Speaker 1: Jeff Baso spoke up with Mark Cuban's money. He's gonna
Speaker 1: jump out the window. And then Mark Huban woke up
Speaker 1: with my money. He's definitely jumping out the leaving all
Speaker 1: my life and grinding all my life. Sacrifice Hustle, pack Price,
Speaker 1: one slice got the swath all my life. I've been
Speaker 1: grinding all my life, all my life, the grinding all
Speaker 1: my life, sacrifice, Hustle, Pegg Price, one slice got the
Speaker 1: swath all my life. I've been grinding all my life. Hello,
Speaker 1: welcome to another edition of the Club Sha Shay. I
Speaker 1: am your whole Shan and Sharp. I'm also the propriev
Speaker 1: of Club Sha Shake. And the guy that's stopping by
Speaker 1: today for a conversation is Drink is a fashion mogul.
Speaker 1: He's a Brandon Guru, an entrepreneurial expert, savvy business executive,
Speaker 1: a New York Times best selling author, founder, president and
Speaker 1: CEO of Fubu, A shark on the fourth Time award
Speaker 1: winning series Shark Tank The People Shark Damon, John, Damon,
Speaker 1: How you doing, brouh WHOA, thank you for having How
Speaker 1: you doing? I'm doing great? Thanks for coming on the pod.
Speaker 1: Since I got you here, I got a shark, and
Speaker 1: so you know what, I gotta make my pitch. I
Speaker 1: might as well make my pitch. So here I go.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you think. Tell what your think. Hello shark,
Speaker 1: I'm Shannon Sharp, and I'm here to try to raise
Speaker 1: fund a million dollars in revenue to increase our capacity
Speaker 1: for warehouse sizing. We have a product, a Cognact called Laportier.
Speaker 1: The Say edition is named after my grandmother, and we've
Speaker 1: already sold seventy five bottles of this Cognact. But the
Speaker 1: problem that we're running into is warehouse sizing because you
Speaker 1: have to order it online and it takes us a
Speaker 1: while to get the orders come from France and get
Speaker 1: it into into the customer's hand. We felt that if
Speaker 1: we had a warehouse big enough to house save four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand bottles UH, that way we can get it
Speaker 1: on the shelves, we can put it into say a
Speaker 1: Costco and save some of these other stores, and that
Speaker 1: way we wouldn't have to go through the reserve bars
Speaker 1: and these other online shops in order to get it
Speaker 1: to the consumer. So we're trying to raise an additional
Speaker 1: one million dollars to increase our warehouse size costs per unit,
Speaker 1: it's twelve dollars retail costs and seventy two dollars. What
Speaker 1: do you think you know? I think that you you
Speaker 1: want to, you know, take tiny steps, and I think
Speaker 1: it sounds like you've proved the market in our business.
Speaker 1: What we call what you're looking for in your business.
Speaker 1: I think it's an important on our side. It's called
Speaker 1: a three P L. Yes, that is called third party logistics.
Speaker 1: That you probably can handle that. But me not having
Speaker 1: a deep understanding of the distribution aspect of a liquor,
Speaker 1: I could be wrong. You see, Okay, I feel good.
Speaker 1: I feel good. I mean, you didn't say I'm out.
Speaker 1: You heard my pitch. You didn't say I'm out. You
Speaker 1: just say you know what. That's not really my forte.
Speaker 1: But it seems like you have a good grasp of
Speaker 1: what you want to do and how you want to
Speaker 1: go about doing it. So I really appreciate that. Let's
Speaker 1: get down. Let's get down to why you're here. You've
Speaker 1: been on Shark Tank. If I'm not mistaking, twelve seasons
Speaker 1: you've invested fifteen seasons, thirteen thirteen, okay, thirteen seasons. You've
Speaker 1: invested over fifteen million of your own dollars in one
Speaker 1: hundred and seven startups. One of the things I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask before you invest into the startup. Obviously you
Speaker 1: don't know anything about these companies. You're hearing what they say.
Speaker 1: What are some of the things you're looking for to
Speaker 1: make you say, you know what? I wanting to invest
Speaker 1: my dollars into this company? Yeah, so you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that I'm looking for simultaneously. So
Speaker 1: Number one, I want to hear the story of why
Speaker 1: was this product or service created? Okay, where did you
Speaker 1: find the passion in the drive fork Oka? Usually when
Speaker 1: people are successful, they they created something because they thought
Speaker 1: that there was a void in the market that nobody's
Speaker 1: trying to feel, or they would feel it, or they
Speaker 1: brought an extreme amount of joy to people. So I
Speaker 1: want to know where your passion is. Okay. I want
Speaker 1: to know how many times you fail, because if you
Speaker 1: come on there and say, well, I was doing good
Speaker 1: and then I did better than I did better, well,
Speaker 1: then why the hell you're here? You don't need us
Speaker 1: so telling about the failures. Then I want to know
Speaker 1: if you know your customer, If you don't know your customer,
Speaker 1: who exactly they are, where they're located, how much they're
Speaker 1: gonna pay for something, how much they won't pay for something. Well,
Speaker 1: then you're using my money as tuition. And then I
Speaker 1: want to know the numbers on where the margin is,
Speaker 1: like you shared with me that really great margin on
Speaker 1: your product, because then I see this room for profit.
Speaker 1: And last, but not least, I just gotta like you.
Speaker 1: I just gotta feel like you and I can have
Speaker 1: conversations together, solve problems together, learn together, and make money together.
Speaker 1: And you know, and we're gonna keep doing that because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna probably talk to you, you know, often, and
Speaker 1: especially if you work with me, I'm gonna sit next
Speaker 1: to you maybe eight hours a day, five days a week,
Speaker 1: for the next five years of my life. It's got
Speaker 1: to be worth it. You said something very important. You
Speaker 1: said passion, because I think a lot of times people
Speaker 1: get sometimes people get into business for the wrong reason. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to make money. If you're passionate about something,
Speaker 1: that aspect will come. So I wanted to hear. I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, it's passion one of those things. How
Speaker 1: invested are you into the product? How knowledgeable are you
Speaker 1: about the service that you're trying to sell me on. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're not knowledgeable, how do you expect me to
Speaker 1: invest my money? And you're supposed to be doing this,
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be the expert at it, So why
Speaker 1: would I invest my money? You have to understand, you
Speaker 1: have to see the passion and the drive and somebody
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm guilty of it as well. But
Speaker 1: almost everybody that I met that were doing something, and
Speaker 1: the and the and the concept came purely because of
Speaker 1: the need to make money. And it wasn't followed with
Speaker 1: a passion or a drive or a love or something.
Speaker 1: They ended up either in the wrong place right for
Speaker 1: that money, or they failed at it, or when they
Speaker 1: made the money, it was so difficult that they blew
Speaker 1: it right away because they was they just needed to
Speaker 1: get that money, and then they go out. They had
Speaker 1: no other further drive. And that's what I really see
Speaker 1: some of the biggest challenge in entreroom. Now. You may say, well,
Speaker 1: what about the banking system and venture capitalists. Yeah, money
Speaker 1: isn't after after, you know, money what comes after. But
Speaker 1: they love the kill or they love to see these
Speaker 1: structures come together or understand how to put things together
Speaker 1: and extract the value from it. That's what they really love.
Speaker 1: The money is definitely something that comes up, and it's
Speaker 1: almost like you playing ball. I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: how many you know, I'm showing you, I'm show you,
Speaker 1: you know, listen, better than better than anybody else in
Speaker 1: the world. You probably understand how many kids were just
Speaker 1: thinking about all the cars and all the things they
Speaker 1: could potentially get right. But you know, and practice was miserable,
Speaker 1: you was, you know, it was probably like you know,
Speaker 1: it's like I love I love every day that I'm
Speaker 1: learning something, I'm getting better, and I gotta I gotta
Speaker 1: keep getting better at this because I'm not going to
Speaker 1: let that person challenge. I'm gonna take that person out.
Speaker 1: And that's a whole different story than money. And then
Speaker 1: money came. So obviously there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: like if they do something with fashion, you do something
Speaker 1: with a product, you probably have a general understanding of that.
Speaker 1: But when you invest into a commodity that you have
Speaker 1: very little knowledge of what makes you like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think this thing could work? And you said, you
Speaker 1: spend six eight hours a day working alongside that person,
Speaker 1: So tell us how shark. So once you said, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, how does the process go moving forward? Well,
Speaker 1: it all depends on what you need. So I think
Speaker 1: one thing that I left out is a lot of
Speaker 1: times as a shark, we may not be into something
Speaker 1: because we may feel that we don't add value to it.
Speaker 1: It's something that I don't know. And you don't only
Speaker 1: want money if you have something great. You want smart money,
Speaker 1: somebody who can also help you and not just give
Speaker 1: you some money. Because if I only gave you money
Speaker 1: and I really care about what you're doing, well, then
Speaker 1: if I can't show up, then I'm taking a seat
Speaker 1: at somebody at the table as somebody else will give
Speaker 1: you the money and put in sweat equity and give
Speaker 1: you contacts and give you knowledge. And I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm doing you a disservice. Okay, So I have to
Speaker 1: find you know, a true pitch resonates with somebody, And
Speaker 1: it's very similar to an informercial. A lot of times
Speaker 1: you don't even know when you want something until you
Speaker 1: find these key moments in a pitch. Right. So it's
Speaker 1: like somebody saying your home, they go has this ever
Speaker 1: happened to you? And You're like, yeah, it has. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: it's happened to me too, and I found a better way.
Speaker 1: My name is Damon John. I failed several times and
Speaker 1: making this better way both but the eight time this
Speaker 1: thing is working out. And if you buy this better
Speaker 1: way by midnight tonight, I'm gonna give you two better
Speaker 1: ways for the price of one. And if you don't
Speaker 1: like it, send me your money. I'm gonna send me
Speaker 1: your product. I'm gonna send it back to you. And
Speaker 1: that's the way that the real pitch goes. You resonate
Speaker 1: with somebody, they go, wait a minute, I didn't think
Speaker 1: of that, and then you find a way to make
Speaker 1: them buy in at a low cost. And if they
Speaker 1: buy in and they don't really love it, you try
Speaker 1: to find a way to say, all right, don't worry
Speaker 1: about I love the fact you had trusted me. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make it easy for you to get out of this.
Speaker 1: And that's the best way of pitches. That's how it
Speaker 1: was with the air fryer. With me, I didn't really
Speaker 1: know I needed the air fry until I bought two
Speaker 1: of them. Tell me about it. That's how it goes
Speaker 1: with but the thing you so okay, you obviously you're
Speaker 1: very successful at what you did. What you do. You
Speaker 1: started a company from ground floor and you built it up.
Speaker 1: So how do you, I mean, how did you do
Speaker 1: like the three companies that you had the most success
Speaker 1: with investing your money? What was it about what they
Speaker 1: said that resonated so much with you? It's a story
Speaker 1: that I shared right there. So the best, the best
Speaker 1: company that I have that's done the best from Shark
Speaker 1: Tank is the number one invested company in Shark Tank.
Speaker 1: So I have the number one company in Sharkkank history
Speaker 1: that has grossed the most money. Now, ring Doorbell did
Speaker 1: not get an investment. They did one point three billion
Speaker 1: dollars in sale I mean as a sale to Amazon.
Speaker 1: But my company, Bomba Socks is the number one product
Speaker 1: invested in Sharkkank history. But I gotta tell you this
Speaker 1: pitch they they found angle is to work with me.
Speaker 1: That I didn't realize I had I go into Shark
Speaker 1: Tank because I had ten companies and nine of them
Speaker 1: were dead after two thousand and six, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: nobody's buying another shirt or jeans and they couldn't pay
Speaker 1: their rent. So the last thing I ever wanted was
Speaker 1: another clothing company because I wanted to diversify my portfolio.
Speaker 1: But these young men came in and said, we have
Speaker 1: socks and number one. Number two is the real reason
Speaker 1: we love to sell these SOCCA. Every time we buy
Speaker 1: you buy a pair of sock, we give one to
Speaker 1: those that needed the homeless shelter. These socks and underwear
Speaker 1: t shirts are their number one request and we are
Speaker 1: selling directly to our customer. This is a high margin product.
Speaker 1: It is a great product. It took the steam out
Speaker 1: of the toe, and so there's enough money to sell
Speaker 1: directly the customer and give the pair away. And why
Speaker 1: did that make this attractive to me? Because I used
Speaker 1: to always say, you have to make it, then you
Speaker 1: have to be able to master it, then you can matter.
Speaker 1: How can you help people who're not helping yourself? But
Speaker 1: simultaneously they showed me that first of all, Daton retail
Speaker 1: is suffering. You don't know where retail is going. They
Speaker 1: don't even know who they want to be when they
Speaker 1: grow up. We're talking directly to our customer, and we're
Speaker 1: also helping those in need. Because I know you're big
Speaker 1: into philanthropy and charitable organizations, and they switch that whole
Speaker 1: thing around on me, and I couldn't wait to invest
Speaker 1: in that company. And that's because they understood what the target,
Speaker 1: who I was the target, really wanted to see in life.
Speaker 1: Helping people at the same time as dealing direct to
Speaker 1: my consumers. You're known as the people's shark, and you
Speaker 1: place an emphasis on people over the product. Why because
Speaker 1: products come and go and there's nothing new in this world.
Speaker 1: I mean, Facebook's a nasty chain letter, the Snuggie is
Speaker 1: a blanket with two holes in it, and Uber is
Speaker 1: a limousine service. But it's the people behind that. It's
Speaker 1: the people in front of it, the people who are
Speaker 1: the customers. It's the people who operate these things daily
Speaker 1: that is critical. If I want to spend, if I
Speaker 1: want to make money and not have to talk to anybody,
Speaker 1: and I send my money over to Apple, I send
Speaker 1: my money over to Tesla, and I send my money
Speaker 1: over to Shopify. I was Shopify twenty eight dollars the
Speaker 1: high in five years it hit. It hit eighteen hundred. Okay,
Speaker 1: today it's half off, and I think everybody should buy it.
Speaker 1: But they're not calling me asking me how to fix
Speaker 1: the back end of a website. Elon Musk is not
Speaker 1: calling me asking how to fix a damn car, and
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs, even if he was alive, wouldn't call me
Speaker 1: and ask how to fix a computer. So if I
Speaker 1: want to make money, I send my money over there
Speaker 1: or real estate. So if I'm going to deal with people,
Speaker 1: I'm going to invest in people. I'm gonna want to
Speaker 1: get to know them. I'm gonna want to learn from them.
Speaker 1: We're both gonna have an education and have a good time.
Speaker 1: In this business fails, we'll just start another one together.
Speaker 1: Because I like the way that you get down, So
Speaker 1: you're more into the relationship. You like the per you
Speaker 1: like the you liked it like, Okay, we're in this together.
Speaker 1: I got something to lose. You got something to lose.
Speaker 1: You're gonna work your tail off. I'm gonna work my
Speaker 1: tail off. We're gonna make this grow. We grow together,
Speaker 1: or we fail together. As you mentioned earlier, Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: start something else together. Absolutely, that's the way it is.
Speaker 1: It's a partnership. Your mom was your first investor, So
Speaker 1: your mom was the very first shark before that was
Speaker 1: the shark take. So how did you pitch your ball?
Speaker 1: Oh you know, mom saw me putting in the work.
Speaker 1: She saw me putting in the work, and I had
Speaker 1: She saw me working on fooboo for about five years prior.
Speaker 1: I went to Vegas and I got three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars worth of orders from stores with one of the goods.
Speaker 1: I come home, I go to twenty I go to banks.
Speaker 1: I get turned out by twenty seven banks. It's not
Speaker 1: their fault. I didn't have financial intelligence. I didn't have
Speaker 1: much to collateralize things with, and something like a Foo
Speaker 1: boo was only done maybe by Carl canin Cross Colors
Speaker 1: earlier than me, so it wasn't really something that people
Speaker 1: could see value in. I go to my mother, I said,
Speaker 1: I turned out by twenty seven banks. She said, damon,
Speaker 1: you've been, you know, trying to contribute to this house
Speaker 1: as long as since you were a kid. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: do this if you didn't have the money. Let's take
Speaker 1: all the money we can out of the house, you manufacturer,
Speaker 1: and deliver the clothes and put the money back into
Speaker 1: the house. And that's how she you know, she gave
Speaker 1: me the funny and my mother went out and got
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollar alone on my house. And I
Speaker 1: have no idea how because the houses were seventy five
Speaker 1: till today. I haven't asked on what she did for
Speaker 1: the rest of the money, but shout out to mom's
Speaker 1: she did that twice. So let message this, how did
Speaker 1: because food? Because normally a lot of times that's a
Speaker 1: lot of money. And for mom to take out, you know,
Speaker 1: that's your home, and you know, here's the thing. I
Speaker 1: can't fail or me and Mom both gonna be on
Speaker 1: the street. That's right. So you you really had to
Speaker 1: put your head down. You really had to grind to
Speaker 1: see this thing through to make sure that Mom didn't
Speaker 1: go belly up and you didn't go belly up, because
Speaker 1: we're both gonna be belly up. So how confident were you?
Speaker 1: You said you've been working at this for five years.
Speaker 1: How confident were you this thing's gonna work. I was
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty percent confident that it was gonna work,
Speaker 1: and I was absolutely wrong. The story goal is that
Speaker 1: honest sleep. I turned around and I had turned my
Speaker 1: house until factory. My friends and I was sleeping and
Speaker 1: sleeping bags next to the machines. We had all machines
Speaker 1: in there. My mother moved out because she was like yo,
Speaker 1: guys are crazy. We hired seamstresses. I was renting out
Speaker 1: the top rooms to strangers to keep the mortgage. I
Speaker 1: was working out Red Lobster still at the same time
Speaker 1: as doing Fooboo. And I turned around and one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars almost three months later, was only five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars left, and they were talking about taking my house.
Speaker 1: And I was risking losing my mother's most valuable possession.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that I was It wasn't that I
Speaker 1: was spending on lavish things, but I didn't know how
Speaker 1: money worked. And I was paying ninety days ahead of
Speaker 1: time for real goods. Then I was paying for a
Speaker 1: staff and manufacturing, and then I was paying for shipping,
Speaker 1: and then the customers wouldn't paying me for thirty sixty
Speaker 1: ninety days terms. So it really got bad. And it
Speaker 1: was my mother again who said I had one last idea.
Speaker 1: She took add in the newspaper for two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I gave her the money. I went to Red Lobster
Speaker 1: and went back to work, and the ad said million
Speaker 1: dollars in orders need financing. She was looking for what
Speaker 1: we call today strategic partner and thirty three people call
Speaker 1: that ad, but thirty of the one named Pooky and
Speaker 1: Liquida qua a short salad of sausage tony two times.
Speaker 1: I think one fifty percent interest living the attic with collateral.
Speaker 1: I think one person was named Kevin O'Leary with a
Speaker 1: royalty deal in perpetuity. I think I'm talking about real
Speaker 1: scumbags were calling, right, but three of them were real,
Speaker 1: and we ended up doing a deal for manufacturing and
Speaker 1: distribution with Samsung's textile division. So did you ever get discouraged?
Speaker 1: Did you say, mandat this up? I'dn't missed my mama's
Speaker 1: good name up. I'd have missed this loan up. I'd
Speaker 1: have missed this, I'd have missed up everything. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: were some dark times, and that's the best part about
Speaker 1: I have three amazing partners, and every time they were down,
Speaker 1: I picked them up, and every time they were down,
Speaker 1: they'd picked me up, I mean or vice versa. Excuse me.
Speaker 1: And my mother was still there saying you got this,
Speaker 1: and my community was behind me, and I realized that
Speaker 1: I had to make it work. Everything goes on the line.
Speaker 1: There was nothing else to discuss. It was just I
Speaker 1: had to make this work. You mentioned you got turned
Speaker 1: down by twenty seven banks. Were you using the exact
Speaker 1: same pitch or where you're going there with a different
Speaker 1: pitch each time and they still turned you down? You
Speaker 1: know what, I've never been asked that before. I mean,
Speaker 1: the pitch got a little sex here after a while,
Speaker 1: but I think I think probably by the twentieth the
Speaker 1: pitch got worse. Like, come on, man, I just got
Speaker 1: turned down by twenty people. Why did you tell me
Speaker 1: that twenty one? Get out of here, so you know,
Speaker 1: but you remember you listen. I was, I was eighteen,
Speaker 1: and I know I was twenty one at the time.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was talking about, right, I
Speaker 1: heard a lot of business people say, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if you can attest to this, because you say
Speaker 1: you was working out of your house, you had the machines,
Speaker 1: You're sleeping on a sleeping bag, he said. One of
Speaker 1: the biggest mistakes startups make is they go get this
Speaker 1: lavish office space, they get furniture for that space, the pen,
Speaker 1: a mortgage or a lease, and they've made no money.
Speaker 1: When some of the most profitable businesses, the apples, the Google,
Speaker 1: the hps, Amazon started up in a garage with no overhead.
Speaker 1: Then you get going. Once you start making money, you
Speaker 1: can go get office space as needed. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's one of the biggest mistakes. That is the biggest mistakes.
Speaker 1: Small businesses generally failed due to overfunding, and people like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean overfunding? Just like you said, you
Speaker 1: know you want to eat. Listen, if your grandmother made
Speaker 1: really great cupcakes, you don't go and sign a seven
Speaker 1: year lease and have a cash machine looks like a
Speaker 1: cupcake and the la looked like a cupcake and the
Speaker 1: council look like the cup Again, you ain't never so
Speaker 1: damn me in one cupcake? Right, you get you get
Speaker 1: a kiosk. You know that you can rent for a
Speaker 1: weekend in them, all right, and you sell cupcakes? Right,
Speaker 1: And that's how it works. So and also the understanding
Speaker 1: is that money costs the more. The earlier you take
Speaker 1: in money, the more it costs. Right, Because if you
Speaker 1: ask me now for one hundred thousand dollars for fifty
Speaker 1: percent year business, and I think it's great, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, here you go. Well, then let's say
Speaker 1: that business grows to ten million, and now you need
Speaker 1: to raise another two million. Well, I ain't give it
Speaker 1: up my fifty percent, so you're gonna get that from home.
Speaker 1: So he's gonna have to work, have to work on
Speaker 1: his fifty percent. Can you good? You strayed over here
Speaker 1: where you are all good? But if you prove your
Speaker 1: business well enough, well then you go and get a
Speaker 1: loan from the bank, because they see the cash revenue
Speaker 1: coming in that loans at eight percent six percent, you
Speaker 1: never know where it could be from. You're gonna do
Speaker 1: a crowdfunding raise, so old people who you are giving
Speaker 1: our shares in the company, but they see you have
Speaker 1: fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, a million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of sales. You know. So when when Fooble was,
Speaker 1: we were doing really when we first started, for the
Speaker 1: first four years, I sold to only eight stores in
Speaker 1: New York City. And the reason I sold those eight
Speaker 1: stores was I could have tried to sell the thirty
Speaker 1: and fifty stores around the country. But if I had
Speaker 1: these eight stores and I sold eight shirts a week,
Speaker 1: and then my job was to try to get up
Speaker 1: to ten shirts a week in it. And after the
Speaker 1: ten shirts at hats in there and jeans in there
Speaker 1: and make the ticket price more per store. Then when
Speaker 1: I went to get distribution, I was able to say
Speaker 1: I can replicate this in every store in every city
Speaker 1: and every store in every country because I figured it out.
Speaker 1: So that's why I didn't take in capital too soon.
Speaker 1: Do you still own the childhood Home? No, I you know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm thinking about buying it and turning it
Speaker 1: into a probably a museum in Hollis, Queens. So I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about doing that. You mentioned that your friends, you
Speaker 1: work with your friends, kind of like Lebron. If you
Speaker 1: notice Lebron he could keep Maverick and rich in the Randy,
Speaker 1: he kept his circle, kept the guys that were there
Speaker 1: from the beginning. What did you see in them that says,
Speaker 1: you know what, They're gonna be savvy business partners. They
Speaker 1: have the same mentality that I have that we want
Speaker 1: to get better and I want to see all of
Speaker 1: us exceed. Well, that's a really good question, because you
Speaker 1: know there's a big oh five and I'm noxious, so
Speaker 1: five on all the food stuff you ever see it?
Speaker 1: And the theory behind that was we wanted to be
Speaker 1: five different partners who were all at different taste levels
Speaker 1: in hip hop, apparel and we all liked something and
Speaker 1: it probably was something that everybody would like because you know,
Speaker 1: one guy dressed a little more baggy, you know, whatever
Speaker 1: case is. But that fifth partner never stuck around. There's
Speaker 1: only four of us, so we went through ten of
Speaker 1: those fifth partners. So there's ten guys walking around here
Speaker 1: talking about the fifth beatle, the four that the other
Speaker 1: three that stuck with me. It was through the dark times.
Speaker 1: It was that they found what they respected, uh, you
Speaker 1: know each other's position. We didn't partner up right right away.
Speaker 1: We all say listen, if you do this amount, this
Speaker 1: will activate or trigger this amount of ownership or whatever
Speaker 1: the case is. And and whatever the case is. And
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I met one of them when
Speaker 1: I was three years old. I'm turning fifty three, and
Speaker 1: another so I've known them fifty years. Rather two I
Speaker 1: met when I'm junior high school and we're like brothers.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, it's still a business.
Speaker 1: We have our structure in place on who does what
Speaker 1: and why, what's ownership, who's played this position. Do we
Speaker 1: have fights, yes, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: we respect what the paper says and what we need
Speaker 1: to do collectively, to build a brand and to support
Speaker 1: each other. If I'm not if I've read this correctly,
Speaker 1: you're from Hollows Queens. Run dmcles from Hollows Queens. I
Speaker 1: think all is from Jamaica Queens or you or from
Speaker 1: We're all in the same. You know what, there's something
Speaker 1: in the water. We're all so what do you full?
Speaker 1: As south side of Jamaica? Ok so, so Naz and
Speaker 1: all of them lived, Naz and Nori they live really
Speaker 1: far away. But the rest of us ll Jah rule,
Speaker 1: fifty cents, Salt and Pepper, lost boys, Onyx intro tribe
Speaker 1: called Quest. James Brown used to live there. Uh, how
Speaker 1: do you guys? So many? Something's in the water. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think it is as two brothers speaking,
Speaker 1: I think that you know, when when eighty six came
Speaker 1: around and crack devastated all of our neighborhoods, a lot
Speaker 1: of brothers and sisters moved on to either wanting to
Speaker 1: be entrepreneurs of the street or unfortunately falling victim to
Speaker 1: the drugs. But we saw run DMC driving down the block.
Speaker 1: We saw LLOKJ. Then we turned on a TV and
Speaker 1: we saw them performing in front of stadiums and doing
Speaker 1: something they love. And what happens, well, Ll puts on
Speaker 1: his cousin as a as a as A, as a bodyguard,
Speaker 1: another person is a DJ. Another person he says, you know,
Speaker 1: you can road manage me. And what happens after that
Speaker 1: then you start to find other people in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: to do this. And that's what people need to see.
Speaker 1: And I hope that when they see me on a
Speaker 1: shark tank, knowing that I couldn't be a brilliant athlete
Speaker 1: like you and I couldn't wrap, sing or dance, that
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that they're counted out because a young
Speaker 1: man like me who just decided to wake up before
Speaker 1: everybody can go to sleep, after everybody can make it
Speaker 1: in this amazing country of ours. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's what we saw when we saw all these amazing
Speaker 1: people from Hollows Queens and we said, we don't have
Speaker 1: to sell drugs. We can do this and be part
Speaker 1: of it. So that's that's I think that's what really
Speaker 1: came out of Hollows Queens. You mentioned that in the
Speaker 1: mid eighties the drug epidemic was sweeping the inner cities.
Speaker 1: It was going all over but the inner cities was
Speaker 1: really suffering, and while some were selling drugs on the corner,
Speaker 1: you decided to sell clothing. What was what? What? We what?
Speaker 1: We hell picked? So how do how do you sell
Speaker 1: a T shirt or jeans or hat or whatever you
Speaker 1: were trying to sell on the corner where people ain't
Speaker 1: really trying to buy no clothes on the corner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was tough. You can't have thin skin, and
Speaker 1: and and and a lot of the brothers and sisters
Speaker 1: didn't even They stopped even talking to me, you know,
Speaker 1: because they were like, and you know, listen to hip
Speaker 1: hop culture. It is very homophobic. I think it has
Speaker 1: changed a great amount right now, But prior to that,
Speaker 1: they used to be like, damon, you know what's going on.
Speaker 1: I used to be like, I'm cool my sexuality, but
Speaker 1: I think fashion is this and and and and the
Speaker 1: more I started putting it on people, the more other
Speaker 1: people to come around. But those days on the corner
Speaker 1: were very, very informative. It's like what you and I
Speaker 1: were saying. But I learned that I had ten colors
Speaker 1: of T shirts I wanted to sell people, but the
Speaker 1: top two colors are sixty five percent of all sales
Speaker 1: are black and another twenty percent of white. So now
Speaker 1: I had two colors. I had ten logos. I found
Speaker 1: out the logos that was selling the best. Now I
Speaker 1: had one logo, and at that time, everybody's wearing a
Speaker 1: double lex So I don't care if you're one hundred
Speaker 1: and ten pounds soaking wet. I'm taking the extra small
Speaker 1: out of the top of the shirt and putting double
Speaker 1: X in there, just so you can feel good about yourself.
Speaker 1: So I was able to home in all my customers,
Speaker 1: and trust me, I used to stand out in the
Speaker 1: Apollo Theater. I tell people this, but I'm joking, but
Speaker 1: I'm not. I used to stand out at that Apollo
Speaker 1: Theater one hundred and twenty fifth ye at midnight when
Speaker 1: the Apollo let out, and all those drunk people told
Speaker 1: me what they thought about my shirts and my mother.
Speaker 1: So you know I would just you know, I figure
Speaker 1: it out. Man. You know, rejection is not going to
Speaker 1: happen to me. A nose an absolute maybe with college
Speaker 1: ever an option. I'm dyslexic, and that doesn't mean that I
Speaker 1: I shouldn't go to college. A lot of brilliant people
Speaker 1: in college who are dyslexic I all right. So basically
Speaker 1: I told you about run DMC. I told you about
Speaker 1: I was on tour. I was on the first I
Speaker 1: was on a fresh festival. When I was fourteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: I was a cool kid in school and I had
Speaker 1: gotten left back already. So when I was about eighteen,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna take one year for college, and
Speaker 1: I was laughing at all the other kids that were
Speaker 1: going to college. And then when I was about twenty two,
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends were dead or in jail.
Speaker 1: I was a waiter at Red Lobster, and those kids
Speaker 1: that decided to go get a formal education or a
Speaker 1: higher education, they were coming back from school and I
Speaker 1: was in Red Lobster with Tarta saw somebody on my
Speaker 1: apron getting them shrimp, and I realized, maybe I'm the idiot.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm the one who's the idiot because I refused
Speaker 1: to go out and educate myself, and that I didn't
Speaker 1: look back. After that, I started taking any course I could.
Speaker 1: I started reading every book I could. I stopped hanging
Speaker 1: out because I realized I was I was heading down
Speaker 1: the wrong path. I just hanging out thinking things are
Speaker 1: gonna change if I'm just hanging out in partying as
Speaker 1: a child. Obviously, you know when something that, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: not up to the level that I should be. I
Speaker 1: see other kids being able to do things fairly easy,
Speaker 1: knowing that everything everybody is on a different level. But
Speaker 1: obviously you felt something was wrong. So how did that
Speaker 1: How did that make you feel? What was going through
Speaker 1: your mind at the time. You know, what was going
Speaker 1: through my mind was feeling inferior or people feeling like
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't know what dyslexia was at that time.
Speaker 1: People weren't diagnosed for it, so it was feeling like
Speaker 1: I thought I was cool. I'm not. Then I thought
Speaker 1: my friends were cool, but they're all dead or in jail.
Speaker 1: I need to do and I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: down that path. I need to find something that I
Speaker 1: really love, and I found. I found. The beauty of
Speaker 1: the making of a peril is that I was in
Speaker 1: love with seeing how somebody would reinterpret what I sold
Speaker 1: them and I would never even think of them wearing
Speaker 1: it in that way. But then when I saw him,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, that's cool, and I felt like
Speaker 1: I would dress people for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: But yet I also had I had a sense of
Speaker 1: belonging to this emerging music at the time, pulled hip
Speaker 1: hop because I'd be able to go to video sets
Speaker 1: and people would know me, and I felt like I
Speaker 1: was part of something. They would kick everybody the kid off,
Speaker 1: and I'd have my little stinky, you know, food shirt
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, I'm here to address method man
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, all right, you could stay. And
Speaker 1: I felt like I belonged. And I think that that feeling.
Speaker 1: We all want to feel like we belonged to something.
Speaker 1: And I felt like I was respected by other people,
Speaker 1: the right people. The ones who disrespected me or didn't
Speaker 1: see value in what I was doing, that's their problem.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let them get to me. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go and work with people that were actually respect me. Dame,
Speaker 1: how old were you before you no longer felt inferior
Speaker 1: about your frailties? Well, I mean I think that. I
Speaker 1: think they. I think feeling inferior in certain senses that
Speaker 1: you know, that could be, that could be today, various things,
Speaker 1: or it always happened. Now now the fragility of it
Speaker 1: is not that it can't be. I'm not the person
Speaker 1: that says somebody just better than me. It's I'm not
Speaker 1: applying myself enough. So yeah, I felt inferior up until
Speaker 1: like thirty. You know, by the time I was thirty,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of money in the bank, I
Speaker 1: was well known. But what you wouldn't have feeling in
Speaker 1: you You clearly you didn't feel out at that point, No,
Speaker 1: you still I still felt like, well, you know what
Speaker 1: people don't respect, you know, they don't respect urban apparel,
Speaker 1: like you know, Tom Ford and Besach. You don't care
Speaker 1: about me. And then it was while I'm walking into
Speaker 1: boardrooms and it's not the guy you see in Shark
Speaker 1: Tank today. I'm walking into boardrooms. People thought because I
Speaker 1: was a football guy, I was gonna come in there
Speaker 1: with you know, super baggy pants on gold teeth and
Speaker 1: a gun in my waist to start breakdancing. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, And then then you know, and then I
Speaker 1: acquired other brands, and I found more and more success,
Speaker 1: and you know, it depends on I listen, there's always
Speaker 1: gonna be somebody in you. You know, there's a being
Speaker 1: in somebody in the world with a bigger wink and
Speaker 1: a bigger wallet, right, and you know you got to
Speaker 1: check yourself, even though you may I don't feel inferior.
Speaker 1: But I gotta tell you, if if Jeff Jeff Baso
Speaker 1: spoke up with Mark Cuban's money, he gonna jump out
Speaker 1: the window. And Mark Cuban woke up with my money,
Speaker 1: He's definitely jumping out the window. So there's always you know,
Speaker 1: you just gotta put it in perspective, you know, and
Speaker 1: then then get comfortable with yourself. But no matter what,
Speaker 1: apply yourself and go where you want to go. With
Speaker 1: fashion your first business venture venture and what made you
Speaker 1: decide to go the fashion route. No, fashion was like
Speaker 1: my six or seventh, but an official business, an official business,
Speaker 1: Fashion was like my third. I loved hip hop. You know,
Speaker 1: hip hop wasn't emerging, it was emerging technology at that time.
Speaker 1: It was the fact that the kids no longer had
Speaker 1: to harmonize a playing instrument, but they were communicating through
Speaker 1: this new forum of music about their hopes, their dreams,
Speaker 1: they love their aspirations. We're talking about, you know, early eighties.
Speaker 1: So I was a com breakdancer, right and I used
Speaker 1: to spend all night, you know, ironing my clothes, putting
Speaker 1: permanent creases in my pants, putting doing fat Lay says,
Speaker 1: dyeing my timberlin because of course I died my tiling
Speaker 1: every week. I wanted the girls to think I had
Speaker 1: a brand new pair of Timberlin every week. I just
Speaker 1: died them, right. But ten years later I would realize
Speaker 1: that I can actually put that love of this music
Speaker 1: together with actually with fashion. And then I tell people
Speaker 1: all the time, anything you can consume, you can sell,
Speaker 1: you know, So I put it together and again it
Speaker 1: made me feel like I belong getting into business, you understand,
Speaker 1: and you said something very early on targeted Audience. Did
Speaker 1: you feel like the black community was underserved with a
Speaker 1: product that representative represented them? Is that while you went
Speaker 1: with Fubu for us by us. Yeah, so a lot
Speaker 1: of times people think Fobu was only for people who
Speaker 1: were black, and it wasn't so so so what had
Speaker 1: happened was Blin. It made a comment in the New
Speaker 1: York Times, this is something like, we don't make our
Speaker 1: sell out boosts the drug deal as symbol is not
Speaker 1: owned by the same company now. But I always tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, if people will buying Timblin because of its
Speaker 1: technical ability, well then you know, if you're a mountain
Speaker 1: climb a high coro construction worker. You need one pair
Speaker 1: of Temble in a year. It's the best foot in
Speaker 1: the world. But our market we will buying it because
Speaker 1: of fashion. We were buying it like the kids by
Speaker 1: Jordan's and Yeasies these days. I t you it took
Speaker 1: a good die. I was buying three new pair of
Speaker 1: Temble in a year and you called me a drug deal.
Speaker 1: And that's what ticked me off. Now. I always believe
Speaker 1: that never become the thing you're fighting against. So I
Speaker 1: created food will for a culture. Is the culture powered
Speaker 1: by an African American artcraft that started in the Bronx,
Speaker 1: Yes it is, but I would address the addressed the
Speaker 1: beastie boys. I addressed mc search if it was super hot.
Speaker 1: When Eminem was around, I address him. I didn't care
Speaker 1: about your color. I cared about your culture. I'm pro
Speaker 1: I'm very pro black, but never anti anything else. Right,
Speaker 1: How did you come up with the name fooboo? Because
Speaker 1: you know there's something about not a long name like Nike, simple,
Speaker 1: Coke simple, Fooboo simple. I don't really remember how, you know?
Speaker 1: You know when I reflect over this thirty years later,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like it was all really Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I was an architect of all these great things. No,
Speaker 1: I just I think I had two forties in the
Speaker 1: bag of pork rhymes, and I came up with Yo,
Speaker 1: let's name, let's name, let's go with it. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't well thought out, but over the years it did.
Speaker 1: It worked out. And also, you know, it worked out
Speaker 1: that it's not something that you can easily duplicate. So
Speaker 1: a lot of people didn't know. They were like, what's
Speaker 1: the food was that? Like the poo poo plata? What's
Speaker 1: the food? Was it Italian? What you know? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it Asian? Is it Indian? And it's a name
Speaker 1: that you can't go out and uh, you know, there
Speaker 1: were there there was little people that could say, well,
Speaker 1: I have a similar name. So four letters like Nike
Speaker 1: or even names that are authentic a Google, of Facebook,
Speaker 1: a Uber and Nike, a Coke, a Xerox. When you
Speaker 1: make these all these authentic names, it gives you a
Speaker 1: long run and let's and puts in in people's minds
Speaker 1: with those uh you know, they think about the product.
Speaker 1: How did you get connected in the hip hop circle?
Speaker 1: Obviously you say you you you you worked with the
Speaker 1: method man you dressed method man, but you really got
Speaker 1: your big break with LLL dial a commercial and he
Speaker 1: had a hat on. Did you did you know it would?
Speaker 1: Did you know it would? Did you know he was
Speaker 1: gonna wear the hat? And when he wore the hat,
Speaker 1: did you know you were gonna blow up? Like Nitro? No?
Speaker 1: And no. So LLL had just you know, we begged
Speaker 1: him to do a deal with us, and an LL
Speaker 1: is an absolutely amazing partner and celebrity spokesperson. He's really
Speaker 1: dedicated to it. The Gap called him, and this I
Speaker 1: think is the conversation about the importance of diversity. The
Speaker 1: Gap called him, you know, and he didn't feel really
Speaker 1: good about the way they addressed him. But he just
Speaker 1: felt like they were just saying, yeah, come on in
Speaker 1: and shoot one of those rap videos, and that's how
Speaker 1: policy and whatever case is. They didn't. He didn't really
Speaker 1: feel good about it. So he says for us, by
Speaker 1: us on the Low and the Gap commercial, they spend
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars basically airing a Foobuo commercial, and because
Speaker 1: they didn't have anybody in the company or in the
Speaker 1: marketing agency that really loved hip hop or were of color,
Speaker 1: they didn't pull that ad for five weeks until they
Speaker 1: finally found out what happened. And that's because of the
Speaker 1: lack of diversity within their system. Now, I do got
Speaker 1: to tell you on the flip side, they hired a
Speaker 1: very young multicultural agency. After that, they did their analytics
Speaker 1: and found out the target market the gap was trying
Speaker 1: to hit increased by three hundred percent because the kids
Speaker 1: thought they can get Fubo at the gap and they
Speaker 1: called me up. We gave each other a big old
Speaker 1: sloppy with kiss no tongue and they ended up spending
Speaker 1: another sixty million dollars re airing that ad and that's
Speaker 1: when FUGU started. They head to three hundred fifty four
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars. L the only rapper that you reached
Speaker 1: out to about the branding about you know, being in
Speaker 1: Dorothy being a partnership with Were there any rappers that
Speaker 1: turned you down? How many rappers turned me down? But
Speaker 1: La was the only one. We formalized a long long
Speaker 1: term contract. But yeah, but we but but most of
Speaker 1: the rappers really supported us. Now it's funny, you know,
Speaker 1: as I talked about all those other people who who
Speaker 1: came out of Hollis Queens when I was fourteen and fifteen.
Speaker 1: I was on tour, and I promised my buddies, my
Speaker 1: four other buddy not my partners. I said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be the biggest dude in fashion. Another dude said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be the biggest dude in videos. Another
Speaker 1: dude said, I'm going to create a record label. Another
Speaker 1: dude said I'm going to be the biggest drug dealer.
Speaker 1: And those friends were Hype William who became the very
Speaker 1: big producer, IRV Gotti, who owns Murder Inc. Who discovered
Speaker 1: jaw rule right down the block for me and HERV
Speaker 1: lived a couple other blocks for me and our buddy
Speaker 1: who decided to become the biggest drug dealer. He just
Speaker 1: came home after twenty six years of serving time and
Speaker 1: Hype and made the movie Belly about him. So I
Speaker 1: think it's when you speaking into the universe and you
Speaker 1: set goals at such a young age. I mean, when
Speaker 1: you think about it, Me Hype and Earth, Me, Hype,
Speaker 1: IRV and Alfred who they call Buns and Belly DMX played.
Speaker 1: We all set those goals at a young age, and
Speaker 1: we all executed them. In some sense, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: in sync Mariad Carrey, Snoop Dog Buff, the odb E
Speaker 1: forty Hype. You mentioned Hy Williams was a good friend
Speaker 1: of yours. All. You got some of the biggest name
Speaker 1: Mariah Carey in sync at the time, Snoop Buster in fooboo.
Speaker 1: So now you know, okay, we've made it because these
Speaker 1: got some of the biggest entertainers in their chosen field
Speaker 1: wearing fooboo. And we know how we are. We Oh,
Speaker 1: if Snoop got it on, if Marad care got it on,
Speaker 1: it's gotta be legit. Yeah, one hundred percent. And that
Speaker 1: was you know, that was again we were culturally, we
Speaker 1: were We spoke the culture. Like we didn't go to
Speaker 1: boardrooms and stuff like that to meet these artists. You
Speaker 1: had to. If you want to meet method Man, well
Speaker 1: you better get ready to you know, that was Keith's
Speaker 1: job on my team. You better better get ready to
Speaker 1: be at the studio two in the morning and get
Speaker 1: smoked out with meth Man. Right, that's just where you're
Speaker 1: gonna meet him, right, And you gotta and you understand,
Speaker 1: you know, all these people come with a crew. Some
Speaker 1: dude want the bag over here and this and that.
Speaker 1: But you have to understand the culture, and we were
Speaker 1: very and still are very entrenched in the culture of
Speaker 1: what it was, so we spoke their language. You also,
Speaker 1: I'm looking. You broke in a distribution deal with Samsung.
Speaker 1: How did that come about? Well, that came about with
Speaker 1: the that came about with the ad that we put
Speaker 1: them in paper, and they felt that they couldn't, you know,
Speaker 1: finance and make the million dollars worth the goods and
Speaker 1: grow the brand. But we had already, you know, I
Speaker 1: got that deal in ninety six, ninety seven. I had
Speaker 1: started WHO when eighty nine. I actually closed WHO down
Speaker 1: three times from eighty nine to ninety two because I
Speaker 1: ran out of money. But I only ran out of
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars a thousand dollars. I was able to
Speaker 1: recover from it, you know. But we got that deal.
Speaker 1: And by the time we got the deal with Samsung,
Speaker 1: they had already seen the product all over the place,
Speaker 1: and they called around, did their due diligence and called
Speaker 1: all the stores, and all the stores said, the kids
Speaker 1: are coming here in here asking for food by every
Speaker 1: single day. We just don't have any you know. And
Speaker 1: that was because they were seeing them and seeing the
Speaker 1: product and all these videos. How do you decide what
Speaker 1: companies departner with like? You know? Again, it goes back
Speaker 1: to do they know their customer? How much of my
Speaker 1: time and cashrow do they want? Do I add value?
Speaker 1: Do I see something here with the with the entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1: Do I see a good exit? Or do I see
Speaker 1: a way that I'm going to make money? You know
Speaker 1: a lot of people think, you know, I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: in this situation just because you have money. It was
Speaker 1: to buy everything. I'm not the bank. If I like
Speaker 1: your if I like your product, don't mean I have
Speaker 1: to buy the product. I buy one of your sponges,
Speaker 1: you know. But if I like you and I see
Speaker 1: an upside and I see things that we can do,
Speaker 1: have fun, make a difference, then then those are the
Speaker 1: things I weigh on and uh and it works out
Speaker 1: only probably about three out of ten times, or maybe
Speaker 1: four out of ten times. When you're investing in so
Speaker 1: many companies, you know, the numbers really are four out
Speaker 1: of ten times. But all you need is one Bombers.
Speaker 1: You need one, you need one, you need great. You
Speaker 1: just I'm still spending money from baggageines I sold in
Speaker 1: ninety nine, So it's all good. How do you decide
Speaker 1: what companies to acquire? If I'm not mistaking you acquired Koji? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I am. You did your homework, brother, I did
Speaker 1: so that was I acquired Cooji Because a lot of
Speaker 1: times we have to self reflect on what is our
Speaker 1: strength and what is our weakness as business people. And
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you you don't need that. I'm not
Speaker 1: a great designer if I'm just gonna put a bunch
Speaker 1: of old five and slap a big food on everything. Right,
Speaker 1: But what was my what was my skill set? And
Speaker 1: well was my asset? My asset was Foolwood did real? Well?
Speaker 1: I knew all the buyer from all the stores, I
Speaker 1: knew all the celebrities, and I knew all the manufacturers.
Speaker 1: So let me acquire a brand that already had a
Speaker 1: history that people knew all so I'm not introducing a
Speaker 1: new brand. And then let me put my skill set
Speaker 1: in it. Let me put it on the Kardashians, put
Speaker 1: it on pit Bull, put it on whoever was hot
Speaker 1: at the moment. And then let me say to Macy's
Speaker 1: or J. C. Penney is or whoever, look you know me,
Speaker 1: you know I'm gonna manufacture the goods. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to deliver on one time. You know they don't sell,
Speaker 1: I'm going to take them back and then make some
Speaker 1: quality goods. And that's what I did. I just replicated
Speaker 1: what my strengths were. I didn't go out and try
Speaker 1: to create a new brand because it was easier acquiring
Speaker 1: another brand that I could just put through the same pipeline.
Speaker 1: You travel, what is it like to go overseas Saudi Arabia, Korea,
Speaker 1: go all over these countries and you see Fooboo. You're like, bruh, this, say,
Speaker 1: Hollis Queen, this is not America. I'm overseving jud got
Speaker 1: on foo Boo. It is an honor when I see
Speaker 1: billboards and stuff, and you know, we're really big in
Speaker 1: certain countries like South Africa, we're big. In Germany we're big,
Speaker 1: and we're big in the Philippines and in Korea. And
Speaker 1: when you see the brands, they're again they reinterpret them
Speaker 1: very different. You know, Fobu and Korea is very much
Speaker 1: a skate brand, like hardcore skate. Foobu in Manila and
Speaker 1: Philippines it's it's pure hip hop and Foobu in Japan,
Speaker 1: you know they wear it very different. They wear like
Speaker 1: character they almost look like characters in foodbu in Japan.
Speaker 1: So when you see it reinterpreted in different ways, it's
Speaker 1: just fascinating. You know that I created that thing out
Speaker 1: of my basement. Then people thirty years later are still,
Speaker 1: you know, supporting it. Well, I have a Foobo jacket.
Speaker 1: It was five X if I'm not mistaken, I was
Speaker 1: a two eggs at the time, but I wanted the
Speaker 1: five D everybody. I had the big bagga jeans. But
Speaker 1: I believe the most h impressive collapse success for collab
Speaker 1: with the fat Albert collection the Platinum Collector. Yes, how
Speaker 1: did that come about? Well, that came about because we
Speaker 1: you know, our community loved the Iceberg at the time,
Speaker 1: and Iceberg had these characters on it. But that's sweat.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't have been seven hundred and eight hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: and I just felt that it was obnoxious of the
Speaker 1: pricing and I felt that you have these characters on it.
Speaker 1: But does anybody know about fat Albert and the Gang,
Speaker 1: or the Harlem Globe Trotters or the A League cartoons
Speaker 1: that many of the older generation grew up with? And
Speaker 1: how can I sit there and put characters that are
Speaker 1: relevant to our community and our history to educate you simultaneously.
Speaker 1: And it caused half the price of Iceberg, but it's
Speaker 1: still just a fly. So that was us just trying
Speaker 1: to you know, serve our community on our terms and
Speaker 1: not let Iceberg dictate the way that the terms should
Speaker 1: be set. I read that somewhere that you said that
Speaker 1: you felt that Poople had at one point oversaturated the market.
Speaker 1: Why did you feel that way? You know, listen to
Speaker 1: hot fashion brand the last five to seven years when
Speaker 1: we're not talking about the unicorns, like Nike and Louis Baton.
Speaker 1: Ubu obviously had large, large logos. That was it at
Speaker 1: the time. Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hill Figure did the
Speaker 1: same thing. But we did oversaturated the market. We had
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, a lot of goods out there
Speaker 1: that we were selling in different veins of you know,
Speaker 1: of distribution, some some mid tier, some low, and some
Speaker 1: class for the masks. And you know, listen, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, a kid who has uh four
Speaker 1: years worth of fooboo in their close and they're in
Speaker 1: high school, you know, when they go to college, maybe
Speaker 1: they want to dress a little different. It's a different
Speaker 1: time in their life, you know, and maybe they want
Speaker 1: to try something new, and we don't take it personal.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not oh my god, you know you
Speaker 1: better you know support us. It's it's we get it.
Speaker 1: We may have oversaturated the market. It's fine, and we
Speaker 1: will learn from that and we will we will, we
Speaker 1: will reset and just do it a little more wisely.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna you're rebranding, So what are you going
Speaker 1: to do different this time around? Well, food with the
Speaker 1: product is in so many differentays. We did our fiftieth
Speaker 1: at Puma's fiftieth anniversary collaboration. We we we have products
Speaker 1: everybody you can go to you know, Fubuo on Instagram
Speaker 1: and order product, and we have different type of collaborations,
Speaker 1: exclusive drops as well as we have stuff that we
Speaker 1: do sell to regular stores. And uh, I think, I
Speaker 1: think after the George Floyd situation, a lot of people
Speaker 1: really wanted to revisit some of the you know, the
Speaker 1: brands from the nineties and early two thousands that were
Speaker 1: owned by people of color. So, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: great time. And you know, we love our brand and
Speaker 1: we love we love we love the people who support us,
Speaker 1: and we love the way the brand is reinterpreted. Right now,
Speaker 1: how have you been able to remain black owned? No way.
Speaker 1: Nobody gave us a big enough number. So they've come
Speaker 1: to you now they have come. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: earlier on in the days, Kmart had came to us
Speaker 1: and they wanted to buy the brand for themselves, and
Speaker 1: we just felt that it was it wasn't the right time,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't the right We felt we would let
Speaker 1: too many people downright, And I think that you know,
Speaker 1: that's just the way. We're very passionate about our brand
Speaker 1: and and what our consumer feels about us, and we
Speaker 1: just didn't feel like that would have been the right thing.
Speaker 1: This is what you could really help us on here,
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that. I really appreciate your time. I
Speaker 1: understand your very business, so I really appreciate you you're
Speaker 1: taking time out of your day. Black spending reaches one
Speaker 1: point six trillion in twenty twenty one, but black network falls.
Speaker 1: How How? What what can we do to make sure
Speaker 1: that our spending power is going into black pockets? Not
Speaker 1: to say hey, I'm not saying hey, we got to
Speaker 1: spend all our money with one location, but something, something
Speaker 1: is off in this in this scenario here. Yeah, those
Speaker 1: are it's a little about my pay grade. Those are
Speaker 1: very systemic issues that we all know that you know,
Speaker 1: it starts with us. You know, it starts with with
Speaker 1: spending money back in our communities and things that I nature.
Speaker 1: And you know they say that for every uh, for
Speaker 1: every fifteen dollars I think, no, every ten dollars it
Speaker 1: comes into the community, nine dollars goes out. And that
Speaker 1: is you know, it's sad, but you know the reality
Speaker 1: is most of us have not had generational wealth and
Speaker 1: legacies that our grandparents and parents could pass down to
Speaker 1: us and to explain to us how cash work, how
Speaker 1: investing in the community pays off. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of systemic things that have happened. But you know, the
Speaker 1: reality is they've happened already and we have to acknowledge it,
Speaker 1: we have to learn from it. We have to keep
Speaker 1: reinvesting in ourselves. But again, that's a much deeper conversation
Speaker 1: with people with way bigger brains than me. But all
Speaker 1: I can say is, if you if you take the
Speaker 1: time to keep you know, right now, keep going out
Speaker 1: and investing in people, you know, you know, I you know,
Speaker 1: to George Floyd. I said to myself, who's ever going
Speaker 1: to change the narrative out there? These young brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: they need to be building businesses instead of burning them down.
Speaker 1: And I realized that nobody else is doing something. So
Speaker 1: I mean people are doing something. But so I created
Speaker 1: something about Black Entrepreneurs Day when I gave where quarter
Speaker 1: million dollars twenty five thousand times ten to eat too
Speaker 1: small businesses, Black African American owned businesses to keep them open.
Speaker 1: I brought on the show you know and interviewed Bob
Speaker 1: Johnson and Shaquille O'Neill, iced Tea and ll cou Ja
Speaker 1: to talk about their biggest mistakes, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we found a couple of we found a lot of
Speaker 1: African Americans who said, we just didn't know about all
Speaker 1: this stuff, and thank you and they're you know, and
Speaker 1: they started to educate themselves and apply themselves in business.
Speaker 1: So you know, it takes a tribe, you know, to
Speaker 1: to help these young brothers and sisters and let them
Speaker 1: understand the value that they have. And it's challenging, I
Speaker 1: think for both of us to think about it and
Speaker 1: talk about it. How do we get biture capitalists. How
Speaker 1: do we get the best in the black community by
Speaker 1: showing them where they can make a profit. And there's
Speaker 1: plenty of places to make a profit and there I
Speaker 1: mean I do. I am part of a group called
Speaker 1: the Vocal Group. It's fifty well known African Americans like
Speaker 1: Ken Chano and Barrus and Bob Johnson and Barross other people.
Speaker 1: There are some financial instruments being created by some big
Speaker 1: banks that are talking about infrastructure and various other things
Speaker 1: where vcs can come in and make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that you know we're getting
Speaker 1: we're very connected world, and I think that there is
Speaker 1: a million young Damon Johns who know how to to
Speaker 1: talk to their community. And I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of money to be made where where You know, with
Speaker 1: people back these young men and women, you know you
Speaker 1: will prosper. You know it is it is very profitable.
Speaker 1: You know the data is there. You said, how much
Speaker 1: we're spending, Why don't we spend it? Why don't we
Speaker 1: spend it someplace where we know it's going back some
Speaker 1: way into educating and or in power or in the community,
Speaker 1: is serving You mentioned kens should know the former CEO
Speaker 1: of American Express, who came up with a very good idea,
Speaker 1: the most recognizable credit card ever, the Black Card. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know, kid, let me ask you this. Did you
Speaker 1: ever think there would be a shoe that would challenge
Speaker 1: the Jordan Kanye is? Yeasy? Because Jordan has such a
Speaker 1: head start. I mean, you're going back. He had a
Speaker 1: thirty year head start on Kanye, and Kanye just started
Speaker 1: what yeasy what six decade maybe maybe a decade ago
Speaker 1: because yeah, yeah, because at first he was doing you know,
Speaker 1: he was doing yes with Nike. Obviously he wanted a
Speaker 1: little bit more controlled. Nike said no. So he says, okay, hey,
Speaker 1: I did what y'all got for your boy. He goes
Speaker 1: to Adida and Yasy is on fire. Did you think
Speaker 1: someone could challenge Jordan? I do? I think because the
Speaker 1: generation they you know, they move on, they grow into,
Speaker 1: you know, loving other people that are more relevant at
Speaker 1: the moment, and there's always gonna be somebody new that
Speaker 1: talks to somebody. You know, some young kids these days
Speaker 1: may not actually know who Jordan is, believe it or not.
Speaker 1: It's very surprising. And and and some people may not
Speaker 1: have ever heard of Muhammad Ali and they would be relevant.
Speaker 1: Now if there's somebody who is like a Kanye, very polarizing,
Speaker 1: very fashionable, makes good music, always in your face, and
Speaker 1: you walk into the store and you are a seven
Speaker 1: year old who may not have heard of Jordan, and
Speaker 1: you're looking at a Kanye shoe and you're looking at
Speaker 1: a Jordan. But you know that's think There's always gonna
Speaker 1: be somebody new. It doesn't take away from brand Jordan
Speaker 1: at all. You worked on the Kardashians show. Are you
Speaker 1: surprised how big? I remember why? I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the show's a little reality show. Brou I'm
Speaker 1: not a lie. I've never thought this thing is enormous. No,
Speaker 1: I'm totally surprised. I'm fascinated, But I'm also not surprised
Speaker 1: in the sense Chris Jenner is brilliant. That family is
Speaker 1: thickest thieves. They don't backstab each other, they are not
Speaker 1: on drugs. They are very, very laser focused. I remember
Speaker 1: when we were first working Season one together, Chris Jenner said,
Speaker 1: I just hope after the fifteen minutes of fame over,
Speaker 1: maybe you know three four or five years that each
Speaker 1: one of my children have two businesses that will hopefully
Speaker 1: be somewhat successful, and that was her goal. And the
Speaker 1: girls they pay, you know, they strapped a part and
Speaker 1: they got focused on it and they got busy, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think we can all learn from them. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to have this specific talent. You just
Speaker 1: have to know your customer. And you know, if they
Speaker 1: can do it, they'll always say if I can do it,
Speaker 1: somebody else can. Let's talk about what what what would
Speaker 1: be Virgil's legacy, you know, I didn't I didn't know
Speaker 1: vision that well. He was very respected in the groups
Speaker 1: that I do know, but I don't know him well
Speaker 1: enough to talk on. I mean I did see some
Speaker 1: really amazing work with him out of Nike, and of course,
Speaker 1: uh I bought the entire Louis Vuitton collection right before
Speaker 1: he passed, not knowing that he was sick. But it
Speaker 1: was such a brilliant collection that this felt like it
Speaker 1: was made by felt like fob. It felt like he
Speaker 1: was made by somebody who understood fashion of all aspects.
Speaker 1: But I don't I really don't know where he will
Speaker 1: where he will be, you know, going with the facaces
Speaker 1: of the world or the lack of Laga folds or
Speaker 1: stuff like that Carlaga hole. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I know you've seen this, and we've seen this far
Speaker 1: too many, far too many times, rappers beefing with high
Speaker 1: end fashion brands. Jim Jones just posted a video him
Speaker 1: in a Gucci store saying he was about to spend
Speaker 1: twenty nine thousand dollars and he felt that he was big.
Speaker 1: You know, he's been profiled, or he's been somehow he
Speaker 1: felt he's been wrong, he's been disrespected. But we hear
Speaker 1: this pop up from time to time, and guess what
Speaker 1: a year later, two years later, guess what, somebody else
Speaker 1: is back in one of those high end retail stores
Speaker 1: spending tons and tons ofbody saying this are we gonna learn?
Speaker 1: We will. I'm a I'm a very optimistic person. We
Speaker 1: will learn, I hope. But challenging. It is challenging. I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't see people, you don't see the you know,
Speaker 1: you don't see that same community knocking down the door
Speaker 1: begging for Foobal when they know that. You know, the
Speaker 1: foodbus of the world employ other people that look like
Speaker 1: them and and do activations and put money into schools
Speaker 1: in the community. But you know, again, these are over
Speaker 1: my pay grade. You know, I personally I don't wear
Speaker 1: brands that have have have have had black face on them,
Speaker 1: more nooses on them, stuff like that. I do not
Speaker 1: wear them. I just refused to do. So. I want
Speaker 1: to get you out of here. What advice would you
Speaker 1: give anyone chasing an entrepreneurial dream, Well, it would first
Speaker 1: of all, it would be take affordable steps. What do
Speaker 1: you mean by I don't think everything? Meaning that you know,
Speaker 1: you don't go to Vegas and play blackjack the first
Speaker 1: time and you play a thousand dollars a hand? Right,
Speaker 1: you go to Vegas and play a thousand dollars I
Speaker 1: mean a thousand and one dollar hands. Take what you
Speaker 1: can afford. And some people will say I don't have
Speaker 1: that much money. All right, Well, when I first started,
Speaker 1: I can afford making fifty calls a day. I promised
Speaker 1: myself I was gonna make fifty calls a day and
Speaker 1: have to six months. If I got somewhere with these
Speaker 1: calls that I was going to then do it again.
Speaker 1: I call ten manufacturers, ten stores, ten ricket labels to
Speaker 1: see their music artist want to wear, ten regular customers
Speaker 1: to see how they got the product and how was it.
Speaker 1: And I could afford fifty calls a day. So whenever
Speaker 1: you are an entrepreneur or anybody investing in anything, what
Speaker 1: can you afford? You know, if you follow a thousand
Speaker 1: pages on social media and whether they're jokes or cooking
Speaker 1: or half naked girls, follow ten pages that are talking
Speaker 1: about stocks or NFTs, or financial instruments or finance, financial intelligence,
Speaker 1: or manufacturing or showing why not right? You have the
Speaker 1: time put it in what's your asset you and that
Speaker 1: you make affordable mistakes. Maybe you're a veteran, you come
Speaker 1: from a great community of like minded veterans. Maybe you're
Speaker 1: a mompreneur. Maybe you're an athlete who who has the
Speaker 1: most influential people in your rolodexs and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do this, or I need your advice? Can
Speaker 1: you be my board member? You know, take take affordable steps,
Speaker 1: and that's how you become an entrepreneur. Because real entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: they act, they learn, and then they repeat it again
Speaker 1: a little more wisely. Before I get you out of here,
Speaker 1: what are you working on now? What's in Damon John's future?
Speaker 1: I'm working on my next Black Entrepreneurs Day where we're
Speaker 1: going to give away a couple of you know, whether
Speaker 1: another quarter or a half a million hours, to more
Speaker 1: people in you know, who are making any difference in
Speaker 1: the community. I'm about to go and start filming Shark
Speaker 1: Tank season number fourteen. So I'm I'm, I'm. I'm really
Speaker 1: humbled and honored that I can invest in other people's
Speaker 1: dreams and they will allow me to. I'm constantly working
Speaker 1: on my health and I'm working on, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to find that work life balance with my little five
Speaker 1: year old and trying to be, you know, a great
Speaker 1: child of God. Bro. Thank you, you're the proxonification of
Speaker 1: the American dream. You took forty dollars and you made
Speaker 1: it into a six billion dollar empire. Brother, There's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that's very very excited for you, not
Speaker 1: just around the world, but I'm speaking for our community.
Speaker 1: What you've been able to do, the way you've been
Speaker 1: able to do, and the way you've handled yourself in
Speaker 1: doing it. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you too. Man.
Speaker 1: I've seen how you've pivoted and flip the game, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people listen, thank congratulations and image. I
Speaker 1: think you gotta you get the water. You got a
Speaker 1: dominant nominated Excellent, Excellent. Brother. So you're doing great things, man,
Speaker 1: We're all watching you. We appreciate you, man, and what
Speaker 1: an illustrious and great career you've had. So congratulations and
Speaker 1: all that, and thank you for having me, Thanks for
Speaker 1: coming on. I appreciate a few moments of your time today.
Speaker 1: All the best moving forward, man, Thank you. All my life,
Speaker 1: grinding all my life, sacrifice, hustle play Chris, one slice
Speaker 1: got the dice, swad all my life. I've been grinding
Speaker 1: all my life, all my life, and grinding all my life, sacrifice,
Speaker 1: hustle play Price one slice got the dice swath all
Speaker 1: my life. I've been grinding all my life. P