Daymond John: From The Slums To $350 Million

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INTRO: Daymond is likely the most conservative investor   on Shark Tank, but usually, it’s not because  he’s afraid of capital loss but because of his   investment philosophy. You see, all the sharks are  there for various reasons. Mark and Robert like to   invest in businesses that excite them. Kevin likes  to invest in businesses that carry low capital   risk. Lori likes to invest in ideas she can blow  up TV, and Barbara invests in entrepreneurs that   she believes in. But, Daymond doesn’t really  care about any of this. He’s not there to make   money or gain popularity. His primary goal is  to help entrepreneurs who really truly need it.   There are so many times that he’s turned down  super lucrative deals because he doesn’t feel   that the entrepreneur needs it. I think this makes  Daymond the most wholesome investor on the show,   and given his rough background, it makes  sense that he wants to help those in a similar   situation. This wholesome investment strategy has  rewarded him quite handsomely given that he was   the one to invest in Shark Tank’s most successful  business as of the end of 2021. So, here’s how   Daymond went from the ghettos to Shark Tank and  became Shark Tanks’ most empathetic investor. LIFE IN THE SLUMS:  Taking a look back, Daymond was born  on February 23, 1969, in Brooklyn,   New York. Initially, his life wasn’t that bad  financially given that he was an only child,   and his dad made enough money to make ends  meet. But, by the time Daymond was 10 years old,   his parents would get a divorce, and Daymond  would be raised by a single mother. To make   things worse, Daymond’s mother was a homemaker and  it was extremely difficult for her to find a job.   The family quickly sank into poverty and  ended up in the Hollis region of Queens.   This region is officially known as a low-income  African American neighborhood, but really, it   was a ghetto. So, to help out his mom through this  situation, Daymond began working odd jobs at the   age of 10. This included handing out fliers for  $2 an hour and becoming an electrician apprentice.   He also shoveled snow for neighbors and  sold pencils. Moving into high school,   Daymond joined a program that allowed him to  attend school on an alternating weekly basis.   This allowed him to hold a full-time job as a  waiter at Red Lobster, and run a small commuter   van service on the side. Daymond says that this  program is what really ignited his entrepreneurial   spirit. Anyway, moving on to college, Daymond  really had no intention of attending college.   First of all, he was dyslexic which made  traditional academics quite difficult,   and secondly, he didn’t have 4 years to go sit  in a classroom. He was already busting his butt   to make ends meet, and quitting his job would  make it extremely difficult for his mother.   So, he decided to not attend college and  continued on with his waiter job after   high school. Daymond wasn’t satisfied with just  working this job for the rest of his life though.   He knew he wanted to create some sort of business,  but he didn’t know what exactly it would be about.   This would all change, however, when he  came across some overpriced wool ski hats   on the market. Daymond was convinced he could  produce the hats for significantly cheaper,   so he bought some low-cost fabrics, learned how to  sew from his mother, and began knitting wool hats.   He was able to produce 80 hats, and he went around  the neighborhood and sold them for $10 apiece.   He made a solid $800 in revenue from the venture,  but for Daymond, selling these hats meant much   more than just making money. You see, during  his teenage years, Daymond was a massive fan   of hip-hop and rap. He aspired to be like his  favorite artists, but he usually couldn’t even   afford the clothes they wore. By selling  affordable clothes rooted in hip hop,   Daymond felt that he could appeal to his younger  self and give modern kids what he never had.   And with that, Daymond founded For Us By Us  or FUBU in 1992. Daymond barely had any money   himself, but his mother would pull through  and risk it all for Daymond. She mortgaged   her house and lent him $100,000 to start up the  business. The stakes couldn’t have been higher,   but this was Daymond’s one shot at a better life,  and there was no way he was going to give that up. FUBU:  From the very beginning, Daymond knew that the key  to growing a large clothing brand was exposure,   but he decided to start small and keep things  simple. Daymond continued to produce the wool   hats that had already sold well, and he continued  working as a waiter. In the meantime, he started   experimenting with sewing screen-printed  T-shirts. As the hat business grew, Daymond   hired two of his childhood friends to start  selling the T-shirts around the neighborhood.   This worked out decently well at the beginning,  but selling clothes door to door clearly wasn’t   a very good sales channel long term. So, Daymond  started leveraging consignments. A consignment is   simply an agreement with a store or vendor  to sell your products for a set commission   or fee. Daymond was able to score a couple of  consignment deals with vendors in the Northeast,   and with that Daymond could start focusing  on actually building a brand. Daymond and his   friends started sewing the FUBU logo into hockey  jerseys, sweatshirts, and T-shirts, and they lent   out this clothing to up-and-coming rappers to use  in their music videos. Within 2 years, Daymond was   able to secure product placement within 30 music  videos which gave FUBU quite a bit of exposure.   People watching these music videos thought  that FUBU was a decently sized mall brand,   but really, it was just Daymond a couple of his  friends. And this became painfully apparent when   FUBU started to receive their first big orders.  In the early 1990s, Daymond traveled to Las Vegas   to showcase FUBU at a fashion trade show called  MAGIC. This was definitely a worthwhile trip given   that he received $300,000 worth of orders, and an  offer to be sold at select Macy’s outlets. Daymond   happily took the orders, but only he knew that it  was going to be a massive struggle to produce that   many clothes. As soon as he returned home, Daymond  applied for loans at every bank he could think of,   but he was rejected by all 27 banks. So, in  a last-ditch effort, Daymond use the last of   his money to put out an advertisement in the New  York times looking for a manufacturing partner.   And luckily for Daymond, Samsung Textiles  responded to the ad and helped FUBU complete their   first mega-order. Around the same time, Daymond’s  hip-hop partners including Will Smith, Beyonce,   and LL Cool J were starting to get some notoriety.  LL Cool J and Daymond were actually childhood   friends, and Daymond was able to convince  Cool J to wear a FUBU hat in a GAP commercial.   Cool J didn’t just stop right there either. He was  hired to rap in the commercial and he snuck in the   phrase For Us By Us in the rap. Honestly,  I’m not sure how GAP let this one slip by,   but it worked out great for FUBU. As their hip-hop  partners evolved into full-fledged celebrities,   FUBU transitioned from being a small  home business to a national brand.   In 1998, FUBU pulled in $350 million in  sales, but Daymond was just getting started. BUILDING AN EMPIRE: While FUBU was doing better than ever before,   Daymond knew that hip-hop fame was fickle and that  it could disappear just as fast as it appeared.   So, Daymond cleverly started to diversify as soon  as possible. In the late 1990s and early 2000s,   FUBU put hip-hop promotions on the back burner and  started to reinvest their profits into building an   international audience. They primarily targeted  Saudi Arabia, China, Korea, Japan, and South   Africa. Daymond didn’t just limit the company to  streetwear clothing either. In 2000, he launched   FUBU Entertainment also known as FUBU Records. As  the name suggests, this subsidiary was focused on   producing and releasing music albums. One of their  first deals was with Universal Records which ended   up generating millions in revenue. Moving forward,  in 2002, Daymond embraced the internet with the   launch of y2g.com which sold their various  products online. All of these efforts gave   FUBU a pretty solid safety net, but Daymond  didn’t just want to rely on FUBU either,   so he also started ventures outside FUBU. For  example, Daymond leveraged his newfound fame to   start selling books. So far, Daymond has published  4 books called Display of Power, The Brand Within,   The Power of Broke, and Rise and Grind. These  publications have won him the titles of New   York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling  author. Aside from publishing books, Daymond has   also become a public speaker and he charges $50  to $75,000 per speech. Daymond has also partnered   with several brands including Pitbull, Miss  Universe, Shopify, and most recently, Audible.   It’s a good thing Daymond diversified so heavily  as FUBU’s sales did indeed start dropping just   like he expected. From their peak of $350 million  in 1998, FUBU declined to $200 million by 1999   and they’ve stabilized around there ever since.  Daymond doesn’t seem to mind too much though.   He knew the drop was coming and he prepared  as much as he could. Also, he had already   made more money than he ever wanted, and now,  he wanted to focus his efforts on giving back. DAYMOND’S PHILOSOPHY: Daymond isn’t interested in making the   rich richer or even the middle class richer. His  primary goal is to help the poor break out of the   poverty cycle. He knows firsthand how impossible  it was to secure a loan, and with Shark Tank,   Daymond has prioritized giving opportunity just  like Samsung Textiles gave him an opportunity. One   of the best examples of this was with Mo’s Bows.  In Season 5 of Shark Tank, a young entrepreneur   named Moziah pitched his bowtie-making business  to the Sharks. He asked for a modest $50,000 for   a 20% stake in his business, but instead of  offering him the money, Daymond offered to   mentor him for free. Since then, Daymond has  helped Moziah secure a manufacturing partner,   get into Neiman Marcus, and even get a 7 figure  licensing deal with the NBA. Daymond literally   made this kid into a millionaire for free. I don’t  think it gets more wholesome than that. Another   wholesome Daymond deal was with Bombas. Bombas is  a sock company that focuses on donating socks to   homeless shelters. The founders, David and Randy,  started the company after finding out that the   most needed item at homeless shelters was socks.  And for every item you purchase from Bombas,   they donate an item to homeless organizations. It  looks like this message has really resonated with   customers as Bombas is not only Daymond’s most  successful investment but the most successful   investment in Shark Tank history grossing a total  of $225 million in lifetime sales. Shark Tank   isn’t the only way Daymond gives back either. In  2015, he co-founded Daymond John’s Success Formula   which teaches entrepreneurs how to start and  grow their business. And that same year, he was   appointed by President Obama to be an ambassador  for underserved entrepreneurs. Considering all   this, I don’t think that there’s any doubt that  Daymond is the most selfless shark on the show. DAYMOND TODAY: As for Daymond today,   he’s doing better than ever before. FUBU  crossed $6 billion in annual sales back in 2016,   and they’re likely in the $7 to $8  billion range today if not even higher.   In terms of Shark Tank investments, Daymond  has completed 61 deals on air which comes   out to a total of $8.5 million invested.  Considering this, I don’t think you’d be too   surprised to hear that his net worth is estimated  to be around $350 million. Unfortunately, though,   his personal life isn’t progressing nearly as  smoothly. In April of 2017, Daymond was diagnosed   with stage 2 thyroid cancer. He did undergo  surgery and get the cancerous nodule removed,   but it’s definitely not something to take lightly.  Hopefully, the cancer never returns though as   Daymond is not only relatively young at 52, but  he’s a phenomenal community-oriented person,   and he would be a massive loss for everybody.  Do you guys think Daymond is the best shark?   Comment that down below. Also, drop a like if  you think that the other sharks should take   a couple of notes from Daymond. And of course,  consider joining our discord community to suggest   future video ideas and consider subscribing  to see more questions logically answered.
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Channel: Logically Answered
Views: 72,087
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Keywords: daymond john, history of daymond john, rise of daymond john, daymond john biography, daymond john story, story of daymond john, daymond john fubu, fubu daymond john, how did daymond john get rich, how did daymond john start fubu, how did daymond john get started, daymond john net worth, damon john, daymond john shark tank, damon john shark tank, history of fubu clothing, what is fubu, rise of fubu, story of fubu, who is daymond on shark tank, daymond shark tank
Id: CsocQYQniOM
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Length: 11min 20sec (680 seconds)
Published: Mon Jan 17 2022
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