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- [00:00]
Daymond John
Why is your head in your hand, Damon? Because AI is going to turn this country into a civil war.
- [00:06]
Cody Sanchez
The guest today, who is Damon John. He is the founder of Fubu, which has done $6 billion in sales. He also is one of the most beloved members of Shark Tank. From somebody who had nothing to somebody who became one of the most successful CEOs of our time.
- [00:22]
Daymond John
There's nothing new in this world. It's a new way to present it. The top companies in Shark Tank history. Socks and a sponge.
- [00:30]
Cody Sanchez
So would you rather be hungry or rich as a young person?
- [00:34]
Daymond John
Hungry. It's all about understanding that you actually can do it. Stop taking all. Getting all those things in your head. You need money. Make money. I, you know, I have to have an education. No, you don't know your why. If you're waking up every day because you're solving a problem for a person, you're bringing them joy and you love it, then you can do that.
- [00:54]
Cody Sanchez
Welcome back to the Big Deal podcast. I'm Cody Sanchez. The studio looks a little different today, and that's because I am in San Antonio about to go on a stage in front of thousands of people. But right after the guest today, who is Damon John, he shares all the lessons learned from investing, from building big businesses, and from hustling from somebody who had nothing to somebody who became one of the most successful CEOs of our time in a category nobody had ever done it quite like him before. I can't wait for you guys to hear this episode. He's a riot. And I took a lot of notes. Your career is incredible. You've been on Shark Tank, obviously, you've started a bunch of companies, you've invested in even more. You're on the Internet, you got millions of followers, you speak all over the place, you get standing ovations. But I actually don't think very many people know that you invested in the most successful company that Shark Tank has seen thus far. Bombas. Right.
- [01:50]
Daymond John
Well, I tell everybody whenever I can that I'm the lead shark with the most successful investment in.
- [01:57]
Cody Sanchez
In history.
- [01:59]
Daymond John
Shark Tank history. On all the shark tanks that exist around the world.
- [02:04]
Cody Sanchez
Who would have thought it was a sock company, too? I had to actually Google the valuation.
- [02:08]
Daymond John
Isn't that a boring company when you think about it?
- [02:10]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah. $3.65 billion valuation.
- [02:14]
Daymond John
Yeah.
- [02:14]
Cody Sanchez
And so I kind of wanted to start there with just what did you see? Because you were the only one that did it. Everybody else passed.
- [02:21]
Daymond John
I wish I could say that I was a visionary on these type of things. I wasn't. But I saw great founders that cared about what they were doing and actually tell. I went on to Shark Tank because when they gave me the option, I would tell people it was 0708. I had 10 clothing companies and eight of them were dead. Because nobody's buying clothing when they can't pay their mortgage. So I went on to diversify my portfolio and not get only pitch clothing coming because I was known as the clothing company guy. So the last thing that I wanted to buy was clothing. I invested in these guys. But I found. I found that I had always had this theory that in business, you have to make it first. Then you should master your craft, and then you can matter. I can't help anybody else if I can't help myself. These guys flipped me on the head and said, no, D, you can make it and you can matter at the same time. Because when we're buying, when we're selling a pair of socks, we're giving a pair away to those in the homeless community. Because that's the number one requested clothing item. And what they did was show people that a kid and a mom and anybody who's buying today want to know, not only what did you do for me, but what did you do for somebody else? So a kid will sit across a table from a parent and say, you invested the office the end of the year. I invested 10 times this year. Every time I bought this, I cleaned up the ocean. Every time I bought this, I stopped human trafficking. And by the way, I bought stocks on myself and for my friends birthdays. I bought them stock cause they're helping people. And it just changed my whole way of thinking.
- [04:00]
Cody Sanchez
That's fascinating. What I mean, I think it's hard to tell if a founder is worth investing in or to know that a founder is going to be a winner or not. You know, we invest in a ton of companies, and I still obviously get it wrong too. What characteristics made you go, no, no, no. These guys are different.
- [04:20]
Daymond John
Humble, did their research, did their homework. Use what I call the power of broke. You know, the founders that believe that they need a ton of money, that's not the founder I want. Because money's gonna highlight your weaknesses. If you can't get the same customers with $200, then you ain't gonna get them with 2 million. Right? You're just gonna get one customer at $200 and that amount at 2 million. So what I found was that what I loved about David and Randy, the founders, is he basically said, here's how I started the company. I have 50,000 people that somehow had gotten an email somewhere or another from me in my Gmail or whatever the case is. I hit all 50,000. Hey, homeless. The homeless community needs socks. And I'm thinking about coming out with a sock company after the Toms model. What do you think? 50% of them said, you're spamming me. Who the hell are you? Leave me alone. You know, another 50% kind of said, I'm interested, send me more information. And five or six people said, hey, a hole. I'm your ex girlfriend. Why the hell are you spamming by you stupid ass socks? Whatever the case may be. But they were, they, you know, real true entrepreneurs and founders. They, they're, they're like Steve Jobs. They're the ultimate tweakers, you know, not twerking tweakers.
- [05:39]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, well, I mean, I remember that. I, I think I, I think I probably broke like a few GDPR email laws. When I started my first company, I was like, any person I met was on that list. You know, they were getting spammed. And I think you did some of that same stuff, like way to go way, way back when you, you know, your stories are pretty incredible about some of the hacky things you did in the beginning. Like stuff that now I think kids who are more risk averse, like increasingly they don't do as crazy of things. There's a lot of online interaction, probably things that, you know, you did. People think, oh, I would never do that now. Like, what were some of the craziest unhinged hacks you did to start?
- [06:18]
Daymond John
Well, remember when I started fool with you now I sound like your grandfather. I ain't had no shoes. When I started fool with, there was no Internet and it was barely cell phone. I had to stand outside the Apollo Theater after those people got out in Harlem after watching the comedy show at the Apollo. And my customer feedback was what they told me about my shirts and my mother, I had to come home like this, yo, we got to make the shirts, we got to change the blue on that. So. And then when I sold your shirt, there was no Internet. I had to find you the next day. I had to go to your house. So all the things that I hacked, they use common sense. They use simple things. I happen to know a lot of artists, video artists, and I mean music artists and various other things. I knew their cousin, their brothers, their uncles. I would know they would shoot videos. I took 10 shirts for two years. The same 10 I'd go to every video Set I could. I went through 40 video sets. I got kicked off of 18 of them. But the 22 that I got on, I would put her on artists and you shoot the video and I take it back. Put another artist, take it back. I remember I didn't have any money to advertise, but I remember seeing all those nasty storm gates outside the store. They pull down. I go to every place I can. I go, hey, if you can let me paint a beautiful white sign of this company that I'm working with on the gates now, by the way, you have profanity on there and graffiti on there. If I put a beautiful white sign on there when those gates are down, the kids are going to see it. When you pull those gates up because you're supporting a local company, they're going to want to come and support you. I spray painted 300 gates from New York to New Jersey. Authorized FUBU dealer. I didn't care that you were selling Chinese food. You were an authorized FUBU dealer. Later on, when Nielsen ratings, you remember that Nielsen rating? I mean, there's a big company called Nielsen at Q and various other things. They were like, when I started making money, Fubu had his first million dollars to spend. And that's today is like $10 million. They said if you want to put on MTV, 30 second commercial, $6,000. Because here's how many people watch this bet. 30 second commercial, $500. Okay. So you would think that I want to buy for more people. Common sense. Let me see. Bet. Last time I went to the projects, there was no Nielsen rating box and all the cable was hooked up to some illegal line standing out there. And there was 15 million people sitting around one TV. I'm going to own BET for $1 million. Because they were just common sense.
- [08:43]
Cody Sanchez
Maybe common sense for you, but it does seem like your brain just kind of works differently. Like you, you, you looked at this market and said, no, I don't want the ego play of, of mtv. I'm going to actually go with where it converts. Like, I want to make money on this. I don't want to just be a big name.
- [09:00]
Daymond John
I think that being dyslexic, I always say eight of the 12 Sharks are dyslexic. And I think that it's the fact that I didn't know if I read anything, if I was going to read it accurately and that I'd have to go out and do it. And I think common sense is common sense. But people try, you know, I think it was my mother always Said to me, you know, Damon, every, we're driving down the street and she said, you know, the, we live by jfk and I saw planes, Empire State Building, all this stuff. And she said, I said, how do men and women build these massive machines, Mom? I said, what are you talking about? Everything that start, everything that's created in this world. The car went in the street, we're driving. It started with one person, with one idea that took one action. Okay, mom. Well, everybody's rich. No, son, 65% of Forbes, wealthiest 1,000 people are self made. Men and women, they're not rich. Or somebody sitting here saying, you need money to make money. Well, if you need money to make money, the Ford's, the Carnegie's and the Mellons, they've done such great things for this country. The Rockefellers, their kids have money, but their foundation do great stuff. But why don't they own the Teslas and the Facebooks and the Instagram of this world? Why? Because the first generation makes it, the second enjoys and third will destroy it. So it's all about understanding that you actually can do it. Stop taking all, getting all those things in your head. You need money to make money. You know, I have to have an education. No, you don't. You don't need any of that stuff. You need to sit and listen to stuff like this and apply these simple rules every single day.
- [10:23]
Cody Sanchez
So would you rather be hungry or rich as a young person?
- [10:26]
Daymond John
Hungry. Because rich doesn't mean anything, you know. You know, rich, there is no ultimate rich, right? A lot of people think, well, I'm rich. What is rich? You know, if Jeff Bezos woke up with Mark Cuban's money, he would jump out the window. And if Elon Musk woke up with Jeff Bezos money, he'd jump out the window. There is no what is rich? Some working stiff who's working, you know, all day in an office and on his deathbed or her deathbed, they're looking at a whole bunch of people who sucked them dry and said, man, I should have lived a bit of life.
- [11:06]
Cody Sanchez
You have kids, obviously. How do you make sure that they don't turn into that second or third generation that loses it all?
- [11:15]
Daymond John
Because I'm not leaving them anything. You know, I put it in my kid's head ever since I was young, that then that they were young, that they were not going to get anything. The same as Buffett and everybody else has done. So what does that do? I have two little girls. Well, they're not anymore. But it makes that first of all, it stops all the scumbags around going, let me. Let me try to become part of their life, because they're going to get something. So, first of all, you stop 50% of the scumbags, they also create in their head. And it's true. The narration of, I don't need his money. Not only do they not need my money, they don't even want to be part of anything I'm doing because they want to be independent people. Now, my two oldest girls, the Internet wasn't around and social media wasn't around, so they didn't have a camera on them all the time. And the only time I ever interview, which was my potential biggest break ever, it was when Oprah's producer said, we want to come into your home and see your family. And I never wanted my girls to be under the pressure of being Daymond John's daughter. And they're off. We're being great, great human beings. And I think that that is one thing. I think other wealthy kids that I know have said sports has been great, because a kid don't care who your mommy and daddy is when they want to hit you in the chin for a ball. And now today, my youngest one, that's gonna be a different challenge. It's a different day and age right now.
- [12:37]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, that's the hard part. I think about that a lot. I didn't grow up with anything. And so when my husband and I hopefully are blessed enough to have kids, you know, it's just a totally different equation. Like, if you fly private, do they have to fly commercial? Like, how do you do that?
- [12:52]
Daymond John
You know, that's it. All of this is a challenge. You know, Liz Clayman said to me one day that she grew up in wealth, and her father said, the only thing I can't give you is adversity, and it's very, very hard. So I fly private some of the time. I don't fly all the time. And I remember when my daughter, when she and I usually fly, when I'm with my family, I need to be someplace in time. By the way, I want to tell the rest of the world, flying private is a waste of time. Don't do it for other people's reasons. Man, that JetBlue sleep that lay down is fantastic. If I go to California, New York, round trip is $100,000. Privately, I gotta go to Teterboro. I get there probably about two hours earlier than you. If I want to lay on the plane while I got to go in the back and kind of Buy the bathroom area. I got to see if I'm going to get a stewardess for the plane or not. It's $100,000. I save two. The only thing I'll do is save two hours for those two hours. If I go commercial, I get paid $96,000 for those two hours. Right. That I didn't get there on time with you. You know what I could do with that $96,000. And the plane. The. Not the worst part about the plane. I'm a little bit of a tree hugger. I don't want to pollute the world for the stupid little plane. But the. And those light jets, light or mids, they can't take the win like those big ones. But do you know, though, the worst part about the plane? It's like getting a free pet. Now. You gotta get shots of the little thing running around here. You gotta get diapers. And you gotta clean up this rug where it's scooched on the carpet. You got the brown stain looking like planes with chocolate wheels are landing on your carpet. It's having the plane. Your friends are going to want to go on it. And then you're going to go to Vegas and spend $200,000 on a Tuesday because you got a plane, don't get any planes. That's why you see, athletes and lotto winners are bankrupt three years after leaving the league or winning the lotto because they don't have. They don't know how to use the tool of financial intelligence because they, we got to get a plane. I made those mistakes.
- [14:55]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah. I think it's really smart. And it's. These days, I think people want to look rich, not be rich. And what a dumb move, you know.
- [15:03]
Daymond John
Way better it is, but, you know, we're all human. What's your why, you know, somebody said, well, Damon, you're famous. How many people are going to see you on the plane? I don't know. I can wear a mask now. A hot 20 people are going to see me. Is my ego that big that I need to pay $96,000 so 20 people don't see me?
- [15:23]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, well, plus, like, why is it a bad thing? I mean, I always. Mario Lopez is like one of my favorite longtime actors, and he flies Southwest with his kid. And I think that is so fucking cool.
- [15:34]
Daymond John
Barbara. Unless somebody's paying for her, she'll fly coach. Daniel Lubitsky got a lot of money. He will never get on a plane with his kids unless he gets on a plane. Coach.
- [15:48]
Cody Sanchez
I'm a little bit I'm a little bit of a pain in the ass. I want to be first class.
- [15:51]
Daymond John
I'm not sleeping. I'm not going coaching. No, I was acting all cool just now. You know what? I started getting closer. I've traveled 250 days a year. You know what I mean? I'm not, you know, listen, who was it? Bill Gates rode the train up until. They said you just have to stop riding the train due to your, you know, safety. I'm a New Yorker. I'm used to hopping in cabs, trains, you know, so it's just, you know, I don't do it for the wrong reasons. Do it for the right reason. If the check is bigger than that plane ride and for the right reason and time constraint. Yes. And if you're family, you know.
- [16:25]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah. I think that's a good lesson for life in general. Like, if you can't really cash the check for a bigger reason, probably don't do it. You know, I'm kind of curious. So you've been in clothing forever, since Fubu and invested in a ton of other clothing companies. Are there brands today that you're like, God, this one's underrated. Like, these are sleepers.
- [16:47]
Daymond John
They're getting it right.
- [16:48]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah.
- [16:49]
Daymond John
I like a company called Actively Black. They're the new version of Fubu, to me, where they had the license for, like, Marvel, they had the license for Tupac, so they had Black Panther and stuff like that.
- [17:00]
Cody Sanchez
That's smart.
- [17:01]
Daymond John
You know, Nike still gets it right, in a sense. And I'll just say, reason why, you know, they'll do a custom shoe for one person. You'll say, a $30 billion company doing a custom shoe for one person. But what they're doing is they're putting that algori together of all those people that ordered these type of custom shoes of the same color, the size, the fit, and you're actually creating the line for them for the following year. I think Under Armoury gets it right. They were able to successfully convert from shoes and now hunting apparel and various other things. I mean, I like the hokas because, you know, I'm five foot seven and a half, and when I wear a Hoka, cause I'm five foot nine, I could finally look at my wife in the face. Yo. I'm saying, don't talk to me like that, baby. You know, Louis Vuitton is the largest company in the world. They get it. They get it right. They get it right for the right reasons. I don't want to go into how there's so many ways that they get it right. Hermes. You know, I was watching the founder of Hermes speak one day on a 60 minute interview and he said, and I don't know if I want to say it right the right way, but he said expensive is something you regret, but luxury is something that you never you, you don't regret. Now I'm bastardizing the way he said it, but he basically expensive is like yo, look at this watch and it's cool. But it's not that Rolex that you invested in. And in Hermes bag he showed the process it took for one bag. Now my wife has a bunch of Birkins and she always says to me, honey, these are like investments, you know how much they appreciate. So I usually go to her and say, well when are we going to sell all these investments? They have appreciated a lot. And then I'm sleeping on the couch that night.
- [18:44]
Cody Sanchez
It doesn't work out.
- [18:45]
Daymond John
But I think she's selling it for when I'm in the dirt. Exactly. You know, she's cool.
- [18:49]
Cody Sanchez
That's her, her 401k female version getting pretty depressed. The richest people in the world didn't just build, they bought. They didn't come from riches. They used other people's money and a ridiculous amount of sweat. People will tell you you can't yet. Didn't you know There isn't a multi billion dollar business out there that didn't do some type of acquisition. Amazon 110 companies bought Facebook 96. The Sage of Omaha himself started buying a gumball route. They didn't listen to those who said they couldn't. They found aging owners, made connections, took risk, repeated. Today the hardest thing to do isn't buy a company. It's start and keep a profitable business. Around here we don't hope and pray for profits. We buy them. Real businesses. 56,000 of them, real profits. Custom deal box so you can swipe left and right at your pleasure. Maps find businesses close to you. Off market deals where no one else is even looking. This is how you become an owner. Well, I was curious because like it seems like there are some legacy brands that are resurging like Abercrombie and Fitch. I never thought I'd see a day where that was cool again. And now one of the most successful clothing brands by market cap. Huge growth numbers. Like let's say you got your hands on a legacy brand like Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, something like that. What would you do to turn around an old school company?
- [20:16]
Daymond John
Well, I have one. It's called Fubu that's true. And you have a good point. It's all about the execution, right? So your every brand will get rediscovered. Fashion, pretty simple. Every 10 years there are one that will stand the test of time. Tom Ford, Chanel, you know, Louis Vuitton, Hermes. But even my brand, fubu, I think it was a good question. Like I got another brand Coogee that I put out too. But I personally don't have the time to run FUBU the way it should be. It's an execution. And my partners and I, we never sold a brand because we love what it stands for, but we still do a good amount of business. But could we make, could I make it a probably a billion dollar brand again? Yes, I could. It would be a whole different model. It would be right now. I would have to go where the world is. Fuba. When it first started, it was a surprise to see an African American owned brand that, that was kind of like the first hashtag of clothing that people of all colors loved. So for a store to carry it, it showed. We believe in this culture today. If I were to. And we have suits and we're good in Philippines and other stuff. But today, if I were to relaunch it today, what is fubu? Forest bias. What do people want to do now? They want independence. So I'd probably have one male, one female in every college and one male, one female in every high school. They would get on credit, they would get a thousand dollars worth of FUBU for 500 worth of credit. I'd bank it by one of the banks, JP Morgan J's or whatever. And they would sell the clothing and they would make 500 each allotment. And when they get to a certain point, they would get digital assets, maybe your podcast, may social media, maybe AI, maybe whatnot, Amazon, whatever the case is. And then when they time out of that school, they would bring somebody else in very much like the Avon model. And that's what I would do because it would be, then FUBU would be empowering us here while we sell to our community. That's what I would do with that brand.
- [22:27]
Cody Sanchez
But I just don't have the time. Yeah, you would basically make it a streetwear brand again. It's not going to be you on the street knocking on doors, but you're just going to proliferate yourself.
- [22:35]
Daymond John
Right. And instead of the FUBU guys being the FUBU guys, I would have contests on who's the new FUBU guys and FUBU girls. And you would be the FUBU guy and FUBU girl in your community in Detroit or Colorado or this school or that school for that year and you would create your own user generated content that we would sanction, put it on the site of saying if you're in this city, this is who you can go to get the product, whether online or here. But again all this stuff is really easy to talk about. Execution is where it's at because I have my own ideas and you see I don't have time to execute them.
- [23:10]
Cody Sanchez
What do any other clothing companies do that like I've never heard of somebody having like a Avon sort of style model.
- [23:18]
Daymond John
I'm sure they do. I'm sure that like I know, I know my boy who's own younger reckless, but he owns something called I've got the Gene company. What he would do is put in a box, a guy would pay $50 for it, 5, 4 denim I think and a man would get a hundred dollars worth of clothing for $50 a month in this box. And why was that a good model? Well in the clothing business, the way the retail works, if I made it for 25, I sell it to Macy's for 50 and they sell it for 100. I'm the clothing company is still making the 25 it was in put in the box. However, here's the thing about especially guys but anybody if I know now that I got a, I got 100,000 guys, well I know how many 34s I need, how many 36s I need, how many 38s. All the sizes I got a lower form of return. Women, it's a little different because a woman when she first buys a brand, if you sell her something she's going to buy two sizes because she doesn't know if she's a 10 or she doesn't know she's a 12. She doesn't know what at what end. The jeans fit a little different but I'm going to have a lower amount of returns. I'm going to know who the customer is. And you know what they started doing out of that. They started saying hey Joe Gillette, you want to put your new razor in all the boxes? You give me a million dollars. So there's different ways to have these subscription, these, these subscription slash tiered model.
- [24:40]
Cody Sanchez
So I know in our businesses, so right now we, we own a bunch of boring businesses. So I have boring businesses like an H vac, roofing, painting, window cleaning. And I know for instance in the painting business we want to like get a toe in by you saying we'll paint some Walls inside of the house. But what we really want to do is like paint the exterior of your house. We want to paint the whole thing. That's where we really make the money are the big projects. And then we get like one house on a block. And if we get one house on the block, we know we do a door knocking strategy. So like we'll at least get one to two others on that block. So we're like maybe even lose money on the first house you get on the second or third. I was curious in clothing, like what items sell and they just make the most money?
- [25:24]
Daymond John
Like oh, you're talking about the bread butter. The margin builders as we call it. Yeah, Clothing makes almost zero money off of anything else besides jeans and T shirts.
- [25:36]
Cody Sanchez
Why?
- [25:38]
Daymond John
Well, because jeans and T shirts are easy to make and people go through the T shirts and stuff like that. I mean, Louis Vuitton, if you look at Louis Vuitton, I mean when people leave, what do they really leave with? A belt, a wallet or some kind of keychain? Right. Those are margin builders, as we call them in the business. In the business for the Most part, almost 60% of all sales and clothing is black. 20% is white. The rest is just sprinkled in between.
- [26:07]
Cody Sanchez
Interesting. This is a very dumb question, but I always wonder why. So if you go to like Chanel or Louis or whatever, you can buy a pair of shoes for like, I don't know, 600 to 800 bucks. But then if you want to buy a shirt, like a chanel is like $4,000. Why are they that much harder to make? The shoes seem like they would be more expensive to me to make.
- [26:27]
Daymond John
Well, that's the. It depends on what they're, what they're making in the Chanel shirt. Right. What product they're making and what is what. I mean it could be cashmere, it could be a lot of other stuff. But the margin builder is going to be the, the simple black dress.
- [26:41]
Cody Sanchez
Interesting.
- [26:41]
Daymond John
Right? But the shoe itself is. Once you make the shoe in the mold, you can replicate that mold various different ways. A shoe is actually hard to build. Very. It's like almost a car because what happens is in the shirt and stuff like that, it fits. It doesn't fit. But on a shoe, there's £130 on that shoe. And the er, every single night in every single city is there with a woman who split her toes or her broker ankles due to those shoes. So there's a lot of balance, a lot of stuff going. But once you replicate that mold you're going to put that same mold together with a different upper, different ways. Yeah, yeah.
- [27:19]
Cody Sanchez
Interesting. I never thought about that. It's always bothered me. I'm like, how come I could buy that for 600 bucks? So that's 5,000.
- [27:24]
Daymond John
Yeah, because that 5,001, they're only making, you know, 20,000 or they're making 5,000 units of that or 2,000 units globally. Chanel and that shoe, they're making, you know, 40,000, 50,000 units. So they're buying by bulk.
- [27:39]
Cody Sanchez
You're right. Okay, that explains it. I wanted to talk obviously a little bit about Shark Tank. You've seen a ton of pitches and I've had friends actually pitch you. I've had friends get money.
- [27:54]
Daymond John
Ooh.
- [27:54]
Cody Sanchez
I don't know if I've had friends get money from you, but I've definitely had friends pitch you and pitch all the sharks. If you had to break it down formulaically, what are you like, this is a pitch that works and this is one that doesn't. What is a good way to pitch to your.
- [28:07]
Daymond John
The pitch that doesn't work for sure is the people that immediately come in and they just. Everything is hypothetical and they assume they don't have a history of things and they go, the number one thing that you can say that I immediately check out or I give you some kind of royalty offer like a Kevin o'. Leary, I go, this person's almost out of business is this is a 50 million billion dollar market and if I only get 1%, I guarantee you every one of the sharks are almost out. Or Kevin o' Leary will give you a finance offer because he doesn't care if you do well or not. He just wants his money back. And he's taking a FL flyer and if he gets a percentage of the company down the road, the greatest pictures that I have seen, they're always a story, they're always very infomercial feeling because they're. What they're doing is they're introducing that a problem either exists that you know or existed you don't know. They're talking about why, who they are and why they're qualifying, that they're the person to solve the problem. They're giving you some kind of proof of concept, in essence, on why. So it's like, hey, hey, Cody, I'm Daymond John. And you know what? For years the hip hop community has had to buy their clothing from other designers that didn't care about them. That said, give me your money, I don't like you, but I've been a fan of hip hop for 10, 20 years, and I know everything about hip hop. And I'm gonna create a clothing line called fubu. There's no such thing called the Internet, but if you're across the street and you see me, you know what I'm into, because I'm fubu. I am going to connect people through a community. And people in the past had to. If they want to buy African American type of clothing, they had to do kente cloth clothing. Who wants to wear orange and green and red? I'm going to create blue jeans, like a blue jean. This is the cowboy, the Levi's of cowboys. We are the Levi's of the urban kid. And it was going to be about 20% more, but it's going to be quality in it. And if you invest right now, I got superstars like LL Cool J ready to wear it a man. So you're qualifying yourself, you know, and telling the story.
- [30:15]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah. Now, what about, you know, on Shark Tank? Obviously, it's a TV production. How much of it is actually, like, produced? Are there takes and they get to go again? And, like, is there a fake component of it?
- [30:31]
Daymond John
No, there's only one component of it that in case I'm talking and I'm saying I'm out. And Barbara's just doing her normal rambling because she didn't take her medicine and the mics don't pick it up, we do a day where nobody's there and we say, and for that reason, I'm out. So you catch the audio of the actual clean. I'm out. But there is nothing produced. Remember, this is our own money. And ABC and Mark Burnett and them, they don't want to get in the way of us spending, losing, or profiting off of money. So an Average pitch is one hour long, half an hour to an hour long, 16 cameras shooting it. So an hour pitch is 16 hours of footage for you to see. Eight minutes. Takes us six to nine months to close the deals. We close about 60% of the deals. The guy who's with me in the room today pitched on shark tank 13 years ago, some little company called Hanukkah, Tree Topper. We ended up licensing a lot of the company out and doing well with it and been my head of my sales for 13 years after that. So it's real. Real people, real businesses.
- [31:35]
Cody Sanchez
Fascinating. What percentage of deals, like, actually made you money? Make what made you money?
- [31:43]
Daymond John
I don't even count what's made me money. Because if you really think about it, and Barbara's really good with her P and L. When you look at my staff, when you look at me traveling, when you look at the hours and time in it, I don't look at them, but, you know, I'm positive because of certain exits and shares that we've sold. I am positive. But, you know, it's. It's almost like the venture community, you know, I think two out of 10 is winners. I think we have three out of 10 because we have a baked in commercial.
- [32:12]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, 100%. You. I mean, you have the hardest part, which is distribution. Yeah, the hardest part wasn't creating T shirts. Those existed before. It was getting somebody to actually say yes and give you the cash. And so, I mean, we see this all day. You know, I have this brilliant AI strategy and we're gonna change the world. And I go, awesome. Who have you sold it to? And they go, well, nobody. But the second I get the money, what's gonna happen is I'm gonna sell it and you guys get to sell immediately. I mean, I had a few friends that came on Shark Tank, and I'm sure you guys saw that. Did you see a lot of people come on Shark Tank that were like, actually didn't want your money, they just wanted your distribution, so they gave you crazy features.
- [32:47]
Daymond John
They wanted the commercial. Yeah, yeah, sure. Plenty of people. There was a certain time when a lot of people did that. So what I do is pretty simple. After we do the deal, you know, in a handshake, I walk over to them and I send. I give them a piece of paper, very short one, say, take it to your attorney. And it says on there something like, you know, you're not going to publicly shop this deal for another year after you air. Totally up to them to sign. But if I see them hesitating, I know that they're looking for a commercial. I don't mind you looking for a commercial. I get it. However, the serious. There's a serious matter. The show was founded in 0708 when we went through a very hard time in this country. You're only going to have about 96 people that air. 1,000 people will see the producers and 40,000 people applied. If you have $2 million in the bank and you have your hat in your hand asking for money, and you have, no, no, you don't plan on closing a shark. You took that slot away from a family who risked everything, who, their kids are not going to college, they're about to lose their house, and they want a shark to desperately help them. And I think you're a selfish bastard for that. I think there's a lot of other places to pitch those ideas and nothing wrong with founders who have money, but that show is for the American public and that, and people don't understand. You got a million dollars in the bank. Not today when people can't pay their mortgages. So that's, that's why I do it. I, I, I, so I have, I have a problem with people who try to abuse the platform.
- [34:22]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, I never thought about it that way actually. I think a lot of people think about Shark Tank, not from that sort of like that deep, heartfelt portion of it. It's just like, cool company, give them cash.
- [34:33]
Daymond John
No, we love, we love these people. These people are our partners. These people are people who are allowing us to invest in their dream. They're holding a space and there's a fiduciary duty of investing in another person's dream.
- [34:49]
Cody Sanchez
I agree with that. You know, let's go to the other side of that, which is I've certainly lost a lot of money doing deals and I like to now, knock on wood. I don't know if I'll always be able to do that, but I have never lost money for other people, which is always like kind of the line that freaks me out, you know, and that's probably a bad thing in some ways. I should probably get more comfortable with losing.
- [35:11]
Daymond John
No, I can't sleep at night if I lose some money and I lost money for probably about two guys and I still, till today, I want to do it the right way. If I have another business that they can get in where they're going to make their money back, I'm going to make sure they're first up.
- [35:26]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, yeah. The place where I regret investing the most was I invested some in the cannabis industry early on.
- [35:32]
Daymond John
Okay.
- [35:33]
Cody Sanchez
And it's not that I regret cannabis itself. I think I regret the way that it's happened. And now I think the THC levels are like too high and I think the way we're doing it could actually be bad for people's health. But I'm not a doctor, but I invested in the industry that really needed regulation to happen and if deregulation didn't happen, it wasn't going to really change. And so I remember like one deal, we almost lost 12 million and then it got down to one, you know, and we, we did a workout of the deal and, but that was fucking awful, you know, terrible six month period. But thank God we only lost a million bucks. So it Sounds like a lot. I was wondering, what do you think's the most amount of money you've ever lost on a deal?
- [36:12]
Daymond John
Probably about 6 million.
- [36:14]
Cody Sanchez
And did that hurt? Like, do you remember what happened?
- [36:17]
Daymond John
I'm about to cry. Yes, it hurts. It hurts a lot. I don't want to actually remember it. Yes, it hurts. Losing that kind of money hurts. It hurts the wallet. But it hurts knowing that you put people to work, knowing that you didn't make maybe the right decisions. You could have done better. It's your job.
- [36:39]
Cody Sanchez
Up.
- [36:40]
Daymond John
What did I do wrong? Why didn't I see it? Did I let my ego get in the way? Did I pick the wrong people? Man, how are these people going to look at me now? They trusted me. I don't know what they were going to do with that money. Yeah, they may be wealthy, but it doesn't matter. That's not my problem. I'm can't count their money.
- [36:57]
Cody Sanchez
I think most entrepreneurs have something like that. Like a moment where you kind of stood in the dark alone, maybe didn't tell your wife, didn't tell your kids, everything was kind of going sideways. I've certainly had them. My dad calls it the head in the head hands moment.
- [37:12]
Daymond John
To what?
- [37:12]
Cody Sanchez
The head and the hands moment. And. And I was curious, have you had one of those?
- [37:18]
Daymond John
Plenty of times I've had that. I have it now. I have it now. I was. I was speaking at some place and they said to me, what are your hobbies? I said, oh, you know, snowboarding, going to UFC fights and fishing. And I said, wait a minute. I really haven't done none of that in the last year. They said, why? I said, because my head is in my hand. Why is your head in your hand, Damon? Because AI is going to turn this country into a civil war. Because when they have nots don't have anything, they're coming after us. So what am I doing right now with this AI that's clear, that's going to put me, my company and my people in the right place to be that small percentage that's going to be able to thrive. Because if I don't think and see where that puck is going, going right now, we're all in trouble. In my company and in every company, we're all in trouble. And then I start thinking about it, wait a minute, what is AI going to lose and not have Never going to have community people going to need to piss, shit and eat People going to need medicine if we are going into some kind of war or problem? Because 80% of the people are going to be replaced by autonomous vehicles who are truck drivers. Retailers is gone. And then all of a sudden you got Amazon just bought 750,000 robots, so nothing there. If all those people are going to need to feed their families and they're going to come after some of us, well then I should invest in security companies and various other ways to make the place a safer place. So my mind is right there. Where is it going?
- [39:03]
Cody Sanchez
Interesting. So what is your answer to that? What industries are you investing in today and what are you telling your employees to do do?
- [39:13]
Daymond John
Well, I think that if robots are going to be $30,000 a piece from what you call it, Tesla in two years, they're going to be 5,000 in five years. If people moving further out and they don't have enough income, well then you can create better glamping in various areas. Imagine having 20 robots on 400 acres of land just cleaning and doing everything it needs to be so that you can create better communities for people people. If biohacking and health is coming around, imagine if you're getting people cleaner ways to take care of their body and their health. It doesn't cost a lot because technology is showing people how to improve their lifespan. You know, if you don't know if you're talking on a screen to an a robot or whatever the case is, community is going to be bigger and better. So how do you create better communities so they can educate and they can protect themselves. So we have to find the beautiful things that work in AI. Do I think we're going to be be gonna be good? Yes, I think we're gonna be great. But you have to be the one thinking about it now. You don't wanna be the person who's working at the library saying why are you looking at Google? Come over here and look through a encyclopedia. You wanna be that person looking at Google saying how we using it the best. I like your idea. I love buying boring businesses because as fast as AI is it's not gonna change the entire world. Like my buddy Matt Lieber who has who teaches trade crash champions. You know, you can go to college now and let's say you're a doctor. Doctor used to have to need 20 years of education. Look at a scan. AI will look at your scan quicker than a doctor ever will. Do you really need that now? Trust me, do me a favor. If you're going to cut up, cut open people go to college. But a kid graduating college today is going to barely make 70, 80,000. A kid who Does a trade like in my buddy Crash Champions or H Vac or these things that people don't want to do anymore more. They're making 70,000 coming out of high school. They're not borrowing 500 to $700,000 worth of student debt that they're not going to pay off until their 50s. And they can take college courses at the same time as being an H Vac person or owning a car wash. I think the world is getting really simple and you've got to go back to the basics and then add AI to it.
- [41:33]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, it's smart. Well, it kind of goes back to your book, which I loved the Power of Broke about. You know, AI is not going to hustle for you like a human. Like, the creative will become so much more important because the everyday will be way too easy. Like, it will be too easy to mass spam, mass email people. So you're gonna have to fit. Like, it actually might full circle, revert back to the door, knocking back to the neighborhood.
- [41:57]
Daymond John
It is, you know, that's the point. You know, Rick Rubin said something the other day was fascinating to me. He said, you know, AI couldn't have told the Wright brothers to dream.
- [42:06]
Cody Sanchez
What a line, right?
- [42:09]
Daymond John
The thing that makes us imperfect makes us perfect. The ability to say, I'm a knock on all these doors and I'm going to tell them something. A computer can tell them, but not with the emotion, because I'm a pack animal. I'm going to look them in the eye and say, see the house down the block we painted? Look how beautiful that house is. Yeah, you can get painted from anyplace else. I'm gonna bust my ass to make sure this fucking house is perfect.
- [42:37]
Cody Sanchez
One of my favorite lines from Damon is the easiest thing to sell is the truth. And if you listen to Damon talk, you'll hear him say again and again and again that the most important part of building a business is to do it your way, with your unique angle. And there's an angle every single time. We obsess about this in the SMB boardroom, where we teach people what we call finding your avatar, which is finding the angle of on your customer. Most people do not spend enough time thinking about brand, customer, avatar, and angle. So we obsess on it for you. For one year, we work together with the best entrepreneurs who are focused on growth sustainably and want to use our operating system in order to do it. If you are running a business that is on a path to do hundreds of thousands of dollars a year or millions of dollars a year. You're going to want to check out the boardroom and see if you're a fit. We will help you find your angle and your av. I'd love your take on brand because I think that's one of your zones of genius, obviously. But you know, we have this window washing company called Pinks and Pinks. Yeah, it's super cute. I should have brought one. I should have brought a hat for you. But anyway, it's these two young dudes and good looking guys dress real sharp in uniforms. Kind of like throwback 50s era uniforms. Cursive, like hand stitched little pink towels they throw over their shoulders. They're good looking dudes, all of them. Now, now there are a hundred locations all over the country. But when it started it was just two guys in Austin and they do these, what do they call it, Comp cleans. Where they go to local businesses like prominent institutions in Austin and they clean them and make them look nice for free. And their whole thing is like bringing dignity back to window washing. Like bringing dignity back. So when they go and pitch the commercial building, sure there's some big huge company that they're pitching against that's probably cheaper, that probably has better systems. But these two guys show up and they look the guy in the eye and they say not only do I want to do your first one for free, but like it's me and my buddy here and we started this company and we're going to be out front with like our cool design thing and we want to put you on Instagram. And they win. And so I do think this brand is going to be so important in an era when like a lot of.
- [44:56]
Daymond John
Executions change paper you're a hundred percent on because you gotta remember and I try to, I'm a very simple guy. There's nothing new in this world. I always say it. The voice is not new. It's just American Idol. They just turned the chairs and American Idol is Showtime with Apollo. And Showtime with Apollo is the Gong Show. It's not new. Young kid in college stood up and said, Mr. John, I'll tell you what's new. Your old generation doesn't have emojis are new. No, they're not. They will call hieroglyphics, you moron. Go sit down now. There's nothing new in this world. It's a new way to present it. It the top companies in shark tank history. Socks and a sponge damn scrub Daddy Lori ate my lunch on it. And every time I go to the grocery store I see that damn sponge smiling at me. $1.3 billion worth of sponges. She's slinging plastic like Happy Meals. She's killing our oceans. But you know my buddy Ryan Dice out of Austin, you know Ryan, I.
- [45:54]
Cody Sanchez
Do not like personally, but I know heaven genius.
- [45:56]
Daymond John
He says, listen, let me show you, you know, how you can market. He said, he marketing and, and Roland, he remember marketing a lawnmower company. He says, I'm he. He said, I remember I got a brand new lawnmower. I'm gonna do it. He said, and I remember I got out there and I got that thing ready and I forgot I needed gas and I went to the gas station. He says, I live in Austin. I left, I was 180 pounds. I got back, I was 160 pounds. I'm sweating. The day's gone. I got grass and bugs flying all over. He says, so I hired a lawnmower company. They came over and it was Saturday. After a hard day, a hard week of work, I hear the damn lawnmower. I was like, these guys are running around the yard. My wife's naked, trying to get dressed, and she's like, who the hell's in the yard? He said. But another company came back and said, you know what? We, we mow lawns during these hours when you're at work, you tell us when. Because we want to give you your Saturdays and your Sundays back. Good lion, you tell us when you're at work, we'll tell you when we were going to be there. And we will be there. Everything has an angle. There's nothing new in this world. So whether it is, we're bringing the dignity back. Some people want to feel good, come to our business. Everything. You see the people cleaning the windows. We're perfectionists in everything we do, from who we hire to who we work with, to how these windows are going to look. Great idea. And that's what you sell people, to separate people. You know, people think, you know, everything's new. You know, what's the most powerful thing you could do now? Billboard. You can't swipe a billboard when you're on a highway. Oh, retail is dead. Yeah. Open a retail in an airport, they can't get Amazon in there. It's a high traffic place. And it's a person who knows how to pay a lot of money because they're not taking a train or a car and they're paying 30% more.
- [47:43]
Cody Sanchez
You know, it's so true because I think what you've had 10,000 reps, 10,000 times from all of these companies that you've not only run but invested in. And so one of the cool things I think you're doing now that I don't hear you talk about as much is the CEO Access program and how you're kind of like sharing these pieces back to the next generation, not keeping it all to yourself. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [48:04]
Daymond John
CEO Access is me. It's a network of people like Cody, right? It's to yesterday's CEO used to be making. And they will come. Today's CEO is a person that they need to know who their brand is. The most successful CEOs I know, they're doing millions and billions of dollars, but nobody knows who they are. But yet the kid in the mail room gets pissed of a decision you make and put something on social media. And now you got to fire 400 hard working people in your company because you didn't have the time to go get a spin doctor, handle PR because nobody knows who you are. You know, everybody is a brand today. You remember like we were talking about, information is easy to get. The new currency of today is attention. And so there's a million real estate brokers. There's only one Barbara Corcoran. There's a million, well, not a million, but there's a lot of basketball owners, only one Mark Cuban. And by the way, there's a, I'm not even a great dad designer. I gotta tell you, Tom Ford and Carl Legafell rolling over saying how dare he call himself a Designer. You put a.05 and a FUBU on a bunch of sweatshirts, that's it. But I'm on Shark Tank and the world knows who I am. And I've advised every single living president till today, they haven't asked me for money. I can walk into any room and they know who I am in my name. I can open any company I want to and I can walk into any room I want to because my name goes in room before I do. There's a million real estate developers with the most powerful man in this world today knew how to brand himself is not only real estate and I'm not getting into politics. He's the president of the country. So when you look at CEOs they don't know who to talk to because they're running big companies. But once they were doing 5 million, they could talk to these people here, great, 50 million. These people here, once they start to get the 2 million to build 200 million, who are they going to talk to? Mark Cuban's not picking up the phone, and this person, even though they're doing great, can't help them. So that's what it is. Because when I go on to a show like with Cody, I go, hey, Cody, I got two or three. Great. I can't be on the show tomorrow. The episode's all going to be about me. Hey, you're looking for people like Matt Ebert, the Crash champions, or my buddy who doing several billion changing the way hearing is is being done. You would say, say, I'm interested. Why take a stage like a spire. Can't. I can't. I can't. Take number slide at 1 o' clock and 4 o', clock, when I go on the COVID of Ink, I start bringing these people through. When I walk ringside at a UFC fight and I say to somebody, you don't know this person Well, I go to Vanity Fair and I introduce my buddy Brandon to Tim cook. That's what CEO access is, walking CEOs in the room and not. And walking them in. The right CEOs for the right reason. People who don't want to be famous, they want to be respected for the right reason as a voice of authority in their space. But you can go to CEO access.com. i don't even know it half the time. It's just, we qualify people.
- [51:06]
Cody Sanchez
We'll drop it in the show notes.
- [51:07]
Daymond John
Yeah, so go click the link. I do appreciate it.
- [51:09]
Cody Sanchez
I love that. Why did you do that? Why not just keep it all for yourself?
- [51:15]
Daymond John
Because first of all, I can't use it all myself. Second of all, it really happened because one of my buddies who was a CEO of a very successful company said, why don't you help me? And I said, I'm the people, shark. I'm helping the people. He's like, I know you're helping the people, but I know this man and I know this person is one of the purest people on the planet. And he said, I understand you helping everyday entrepreneurs. I think you should. But if you help me, you got more people like me thinking like you. And I'm going to help millions of people. And I see said, holy shit, I'm becoming the thing I was fighting against. And I decided to help him, and he decided to help so many more people. So if I can build an army of a couple of people like that, you know, it's just. It's just great. See, it's why you help people. It's why we help people. You know, the people in our industry, who they come, they Go. They show jets, they show cars. They trying to sell you this thing. Nothing against them, but the people who are lasting a long time, they get on, they keep talking. They put out more and more books. They help more. They just want to help because we've been rewarded for the people who helped us.
- [52:26]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah. I mean, one, it's fun. There's like. I don't know that there's a better. It is selfish in some ways, because when very self.
- [52:32]
Daymond John
Because you learn how other people are doing things that you didn't even think about.
- [52:35]
Cody Sanchez
Totally. And then when you actually say, like, oh, I. I mean, how about this? How many people do you think. Think DM you and email you per day asking for advice?
- [52:43]
Daymond John
DM and email me per day? I would say 100.
- [52:48]
Cody Sanchez
And then of those, how many, if you gave them the advice they asked for, would actually take action on?
- [52:53]
Daymond John
None. One.
- [52:57]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah. One, maybe.
- [52:58]
Daymond John
But when they do.
- [52:59]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, but when they do, it's incredible. And so I think the other part that's really cool is when you find best predictor of future behaviors, past behavior. Right. So, like, when you find somebody who's just done the right thing, keeps moving, takes action, and then they take your. You know, they're going to take your advice.
- [53:12]
Daymond John
It's good when you. When somebody and you go, go, hey, you know what your book or what you said that day, I've been doing it, and I have this type of business. You go, really?
- [53:22]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah.
- [53:23]
Daymond John
And then you feel like, you know what? Honestly, that information was out there. You were going to do it regardless. But thank God you got it from me.
- [53:31]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, it's. It's a service.
- [53:32]
Daymond John
Because in the community, there is people who obviously we don't know and we're. We're training, but then it is me calling my fellow sharks, because that's what we do is say, hey, where are you Doing an interview at one of my. One of my CEO access people. We've been trying to get there, dude, Nelly, of course, but. Oh, she's on her apprentice Katrina camp. And so we always say. I told Katrina, I said, katrina, here's what we're going to do in the Coaxis crew. We're all going to get Laverne and Shirley jackets. We're going to have a secret. A secret, you know, a secret handshake.
- [54:06]
Cody Sanchez
She like it. Was she in for that?
- [54:07]
Daymond John
Like, I'm cool with the jacket handshake.
- [54:11]
Cody Sanchez
Not so much. All right, let's talk. I want to go high, and then I want to go low. So when you. Let's talk about holding company structure really quickly. I think people think it's really sexy to own a bunch of businesses and invest in them, and then they probably don't realize a lot of the difficulties. Like, I mean, how much do you think you pay people just to oversee your companies that you have interests in?
- [54:34]
Daymond John
Really good question. So I first. I first did a lot of the deals, Shar Tank and off Shark Tank. I did a lot of the deals where I had an attorney look through them and this and that. And for the first year in Shark Tank. And the sharks are learning too. And that's like you said, like being a little selfish the first year. And the deal, the deal flow wasn't that good. The show was new. Nobody can understand. I spent about $750,000 in attorney fees alone just to look at the deal. Now I put it through a VC software. It cost me $10,000 to do everything. But brand managers looking over it. I could be at a quarter million dollars dollars just looking at brand matter. We're not talking about CFOs, we're not talking about other things like that. Also, you know, I look at a lot of the deals. I do. I do options on the deals because, you know, I'm not trying to fill out all this corporate filing and stuff like that. And especially if you're late on your K1s and I'm late and all kind of stuff like that. So I try to do, if we hit certain numbers, then I can activate my options and my shares in a certain period of time. Time, yeah.
- [55:34]
Cody Sanchez
I love that. Then you. You basically, you don't have to deal with the tax consequences of it.
- [55:38]
Daymond John
And then, you know what, in three years, if it doesn't work out, well, the IRS says you're allowed to write that off.
- [55:42]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah. And then also you, you know, the, the company can keep your equity. Hey, it didn't work out the way I wanted it to, so I'm not being selfish.
- [55:49]
Daymond John
Yeah. So, yeah. So what did I do? You know what? I went out and I was a spokesperson for a long period of time. It didn't pop. Don't worry about it. Take whatever I did. It's yours.
- [55:58]
Cody Sanchez
That's super smart. How many bank accounts do you think you have to manage all this?
- [56:04]
Daymond John
I probably have about 35. Probably. Maybe 40.
- [56:11]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah. And what about when it comes for organizational structure? So, like, how do you think about the holding company that is Daymond John? Is that how you think about it? Is it a holding company?
- [56:22]
Daymond John
You know, I wish, you know, I wish I Was as organized as you may think I am. You know, I'm Willy Wonka. But the chocolate factory got a lot of going on in it. But yes, I do have that. I work with. There's a lot of different things. I. I work with a guy named Hillel Presser who was a really amazing attorney for asset protection.
- [56:43]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah.
- [56:43]
Daymond John
For holding companies and various other things like that. He's one of 12 people out there that this is all they focus on because it's important. One thing about it's very hard to make money. Super hard to keep it. I'll give you an example. Example. I have an RV and he was telling me, and I was like, okay, well, we got the rv. He said, put it on the RV llc. No problem. He said, who's the satellite radio? Satellite radio? My wife. Because, you know, we have a satellite radio account. He said, you just pierce your corporate veil. I said, because if you get in an accident, they can just say, the judge will say you didn't respect your LLC because your wife. It's on that. It should have been under the rvs, llc. A lot of people don't realize and they can come after everything you own. If, God forbid, you had an accident, that can happen with it. It's a taxicab model of the apartment model. You get one holding company, but each taxicab has its medallion. It's this, it's that. A lot of people don't know about how to protect themselves against a lot of these things. Because unfortunately, the people listening to us, they're probably good people. The people that wake up every day to wonder how to screw you when you're running a real business. Other people going, I don't have anything to run. I want to scam you. I want to buy out the fake shark tank ads. All the sharks invested in this pill. I want to put out the if you only loan I want. So there's a lot of, I hate to say there's a lot of bad people that they're looking every day on how to hurt you.
- [58:10]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah. You know, one of my favorite mentors, he had this line, he has a breakfast. He does, does. And it's once a month with a group of other big time entrepreneurs much bigger than me. And he goes, there's a price of entry though, for it. And he goes, the only people that get invited to this breakfast are people that make. And it was a certain amount of money, so a certain amount of money. People that have been entrepreneurs and divorced before. And then finally people have been sued. He goes, you gotta be sued, you gotta be divorced, and you gotta have made this much money. And then he got, I've lost this much money. He goes, and then I know that you will know what it's been like to be an entrepreneur.
- [58:47]
Daymond John
That is, that's hardcore.
- [58:48]
Cody Sanchez
It's hardcore. And, you know, whether I believe all of that or not, there's a truth to it. Like, I have never. Have you ever met a successful entrepreneur that hasn't had to go through some type of lawsuit.
- [58:57]
Daymond John
Absolutely. You know, you, you, you have to. When you, you know. Because, because, because the reason why I think as an entrepreneur, you go through a lot of lawsuits is, number one, one, you're taking a lot of swings. Number two, you're really trying to attach to other people because you, you're this hopeless romantic that everybody wants to strive for better things in life. And then you do get someplace and you start to move up here and these people start to resent you or not understand. You know, you never hear the story of. You always hear like, you know, I helped start the company. No, you weren't. You didn't help start the company. You came along after we kind of started the company. You wanted a free ride. We had to move on. And now you're the one complaining. There's a big old five on all the FUBU jerseys. You ever seen this? 05 Subnaudula 5. Why? Because I always wanted to be five partners. It's only four of us. There's 10 people with that, with that fifth partner that never stuck around. So there's 10 people out there going, you know, I'm the fifth member of FUBU. There's 10 of the fifth Beatles running around.
- [60:10]
Cody Sanchez
I, I don't think people talk about that enough because it seems to me like one of the most important deals you ever do is the people you partner with.
- [60:17]
Daymond John
I've never had a pitch going. Let me tell you something. I'm not going to do anything I say I'm going to do, and I'm going to make excuses about every single other person around me. And no matter what, it's going to be your goddamn damn problem.
- [60:30]
Cody Sanchez
I wish somebody would. If we could read their mind, then we'd know that. A lot of people think that way.
- [60:34]
Daymond John
Yeah. Nobody. Summary. Nobody ever said that to me.
- [60:39]
Cody Sanchez
Yeah, but a lot of people do. But then I, you know, then I remember that that's the reason why it's easy for people who don't do that to win. Not easy, but easier.
- [60:46]
Daymond John
Like, thank God, if every single one of them knew what you and I were going to do, there's no place for you and I.
- [60:52]
Cody Sanchez
Exactly. So you got to appreciate the haters and the flakers, I think. Okay, I want to end on one last question for you. You got, you got a mic and every entrepreneur you want to speak to standing in front of you. What do you leave them with? What do you tell them?
- [61:10]
Daymond John
What is your. Why are you doing it because you want to do it? Or are you doing it because your parents told you this is what success looks like? Are you doing it because you don't want to take that out? You don't want to put up that out of business side because you're embarrassed of what the community is going to say to you? Are you doing it because you think that somehow you're going to arrive at one moment and the work is going to stop? Why are you doing it? Because once you know why you're doing it, then you're going to know the goals that you need to set and the homework you need to do to enforce those goals. If you don't know why you're doing it, you need to go to a place to understand that. Why I'm not a billionaire. I'm not a billionaire by choice. I'm offered often, you know, huge venture deals. A bank, very famous, the one most powerful bank said to me, damon, you know what, I'll give you a 1.3 billion credit line. I'll put a merger and acquisition person over there with you. We bank the top thousand companies in the world. We know they have these initiatives for minority vending. Everybody will respect the fact that you're a minority vendor because of your history and your entire tv. We will give you the money we want you to acquire, like in a hotel, we want you to acquire a rug company, a lighting company, a furniture company. We want to then put you into bid for this stuff. And you will most likely get the contract because of who you are, the funding we have for you and your history. And I guarantee you, Damon, you probably will make an average of whatever. Whatever. Hmm. I'm 56 years old. That's a 20 year run with 20,000 people working for me. I will be 76 at that time. The worst time of my life is when I had seven, eight homes and all my friends enjoyed the homes. I can only sleep in one bed. I have a little nine year old girl. She will never see me again. If I go back to doing that, I already missed my 31 and my 26 year old growing up because I was so Busy. Working. Working. Why would I do that? No. So what is your why? Why would I do that? So somebody could see me on a yacht? I can rent that yacht and give it right back to the owner to let that be their damn problem.
- [63:39]
Cody Sanchez
No more pets.
- [63:40]
Daymond John
Why are you doing it? Why do you not know your wife and your husband? Are you going out making sure that a lot of people see you, that can't stand you? So why are you doing it? Know your why. But if you're waking up every day because you're solving a problem for a person, you're bringing them joy and you love it, then you do that.
- [64:00]
Cody Sanchez
Damon John, this was amazing. Thank you so much for being here.
- [64:03]
Daymond John
Thank you for having me.
- [64:04]
Cody Sanchez
Daymond John is the man. If you guys liked this episode, wait until you see what's next. You are going to want to subscribe and you are going to want to follow along because our next guest is. Is just as good as this one was, and I thought this one was incredible. Also. If you guys want to hear more about Damon's new program, it's ceoaccess.com I thought it was pretty incredible, and I'm excited that he came and talked to us about it today. Lastly, I want to hear what you guys think about this episode. Drop in the comments for me. What question should I have asked that I didn't? What was your favorite question and what did you think? Was not a very good question. I'll hear all of them from you. I'll read all of them, and I'll make sure that we do better every single time. Thank you for being here. You are a very big deal to me and to us.