Transcript of “Daymond John: Financial Intelligence & Learning from Failure - #279”

38 Pages·2016·0.44 MB·English

Transcript of “Daymond John: Financial Intelligence
& Learning from Failure - #279”

Bulletproof Radio podcast #279

© The Bulletproof Executive 2013
Bulletproof Radio
Podcast #279, Daymond John

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Bulletproof Radio
Podcast #279, Daymond John

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Dave Asprey: Hey, it's Dave Asprey with Bulletproof Radio. Today's cool fact of
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are, specifically with those bacteria. Money that's printed on
cotton material has the highest levels of bacteria as opposed to

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Bulletproof Radio
Podcast #279, Daymond John

those created on the newer, slicker plastic-based money, which
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Today's guest of the day is a guy who probably needs no
introduction, at least if you're conscious. Just kidding. Uh, this is
Daymond John. He's a bestselling author, a branding guru, and a
really sought after motivational speaker. He's the founder of
FUBU, the American clothing and hip hop apparel company. He
grew it from $40 into a $6 billion brand and just came out with a
really insightful book called The Power of Broke where he looks at
different people who've launched their own brands and careers
from a place of desperation, rather than from a place of
abundance, which is another cool place to hang out. (laughs) So
there's nothing like saying I got nothing, nothing else left.

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Bulletproof Radio
Podcast #279, Daymond John

In May of 2015, just this last year, the White House appointed, uh,
him Global Ambassador of Entrepreneurship as part of the Page
Program, and you've certainly seen him on Shark Tank on ABC. So
Daymond, welcome to the show.
Daymond John: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Dave Asprey: Well, it, it's, it's actually a great honor because a mutual friend of
ours, uh, Jay Abraham introduces us. Jay's one of the, the
marketing gurus of marketing gurus, and I was, uh, I was pretty
stoked when he said, "Dave, you should talk to Daymond." I'm like,
that's funny, 'cause I've been wanting to talk with Daymond. So I,
I'm grateful that you're here.
Daymond John: I am too, and Jay, um, you know, I sought out Jay as, uh, you know,
to be a mentor of mine many years ago because I knew that, uh,
you know, I called it life as a series of mentors. And, um, he's been
really, really amazing.
Dave Asprey: And so Jay also mentors me and we also have a, a friend, Joe Polish
in common. So the first, the reason I'm bringing this up is a lot of
people who are watching this probably don't understand how
interconnected a lot of entrepreneurs really are and there's a few
of these super connector guys who, who really make it possible to
spend time, uh, with, with other people who are performing at
these crazy levels.
So I think people listening to this show want to understand a
couple things. One of them is about the topic of, of your book The
Power of, of Broke, you know, what, what is the role of
desperation. Bu I think they also want to know, like, what do you
do to kick so much ass? So we're gonna start out with the power
of desperation because you're not desperate anymore, and you're
still kicking ass.
Daymond John: Right.
Dave Asprey: So I want to know how you do that. (laughs)

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Bulletproof Radio
Podcast #279, Daymond John

Daymond John: Well, you know, I, I think, I think that brings up a good point. So,
you know, as I wrote the Power of Broke, I also, uh, made sure
that the subtitle was, was hopefully self explanatory: "How Empty
Pockets, a Tight Budget and a Hunger for Success Can, Can
Become Your greatest ...
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Daymond John: Um, Competitive Advantage" because I figured people, you know,
a lot of people will just judge the book by its cover. They will say
The Power of Broke. Well, first of all, I don't want to, you know, I
don't want to, you know, concentrate on being broke or I don't
want to hear about Daymond when he was broke, 'cause he's not
broke any longer. And neither one of those are, you know, exactly
what the book is for. The book is for, uh, showing people that
there is this advantage that you have when you're broke. I'm not
glamorizing being broke and not having resources 'cause of
course, we all need to, uh, or should have access to the best
medical and the things of that nature. But if you happen to be
broke at the time and don't have a lot of resources, then y-, y-, you
need to do something anyway. So I try to put that in here, what
that is, but the people who use The Power of Broke more than
anybody else are the people who get to a level of success and they
know that they have to tap into that hunger more than anything
else because they cannot buy where they want to go, no matter
how much money you have. And th-, and that's the theory of the
book.
Dave Asprey: Well, that, that says a lot because uh, uh, you certainly know a lot
of people who can buy just about any physical asset on the planet.
And when you're in that kind of a position, you're saying you still
can't buy where you want to go. What do you mean by that?
Daymond John: Well, because when, when somebody like a Mark Burnett who's in
my book here who is, you know, my, uh, the, the producer of
Shark Tank. When Mark Burnett came over here, he was one of
the Special Forces, uh, type of individuals over in the, the British,

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Podcast #279, Daymond John

uh, the British, uh, military. He came over here and he got a job as
a nanny. The (laughs) this tough guy got a job as a nanny, right?
Then he goes off and he sells a couple t-shirts on, you know, on, on
Venice Beach. And now being the top, one of the top reality
producers in the world with shows like The Voice, Contender,
Apprentice and all those type of things, when he found this little
show that was already doing, you know, good numbers in Japan
and London and Canada called Dragon's Den, he said I'm gonna
bring it to America. Now he could've went out and put a bunch of
individuals on the show that are am-, wildly successful and wildly
famous, but he didn't do that. He went out and got a Daymond
John, a Barbara Corcoran, a Robert Herjavec, a Kevin O'Leary, and
Mark Cuban wasn't even on the show at that time, and another
guy named Kevin Harrington. He said I'm gonna use The Power of
Broke, and the Power of Broke is this- I can afford anybody I want.
I can put on there m-, music stars and everything else like that like
all the other shows do, but the general American public will not
believe that this big rock star that's on that show is really gonna
go out there, roll up their sleeves and get down in the trenches
with these entrepreneurs and, and help operate these businesses.
And when he did that, when he, when he decided to put the band
of basically nobodies at the time on ABC on that show, everybody
said nobody's gonna watch the show. Why don't you have a bunch
of rock stars and athletes up there? And he said I am not gonna do
that. I refuse to do that. And they were about to cancel the show.
He used The Power of Broke basically 'cause he coulda bought
anything he wanted to. And I, I, I have dozens and dozens of
examples of things like that in the book. When I, whenever, when I
start a new company, I don't go out and do what, uh, you know,
people think they should do. It cost about 100,000, anywhere
from $70,000- $100,000 to create a full line of, uh, samples for ...
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Daymond John: To present- well cut and sewn samples everything else like that.
And it takes about nine months to get those samples in. I don't do

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Bulletproof Radio
Podcast #279, Daymond John

that. I go to a tailor. I make one or two pieces. I put it on an
Instagram star or somebody on a video, and I pay maybe $2000 or
$3000 or $4000, and I wait to see if the phone rings after that, to
see if people like that garment. If they don't like that garment, I'll
try it again. I'll try it one more time then after that I might have to
cut bait 'cause guess what, I don't have a good idea.
Dave Asprey: And you saved yourself about, oh, $95,000 in the process.
Daymond John: Yeah, $95,000 and nine months of work.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Daymond John: Which one would cost more, right? So it's oper-, we operate like
that all the time.
Dave Asprey: S-, so did you get that because you started out, in fact, it's really
interesting. You started out selling your home sewn shirts in
Queens. Mark Burnett got started out in shirts. A lot of people
don't know this. My tuition went up by, uh, I thought it was
$1500%; it actually went up 1200%. I went back and did math
when I was at, in university. I was working in Baskin Robbins
scooping ice cream, and I'm like I can't afford for my college, I
can't afford college anymore, so I started a t-shirt company that
turned out to be the first e-commerce company ever, and I paid
my tuition ...
Daymond John: Wow.
Dave Asprey: With this, like, the first product sold over the internet. It said
"Caffeine: my drug of choice", and I sold it to 12 countries from my
dorm room
Daymond John: (laughs)
Dave Asprey: Right? But like, why is it that, like, people that are, like, I have no
money (laughs) why are the-shirts attractive? So it's bizarre that's
there's, like, three of us in the same circle here.

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Bulletproof Radio
Podcast #279, Daymond John

Daymond John: (laughs) Um, you know what, I think that we all (laughs) it's
something simple.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Daymond John: I think also the expression of what it is is usually something that's
so near and dear to us, you know, and I guess when you were in
college, caffeine (laughs) ...
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Daymond John: Was it, you know. Um, that's, and it's fairly easy, I mean,
everybody, it's easy to get a t-shirt, and it's easy to screen print
whether one or 1000 and, and people love, uh, you know, they
love to state things, you know. And I stated For Us By Us. You
stated Caffeine, and I don't know what Mark exactly had on his.
Maybe it was like "Hey, Dud, where, you know, hanging". You
never know.
Dave Asprey: W-, why did you pick For Us By Us.
Daymond John: I picked For Us By Us because at the time when, um, hip hop was
really just starting to, you know, become popular, um, we would
always have to go and buy clothes that, you know, we find out
there that we think are attractive, you know. A $700 ski jacket
with Gore-Tex in it when we just need a nice colorful jacket and
we didn't need a ski jacket, so we can make one for $300, you
know, buy one for $300. But more importantly, all the designers
that we loved and cherished, we started hearing rumors that they
don't like whether African-Americans or rappers or ...
Dave Asprey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Daymond John: You know, the city kids wearing their product. And, you know, I
got frustrated and I went and, uh, with my friends and we said
when is somebody just gonna be happy about the people that
support them and love them because I'm spending every single
dime that I have ...

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Bulletproof Radio
Podcast #279, Daymond John

Dave Asprey: (laughs) Yeah.
Daymond John: On clothing. And honestly, knowing those designers now, they
were really rumors. Most of those designers did not say that.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Daymond John: But for whatever reason the rumors got to us and we just got
frustrated and we said For Us By Us. And it's about a culture; it
wasn't about a color.
Dave Asprey: So you're, you're a pretty famous guy now. Um, how many, uh,
how much of what's reported about you do you think is actually
true? Like, if you were to just pick a percentage? (laughs)
Daymond John: What, well, what's reported about me that I say is 100% true.
Dave Asprey: Oh, of course.
Daymond John: What is reported that people assume is not. I, you know, I hear all
the time, um, yeah, Daymond, you know, uh,-, how does it feel to
be a billionaire? And I say, I don't know, you know, I'm not a
billionaire.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Daymond John: You know, uh, you know. And I think that come from he sold $6
billion worth of product. That doesn't mean I took $6 billion
home. I have partners, you know, taxes. A couple of things happen
in life, right? And, and that $6 billion was over 15 years or 10
years, whatever it is.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Daymond John: Um, and then I think maybe on the show, um, you know, it says,
you know, you're about to face a panel of millionaires and
billionaires. There's only one billionaire on the show as far as I
know unless, well, you know, Kevin can probably just not pay any

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