Club Shay Shay - Daymond John

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Shannon welcomes in fashion mogul, branding guru, ‘Shark Tank’ personality, NYT Bestselling author & the founder, president & CEO of FUBU: Daymond John.Listen & subscribe to more FOX Sports podcasts: http://sprtspod.fox/applepodcasts#DoSomethinB4TwoSomethin & Follow Club Shay Shay:                                                                 https://www.instagram.com/clubshayshayhttps://twitter.com/clubshayshayhttps://www.facebook.com/clubshayshayhttps://www.youtube.com/c/clubshayshay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello, welcome to another edition of Club Che Che. I am your host, Shannon Sharp. I'm also the proprietor of Club Che Che. And the guy that's stopping by today for a conversation is Drink. He's a fashion mogul. He's a branding guru, an entrepreneurial expert, savvy business executive, a New York Times bestselling author, savvy business executive, a New York Times bestselling author, founder, president, and CEO of FUBU, a shark on the four-time award-winning series Shark Tank, the people shark, Damon John. Damon, how you doing, bro? I'm well. Thank you for having me. How you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks for coming on the pod. Since I got you here, I got a shark. And so,

you know what? I got to make my pitch. I might as well make my pitch. So here I go. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you think. Hello, shark. I'm Shannon Sharp, and I'm here to try to raise funds of a million dollars in revenue to increase our capacity for warehouse sizing. We have a product, a cognac, um, called, called La Portier, the Shea edition is named after my grandmother. And we've already sold 7,500, uh, bottles of this cognac. But the problem that we're running into is warehouse sizing because you have to order it online and it takes us a while to get the orders, come from France and get it into,

into the customer's hand. We felt that if we had a warehouse big enough to house, say, 400,000 bottles, that way we could get it on the shelves. We can put it in, say, a Costco and say some of these other stores. And that way we wouldn't have to go through the reserve bars and these other online shops in order to get it to the consumer. So we're trying to raise an additional $1 million to increase our warehouse size.

Cost per unit is $12. Retail cost is $72. What do you think? You know, I think that you want to, you know, take tiny steps. And I think it sounds like you've proven the market. In our business, what we call what you're looking for, in your business, I think it sounds like you've proven the market um in our business what we call what you're looking for uh in your business i think it's an importer on our side

it's called a 3pl yes uh that is called third-party logistics that probably can handle that but me not not having a deep understanding of the distribution aspect of uh a liquor i could be wrong you see okay i feel good i feel good. I feel good. I mean, you didn't say I'm out. You heard my pitch. You didn't say I'm out. You just said, you know what? That's not really my forte, but it seems like you have a good grasp of what you want to do and how you want to go about doing it. So I really appreciate that. Let's get down to why you're here. You've been on Shark Tank, if I'm not mistaken, 12 seasons. You've invested- 15 seasons.

13. 13. 13, okay. 13 seasons. You've invested over 15 million of your own dollars in 107 startups. One of the things I wanted to ask, before you invest into a startup, obviously you don't know anything about these companies. You're hearing what they're saying. What are some of the things you're looking for to make you say, you know what, I'm willing to invest my dollars into this company? Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of things that I'm looking for simultaneously. So number one, I want to hear the story of why was this product or service created? Where did you find the passion and the drive for it? Because usually when people

are successful, they created something because they thought that there was a void in the market that nobody was trying to fill or they would fill it or they brought an extreme amount of joy to people. So I want to know where your passion is. I want to know how many times you failed because if you come on there and say, well, I was doing good and then I did better than I did better. Well, then why the hell are you here? You don't need us. So tell me about the failures. Then I want to know if you know your customer. If you don't know your customer, who exactly they are, where they're located, how much they're going to pay for something, how much they won't pay for something. Well, then you're using my money as tuition. And then I want to know the numbers on

where the margin is. Like you shared with me that really great margin on your product because then I see there's room for profit. And last but not least, I just got to like you. I just got to feel like you and I can have conversations together, solve problems together, learn together, make money together. money together. And, you know, and we're going to keep doing that because I'm going to probably talk to you, you know, often. And especially if you work with me, I'm going to sit next to you, maybe eight hours a day, five days a week, the next five years of my life. It's got to be worth it. You said something very important. You said passion, because I think a lot of times people get in, sometimes people get in the business for the wrong reason. Well, I want to make money. Well, if you're passionate about something, that aspect will come. So I wanted to hear, I was like, okay, is passion one of those things? How invested are you into the product?

How knowledgeable are you about the service that you're trying to sell me on? Well, if you're not knowledgeable on it, how do you expect me to invest my money? And you're supposed to be doing this. You're supposed to be the expert at it. So why would I invest my money? You have to see the passion and the drive in somebody because, um, you know, I'm guilty of it as well, but almost everybody that I've met that were doing something and the, and the, and the concept came purely because of the need to make

money. Um, and it wasn't followed with a passion or a drive or a love for something. They ended up either in the wrong place for that money, or they failed at it, or when they made the money, it was so difficult that they blew it right away because they just needed to get that money. And then they go, well, they had no other further drive. And that's what I really see as some of the biggest challenges in entrepreneur. Now, you may say, well, what about the banking system and venture capitalists? Yeah, money is what comes after, but they love the kill or they love to see these structures come together or understand how to put things together and extract value from it. That's what they really love. The money is definitely something that comes up.

It's almost like you playing ball. playing ball. I don't know how many, you know, I'm sure you, you know, listen, better than anybody else in the world. You probably understand how many kids were just thinking about all the cars and all the things they could potentially get. Right. But, you know, and practice was miserable. You was, you know, it was probably like, you know, it was like, I love every day that I'm learning something. I'm getting better. And I got to keep getting better at this because I'm not going to let that person challenge me. I'm going to take that person out. And that's a whole different story than money. And then money came. So obviously, there are a lot of things like if they do something with fashion, you do something with a product, you probably have a general understanding of that.

But when you invest into a commodity that you have very little knowledge of, what makes you like, you know what, I think this thing can work. And you said you spend six, eight hours a day working alongside that person. So tell us how a shark, so once you said, okay, I'm in, how does the process go moving forward? Well, it all depends on what you need. So I think one thing that I left out is a lot of times as a shark, we may not be into something because we may feel that we don't add value to it. It's something that I don't know. And you don't only want money. If you have something great, you want smart money, somebody who can also help you and

not just give you some money. Cause if I only gave you money and I, and I really care about what you're doing, well, then if I can't show up, then I'm taking a seat at somebody at the table as somebody else who can give you the money and put in sweat equity and give you contacts and give you knowledge and I feel like I'm doing you a disservice okay so I have to find you know a true pitch resonates with somebody and it's very similar to an infomercial a lot of times you don't even know when you want something until you find these key moments in a pitch, right? So it's like somebody saying you're home. They go, has this ever happened to you? And you're like, yeah, it

has. Well, it's happened to me too. And I found a better way. My name is Damon John. I failed seven times in making this better way, but the eighth time, this thing is working out. And if you buy this better way by midnight tonight, I'm going to give you two better ways for the price of one. And if you don't like it, send me your money. I'm going to send me your product. I'm going to send it back to you. And that's the way that a real pitch goes. You resonate with somebody and they go, wait a minute. I didn't, I didn't think of that. And then you find a way to make them buy in at a low cost. And if they buy in and they don't really love it, you try to find a way to say, all right, don't worry about it.

I love the fact that you have trust in me. I'm going to make it easy for you to get out of this. And that's the best way of pitches. That's how it was with the air fryer with me. I didn't really know I needed the air fryer until I bought two of them. Tell me about it. That's how it goes.

But the thing is, so, okay. Wake up with football every morning and listen to my new podcast nfl daily with greg rosenthal five days a week you'll get all the latest news previews recaps and analysis delivered straight to your podcast feed by the time you get your coffee no dumb hot takes here just smart hot takes we'll talk every single game every single week but i can't do it alone so i'm bringing in the big guns from NFL media. That's Patrick Claiborne, Steve Weiss, Nick Shook,

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Catch the podcast, the NFL Daily, with Greg Rosenthal every day. Subscribe today and you'll immediately be smarter and funnier than your friends. And who doesn't want that? Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Obviously, you're very successful at what you did, what you do. You started a company from ground floor and you built it up. So how do you, I mean, how did you do like the three companies that you had the most success with

investing your money? What was it about what they said that resonated so much with you? It's a story that I, that I shared right there. So the best, the best company that I have that's done the best from Shark Tank is the number one invested company in Shark Tank. So I have the number one company in Shark Tank history that has grossed the most money. Now, Ring Doorbell did not get an investment. They did $1.3 billion as a sale to Amazon. $1.3 billion as a sale to Amazon. But my company, Bombasox, is the number one product invested in Shark Tank history. But I got to tell you, this pitch, they found angles to work with me that I

didn't realize I had. I go into Shark Tank because I had 10 clothing companies and nine of them were dead after 2006, 2007. Nobody was buying another shirt or jeans and they couldn't pay their rent. So the last thing I ever wanted was another clothing company because I wanted to diversify my portfolio. But these young men came in and said, we have socks, number one. Number two is the real reason we love to sell these socks is every time you buy a pair of socks, we give one to those in need at the homeless shelter because socks and underwear and T-shirts are their number one request. And we are selling directly to our customer. This is a high-margin product. It is a great product.

It took the seam out of the toe. And so there's enough money to sell directly to the customer and give the pair away. And why did that make this attractive to me? Because I used to always say, you have to make it, then you have to be able to master it, then you can matter. How can you help people if you're not helping yourself? But simultaneously, they showed me that, first of all, Damon, retail is suffering. You don't know where retail is going. They don't even know who they want to be when they grow up. We're talking directly to our customer, and we're also helping

those in need, because I know you're big into philanthropy and charitable organizations. And they switched that whole thing around on me and I couldn't wait to invest in that company. And that's because they understood what the target, who I was the target, really wanted to see in life. Helping people at the same time as dealing direct to my consumers. You're known as the people shark and you place an emphasis on people over the product. Why? Because products come and go and there's nothing new in this world. I mean, Facebook's a nasty chain letter. The Snuggie is a blanket with two holes in it and Uber is a limousine service. But it's the people behind that. It's the people in front of it. The people who are the customers is the people who operate these things daily that is critical. If I want to make money and not have to talk to anybody,

well, then I send my money over to Apple. I send my money over to Tesla, and I send my money over to Shopify. I bought Shopify at $28. The high in five years, it hit $1,800. Okay, today it's half off, and I think everybody should buy it. But they're not calling me asking me how to fix the backend of a website. Elon Musk is not calling me asking how to fix a damn car. And Steve Jobs, even if he was alive, wouldn't call me and ask how to fix a computer. So if I want to make money, I send my money over there or real estate.

So if I'm going to deal with people, I'm going to invest in people. I'm going to want to get to know them. I'm going to want to learn from them. We're both going to have an education, have a good time. And if this business fails, we'll just start another one together because I like the way want to get to know them. I'm going to want to learn from them. We're both going to have an education, have a good time. And if this business fails, we'll just start another one together because I like the way that you get down. So you're more into the relationship.

You like the, you like the, you like to like, okay, we're in this together. I got something to lose. You got something to lose. You're going to work your tail off. I'm going to work my tail off. We're going to make this grow. We grow together or we fail together. As you mentioned earlier. Okay. We'll start something else together. That's the way it is. It's a partnership.

Your mom was your first investor. So your mom was the very first shark before there was a shark tape. So how did you pitch your mom? Oh, you know, mom saw me putting in the work um she saw me putting in the work and i had um she saw me working on fubu for about five years prior um i went to vegas and i got three hundred thousand dollars worth of orders uh from stores with one of the goods i come home i go to 20 i go to banks i get turned down by 27 banks. It's not their fault. I didn't have financial intelligence. I didn't have much to collateralize things with. And something like a FUBU was only done maybe by Carl Canine and Cross Colors earlier than me. So it wasn't really

something that people could see value in. I go to my mother, I said, I got turned down by 27 banks. She said, Damon, you've been trying to contribute to this house since you were a kid. I wouldn't do this if you didn't have the money. Let's take all the money we can out of the house. You manufacture and deliver the clothes and put the money back into the house. And that's how she gave me the funding. And my mother went out and got a $100,000 loan on my house. And I have no idea how because the house is worth $75,000.

Till today, I haven't asked her what she did for the rest of the money. But shout out to moms. She did that twice. So let me ask you this. How did... Because normally, a lot of times, that's a lot of money. And for mom to take out, you know, that's your home. And you

know, here's the thing. I can't fail. Or me and mom both gonna be on the street. That's right. So you really had to put your head down. You really had to grind to see this thing through to make sure that mom didn't go belly up and you didn't go belly up because we're both going to be belly up. So how confident were you? You said you've been working at this for five years. How confident were you?

This thing's going to work. I was 120 percent confident that that that it was going to work. And I was absolutely wrong. The story goes that honestly, I turned around and I had turned my house into a factory. My friends and I were sleeping in sleeping bags next to the machines. We had all machines in there. My mother moved out because she was like, yo, guys are crazy. We hired seamstresses. I was renting out the top rooms to strangers to keep the mortgage.

I was working out Red Lobster still at the same time as doing FUBU. And I turned around and $100,000 almost three months later was only $500 left. And they were talking about taking my house. And I was risking losing my mother's most valuable possession. And it wasn't that I was spending on lavish things, but I didn't know how money worked. And I was paying 90 days ahead of time for raw goods. Then I was paying for staff and manufacturing. And then I was paying for shipping.

And then the customers wouldn't pay me for 30, 60, 90 days terms. So it really got bad. And it was my mother again, who said, I have one last idea. She took an ad in the newspaper for $2,000. I gave her the money, went to a real officer, went back to work. And the ad said, a million dollars in orders need financing. She was looking for what we call today a strategic partner. And 33 people called that ad. But 30 of them were named Pookie and Laquita, Quack Quack for short, Sal the Sausage, Tony Two Time. I think 50% interest, living the adequate collateral. I think one person was named Kevin O'Leary with a royalty deal in perpetuity.

I'm talking about real scumbags we're calling. Right. with a royalty deal in perpetuity. I think, I mean, I'm talking about real scumbags we're calling. Right. But three of them were real, and we ended up doing a deal for manufacturing and distribution with Samsung's textile division. So did you ever get discouraged? Did you say, man, I done F'd this up.

I done messed my mama's good name up. I done messed this loan up. I done messed this, I done messed up everything. Yeah, there was some dark times, and that's the best part about it. I have three amazing partners, and every time they were down, I picked them up. And every time they were down, they'd pick me up, or vice versa, excuse me. My mother was still there saying, you got this. And my community was behind me, and I realized that I had to make it work.

Everything was on the line. There was nothing else to discuss. It was just I had to make this work. You mentioned you got turned down by 27 banks. Were you using the exact same pitch or were you going there with a different pitch each time and they still turned you down? You know, I've never been asked that before. I mean, the pitch got a little sexier after a while, but I think I think probably by the 20th, the pitch got worse. Like, come on, man. I just got turned down by 20 people. Why didn't you tell me that? 21, get out of here.

So, you know, but you remember, you listen, I was 18. And no, I was 21 at the time. I didn't know what I was talking about. Right. I heard a lot of business people say, and I don't know if you can attest to this, because you say you was working out of your house. You had the machines, you're sleeping on a sleeping bag. He said, one of the biggest mistakes startups make is they go get this lavish office space. They get furniture for that space. They're paying a mortgage or a lease and they made no money.

When some of the most profitable businesses, the Apples, the Googles, the HPs, Amazon, started in a garage with no overhead, then you get going. Once you start making money, you can go get office space as needed. Do you think that's one of the biggest mistakes? That is the biggest mistake. Small businesses generally fail due to overfunding. And people are like, what do you mean overfunding? Just like you said, you know, you want to listen. If your grandmother made really great cupcakes, you don't go and sign a seven year lease and have a cash machine looks like a cupcake and the layer look like a cupcake and the couch will look like a cupcake. You ain't never sold damn near one cupcake. Right. You get, you get a kiosk, you know, that you can rent for a weekend in the mall. Right. And you sell cupcakes. Right. Um, and that's how it works. So, uh, and, and also the understanding is that, um, money costs, the more, the earlier you take in money, the more it costs, right? Because if you ask me now for $100,000 for 50% of your business, and I think it's great,

I'm like, okay, here you go. Well, then let's say that business grows to $10 million, and now you need to raise another $2 million. Well, I ain't giving up my 50%. So where are you going to get that from, homie? Oh, so in other words, he's going to have to work on his 50% because you're good. You're straight over here where you are.

All good. But if you prove your business You're straight over here where you are. All good. But if you prove your business well enough, well, then you go and get a loan from the bank because they see the cash revenue coming in. That loan's at 8%, 6%. You never know where it could be from. You can do a crowdfunding raise. So people who you are giving out shares in the company, but they see you have $50,000, $100,000, $200,000, $1 million worth of sales. You know, so when FUBU was, we were doing really, when we first started for the first four years, I sold to only eight stores in New York City.

And the reason I sold to those eight stores was I could have tried to sell to 30 and 50 stores around the country. But if I had these eight stores and I sold eight shirts a week in it, my job was to try to get up to 10 shirts a week in it. And after the 10 shirts, add hats in there and jeans in there and make the ticket price more per store. Then when I went to get distribution, I was able to say, I can replicate this in every store

in every city and every store in every country because I figured it out. So that's why I didn't take in capital too soon. Do you still own the childhood home? No, I, you know, I don't. I'm thinking about buying it and turning it into a, probably a museum in Hollis Queens. So I'm thinking about doing that.

You mentioned that your friends, you work with your friends, kind of like LeBron. If you notice LeBron, he can keep Maverick and Rich and the Randy. He kept his circle, kept the guys that were there from the beginning. What did you see in them that says, you know what, they're going to be savvy business partners. They have the same mentality that I have that we want to get better. And I want to see all of us succeed. Well, that's a really good question because, you know, there a big 05 an obnoxious 05 on all the

food stuff you ever see it and the theory behind that was we wanted to be five different partners who were all at different taste levels in hip-hop apparel and if we all like something then it probably was something that everybody would like because you know one guy dressed a little more baggy you know whatever the case is um But that fifth partner never stuck around. There's only four of us. So we went through 10 of those fifth partners. So there's 10 guys walking around here talking about they're the fifth beetle. The other three that stuck with me, it was due to dark times. It was that they found they respected, you know, each other's position. We didn't partner up right away. We all say, listen, if you do this amount,

this will activate or trigger this amount of ownership or whatever the case is. And whatever the case is. And I mean, I met one of them when I was three years old. I'm turning 53. So I've known him 50 years. And the other two I met when I was in junior high school. And we're like brothers. But at the end of the day, it's still a business. We have our structure in place on who does what and why. What's ownership? Who's played this position? Do we have fights? Yes. But at the end of the day, we respect what the paper says and what we need to do collectively to build a brand and to support each other. If I'm not, if I read this correctly, you're from Hollis, Queens, run DMC is from Hollis, Queens. Hollis Queens, Run DMC is from Hollis Queens. I think LL is from Jamaica Queens or he's, or he's from, he's from Hollis. We're all the same. You know what? There's something in the water. We're all, so what do you call it? South side, Jamaica. Okay. So, so Nas and all them live,

Nas and Nori, uh, they live really far away, but the rest of us, LL, Ja Rule, 50 Cent, Salt-N-Pepa, Lost Boys, Onyx, Intro, Tribe Called Quest. James Brown used to live there. Hold up, how do y'all got so many guys in that? How do you got so many rappers and entertainers in that whole lot of land? Something's in the water. But you know what I think it is, as two brothers speaking? I think that, you know, when 86 came around and crack devastated all of our neighborhoods, a lot of brothers and sisters moved on to either wanting to be entrepreneurs of the

street or unfortunately falling victim to the drugs. But we saw Run DMC driving down the block. We saw LL Cool J. Then we turned on our TV and we saw them performing in front of stadiums and doing something they love. And what happens? Well, LL puts on his cousin as a bodyguard, another person as a DJ, another person he says, you know, you can road manage me. And what happens after that? Then you start to find other people in the neighborhood to do this. And that's what people need to see. And I hope that when they see me on a shark tank, knowing that I couldn't be a brilliant athlete like you and I couldn't rap, sing or dance, that that doesn't mean that they're counted out. Because a young man like me who just decided to wake up before everybody and go to sleep after everybody can make it in this amazing country of ours. And I think that that's what we saw when we saw all these amazing people from Hollis, Queens. And we said, we don't have to sell drugs. We can do this and be part of it.

So that's that's I think that's what really came out of Hollis Queens. You mentioned that in the mid-80s, the drug epidemic was sweeping the inner cities. It was going all over, but the inner cities was really suffering. And while some were selling drugs on the corner, you decided to sell clothing. What was your pitch? So how do you sell a T-shirt or jeans or a hat or whatever you were trying to sell on the corner when people ain't really trying to buy no clothes on the corner? Yeah, so it was tough. You can't have thin skin. And a lot of the brothers and sisters didn't even they stopped even talking to me, you know, because they were like, and, you know, listen, the hip hop culture is very homophobic. I think it's changed a great amount right now. But prior to that, they used to be like, David, you know, what's going on? I used to be like, I'm cool with my sexuality. I think fashion is this.

And and the more I started putting it on people, the more other people want to come around. But those days on the corner were very, very informative. It's like what you and I were saying. I learned that I had 10 colors of t-shirts I wanted to sell people, but the top two colors are 65% of all sales are black and another 20% of white. So now I had two colors. I had 10 logos. I found out the logos that were selling the best. Now I had one logo. And at that time, everybody's wearing a double X. So I don't care if you're 110 pounds soaking wet, I'm taking the extra small out of the top of the shirt and putting double X in there just so you can feel good about yourself. So I was able to home in on my customers.

And trust me, I used to stand on the Apollo Theater. I tell people this, but I'm joking, but I'm not. I used to stand on that Apollo Theater on 125th Street at midnight when the Apollo let out. And all those drunk people told me what they thought about my shirts and my mother. So, you know, I would just, uh, you know, I figure it out, man. Uh, you know, rejection is not going to happen to me. Uh, no, it was an absolute maybe. Was college ever an option? I'm dyslexic. Um, and that doesn't mean I shouldn't go to college. There are a lot of brilliant people in college who are dyslexic. I, all right. So basically I told you about Run DMC.

I told you about, I was on tour. I was on a Fresh Fest tour when I was 14, 15. I was a cool kid in school and I had gotten left back already. So when I was about 18, I said, I'm going to take one year for college. And I was laughing at all the other kids that were going to college. And then when I was about 22, a lot of my friends were dead or in jail. I was a waiter at Red Lobster

and those kids that decided to go get a formal education or a higher education, they were coming back from school and I was in Red Lobster with tartar sauce on my apron getting them shrimp. And I realized maybe I'm the idiot. Maybe I'm the one who's the idiot because I refuse to go out and educate myself.

And I didn't look back after that. I started taking any course I could. I started reading every book I could. I stopped hanging out because I realized I was heading down the wrong path. I was just hanging out thinking things are going to change if I'm just hanging out and partying. As a child, obviously, you know when something that,

okay, I'm not up to the level that I should be. I see other kids being able to do things fairly easy, knowing that every, everybody's on a different level, but obviously you felt something was wrong. So how did that, how did that make you feel? What, what was going through your mind at the time? You know, what was going through my mind was, uh, feeling inferior to people feeling like, um, you know, I didn't know what dyslexia was at that time. People weren't diagnosed for it. So it was feeling like I thought I was cool. I'm not that I thought my friends were cool, but they're all dead or in jail. I need to do, and I'm not going to go down that path. Um, I need to find something

that I really love. And I found I found the beauty of the making of the apparel is that I was in love with seeing how somebody would reinterpret what I sold them. And I would never even think of them wearing it in that way. But then when I saw him, I was like, man, that's cool. And I felt like I would dress people for the rest of my life. But yet I also had I had a sense of belonging to this emerging music at the time called hip-hop, because I'd be able to go to video sets and people would know me and I felt like I was part of something. They would kick every other kid off and I'd have my little stinky FUBU shirt and I'd be like, I'm here to dress Method Man. And they'd be like, all right, you can stay. And I felt like I belonged. And I think that that feeling, we all want to feel like we belong to something. And I felt like I was respected by other people, the right people, the ones who disrespected me or didn't see value in what I was doing.

That's their problem. I'm not going to let them get to me. I'm going to go and work with people that actually respect me. Dame, how old were you before you no longer felt inferior about your frailties? longer felt inferior about your frailties? Well, I mean, I think that, I think they, I think feeling inferior in certain senses, uh, that, you know, that could be, that could be today various things, or it always happens now. Now the fragility of it is not that it can't be, I'm not the person that says somebody just better than me. It's I'm not applying myself enough. So, yeah, I felt inferior up until like 30. You know, by the time I was 30, I had a lot of money in the bank. I was well known.

But you clearly you didn't feel inferior after that point. No, you still I still felt like, well, you know what? People don't respect, you know, they don't respect urban apparel. Like, you know, Tom Ford and Versace don't care about me. Yeah. And then and then it was well i'm walking in the boardrooms and it's not the guy you see on shark tank today i'm walking in the boardrooms people thought because i was a fubu guy i was gonna come in there with you know super baggy pants on gold teeth and a gun in my waist to start break dancing and i'm like you know and then, you know, and then I acquired other brands and I found more and more success. And, you know, it depends.

Listen, there's always going to be somebody in you. There's always going to be somebody in the world with a bigger winky and a bigger wallet. Right. Right. And, you know, you got to check yourself, even though you may not. I don't feel inferior, but I got to tell you, if Jeff Bezos woke up with Mark Cuban's money, he's going to jump out the window. And if Mark Cuban woke up with my money, he's definitely jumping out the window. So there's always you know, you just got to put it in perspective, you know, and then then get comfortable with yourself.

But no matter what, apply yourself and go where you want to go. Was fashion your first business venture venture? And what made you decide to go the fashion route? No, fashion was like my sixth or seventh, but an official business fashion was like my third. I loved hip hop. Hip hop was an emerging technology at that time. It was the fact that the kids no longer had to harmonize or play an instrument, but they were communicating through this new form of music about their hopes, their dreams, their love, their aspirations. We're talking about early 80s when I was a breakdancer. I used to spend all night ironing my clothes,

putting permanent creases in my pants, doing fat laces, dyeing my Timberland because, of course, I dyed my Timberland every week. I wanted the girls to think I had a brand new pair of Timberland every week. I wanted the girls to think I had a brand new pair of Timberland every week. I just dyed them. Right? But 10 years later, I would realize that I can actually put that love of this music together

with actually with fashion. And then I tell people all the time, anything you can consume, you can sell. So I put it together and again, it made me feel like I belong. Getting in the business, you understand and you said something very early on targeted audience. Did you feel like the black community was underserved with a product that represented them? Is that why you went with FUBU for us, by us?

Yeah. So a lot of times people think FUBU was only for people who are Black. And it wasn't. So what had happened was Timberland had made a comment in the New York Times that said something like, we don't make or sell our boosted drug dealers. Timberland is not owned by the same company now. But I always tell people, if people were buying Timberland because of its technical ability, well then, if you're a mountain climber, hiker, or construction worker, you need one pair of Timberland a year. It's the best food in the world. But our market, we were buying it because of fashion. We were buying it like the kids buy Jordans and Yeezys these days. I told you it took a good die. I was buying three new pair of Timberland a year and you called me a drug dealer. And that's what ticked me off. Now, I always believe they never become the thing you're fighting against. So I created Fugu for a culture. Is the culture powered by an African-American art craft that started in the Bronx? Yes, it is. But I would

dress the Beastie Boys. I dress MC Search. If it was super hot when Eminem was around, I would dress him. I didn't care about your color. I cared about your culture. I'm very pro-Black, but never anti-anything else. Right. How did you come up with the name FUBU? Because, you know, there's something about not a long name, like Nike, simple, Coke, simple, FUBU, simple. I don't really remember how I came, you know, you know, when I reflect over this 30 years later and it sounds like it was all really, you know, I was an architect of all these great things. No, I just, I think I had two forties in a bag of pork rinds and I came up with, yo, let's name them. You know, it wasn't well thought out, but over the years it did, it worked out. And also, you know, it worked out that it's not something that you can easily duplicate. So a lot of people

didn't know. They were like, what's a fugu?? Is that like the poo-poo platter? What's a FUBU? Is it Italian? Is it Asian? Is it Indian? And it's a name that you can't go out and there was little people that could say, well, I have a similar name. So four letters like the Nike or even names that are authentic, a Google, a Facebook, an Uber, a Nike, a Coke, a Xerox. When you make these authentic names, it gives you a long run and puts in people's minds what they think about the product. How did you get connected in the hip hop circle? Obviously, you say you work with Method Man, you dress Method Man. But you really got your big break. When LL did a commercial and he had a hat on, did you know he was going to wear the hat?

And when he wore the hat, did you know you were going to blow up like Nitro? No and no. So LL had just, you know, we begged him to do a deal with us. And LL is an absolute amazing partner and celebrity spokesperson. He's really dedicated to it. The Gap called him. And this, I think, is the conversation about the importance of diversity. The Gap called him, you know, and he didn't feel really good about the way they addressed him, but he just felt like they were just saying, yeah, come on in and shoot one of

those rap videos. And that's our policy. And whatever the case is, they didn't, he didn't really feel good about it. So he says, for us buyers on the low and the gap commercial. They spent $30 million basically airing a Fugu commercial. And because they didn't have anybody in the company or in the marketing agency that really loved hip hop or were of color, they didn't pull that ad for five weeks until they finally found out what happened. And that's because of the lack of diversity within their system. Now, I do got to tell you, on the flip side, they hired a very young multicultural agency after that.

They did their analytics and found out the target market the Gap was trying to hit increased by 300% because the kids thought they can get FUBU at the gap. And they called me up. We gave each other a big old sloppy white kiss, no tongue. And they ended up spending another $60 million re-airing that ad. And that's when FUBU started to head to $350, $400 million. Was LL the only rapper that you reached out to about a branding, about being in Dorsey, being a partnership with. Were there any rappers that turned you down? How many rappers turned me down? But L.O. is the only one we formalized a long, long term contract.

But yeah, but we but but most of the rappers really support us now. It's funny, you know, as I talked about all those other people who who came came out of Hollis Queens, when I was 14 or 15, I was on tour and I had promised my buddies, my four other buddies, not my partners. I said, I'm going to be the biggest dude in fashion. Another dude said, I'm going to be the biggest dude in videos. Another dude said, I'm going to create a record label. Another dude said, I'm going to be the biggest drug dealer. And those friends were Hype William, who became the very big producer. Yeah. Irv Gotti, who owns Murder, Inc., who discovered Ja Rule right down the block from me. And Irv lived a couple other blocks from me. And our buddy who decided to become the biggest drug dealer, he just came home after 26 years of serving time. And Hype had made the movie Belly about him. So

I think it's when you speak it into the universe and you set goals at such a young age. I mean, when you think about it, me, Hype and Irv, me, Hype, Irv and Alfred, who they call Bunz and Belly, DMX played. We all set those goals at a young age and we all executed them in some sense. I'm looking at NSYNC, Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, Busta, ODB, E-40, Hype. You mentioned Hype Williams was a good friend of yours. Buster, ODB, E40, you mentioned Hype Williams, who's a good friend of yours. You got some of the biggest names, Mariah Carey, NSYNC at the time, Snoop, Buster, and FUBU. So now you know, okay, we've made it.

Because these got some of the biggest entertainers in their chosen field wearing FUBU. And we know how we are. Oh, if Snoop got it on, if Mariah Carey k got it on it's got to be legit yeah 100 and and that was you know that was again we were culturally we we we spoke the culture like we didn't go to boardrooms and stuff like that to meet these artists you had to if you want to meet method man well you better get ready to you know that was keith's job on my team you better better get ready to be at the studio two in the morning and get smoked out with method man well you better get ready to you know that was keith's job on my team you better better get ready to be at the studio two in the morning and get smoked out with method man right that's just where you're gonna meet him right and um you gotta and you understand you know all these people come with a crew some do want the bag over here and this and that but you have to understand

the culture and we were very and and still are very entrenched in the culture of what it was. So we spoke their language. You also I'm looking. You broke a distribution deal with Samsung. How did that come about? Well, that came about with the that came out with the ad that we put in the paper and they felt that they can, you know, finance and make the million dollars worth of goods and grow the brand. But we had already, you know, I got that deal in 96, 97. I had started Fubu in 89. I actually closed Fubu down three times from 89 to 92 because I ran out of money. But I only ran out of $500, $1,000. I was able to recover from it, you know.

But we got that deal. And by the time we got the deal with Samsung, they had already seen the product all over the place and they called around, did their due diligence and called all the stores and all the stores said, the kids are coming in here asking for FUBU every single day. We just don't have any, um, you know, and that was because they were seeing them and seeing the product and all these videos. Right. How do you decide what companies to partner with? Again, it goes back to do they know their customer? How much of my time and cash do they want?

Do I add value? Do I see something here with the entrepreneurs? Do I see a good exit? Or do I see a way that I'm going to make money? You know, a lot of people think, uh, you know, I'm sure you're in this situation just because you have money. You're supposed to buy everything. I'm not the bank. If I like your, if I like your product, don't mean I have to buy the product. I'll buy one of your sponges, but, but if I like you and I see an upside and I see things that we can do, have fun, make a difference. Um, then,

then, then those are the things I weigh on. And it works out only probably about three out of 10 times or maybe four out of 10 times when you're investing in so many companies. The numbers really are four out of 10 times, but all you need is one Bombas. You need one. You need one.

You need one home run. You need one. You just, I'm still spending money from baggy jeans I sold in 99 so it's all good how do you decide what companies to acquire if i'm not mistaken you uh uh acquired kuji yeah so i wow you did your homework brother i did um uh so that was i acquired kuji because a lot of times we have to self-reflect on what is our strength and what is our weakness as business people and i gotta tell you you don't need that.

I'm not a great designer if I'm just going to put a bunch of 05 and slap a big FUBU on everything. Right. But what was my skill set? What was my asset? My asset was FUBU did real well. I knew all the buyers from all the stores. I knew all the celebrities and I knew all the manufacturers. So let me acquire a brand that

already had a history that people knew of. So I'm not introducing a new brand. And then let me put my skill set in it. Let me put it on the Kardashians, put it on Pitbull, put it on whoever is hot at the moment. And then let me say to Macy's or JCPenney's or whoever, look, you know me, you know, I'm going to manufacture these goods. You know I'm going to deliver them on time. You know they don't sell. I'm going to take them back and then make some quality goods. And that's what I did.

I just replicated what my strengths were. I didn't go out and try to create a new brand because it was easier acquiring another brand that I could just put through the same pipeline. You travel. What is it like to go overseas, Saudi Arabia, Korea, China, go all over these countries, and you see FUBU? You're like, bro, this ain't Hollis, Queens. This is not America. I'm overseas, and you got on FUBU.

It is an honor when I see billboards and stuff. And, you know, we're really big in certain countries like South Africa, we're big in Germany, we're big, we're big in the Philippines and Korea. And when you see the brands there again, they reinterpret them very different. You know, FUBU in Korea is very much a skate brand, like hardcore skate FUBU in Manila and Philippines. It's pure hip hop and FUBU in Manila and Philippines, it's pure hip hop. And FUBU in Japan, you know,

they wear it very different. They wear like character. They almost look like characters in FUBU in Japan. So when you see it reinterpreted in different ways, it's just fascinating to know that I created that thing out of my basement and then people 30 years later are still, you know, of my basement and then people 30 years later are still you know um supporting it well uh i have a fubu jacket uh it was a 5x if i'm not mistaken i was a 2x at the time but i wanted a 5x with everybody i had the big bag of jeans but i believe the most uh impressive collab successful collab was the fat albert collection the platinum collection. Yes. How did that come about? Well, that came about because we, you know, our community loved Iceberg at the time and Iceberg had these characters on it,

but that sweater shouldn't have been $700, $800. And I just felt that it was obnoxious of the pricing. And I felt that you have these characters on it, but does anybody know about Fat Albert and the Gang the harlem globetrotters or the ali cartoons that many of the older generation grew up with and how can i sit there and put characters that are relevant to our community and our history to educate you simultaneously and it costs half the price of iceberg um but it's still just as fly so So that was us just trying to, you know, serve our community on our terms and not let iceberg dictate the way that the terms should be set. I read that somewhere

that you said that you felt that FUBU had at one point oversaturated the market. Why did you feel that way? Well, you know, listen, a hot fashion brand last five to seven years. We're not talking about the unicorns like Nike and Louis Vuitton. Ubu obviously had large, large logos. That was it at the time. Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger did the same thing. But we did oversaturate the market. We had a lot of stuff, a lot of goods out there that we were selling in different veins of distribution, some mid-tier, some low, and some class for the mass.

distribution, some mid-tier, some low, and some class for the mass. And, you know, listen, at the end of the day, a kid who has four years worth of fubu in their closet there in high school, you know, when they go to college, maybe they want to dress a little different. It's a different time in their life, you know, and maybe they want to try something new and we don't take it personal. You know, it's not, oh my God, you know, you better, you know, support us. It's, we get it. You know, it's not, oh, my God, you know, you better, you know, support us. It's it's we get it. We may have oversaturated the market. It's fine. And we will learn from that and we will we will we will reset and just do it a little more wisely. So you're going to you're rebranding. So what are you going to do different this time around? Well, FUBU, the product is out in so many different ways. We did our 50th Puma's 50th anniversary collaboration.

We we we have product. Everybody can go to FUBU collaboration. We have product. Everybody, you can go to FUBU on Instagram and order product. And we have different type of collaborations, exclusive drops, as well as we have stuff that we do sell to regular stores. And I think after the George Floyd situation, a lot of people really wanted to revisit some of the brands from the 90s and early two thousands that were owned by people of color. Um, so, you know, it's, it's a great time. Um, and you know, we love our brand and we love, we love,

we love the people who support us and we love the way the brand is reinterpreted right now. How have you been able to remain black on? I have no way. Nobody gave us a big enough number so uh i i'm sure somebody captured they've come to you no they have come i mean you know earlier on in the days uh kmart had came to us and they wanted to buy the brand for themselves and we just felt that it was um it wasn't the right time and it wasn't the right we we felt we would let too many people down. Right. And I think that, you know, that's just the way we are very passionate about our brand and what our consumer feels about us.

And we just didn't feel like that would have been the right thing. This is what you can really help us on here. And I'm glad that I really appreciate your time. I understand you're very busy, so I really appreciate you taking time out of your day. Black spending reaches $1.6 trillion in 2021, but black net worth falls. What can we do to make sure that our spending power is going into black pockets? Not to say, hey, I'm not saying, hey, we got to spend all our money with one location, but something is off in this scenario. Yeah, those are, it's a little above my pay grade.

Those are very systemic issues that we all know that, you know, it starts with us, you know, it starts with spending money back in our communities and things of that nature. And, you know, they say that for every $15, I think, no, every $10 that comes into the community, $9 goes out. And that is, you know, it's sad. But, you know, the reality is most of us have not had generational wealth and legacies that our grandparents and parents could pass down to us and to explain to us how cash work, how investing in the community pays off. And there's a lot of systemic things that have happened. But, you know, the reality is they've happened already. And we have to acknowledge it. We have to learn from it and we have to keep reinvesting in ourselves. But again, that's a much deeper conversation with people with way bigger brains

than me. Um, but all I can say is if you, if you take the time to keep, um, you know, right now, um, keep going out and investing in people, you know, you know, I, I, you know, after George Floyd, I, I said to myself, who's ever going to change the narrative out there, these young brothers and sisters, um, they need to be building businesses instead of burning them down. Correct. And I realized that nobody else is doing some. So, I mean, people are doing some. So I created something called Black Entrepreneurs Day where I gave away a quarter million dollars, 25,000 times 10 to small businesses, black African-American owned businesses to keep them open.

This is black African-American owned businesses to keep them open. I brought on the show, you know, interviewed Bob Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Ice-T and LL Cool J to talk about their biggest mistakes. And, you know, we found a couple of we found a lot of African-Americans who said we just didn't know about all this stuff. And thank you. And they're you know, and they started to educate themselves and apply themselves in business. So, you know, it takes a tribe, you know, to help these young brothers and sisters and let them understand the value that they have. And it's challenging, I think, for both of us to think about it and talk about it. How do we get venture capitalists? How do we get them to invest in the Black community? By showing them where they can make a profit. And there's plenty of places to make a profit. And there, I mean, I do, I am part of a group called the Volcker Group. It's 50 well-known

African-Americans like Ken Chenault and Barris and Bob Johnson and Barris, other people. There are some financial instruments being created by some big banks that are talking about infrastructure and various other things where VCs can come in and make a lot of money. But, you know, I think that, you know, we're getting, we're a very connected world. And I think that there is a million young Damon Johns who know how to talk to their community. And I think there's a lot of money to be made where, you know, if people back these young men and women, you know, you will prosper. You know, it is it is very profitable. You know, the data is there. You said how much we're spending.

Yep. Why don't we spend it? Why don't we spend it someplace where we know it's going back some way into educating and or empowering the community is serving. You mentioned Ken Chenault, the former CEO of American Express, who came up with a very good idea, the most recognizable credit card ever, the black card. Yes. I know Ken. Let me ask you this. Did you ever think there would be a shoe that would challenge the Jordan? Kanye's Yeezy, because Jordan had such a head start. I mean, you're going back. He had a 30-year head start on Kanye.

And Kanye just started Yeezy, what, a decade ago? Maybe a decade ago? No, I think about seven years, yeah. Yeah, because at first he was doing Yeezys with Nike. Obviously, he wanted a little bit more control. Nike said no. So he says, okay,

Adidas, what y'all got for your boy? He goes to Adidas and Yeezy is on fire. Did you think someone could challenge Jordan? I do, I think, because the generation, they, you know, they move on and they grow into, you know, loving other people that are more relevant at the moment. um you know loving other people that are more relevant at the moment um and there's always going to be somebody new that talks to somebody you know some young kids these days may not actually know who jordan is believe it or not it's very surprising and and and some people may not have ever heard of muhammad ali right um and they would be relevant now if there is somebody who is like a Kanye, very polarizing, very fashionable, makes good music, always in your face. And you walk into the store and you are a seven year old who may not have heard of Jordan and you're looking at a Kanye shoe and you're looking at a Jordan. But, you know, that's there's always going to be somebody new.

It doesn't take away from Brad and Jordan at all. Right. You worked on the Kardashians show. Are you surprised how big? I remember watching. I was like, okay, this is a show. It's a little reality show. Bruh, I'm not going to lie.

I never thought this thing is ginormous. No, I'm totally surprised. I'm not gonna lie. I never thought this thing is ginormous. I know I'm, I'm totally surprised. I'm fascinated, but I'm also not surprised in a sense. Um, Chris Jenner is brilliant. That family is thick as thieves. Um, they don't backstab each other. They are not on drugs. They are very, very laser focused. I remember when we were first working season one together, Chris Jenner said, I just hope after the 15 minutes of fame over maybe,

you know, three, four, five years that each one of my children have two businesses that will hopefully be somewhat successful. And that was her goal. And the girls, they strapped in, and they got focused on it, and they got busy. And I think we can all learn from them. You don't have to have this specific talent. You just have to know your customer. Right. And if they can do it, they'll always say, if I can do it, somebody else can. Let's talk about Virgil.

What will be Virgil's legacy? somebody else can. Let's talk about Virgil. What will be Virgil's legacy? You know, I didn't know Virgil that well. He's very respected in the groups that I do know, but I don't know him well enough to talk on it. I mean, I did see some really amazing work with him out of Nike. And of course, I bought the entire Louis Vuitton collection right before he passed, not knowing that he was sick. But it was such a brilliant collection that this felt like it was made by felt like Fubu felt like it was made by somebody who understood fashion of all aspects. But I don't I really don't know where he will where he will be, you know, going with the Versace's of the world or the lagafers lagafos or stuff like that car lagafo you know i don't know i know you've seen this and we've seen this far too many

far too many times rappers beefing with high-end fashion brands jim jones just posted a video him in a gucci store um saying he was about to spend 29 000,000 and he felt that he was being, you know, he's been profiled or he's been, somehow he felt he's been wrong, he's been disrespected. But we hear this pop up from time to time.

And guess what? A year later, two years later, guess what? Somebody else is back in one of those high-end retail stores spending tons and tons of money saying this, are we going to learn?

We will. I'm a very optimistic person. We will learn, I hope, but it's challenging. It is challenging. I mean, you don't see people, you don't see the, you know, you don't see that same community knocking down the door, begging for FUBU when they know that, you know, don't see that same community knocking down the door begging for fubu right when they know that you know the fubus of the world um employ other people that look like them and and and do activations and put money into schools in the community but you know um again these are over my pay grade um you know i i i personally i don't wear brands that have had blackface on them or nooses on them, stuff like that. I do not wear them. I just refuse to do so.

I'm going to get you out of here. What advice would you give anyone chasing an entrepreneurial dream? Well, first of all,'d be um take affordable steps what do you mean by but i think every meaning that you know you don't go to vegas and play blackjack the first time and you play a thousand dollar a hand right you go to vegas and play a thousand dollar i mean a thousand one hands. Take what you can afford. And some people will say, I don't have that much money. All right, well, when I first started,

I can afford making 50 calls a day. I promised myself I was gonna make 50 calls a day. And after six months, if I got somewhere with these calls, that I was going to then do it again. I called 10 manufacturers, 10 stores, 10 record labels to see if their music artists want to wear it, 10 regular customers to see how they got the product and how was it. And I could afford 50 calls a day. So whenever you are an entrepreneur or anybody investing in anything,

you are an entrepreneur or anybody investing in anything, what can you afford? If you follow 1,000 pages on social media, and whether they're jokes or cooking or half-naked girls, follow 10 pages that are talking about stocks or NFTs or financial instruments or financial intelligence or manufacturing or sewing. Why not? You have the time, put it in. What's your asset? And you make affordable mistakes. Maybe you're a veteran. You come from a great community of like-minded veterans. Maybe you're a mompreneur.

Maybe you're an athlete who has the most influential people in your Rolodex and you're like, hey, we're going to do this. Or I need your advice. Can you be my board member? Take affordable steps. And that's how you become an entrepreneur. Because real be my board member? You know, take affordable steps and that's how you become an entrepreneur because real entrepreneurs, they act, they learn

and then they repeat it again a little more wisely. Before I get you out of here, what are you working on now? What's in Damon John's future? I'm working on my next Black Entrepreneurs Day where we're going to give away a couple of, you know, whether another quarter or half a million dollars to more people in, you know, who are making a difference in the community.

I'm about to go and start filming Shark Tank season number 14. So I'm really humbled and honored that I can invest in other people's dreams and they'll allow me to. I'm constantly working on my health and I'm working on, you know, trying to find that work life balance with my little five-year-old and trying to be, you know, a great child of God. Bro, thank you. You're the personification of the American dream. You took $40 and you made it into a $6 billion empire. Bro, there's a lot of people that's very, very excited for you, not just around the world, but I'm speaking for our community. What you've been able to do, the way you've been able to do and the way you've handled yourself in doing it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you too, man. I've seen how you pivoted

and flipped the game and a lot of people, let's thank, congratulations on that image. I think you got a, did you get the award or you got nominated? I got nominated. Excellent. Excellent, brother. So you're doing great things, man. We're all watching you. We appreciate you, man. And what an illustrious and great career you've had. So congratulations on all that.

And thank you for having me. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate a few moments of your time today. All the best moving forward, man. Thank you. All my life, been grinding all my life. Sacrifice, hustle, pay the price.

Want a slice, got to roll the dice. That's why all my life, I've been grinding all my life. I'll see you next time. Wake up with football every morning and listen to my new podcast, NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal. Five days a week, you'll get all the latest news and the best analysis delivered by the time you get your coffee. The show hits every single game every single week, but I can't do it alone, so I'm bringing in all the big guns from NFL media like Colleen Wolfe. Subscribe today and you'll immediately be smarter and funnier than your friends.

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