Elevate Universal: We’re On The Rise.

“It’s so easy to find people to go out for a drink with … but it’s hard to find someone to go out for a run with. We wanted to change that.” 

‘Elevate Universal’ is community. 

That’s first and foremost.Elevate Universal is a youth-led running apparel brand that was founded by two students, Ollie O'Gorman and Conor McManus, less than a year ago, shortly after their Leaving Cert. Elevate includes a weekly, informal run club, direct-to-customer clothing, night-time runs, pop-up events at spots like Malahide Castle or The Lab, Raheny, and funding for charities such as the Gavin Glynn foundation, helping families of children battling cancer to travel overseas for treatment not available in Ireland. Its mission is to build local-to-global communities where individuals are determined to push boundaries, embrace growth, and uplift one another.

Lately, Starfish Magazine has been trying to contemplate how real communities are created and how belonging can actually be fostered these days; I wanted my discussion with these young entrepreneurs to centre around the question: how can business and belonging be balanced in our trend-flitting-consumer-grabbing culture?Why running? That was also on my mind, and why do young people need this? They walked me through it. 

So how do you balance your focus between business and community? 

Conor: Well, what are your priorities? What does Elevate actually stand for? We’re about helping people improve their lives and grow. Obviously, we're trying to make a profit, we’re a business, but you ask yourself what really matters, and if you're trying to help people grow?… Then, right: community comes first.

Ollie: And if you take the community out of it, if you're not showing up every single week, then what do we stand for? You have to provide that every day. Simple as. 

How do you make people feel welcomed, though? 

Conor: We do everything we can to make it a good night, playing nice music, leading the whole lot, making the best possible experience for everyone. We always make new members feel welcome, ask them their name, where they're from, get chatting to them for the night, sort them out with a bottle of water after..  And it’s nothing formal, there’s no sign up or tracking you in a book – it’s just pop down when you can.

And how do people hear about you? 

Conor: Socials are our way of reaching people. From the start, even before launching Elevate, I was doing research into running clubs, running brands, actual clothing brands and influencers. Originally, I was going for a lot of trends, that's how we evolved-

Ollie: But now we can focus our everyday posts on more creative stuff, coming up with new content, new places to go, new questions to ask. 

Conor: And with creating content, we were both grandads at the start–

Ollie: We only downloaded TikTok for Elevate–

Conor: But we’ve learned: getting your timing right, getting the hook, and Olly has gotten so good with his questions and approaching people–

Ollie: And this man’s a wizard with the editing. But we’re both still learning so much, and that’s a privileged position to be in. We're students; we want to learn every single day. We never thought it would be where it is now, but that’s just more rocket-fuel to keep improving.  

So, before we get to how Elevate changes the lives of others, how has it changed your lives? 

Ollie: Nevermind daily. Elevate takes up every single minute. It’s a real buzz, getting noticed, getting appreciated. I’m just excited for the future to be honest; endless opportunities. That’s why the logo is a rocketship, shoot for the moon, next thing you know, we’ll be branding NASA spaceships. 

Conor: Yeah, Elevate’s basically consumed my life. When I’m working my part-time job, I’m thinking about it; when I’m running, I’m thinking about it. I was already a runner, already raising for charity, and to start a business that has integrated both of those things is genuinely great. I just enjoy it. So many people our age are probably thinking of starting a business, or just starting anything, but we’re actually doing it. We’re nowhere near perfect, but we practice what we preach. It’s a cliché, but… just go for it, life’s too short, why not just go for it? 

Ollie: Yeah, it's taking that risk. We’re not golden boys by any stretch, just because we took that risk; I'm not saying that, it wasn’t easy.

Making our first couple of posts on social media, people laughed at us, and they slagged us. People are still laughing! But now they expect no less, that’s Conor, that’s Ollie, they do that anyway, y’know. You just gotta get over that first hurdle. 

Conor: and take the losses as they come. 

What were the biggest losses then? 

Conor: Well, when numbers are low on the run club or when collabs are letting you down, not following through. Sometimes it can get in your head when people aren't showing up. 

Yeah, a scary thing about community is that you’re relying on other people, right? 

Conor: Yeah, it can be easy to doubt yourself.

Ollie: If you think about any entrepreneur, there’s always something that could have stopped them, but obviously, they kept on going. It’s staying in the game. 

Conor: Get back up, stay in the game, if you lose, learn why you lost and take that with you to the next day. In running, even if you’re barely hopping, you’re still moving, and that’s the philosophy we bring to Elevate. 

Ollie: And there’s not one specific challenge; the whole thing’s been a challenge, but keep pushing, do everything to keep it afloat. And the thing is, we aren’t really a ‘run-club.’ It doesn't matter if it’s just me and Connor that show up or just us and one other person or just one of us – no matter what, someone will be there, and that’s what it's about. That’s community. 

So, finally, what’s so special about running then? 

Conor: Belonging, it’s belonging. When I’m with the crew on a Tuesday night, you’re just thinking this is where I’m meant to be. You’ll be there with both All-Ireland sprinters and lads on their first ever run…but we’re all together on this one journey. 

Ollie: And the thing is: you’ll always have one of us at the front, and one of us will be at the back, and there'll be Elevate representatives in the middle. If one of us is at the back, we’re all at the back. 

Thanks for the chat, guys, 

Cheers!

“We’re on the rise, stay posted, huge things are coming, we’ll always keep you on your toes” 

For more information, check out Elevate Universal – Running Apparel & Run Club Dublin. 

Written by Ben Lynch (ben_lynch__) 

Edited by Shaunamay Martin Bohan