Daymond John

Lewis: This is 5-Minute Friday!!

We’ve got a great guest on today his name is Mr. Daymond John the fame founder and CEO of the global fashion brand FUBU and star of ABC’s Emmy Award Winning show Shark tank, one of my favorite shows to watch. And he’s got a new book out that’s called the power of broke and I’m very excited to dive into Daymond’s story and book and some facts FUBU is a 6 billion dollar business and every morning he says “Rise and Grind.”

Daymond: I wouldn’t know till I was about 12 years old, I wouldn’t know till probably another 10 years or 15 years that maybe we should all do something that we love. I tried everything else but I never thought about fashion. It’s kind of like you know you bust your butt to go and work and make a living and then you go out on the weekends you kind of snowboard but you never thought about busting your butt building snowboard, or snowboarding and making money.

Lewis: Like Robb Dyrdek.

Daymond: Robb is in the book as well.

Lewis: So how old were you when you first sold your clothing?

Daymond: It was 1989, good Friday 3 o’clock in the afternoon 37 degrees outside I was standing at a coliseum mall in 1989 so I was 20 years old.

Lewis: When did you have, how old were you when you had the passion for fashion?

Daymond: I had the passion 10, 11, 12 I had the passion for fashion early on in my life prior to that as well, but it was my mother dressing me because we didn’t have enough money to go buy clothes or shoes.

Lewis: When did you decide to go create your own things or create them in your basement and go sell them? What gave you that belief?

Daymond: You know what again like most of us start there was no belief that I could do it but I remember walking into a store and I started some cross colors everywhere and I walked into this store and saw this picture of this guy who like looked a young Mike Tyson hanging of a pair of jeans, and then it just hit me, prior to that we always thought that you had to be from Italy and France to design. You had to be older and like you know the guys with the tape around their neck or whatever the fashion designers looked like in those days and I thought I’m just supposed to buy from them. When I saw that I was like that was amazing, then I’m watching a [?] video I remember seeing them wear this hats almost look like a ski cap and it has like a tie on the top and I couldn’t find that hat anywhere in Queens. So, I finally found one in downtown Manhattan I paid for the hat I come home and showed my mother and she goes that’s a piece of crap, but I can stay and I can show you how to sew a hat like that so you can sew as many as you want. Go with 40 dollars with a fabric, I got to the store and get $40 with the fabric I give my mother the stuff to sew the hat and she says “I’m not sewing this, you’re sewing this. “ I sew the hat and all of a sudden I have all these hats with one head because it’s not like I was stupid or wasn’t thinking. So that’s when it happened, that’s when I went out and sew those hats outside on a Good Friday and I sold $800 worth of hats in 1 hour and that’s when it just snap, I just said to myself ‘wait a minute I made this with my own hands, I went and sold this to individuals and nobody was in my way.’ I didn’t have to get a check from a boss, nobody told me when to come to work or go to work, I can’t get fired from this because of my color creed or whatever the case is I’m responsible for what’s happening here and I will either fail because of the decision I make or succeed because of every decision I make.

Lewis: Was that the first time you made money on your own as an entrepreneur?

Daymond: No, I made money on my own and lost money on my own as an entrepreneur, you know I started my first business. It took me a long time to really decide on what I want to do on what my first business, it took me forever my first business. I finally decided what I wanted to do when I was 6 years old, I was selling pencils in school then I would go ahead and sell candy and then when it snowed I would shovel the snow in the winter, rake leaves in the fall and then I remember when I used to shovel snow I used to go and kids would want to help me because I saw getting everybody at the blocks that I wanted to. I would travel about 3 miles and take care of it, kids want to help me so I would tell them “Okay, no problem here’s what you going to do you’re going to help me let’s split the money, but you got to do a spring clean-up for free so we can go back.” And then I would go back to the owners of the house and say “Well everybody else they shovel snow and gave 3 dollars, if I shovel your snow 3 times I’m giving you a free cleanup.” So I was leveraging all those little guys. That was a great business.

Lewis: Hey guys if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show then you’ll love the free book I’m giving away right now It’s called the millionaire morning and it includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at the millionairemorning.com and just pay shipping, again check it out right now the millionairemorning.com