Shannon welcomes in fashion mogul, branding guru, ‘Shark Tank’ personality, NYT Bestselling author & the founder, president & CEO of FUBU: Daymond John.
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Jeff Baso spoke up with Mark Cuban's money. He's gonna jump out the window. And then Mark Huban woke up with my money. He's definitely jumping out the leaving all my life and grinding all my life. Sacrifice Hustle, pack Price, one slice got the swath all my life. I've been grinding all my life, all my life, the grinding all my life, sacrifice, Hustle, Pegg Price, one slice got the swath all my life. I've been grinding all my life. Hello, welcome to another edition of the Club Sha Shay. I am your whole Shan and Sharp. I'm also the propriev of Club Sha Shake. And the guy that's stopping by today for a conversation is Drink is a fashion mogul. He's a Brandon Guru, an entrepreneurial expert, savvy business executive, a New York Times best selling author, founder, president and CEO of Fubu, A shark on the fourth Time award winning series Shark Tank The People Shark Damon, John, Damon, How you doing, brouh WHOA, thank you for having 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 gotta make my pitch. I might as well make my pitch. So here I go. Tell me what you think. Tell what your think. Hello shark, I'm Shannon Sharp, and I'm here to try to raise fund a million dollars in revenue to increase our capacity for warehouse sizing. We have a product, a Cognact called Laportier. The Say edition is named after my grandmother, and we've already sold seventy five bottles of this Cognact. 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 save four hundred thousand bottles UH, that way we can get it on the shelves, we can put it into say a Costco and save 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 one million dollars to increase our warehouse size costs per unit, it's twelve dollars retail costs and seventy two dollars. What do you think you know? I think that you you want to, you know, take tiny steps, and I think it sounds like you've proved the market in our business. What we call what you're looking for in your business. I think it's an important on our side. It's called a three P L. Yes, that is called third party logistics. That you probably can handle that. But me not having a deep understanding of the distribution aspect of a liquor, I could be wrong. You see, Okay, 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 say 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. Let's get down to why you're here. You've been on Shark Tank. If I'm not mistaking, twelve seasons you've invested fifteen seasons, thirteen thirteen, okay, thirteen seasons. You've invested over fifteen million of your own dollars in one hundred and seven startups. One of the things I wanted to ask before you invest into the startup. Obviously you don't know anything about these companies. You're hearing what they say. What are some of the things you're looking for to make you say, you know what? I wanting 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? Okay, where did you find the passion in the drive fork Oka? Usually when people are successful, they they created something because they thought that there was a void in the market that nobody's trying to feel, or they would feel it, or they brought an extreme amount of joy to people. So I want to know where your passion is. Okay. I want to know how many times you fail, 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 you're here? You don't need us so telling 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 gonna 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 this room for profit. And last, but not least, I just gotta like you. I just gotta feel like you and I can have conversations together, solve problems together, learn together, and make money together. And you know, and we're gonna keep doing that because I'm gonna probably talk to you, you know, often, and especially if you work with me, I'm gonna sit next to you maybe eight hours a day, five days a week, for 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 sometimes people get into business for the wrong reason. Well, I want to make money. If you're passionate about something, that aspect will come. So I wanted to hear. I was like, Okay, it's 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, 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 understand, you have to see the passion and the drive and somebody because you know, I'm guilty of it as well. But almost everybody that I met that were doing something, and the and the and the concept came purely because of the need to make money. And it wasn't followed with a passion or a drive or a love or something. They ended up either in the wrong place right 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 was they just needed to get that money, and then they go out. They had no other further drive. And that's what I really see some of the biggest challenge in entreroom. Now. You may say, well, what about the banking system and venture capitalists. Yeah, money isn't after after, you know, money 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 the value from it. That's what they really love. The money is definitely something that comes up, and it's almost like you playing ball. I don't I don't know how many you know, I'm showing you, I'm show you, you know, listen, better than 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's like I love I love every day that I'm learning something, I'm getting better, and I gotta I gotta keep getting better at this because I'm not going to let that person challenge. I'm gonna 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 could work? And you said, you spend six eight hours a day working alongside that person, So tell us how shark. So once you said, okay, I mean, 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. Because if I only gave you money 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 will 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 informercial. 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 your home, they go has this ever happened to you? And You're like, yeah, it has. Yes, well, it's happened to me too, and I found a better way. My name is Damon John. I failed several times and making this better way both but the eight time this thing is working out. And if you buy this better way by midnight tonight, I'm gonna give you two better ways for the price of one. And if you don't like it, send me your money. I'm gonna send me your product. I'm gonna send it back to you. And that's the way that the real pitch goes. You resonate with somebody, they go, wait a minute, 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 I love the fact you had trusted me. I'm gonna 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 fry until I bought two of them. Tell me about it. That's how it goes with but the thing you so okay, you 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 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 Sharkkank history that has grossed the most money. Now, ring Doorbell did not get an investment. They did one point three billion dollars in sale I mean as a sale to Amazon. But my company, Bomba Socks is the number one product invested in Sharkkank history. But I gotta tell you this pitch they they found angle is to work with me. That I didn't realize I had I go into Shark Tank because I had ten companies and nine of them were dead after two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, nobody's 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 and number one. Number two is the real reason we love to sell these SOCCA. Every time we buy you buy a pair of sock, we give one to those that needed the homeless shelter. These socks and underwear 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 steam out of the toe, and so there's enough money to sell directly 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 who're not helping yourself? But simultaneously they showed me that first of all, Daton 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 switch 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's 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. It's the people who operate these things daily that is critical. If I want to spend, if I want to make money and not have to talk to anybody, and I send my money over to Apple, I send my money over to Tesla, and I send my money over to Shopify. I was Shopify twenty eight dollars the high in five years it hit. It hit eighteen hundred. 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 back end 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 gonna want to get to know them. I'm gonna want to learn from them. We're both gonna have an education and have a good time. In 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 per you like the you liked it like, Okay, we're in this together. I got something to lose. You got something to lose. You're gonna work your tail off. I'm gonna work my tail off. We're gonna make this grow. We grow together, or we fail together. As you mentioned earlier, Okay, we'll start something else together. Absolutely, 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 that was the shark take. So how did you pitch your ball? Oh you know, mom saw me putting in the work. She saw me putting in the work, and I had She saw me working on fooboo for about five years prior. I went to Vegas and I got three hundred thousand dollars worth of orders from stores with one of the goods. I come home, I go to twenty I go to banks. I get turned out by twenty seven 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 Foo boo was only done maybe by Carl canin 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 turned out by twenty seven banks. She said, damon, you've been, you know, trying to contribute to this house as long as 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 manufacturer, and deliver the clothes and put the money back into the house. And that's how she you know, she gave me the funny and my mother went out and got one hundred thousand dollar alone on my house. And I have no idea how because the houses were seventy five till today. I haven't asked on what she did for the rest of the money, but shout out to mom's she did that twice. So let message this, how did because food? 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 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 gonna 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 gonna work. I was one hundred and twenty percent confident that it was gonna work, and I was absolutely wrong. The story goal is that honest sleep. I turned around and I had turned my house until factory. My friends and I was sleeping and 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 Fooboo. And I turned around and one hundred thousand dollars almost three months later, was only five hundred dollars 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 It wasn't that I was spending on lavish things, but I didn't know how money worked. And I was paying ninety days ahead of time for real goods. Then I was paying for a staff and manufacturing, and then I was paying for shipping, and then the customers wouldn't paying me for thirty sixty ninety days terms. So it really got bad. And it was my mother again who said I had one last idea. She took add in the newspaper for two thousand dollars. I gave her the money. I went to Red Lobster and went back to work, and the ad said million dollars in orders need financing. She was looking for what we call today strategic partner and thirty three people call that ad, but thirty of the one named Pooky and Liquida qua a short salad of sausage tony two times. I think one fifty percent interest living the attic with collateral. I think one person was named Kevin O'Leary with a royalty deal in perpetuity. I think I'm talking about real scumbags were 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, mandat this up? I'dn't missed my mama's good name up. I'd have missed this loan up. I'd have missed this, I'd have missed up everything. Yeah, there were some dark times, and that's the best part about I have three amazing partners, and every time they were down, I picked them up, and every time they were down, they'd picked me up, I mean or vice versa. Excuse me. And 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 goes 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 twenty seven banks. Were you using the exact same pitch or where you're going there with a different pitch each time and they still turned you down? You know what, I've never been asked that before. I mean, the pitch got a little sex here after a while, but I think I think probably by the twentieth the pitch got worse. Like, come on, man, I just got turned down by twenty people. Why did you tell me that twenty one? Get out of here, so you know, but you remember you listen. I was, I was eighteen, and I know I was twenty one 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, the pen, a mortgage or a lease, and they've made no money. When some of the most profitable businesses, the apples, the Google, the hps, Amazon started up 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 mistakes. Small businesses generally failed due to overfunding, and people like, what do you mean overfunding? Just like you said, you know you want to eat. 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 la looked like a cupcake and the council look like the cup Again, you ain't never so damn me in one cupcake? Right, you get you get a kiosk. You know that you can rent for a weekend in them, all right, and you sell cupcakes? Right, And that's how it works. So and also the understanding is that money costs the more. The earlier you take in money, the more it costs. Right, Because if you ask me now for one hundred thousand dollars for fifty percent year business, and I think it's great, and you know, I'm like, okay, here you go. Well, then let's say that business grows to ten million, and now you need to raise another two million. Well, I ain't give it up my fifty percent, so you're gonna get that from home. So he's gonna have to work, have to work on his fifty percent. Can you good? You strayed 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 loans at eight percent six percent, you never know where it could be from. You're gonna do a crowdfunding raise, so old people who you are giving our shares in the company, but they see you have fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, a million dollars worth of sales. You know. So when when Fooble 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 those eight stores was I could have tried to sell the thirty and fifty stores around the country. But if I had these eight stores and I sold eight shirts a week, and then my job was to try to get up to ten shirts a week in it. And after the ten shirts at 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 could keep Maverick and rich in 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 gonna 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 exceed. Well, that's a really good question, because you know there's a big oh five and I'm noxious, so five 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 we all liked something and it probably was something that everybody would like because you know, one guy dressed a little more baggy, you know, whatever case is. But that fifth partner never stuck around. There's only four of us, so we went through ten of those fifth partners. So there's ten guys walking around here talking about the fifth beatle, the four that the other three that stuck with me. It was through the dark times. It was that they found what they respected, uh, you know each other's position. We didn't partner up right 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 and whatever the case is. And I mean, you know, I met one of them when I was three years old. I'm turning fifty three, and another so I've known them fifty years. Rather two I met when I'm 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've read this correctly, you're from Hollows Queens. Run dmcles from Hollows Queens. I think all is from Jamaica Queens or you or from We're all in the same. You know what, there's something in the water. We're all so what do you full? As south side of Jamaica? Ok so, so Naz and all of them lived, Naz and Nori they live really far away. But the rest of us ll Jah rule, fifty cents, Salt and Pepper, lost boys, Onyx intro tribe called Quest. James Brown used to live there. Uh, how do you guys? So many? Something's in the water. But you know, I think it is as two brothers speaking, I think that you know, when when eighty six 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 LLOKJ. Then we turned on a 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 as a as A, as a bodyguard, another person is 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 wrap, 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 can 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 Hollows 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 Hollows Queens. You mentioned that in the mid eighties 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 what? What? We what? We hell picked? So how do how do you sell a T shirt or jeans or hat or whatever you were trying to sell on the corner where people ain't really trying to buy no clothes on the corner. Yeah, so it was tough. You can't have thin skin, and and and 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 to hip hop culture. It is very homophobic. I think it has changed a great amount right now, But prior to that, they used to be like, damon, you know what's going on. I used to be like, I'm cool my sexuality, but I think fashion is this and and and and the more I started putting it on people, the more other people to come around. But those days on the corner were very, very informative. It's like what you and I were saying. But I learned that I had ten colors of T shirts I wanted to sell people, but the top two colors are sixty five percent of all sales are black and another twenty percent of white. So now I had two colors. I had ten logos. I found out the logos that was selling the best. Now I had one logo, and at that time, everybody's wearing a double lex So I don't care if you're one hundred and ten 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 all my customers, and trust me, I used to stand out in the Apollo Theater. I tell people this, but I'm joking, but I'm not. I used to stand out at that Apollo Theater one hundred and twenty fifth ye 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 you know, I figure it out. Man. You know, rejection is not going to happen to me. A nose an absolute maybe with college ever an option. I'm dyslexic, and that doesn't mean that I I shouldn't go to college. 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 the first I was on a fresh festival. When I was fourteen fifteen, I was a cool kid in school and I had gotten left back already. So when I was about eighteen, I said, I'm gonna 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 twenty two, 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 Tarta saw somebody 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 refused to go out and educate myself, and that 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 I was heading down the wrong path. I just hanging out thinking things are gonna change if I'm just hanging out in 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 everything everybody is on a different level. But obviously you felt something was wrong. So how did that How did that make you feel? What was going through your mind at the time. You know, what was going through my mind was feeling inferior or people feeling like 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. Then 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. I need to find something that I really love, and I found. I found. The beauty of the making of a peril 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, pulled 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 everybody the kid off, and I'd have my little stinky, you know, food shirt and I'd be like, I'm here to address method man and they'd be like, all right, you could stay. And I felt like I belonged. And I think that that feeling. We all want to feel like we belonged 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 gonna let them get to me. I'm gonna go and work with people that were actually respect me. Dame, how old were you before you no longer felt inferior about your frailties? Well, I mean I think that. I think they. I think feeling inferior in certain senses that you know, that could be, that could be today, various things, or it always happened. 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 thirty. You know, by the time I was thirty, I had a lot of money in the bank, I was well known. But what you wouldn't have feeling in you You clearly you didn't feel out at 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 Besach. You don't care about me. And then it was while I'm walking into boardrooms and it's not the guy you see in Shark Tank today. I'm walking into boardrooms. People thought because I was a football guy, I was gonna come in there with you know, super baggy pants on gold teeth and a gun in my waist to start breakdancing. And I'm like, you know, And then then you know, and then I acquired other brands, and I found more and more success, and you know, it depends on I listen, there's always gonna be somebody in you. You know, there's a being in somebody in the world with a bigger wink and a bigger wallet, right, and you know you got to check yourself, even though you may I don't feel inferior. But I gotta tell you, if if Jeff Jeff Baso spoke up with Mark Cuban's money, he gonna jump out the window. And Mark Cuban woke up with my money, He's definitely jumping out the window. So there's always you know, you just gotta 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. With fashion your first business venture venture and what made you decide to go the fashion route. No, fashion was like my six or seventh, but an official business, an official business, Fashion was like my third. I loved hip hop. You know, hip hop wasn't emerging, it was emerging technology at that time. It was the fact that the kids no longer had to harmonize a playing instrument, but they were communicating through this new forum of music about their hopes, their dreams, they love their aspirations. We're talking about, you know, early eighties. So I was a com breakdancer, right and I used to spend all night, you know, ironing my clothes, putting permanent creases in my pants, putting doing fat Lay says, dyeing my timberlin because of course I died my tiling every week. I wanted the girls to think I had a brand new pair of Timberlin every week. I just died them, right. But ten 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, you know, So I put it together and again it made me feel like I belong getting into 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 representative represented them? Is that while you went with Fubu for us by us. Yeah, so a lot of times people think Fobu was only for people who were black, and it wasn't so so so what had happened was Blin. It made a comment in the New York Times, this is something like, we don't make our sell out boosts the drug deal as symbol is not owned by the same company now. But I always tell people, you know, if people will buying Timblin because of its technical ability, well then you know, if you're a mountain climb a high coro construction worker. You need one pair of Temble in a year. It's the best foot in the world. But our market we will buying it because of fashion. We were buying it like the kids by Jordan's and Yeasies these days. I t you it took a good die. I was buying three new pair of Temble in a year and you called me a drug deal. And that's what ticked me off. Now. I always believe that never become the thing you're fighting against. So I created food will for a culture. Is the culture powered by an African American artcraft that started in the Bronx, Yes it is, but I would address the addressed the beastie boys. I addressed mc search if it was super hot. When Eminem was around, I address him. I didn't care about your color. I cared about your culture. I'm pro I'm very pro black, but never anti anything else. Right, How did you come up with the name fooboo? Because you know there's something about not a long name like Nike, simple, Coke simple, Fooboo simple. I don't really remember how, you know? You know when I reflect over this thirty years later, and it sounds like it was all really Uh, you know, I was an architect of all these great things. No, I just I think I had two forties in the bag of pork rhymes, and I came up with Yo, let's name, let's name, let's go with it. 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 the food was that? Like the poo poo plata? What's the food? Was it Italian? What you know? Is it? Is it Asian? Is it Indian? And it's a name that you can't go out and uh, you know, there were there there was little people that could say, well, I have a similar name. So four letters like Nike or even names that are authentic a Google, of Facebook, a Uber and Nike, a Coke, a Xerox. When you make these all these authentic names, it gives you a long run and let's and puts in in people's minds with those uh you know, they think about the product. How did you get connected in the hip hop circle? Obviously you say you you you you worked with the method man you dressed method man, but you really got your big break with LLL dial a commercial and he had a hat on. Did you did you know it would? Did you know it would? Did you know he was gonna wear the hat? And when he wore the hat, did you know you were gonna blow up? Like Nitro? No? And no. So LLL had just you know, we begged him to do a deal with us, and an LL is an absolutely 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 how policy and whatever case is. They didn't. He didn't really feel good about it. So he says for us, by us on the Low and the Gap commercial, they spend thirty million dollars basically airing a Foobuo 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 three hundred percent because the kids thought they can get Fubo at the gap and they called me up. We gave each other a big old sloppy with kiss no tongue and they ended up spending another sixty million dollars re airing that ad and that's when FUGU started. They head to three hundred fifty four hundred million dollars. L the only rapper that you reached out to about the branding about you know, being in Dorothy being a partnership with Were there any rappers that turned you down? How many rappers turned me down? But La was the only one. We formalized a long long term contract. But yeah, but we but but most of the rappers really supported us. Now it's funny, you know, as I talked about all those other people who who came out of Hollis Queens when I was fourteen and fifteen. I was on tour, and I promised my buddies, my four other buddy 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, IRV Gotti, who owns Murder Inc. Who discovered jaw rule right down the block for me and HERV lived a couple other blocks for me and our buddy who decided to become the biggest drug dealer. He just came home after twenty six years of serving time and Hype and made the movie Belly about him. So I think it's when you speaking into the universe and you set goals at such a young age. I mean, when you think about it, Me Hype and Earth, Me, Hype, IRV and Alfred who they call Buns 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 in sync Mariad Carrey, Snoop Dog Buff, the odb E forty Hype. You mentioned Hy Williams was a good friend of yours. All. You got some of the biggest name Mariah Carey in sync at the time, Snoop Buster in fooboo. So now you know, okay, we've made it because these got some of the biggest entertainers in their chosen field wearing fooboo. And we know how we are. We Oh, if Snoop got it on, if Marad care got it on, it's gotta be legit. Yeah, one hundred percent. And that was you know, that was again we were culturally, we were 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 meth Man. Right, that's just where you're gonna meet him, right, And you gotta and you understand, you know, all these people come with a crew. Some dude want the bag over here and this and that. But you have to understand the culture, and we were very and still are very entrenched in the culture of what it was, so we spoke their language. You also, I'm looking. You broke in a distribution deal with Samsung. How did that come about? Well, that came about with the that came about with the ad that we put them in paper, and they felt that they couldn't, you know, finance and make the million dollars worth the goods and grow the brand. But we had already, you know, I got that deal in ninety six, ninety seven. I had started WHO when eighty nine. I actually closed WHO down three times from eighty nine to ninety two because I ran out of money. But I only ran out of five hundred dollars a thousand dollars. 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 here in here asking for food by every single day. We just don't have any you know. And that was because they were seeing them and seeing the product and all these videos. How do you decide what companies departner with like? You know? Again, it goes back to do they know their customer? How much of my time and cashrow do they want? Do I add value? Do I see something here with the 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, you know, I'm sure you're in this situation just because you have money. It was 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 buy one of your sponges, you know. But if I like you and I see an upside and I see things that we can do, have fun, make a difference, then then those are the things I weigh on and uh and it works out only probably about three out of ten times, or maybe four out of ten times. When you're investing in so many companies, you know, the numbers really are four out of ten times. But all you need is one Bombers. You need one, you need one, you need great. You just I'm still spending money from baggageines I sold in ninety nine, So it's all good. How do you decide what companies to acquire? If I'm not mistaking you acquired Koji? Yeah, so I am. You did your homework, brother, I did so that was I acquired Cooji 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 gonna put a bunch of old five and slap a big food on everything. Right, But what was my what was my skill set? And well was my asset? My asset was Foolwood did real? Well? I knew all the buyer 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 all 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 pit Bull, put it on whoever was hot at the moment. And then let me say to Macy's or J. C. Penney is or whoever, look you know me, you know I'm gonna manufacture the goods. You know, I'm going to deliver on one 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, go all over these countries and you see Fooboo. You're like, bruh, this, say, Hollis Queen, this is not America. I'm overseving jud got on foo Boo. 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, and we're big in the Philippines and in Korea. And when you see the brands, they're again they reinterpret them very different. You know, Fobu and Korea is very much a skate brand, like hardcore skate. Foobu in Manila and Philippines it's it's pure hip hop and Foobu in Japan, you know they wear it very different. They wear like character they almost look like characters in foodbu in Japan. So when you see it reinterpreted in different ways, it's just fascinating. You know that I created that thing out of my basement. Then people thirty years later are still, you know, supporting it. Well, I have a Foobo jacket. It was five X if I'm not mistaken, I was a two eggs at the time, but I wanted the five D everybody. I had the big bagga jeans. But I believe the most h impressive collapse success for collab with the fat Albert collection the Platinum Collector. Yes, how did that come about? Well, that came about because we you know, our community loved the Iceberg at the time, and Iceberg had these characters on it. But that's sweat. It shouldn't have been seven hundred and eight hundred dollars, 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, or the Harlem Globe Trotters or the A League 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 caused half the price of Iceberg, but it's still just a fly. 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 Poople had at one point oversaturated the market. Why did you feel that way? You know, listen to hot fashion brand the last five to seven years when we're not talking about the unicorns, like Nike and Louis Baton. Ubu obviously had large, large logos. That was it at the time. Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hill Figure did the same thing. But we did oversaturated the market. We had a lot of stuff, a lot of goods out there that we were selling in different veins of you know, of distribution, some some mid tier, some low, and some class for the masks. And you know, listen, at the end of the day, a kid who has uh four years worth of fooboo in their close and they're 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 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 gonna you're rebranding, So what are you going to do different this time around? Well, food with the product is in so many differentays. We did our fiftieth at Puma's fiftieth anniversary collaboration. We we we have products everybody you can go to you know, Fubuo 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 uh, I think, I think after the George Floyd situation, a lot of people really wanted to revisit some of the you know, the brands from the nineties and early two thousands that were owned by people of color. So, you know, it's a great time. 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 owned? No way. Nobody gave us a big enough number. So they've come to you now they have come. I mean, you know, earlier on in the days, Kmart had came to us and they wanted to buy the brand for themselves, and we just felt that it was it wasn't the right time, and it wasn't the right We felt we would let too many people downright, And I think that you know, that's just the way. We're very passionate about our brand and 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 could really help us on here, And I'm glad that. I really appreciate your time. I understand your very business, so I really appreciate you you're taking time out of your day. Black spending reaches one point six trillion in twenty twenty one, but black network falls. How How? What 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, something is off in this in this scenario here. Yeah, those are it's a little about my pay grade. Those are very systemic issues that we all know that you know, it starts with us. You know, it starts with with spending money back in our communities and things that I nature. And you know they say that for every uh, for every fifteen dollars I think, no, every ten dollars it comes into the community, nine dollars 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. We have to keep reinvesting in ourselves. But again, that's a much deeper conversation with people with way bigger brains than me. But all I can say is, if you if you take the time to keep you know, right now, keep going out and investing in people, you know, you know, I you know, to George Floyd. I said to myself, who's ever going to change the narrative out there? These young brothers and sisters, they need to be building businesses instead of burning them down. And I realized that nobody else is doing something. So I mean people are doing something. But so I created something about Black Entrepreneurs Day when I gave where quarter million dollars twenty five thousand times ten to eat too small businesses, Black African American owned businesses to keep them open. I brought on the show you know and interviewed Bob Johnson and Shaquille O'Neill, iced Tea and ll cou Ja to talk about their biggest mistakes, and uh, 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 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 biture capitalists. How do we get the best 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 Vocal Group. It's fifty well known African Americans like Ken Chano and Barrus and Bob Johnson and Barross 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 very connected world, and I think that there is a million young Damon Johns who know how to to talk to their community. And I think there's a lot of money to be made where where You know, with 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, 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 in power or in the community, is serving You mentioned kens should know 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, kid, let me ask you this. Did you ever think there would be a shoe that would challenge the Jordan Kanye is? Yeasy? Because Jordan has such a head start. I mean, you're going back. He had a thirty year head start on Kanye, and Kanye just started what yeasy what six decade maybe maybe a decade ago because yeah, yeah, because at first he was doing you know, he was doing yes with Nike. Obviously he wanted a little bit more controlled. Nike said no. So he says, okay, hey, I did what y'all got for your boy. He goes to Adida and Yasy is on fire. Did you think someone could challenge Jordan? I do? I think because the generation they you know, they move on, they grow into, you know, loving other people that are more relevant at the moment, and there's always gonna 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 and they would be relevant. Now if there's 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 think There's always gonna be somebody new. It doesn't take away from brand Jordan at all. You worked on the Kardashians show. Are you surprised how big? I remember why? I was like, Okay, this is the show's a little reality show. Brou I'm not a lie. I've never thought this thing is enormous. No, I'm totally surprised. I'm fascinated, But I'm also not surprised in the sense Chris Jenner is brilliant. That family is thickest thieves. 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 fifteen minutes of fame over, maybe you know three four or 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 pay, you know, they strapped a part and they got focused on it and they got busy, you know, and I think we can all learn from them. You know, you don't have to have this specific talent. You just have to know your customer. And you know, if they can do it, they'll always say if I can do it, somebody else can. Let's talk about what what what would be Virgil's legacy, you know, I didn't I didn't know vision that well. He was very respected in the groups that I do know, but I don't know him well enough to talk on. I mean I did see some really amazing work with him out of Nike, and of course, uh 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 fob. It felt like he 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 facaces of the world or the lack of Laga folds or stuff like that Carlaga hole. 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 saying he was about to spend twenty nine thousand dollars and he felt that he was big. 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 ofbody saying this are we gonna learn? We will. I'm a I'm a very optimistic person. We will learn, I hope. But 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 Foobal when they know that. You know, the foodbus of the world employ other people that look like them and and do activations and put money into schools in the community. But you know, again, these are over my pay grade. You know, I personally I don't wear brands that have have have have had black face on them, more nooses on them, stuff like that. I do not wear them. I just refused to do. So. I want to get you out of here. What advice would you give anyone chasing an entrepreneurial dream, Well, it would first of all, it would be take affordable steps. What do you mean by I don't think everything? Meaning that you know, you don't go to Vegas and play blackjack the first time and you play a thousand dollars a hand? Right, you go to Vegas and play a thousand dollars I mean a thousand and one dollar 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 fifty calls a day. I promised myself I was gonna make fifty calls a day and have to six months. If I got somewhere with these calls that I was going to then do it again. I call ten manufacturers, ten stores, ten ricket labels to see their music artist want to wear, ten regular customers to see how they got the product and how was it. And I could afford fifty calls a day. So whenever you are an entrepreneur or anybody investing in anything, what can you afford? You know, if you follow a thousand pages on social media and whether they're jokes or cooking or half naked girls, follow ten pages that are talking about stocks or NFTs, or financial instruments or finance, financial intelligence, or manufacturing or showing why not right? You have the time put it in what's your asset you and that 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 who has the most influential people in your rolodexs and you're like, hey, we're gonna do this, or I need your advice? Can you be my board member? You know, take 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 a half a million hours, to more people in you know, who are making any difference in the community. I'm about to go and start filming Shark Tank season number fourteen. So I'm I'm, I'm. I'm really humbled and honored that I can invest in other people's dreams and they will 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 proxonification of the American dream. You took forty dollars and you made it into a six billion dollar empire. Brother, 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've pivoted and flip the game, and a lot of people listen, thank congratulations and image. I think you gotta you get the water. You got a dominant 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 and all that, and thank you for having me, Thanks for coming on. I appreciate a few moments of your time today. All the best moving forward, man, Thank you. All my life, grinding all my life, sacrifice, hustle play Chris, one slice got the dice, swad all my life. I've been grinding all my life, all my life, and grinding all my life, sacrifice, hustle play Price one slice got the dice swath all my life. I've been grinding all my life. P