Fubu Founder Talks Entrepreneurship

Summary

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Bloomberg Talks – Fubu Founder Talks Entrepreneurship

Host: Bloomberg
Guests: Damon (Entrepreneur, Fubu Founder/Shark Tank Investor), Kareem (Supply Chain Expert)
Date: November 18, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Bloomberg Talks dives into the realities of building and scaling brands with Damon, founder of Fubu and Shark Tank investor, and Kareem, a veteran supply chain expert. The discussion centers around the evolving challenges in entrepreneurship—particularly supply chains, sourcing, price pressures, and the imperative of agility. Real-world anecdotes, lessons from the global pandemic, and shifts in consumer and industry behavior frame the conversation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Product Success & Honest Entrepreneurship ([00:34]–[00:54])

• Damon highlights what makes a product successful on Shark Tank:
  • Focus on authentic founders and clear value propositions
  • Example: Bombas Socks, a straightforward yet high-performing innovation
• Emphasizes the importance of understanding manufacturing, delivery, and numbers for growth.

Notable Quote:

“It always is very honest, the entrepreneur. And then you back in to how they're making good manufacturing and delivering it, and then you go into the numbers.”
— Damon ([00:42])

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2. Challenges in Sourcing & the Ever-shifting Supply Chain ([00:54]–[03:28])

Supply Chain Volatility

• Interviewer: Points out the critical challenges in sourcing, materials, and logistics, linking to Kareem’s expertise.
• Kareem:
  • Describes supply chain as “the most consistent, inconsistent market.”
  • Urges the need for agility and having contingency plans (plan B, C, D, and E):

    “The only consistency is inconsistency.” ([01:23])

  • Stresses the blend of controllable and uncontrollable variables:
    • Example disruptions: pandemic, tariffs, port strikes.
  • Strong supply chain = diverse supply chain:

    “Anybody who has a strong supply chain has a diverse supply chain.” ([03:21])

Lessons from the Pandemic

• The pandemic was a wake-up call, but lessons fade quickly as companies revert focus to urgent day-to-day issues.
• Kareem pushes for maintaining alternative supply solutions even as crises pass:
  • It's critical not to have “all your eggs in one basket.”

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3. Brand Founders: The Multifaceted Demands ([03:28]–[04:38])

• Damon: Brand building today is more complex.
  • Founders juggle not only product design, but also manufacturing, shipment, finance, and social media.
  • His journey: Started manufacturing in Guatemala, shifted to Korea, then China, Turkey, and India—factories and conditions can change overnight.
• Why experts matter:
  • Damon sought out Kareem for supply chain expertise:

    “I don't have time to deal with all that.” ([03:55])

  • There’s never a single answer—tariffs, legality, war all introduce fresh challenges daily.

Notable Quote:

“When you are somebody who's building a brand...all of a sudden, now you have to learn manufacturing, shipping, finance, social media, and all this other stuff.”
— Damon ([04:09])

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4. Pandemic’s Silver Lining: Innovation & Best Practices ([04:38]–[05:25])

• Interviewer: Suggests the supply chain crisis forced organizations to rethink and innovate.
• Kareem:
  • Agrees; more companies are developing best practices and seeing the value of supply chain management.
  • Points to growth of supply chain-focused degree programs:

    “We have generations of supply chain professionals that are learning from the issues of the past.” ([05:14])

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5. Consumer Realities & Pricing Constraints ([05:25]–[06:10])

• Interviewer: Asks Damon about the state of consumer prices and retailer dynamics.
• Damon:
  • Describes increasing direct-to-consumer transactions, but notes rising overseas costs (20–50% increases).
  • Retailers, especially big-box, cap prices on popular products; brands must absorb extra costs or risk losing shelf space:

    “I am not making, I'm not selling this to my consumer more than $9.99. That's your problem.” ([05:49])

  • The retailer’s mindset: If a supplier can’t meet price points, they’ll find someone who will.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kareem:

  “The supply chain is the most consistent, inconsistent market you could ever think of.” ([01:22])

• Damon:

  “When you are somebody who's building a brand … all of a sudden, now you have to learn manufacturing, shipping, finance, social media, and all this other stuff.” ([04:09])

• Kareem:

  “Anybody who has a strong supply chain has a diverse supply chain. Regardless of what we're talking about, whether it's a pandemic or it's tariffs or whatever it may be, the diversity of the supply chain is going to be the key to success.” ([03:21])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:34 – Damon shares insight about winning products and the importance of founder honesty.
• 01:22 – Kareem explains the volatile nature of supply chains.
• 02:29 – Discussion on resilience and lessons (or lack thereof) learned post-pandemic.
• 03:41 – Damon’s journey through different manufacturing countries; the founder’s growing skillset demands.
• 04:53 – Pandemic-driven innovation in supply chain management.
• 05:38 – Damon addresses retailer and consumer price pressure realities.

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Final Thoughts

The conversation underlines that entrepreneurship has never been more complex. Agility, contingency planning, and a broad knowledge base—or the right partnerships—are now fundamental. While crises like the pandemic have forced innovation and attention to supply chains, only organizations that stay nimble and diversified can turn disruption into advantage. Damon and Kareem’s insights offer a candid, practical roadmap for founders navigating today’s unpredictable economic world.

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Transcript

[Indiana University Narrator]

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[Damon (Entrepreneur)]

Successful product in all of shark tanks if you see my underachiever fellow sharks, just remind them is Bombus Socks my investment. It's socks. You don't know. It's usually, it always is very honest, the entrepreneur. And then you back in to how they're making good manufacturing and delivering it, and then you go into the numbers.

[Interviewer]

Of course, one of the biggest challenges with these consumer types of products is obviously sourcing the materials and the other supplies that you need to make, package and ship those things out. And I guess that's where Kareem comes in, with a lifetime of experience in that area. And I am curious not so much as to what kind of advice you give Damon and other entrepreneurs, but how much you've had to change that advice over the years as things like tariffs and geopolitical issues have kind of shifted what the supply chain is.

[Kareem (Supply Chain Expert)]

Sure. I mean, the supply chain is the most consistent, inconsistent market you could ever think of. The only consistency is inconsistency. And the problem is, is that you have this mixture of controllable and uncontrollable factors. And the only way to really be disruption proof is to be nimble and adept and agile and have plan B, C, D and E. Because in the end, if the supply chain can't deliver who is the ultimate consumer customer, it breaks down all the way back. So whether we're talking about a pandemic or we're talking about tariffs or a strike at the ports, whatever may be the ultimate fulfillment is to the customer at the end. So the strategies that we always have to look at are really industry by industry, product by product, to determine how to manage these things.

[Interviewer]

Well, you mentioned the pandemic, and this is something I always wonder about when it comes to conversations about supply chains. Whether or not the experience with the pandemic made supply chains maybe more resilient, maybe a little bit more flexible than they would have been otherwise heading into this tariff shock, or whether we're talking about two entirely different set of circumstances.

[Kareem (Supply Chain Expert)]

Ultimately we should have learned a lot more, I think, as it comes to the global supply chain. But, you know, hindsight's always 20, 20 and, you know, as soon as things calm down, everybody just kind of turned their attention to what was most in front of them. And in doing so, you lose some of those fundamentals and those ideas, which is how to be robust, how to be resilient, how to have your alternatives in place. And that ends up being the biggest level of disruption because you have all your eggs in one basket and things change. And then how do you basically accommodate those changes? So I would suggest, and we always are talking to our companies and brands that we speak to about what are you going to do if there's no product available? What are you going to do if your costs increase significantly or if your supplier just can't deliver anymore? Do you have those plans in place? And anybody who has a strong supply chain has a diverse supply chain. Regardless of what we're talking about, whether it's a pandemic or it's tariffs or whatever it may be, the diversity of the supply chain is going to be the key to success.

[Interviewer]

Well, Damon, bring us into the lived experiences of some of these companies, some of these brands. You know, when you're talking to founders, what industries tend to be disproportionately impacted by what we're talking?

[Damon (Entrepreneur)]

Well, anything that you need. Several different aspects and several different components. You know, listen, when I first started, I was making Guatemala, and then I was making in Korea. That shifted over to China, but then China, these factories are opening and closing just as fast. They're owned by the government. Right. Then I moved over to Turkey and India. So if you're having different components. Right. And so that's why I had reached out to find somebody like Kareem. I actually found Kareem because I don't have time to deal with all that.

[Commercial Announcer]

Right.

[Damon (Entrepreneur)]

And that's the problem. When you are somebody who's building a brand, you start a brand and you want to solve a problem or bring somebody joy. But all of a sudden, now you have to learn manufacturing, shipping, finance, social media, and all this other stuff. So again, somebody like Kareem, who has 2,000 factories at their fingertips, are the ones that you want to go to, because there is no one answer tariffs or quota. It's illegal to make a product over here. Government change, war. It's all over the place.

[Interviewer]

I mean, one interesting thing that's come out of this, though, Kareem, and we talked a lot about this on this show back during the pandemic when all the supply chains basically got disrupted, was this idea that companies now and executives had to really start to Think a lot harder about the supply chain.

[Kareem (Supply Chain Expert)]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

And to a certain extent it almost ended up being a silver lining. As companies that never really thought about it, all of a sudden we're finding ways to innovate, finding ways to be more creative. Has that stuck?

[Kareem (Supply Chain Expert)]

Yes, I do believe it's stuck. And I believe that we're creating more and more best practices and how we see that isn't just with businesses, but even at the level of education. Look at how many universities now are offering supply chain management degrees and master's program, so on. We have generations of supply chain professionals that are learning from the, the issues of the past.

[Interviewer]

Damon, I'm really curious what you're seeing on the consumer level. We keep talking about how prices, maybe the rate of change is slowing down, but absolute price is very sticky. What are you seeing when it comes to consumer health, especially as we head into the holidays?

[Damon (Entrepreneur)]

Well, you know, we saw the shift where you can buy things directly from the consumer, from the maker at the end of the day. Now when you're buying it overseas, you're getting, you know, 20, 30, 50% increase. But if you're dealing with big box stores and viruses, they say, I am not making, I'm not selling this to my consumer more than $9.99. That's your problem. And if you don't want to do it, I'm going to find somebody else who's going to do it cheaper with a bigger smile. So they don't want to pass that on to the consumer. At the end of the day, when you're dealing directly with big box retailers.

[Indiana University Narrator]

Or retailers in general, old playbooks won't solve tomorrow's problems. Indiana University is redefining the relationship between higher education and industry. We're addressing future talent and workforce needs through more than 10,000 industry partnerships, supporting and investing in young entrepreneurs and businesses that create jobs and grow the economy, and facilitating the research and development that lead to breakthrough solutions. This isn't business as usual. Indiana University/Industry is a partnership that fuels economic growth. Explore IU's impact at IU. Edu impact.

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