Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, Radio New.
Speaker 2: Do you want to bring you back to Southampton? Here
Speaker 2: we are at Michael Loeb's house, a chartered community summit.
Speaker 2: It's all about entrepreneurship, creating a brand, and we've got
Speaker 2: a great voice who knows a little bit about that
Speaker 2: and more. Damon John. He is the founder and CEO
Speaker 2: of Fubu and of course a star of ABC Shark Tank.
Speaker 3: So good to be able.
Speaker 2: To have some time with you.
Speaker 3: How are you thanks for having me?
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, thank you. Creating a brand it isn't
Speaker 2: so easy.
Speaker 3: It is not easy.
Speaker 2: Is it getting any easier or is it harder? And
Speaker 2: I feel like it's an environment where anybody can almost
Speaker 2: have a brand.
Speaker 4: I do think it's getting harder. I think because you
Speaker 4: have to find this niche audience. But not only do
Speaker 4: you have to create the brand itself for your product
Speaker 4: or services, but you, as a CEO and a founder
Speaker 4: have to be a brand as well.
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: Well, that means that people.
Speaker 4: Would not only want to know why they're investing in
Speaker 4: the brand or the product or buying it, what story
Speaker 4: does that brand or product have?
Speaker 3: As well as founders.
Speaker 4: Who you know, I always say on Shark Tank that
Speaker 4: you know, none of us are original. I mean, there's
Speaker 4: a million real estate agents, there's only one Barbara Corkan.
Speaker 4: A lot of people own sports teams, Mark Cuban clothing line,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. People we had created personal brands,
Speaker 4: and then our brands now walk into the room before
Speaker 4: we do when we want to raise capital, when we
Speaker 4: want to make decisions, when we want to defend the
Speaker 4: fact that somebody is saying negative about our brand and
Speaker 4: our company and affecting our payroll and our amazing staff
Speaker 4: that works for us.
Speaker 1: Do you think you could create Fubu today?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? One percent. But today's it's a completely different environment.
Speaker 4: Today's Fubu would be a different right, There's no, there's
Speaker 4: not new to have four young African American men designing
Speaker 4: for their own markets.
Speaker 3: So what would food would be today?
Speaker 4: I would probably do more of the avon you know
Speaker 4: type of thing where I would have one male, one
Speaker 4: female in a college and a high school. They would
Speaker 4: get probably about a one thousand dollars worth of fooble
Speaker 4: on credit for about three hundred dollars, probably underwritten by
Speaker 4: hopefully somebody great, and the more they sell, they would
Speaker 4: get more digital curriculums and various other things and very
Speaker 4: much of an A bomb model. So I would have
Speaker 4: hopefully two million sales reps around the world.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that you say that, because the retail
Speaker 1: environment has completely changed.
Speaker 3: It's done.
Speaker 1: It's done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, completely done.
Speaker 4: You know, I've been to fifty six trade shows this year.
Speaker 4: You know, I speak at a lot of shows, and
Speaker 4: the traffic besides the franchise show and maybe the medical
Speaker 4: tech show, it is one third of the traffic at
Speaker 4: these shows because these retailers are now dying. They're not
Speaker 4: walking in the door. You know who's walking in. It's
Speaker 4: a bunch of kids or people. Influencers, could be granfluencers
Speaker 4: who are now doing live selling, whether on Amazon or
Speaker 4: TikTok or whatnot.
Speaker 3: And that's what's happening livee selling.
Speaker 1: That's something that I think is very familiar to people
Speaker 1: in China but not necessarily familiar to many people in
Speaker 1: the US at least yet explain exactly what that is.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm selling as you go, and I'll give you example.
Speaker 4: There's an app called whatnot Right, and people have twenty
Speaker 4: second auction for one little device or let's say a
Speaker 4: piece of makeup right sell for about twelve dollars right now,
Speaker 4: they can do this three separate times in one minute, right,
Speaker 4: so they make a profit about four dollars every time
Speaker 4: they sell it. So now all of a sudden, twelve
Speaker 4: dollars a minute. You times up because now they have
Speaker 4: friends coming on everything. You times app by sixteen hours
Speaker 4: a day. And that's what's happening because then when people
Speaker 4: buy it, now you know who the client is and
Speaker 4: the customer you can sell it to them.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 4: Remember there's only three ways to ever deal with the customer.
Speaker 4: Acquire a new one, upsell a current one, or make
Speaker 4: one buy more frequently. That's why you want to supericize
Speaker 4: everybody's fries. And now you know who they are, they
Speaker 4: can upsell them or buy more frequently.
Speaker 2: So what does it mean for all the retailers that
Speaker 2: still have, you know, big retail locations. I'm thinking about Nike.
Speaker 2: Nike reported earnings now they're up today, but they've been
Speaker 2: kind of working their way around some different problems. I mean,
Speaker 2: what does it mean for a brand like Nike.
Speaker 4: Well, Nike's been doing some great stuff in the past,
Speaker 4: so you know they'll make one shoe for one person customizer, right, Well,
Speaker 4: they're doing thirty billion dollars a year, whatever the number is.
Speaker 3: You say, why would you make one shoe?
Speaker 4: Well, they're looking at this algorithm of all the people
Speaker 4: around the world who like these certain colors, patterns and styles.
Speaker 4: They're the customers designed the line for them for the
Speaker 4: next year. But if you look at retail shops, Walmart
Speaker 4: target viruses, other things. Walmart just put in podcast rooms.
Speaker 4: Why do you want to put podcast rooms in there? Well,
Speaker 4: now you have a bunch of influences coming in doing podcasts.
Speaker 4: I bet you in two minutes they're gonna start being
Speaker 4: able to live sell the products in Walmart. You want
Speaker 4: to always make sure the consumer has something at in
Speaker 4: your retailer that they can't do at home. You know,
Speaker 4: if you're a retailer, put a runway in there where
Speaker 4: people can buy the clothes. What they buy, they link
Speaker 4: to their social media and you can buy it as
Speaker 4: an affiliate.
Speaker 3: On what's on.
Speaker 4: Their body as they walk down the runway. You have
Speaker 4: to have reasons why people are coming in. And I'll
Speaker 4: tell you the hottest topic today, longevity, biohacking. If you
Speaker 4: are a retailer, you're handling how people can control their
Speaker 4: lives a little bit better and not deal with just
Speaker 4: big pharma.
Speaker 3: You're in the gold.
Speaker 1: This last question is for Carol because I know she
Speaker 1: is like, that's.
Speaker 3: Like wild look ahead.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's a shark tank. The investments that you've made
Speaker 1: over the years, what is the gain on the investments
Speaker 1: or the loss on the investments? And how much have
Speaker 1: you invested.
Speaker 4: I think I've invested about fourteen million dollars. I'd just
Speaker 4: been a shooting two days ago, sitting nest to Kevin.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, for two anyway, so.
Speaker 4: There is You can't say a gain and loss because
Speaker 4: a lot of times it's way more time put in
Speaker 4: on these individuals. But I gotta tell you I'm up
Speaker 4: overall because I have the number one product in Shark
Speaker 4: Tank history ever.
Speaker 3: It's called Bomba Socks.
Speaker 4: You have to interview any of my other underachievers I
Speaker 4: call fellow sharks, remind them and.
Speaker 3: More missed them Bomba socks.
Speaker 4: And more important than the two point two billion dollars
Speaker 4: that they'll hit in total sales this year is they've
Speaker 4: given away almost over two hundred million units of clothing
Speaker 4: to those in need in the homeless community.
Speaker 3: And it feels really good. So overall, I'm up.
Speaker 4: But you know you're gonna lose, you know, listen, Adventure,
Speaker 4: You're gonna lose, you know, out of nine out of ten.
Speaker 4: I'm losing seven out of ten, because that's just an investment.
Speaker 3: We signed up for it.
Speaker 2: Get a miss Mark Cuban.
Speaker 4: I absolutely miss Mark Cuban. The other day I broke
Speaker 4: down when it was his last episode. When I thought
Speaker 4: about it, I was on the stage publican speaking, I
Speaker 4: broke down in tears, and then I said to myself,
Speaker 4: this man's well and alive in Dallas and just made
Speaker 4: another three point five billion dollars, and now I gotta
Speaker 4: buy more crap one Shark Tank?
Speaker 3: What am I crying about? Always fine? When we get
Speaker 3: some time with you, be well.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, of course, Damon John. He is
Speaker 2: the founder and CEO of Forbu a shark on ABC's
Speaker 2: Shark Tank and so much more.