the place and they get to know them by name. That’s what they do at Muscle Nation. They have a big customer service team and they get to know the customers by name.”

Mrs Anthony said it was customer loyalty that helped her keep her three Coffee Clubs open last year in a bleak retail atmosphere during the pandemic.

“I was always taught to never give up and I think Nathaniel has that as well,” she said. “We’ve been through a tough year in retail but we have got through it and still operated during COVID and kept our doors open.”

the Muscle Nation Endurance Collection.

Muscle Nation has launched more than 1000 different products, selling into over 300 supplements stores around Australia and New Zealand, and shipping to more than 150 countries.

It has a design team with the activewear — including popular leggings, jumpers and hoodies, bra­lettes, bike shorts, puffer jackets and underwear — made overseas, while the supplements are made in Australia.

Muscle Nation also supplies food products such as protein bites and baking mixes and is expanding that side of the business.

To keep up with growth it has had to dramatically increase from two staff less than five years ago to about 100 full-time and casual staff.

Helping to drive much that growth is a social media following of more than two million, mainly women between ages 21 and 35.

Mr Anthony said family continued to be an important part of Muscle Nation with his brothers Joseph and Andrew, and various cousins working there as well as his wife Demi who plays a “key role” in the business.

“We’ve created a very community driven company with our workers part of the family. Our customers are very loyal who want to be part of the Muscle Nation family,” he said.

“We are selling a family here but its about providing a journey for our customers that makes them go out and tell other people about our products.

“Anyone can sell a product but we want to provide more than that and we spend a lot of money on customer service and all those things that ensure our customers are happy and keep coming back.”