Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio for our next
Speaker 1: guest is an entrepreneur in every sense of the word.
Speaker 1: He once ran is apparel operation out of his mother's basement,
Speaker 1: but it is a lot more today now. Damon John
Speaker 1: is the CEO of a multibillion dollar lifestyle brand he founded, Fubu.
Speaker 1: He's also CEO of the marketing firm The Shark Group.
Speaker 1: He's one of the judges on ABC's long running series
Speaker 1: Shark Tank. He's a best selling author, and his latest
Speaker 1: venture really combining his love of board games and game
Speaker 1: shows by backing a new interactive streaming platform called game
Speaker 1: star Plus. Damon John is founder and CEO of Fubu,
Speaker 1: among many other things. He joins us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Miami. Damon, it's good to chat with you again.
Speaker 1: How are you? Oh, it's great chatting with you as always.
Speaker 1: I'm great, good good. Hey. Um, let's get into what's
Speaker 1: what was appealing to you about game Star Plus. It's
Speaker 1: a mix of a physical board game, next generation app
Speaker 1: you got IoT tech in there is this the metaverse?
Speaker 1: You know? I think it is I think I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I think everything is going to be in
Speaker 1: the metaverse. But you know, I guess the simplest way
Speaker 1: to say it for all the listeners, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like Netflix for game Night, you know, and me being
Speaker 1: a huge lover of games, and I think, uh, board games.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, through this last two years, all
Speaker 1: of us have picked up some of that old love
Speaker 1: for board games. This was just a new delivery of
Speaker 1: form of delivery of board games. And that's why I
Speaker 1: thought it was an absolutely amazing investment. So all right,
Speaker 1: you made an investment, like where's it going to go?
Speaker 1: What's tell us how it's going to play out? Here?
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about our audience. They're investors and trying to
Speaker 1: understand and as the technological world continues to really evolve,
Speaker 1: where do you see this all going? Well, I think
Speaker 1: that more people are going to start living in the
Speaker 1: meta earth and or you know, online and doing what
Speaker 1: they're doing. But you're bringing the simplicity of Game Night
Speaker 1: like a Netflix, and I think that for the initial customer.
Speaker 1: You know, we we're launching and we already launched Family
Speaker 1: Feud really great, uh I P. You have obviously Steve
Speaker 1: Harvey there after that we have seen it would marry
Speaker 1: a Low Piz and Jeopardy with Ken Jennings Wheel of Fortune,
Speaker 1: and there's so many more slated. These are all titles
Speaker 1: of people really love You average out about anywhere from
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty dollars for you know a game. But
Speaker 1: this is a subscription of about three dollars three ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month and you get you're gonna get tons
Speaker 1: of games. And this is definitely something that I think
Speaker 1: some of the streamers are gonna want to acquire down
Speaker 1: the road because they need to get more eyeballs and
Speaker 1: keep more stickiness on their platforms, and I think this
Speaker 1: is a way to do this without having to compete
Speaker 1: for more content from other streamers. So talk to us
Speaker 1: about this platform. You mentioned family few that it is
Speaker 1: out there and it's streaming, So how many consumers are
Speaker 1: using it? What's the stickiness of someone who signs on
Speaker 1: and stays with it? Well, it too early to tell
Speaker 1: the stickiness because we just launched it and you can
Speaker 1: go to Target dot com and get it or going
Speaker 1: to Target because there are some uh physical components to
Speaker 1: the game, some cards you may want to have, but
Speaker 1: it's a little too early to look at that. And
Speaker 1: you know, listen, after being one shark thank every year
Speaker 1: seeing people tell me they're going to do a good
Speaker 1: jillion dollars in the first week. I cannot to give
Speaker 1: ums like that. I just yeah, I like the fundamental
Speaker 1: of knowing the I p s. They're knowing the celebrities,
Speaker 1: they're knowing my reaches, they're knowing people are moving towards
Speaker 1: streaming in all different forms, and knowing the metaverse is
Speaker 1: coming around. I like, I like all the different things
Speaker 1: in position for success. So is the game right now, damon?
Speaker 1: Is it one that's meant to be played when people
Speaker 1: are physically together or is it to the point now
Speaker 1: where you can actually play with people who are not
Speaker 1: in the same space as you and you do this
Speaker 1: over the internet? Well out right now is going to
Speaker 1: be physically together, But it's going to grow to that.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are games that exist in apps that
Speaker 1: exist they're all separate that obviously you can play separately.
Speaker 1: You know, that's nothing new, um, But right now it's
Speaker 1: physically in the home because then you'll be able to
Speaker 1: stream all the games to that home and uh and
Speaker 1: and and and the physical components of there too, a
Speaker 1: couple of those pieces, so right now you need to
Speaker 1: be in the same household. Hey David, you know, as
Speaker 1: you guys build this out, content content, content, and we
Speaker 1: see it with the streaming services, but that's going to
Speaker 1: be true for this platform as well. Is it fair
Speaker 1: to say that it's gonna you know, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: maybe as you guys build it out and add content.
Speaker 1: In terms of profitability, it may take a little while,
Speaker 1: I would say so, but um, you know, listen to
Speaker 1: the two founders come from both the board, from the
Speaker 1: gaming world and from the lightnessing world. I think that
Speaker 1: there's going to just be a lot of massive I
Speaker 1: p there and you know if I would have you know,
Speaker 1: we we already saw this. You know, years ago we
Speaker 1: thought the Netflix was something wasn't going to happen. Now
Speaker 1: you have Kulu, Netflix and all these type of things.
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be the new normal.
Speaker 1: What other titles are you thinking of? You mentioned that
Speaker 1: you have, um seen it with Mario Lopez, Jeopardy with
Speaker 1: Ken Jennings, Uh, you know Wheel of Fortune coming, You
Speaker 1: already have family Feud out. How else are you thinking about?
Speaker 1: I don't want to call it content. Necessarily it is content, Um,
Speaker 1: but it's it's kind of it's a little different in
Speaker 1: the sense of like, you know, it's interactive. Well, we're
Speaker 1: looking at all ips. You know, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: ips monopoly of course, but you know we a deal
Speaker 1: of no deal or you know the price is right Pyramid,
Speaker 1: you know. I think I think, um, all of these
Speaker 1: ips go to be on there. What's the acquisition process
Speaker 1: for getting that intellectual property? Like, is it really tough
Speaker 1: to get monopoly? It is? Really, well, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: somewhat tough, but you have people like myself, Steve Harvey,
Speaker 1: the great founders who worked over at Sony and various
Speaker 1: other places. We all have, you know, the right connections
Speaker 1: of Mattel and have Bro, and I think that they're
Speaker 1: always trying to expand their IP and put it in
Speaker 1: different hands as well. So, um, I don't think this
Speaker 1: one is going to be as challenging because we're kind
Speaker 1: of like in that blue ocean space with this, and
Speaker 1: there's not too many other competitors in this area delivering
Speaker 1: it on the same platform. So I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be fairly easy. Well, what's interesting too, this whole idea
Speaker 1: of family game night, right right. Uh, that I think
Speaker 1: about in terms of your potential audience, UM, has to
Speaker 1: make it even more attractive. Yeah, because listen, you have
Speaker 1: you have three to four generations that can live in
Speaker 1: a household and still all love and value the same game.
Speaker 1: I mean when when we think about all the shows
Speaker 1: that are on Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and all these
Speaker 1: shows that are still a mailers And I just did
Speaker 1: Celebrity Family few the other day and it brought me
Speaker 1: back to my child. I've been watched family including family
Speaker 1: feeling in a long time, and I had the most
Speaker 1: amazing time. And I think that when you bring in
Speaker 1: families around where all of them can appreciate these legendary
Speaker 1: I p s the legendary games, I think I think
Speaker 1: it will be a new boost to the gaming market
Speaker 1: in this sense, to the board game market. Hey, Damon,
Speaker 1: I gotta ask. A couple of days ago, you conducted
Speaker 1: a conversation with Facebook formerly Facebook now Meta founder of
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, where he really talked about his vision for
Speaker 1: the metaverse. Uh. We talked a lot about Facebook. The
Speaker 1: company's stock is down about since its highs back in
Speaker 1: um September. Uh, what was the vision that he laid
Speaker 1: out for the Metaverse to you? And and and at
Speaker 1: south By Southwest assassinating conversation with him, and I got
Speaker 1: to more of the human aspect of him. We did
Speaker 1: go through some of the technical aspects. But you know,
Speaker 1: when I asked him questions, he sounded like that bright, young,
Speaker 1: um um customer obsessed entrepreneur that just wants to help
Speaker 1: and change people's lives. And I think that as he
Speaker 1: was talking about the metaverse and all the things that
Speaker 1: will bring uh, he was looking for more creatives and
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs to really define what it is. I mean today
Speaker 1: it's it's it's kind of like where we had the
Speaker 1: iPhone one. You know, that's where it's really at today.
Speaker 1: But I mean some of the things we were talking about,
Speaker 1: how people who are you know, maybe in a wheelchair
Speaker 1: can now dance and sing and swim and and more
Speaker 1: mature people can have that first date again with their wife. Uh.
Speaker 1: That that obviously brought joy to me. But talking about
Speaker 1: how we're working, you know, I'm I'm questioning myself should
Speaker 1: I open an office again. I half my employees don't
Speaker 1: want to work. I don't want to work in office
Speaker 1: do want to come in now there's a medium, Damon,
Speaker 1: We gotta run, so nice to check in with you, Damon.
Speaker 1: John over at fubou and of course as his latest
Speaker 1: investments for Tim's enevich um Carollmaster who was safe evening