Ah, you're listening to Taking Stock with Bim Box and Kathleen Hayes on Bluebird Radio. He is a billionaire, John Paul de Juria. He was once homeless, now a billionaire. He built his fortune on hair care products, and he's also made a bit of money with Patron Spirits, the maker of Patron tequila. But he's got a new venture now called Aubio, and he's here to tell us in the studio more about it. John Paul de Joria, thank you very much for being here. Oh, you're very welcome.
Always a pleasure to beer. Yeah, it's nice to let people know that America still works, that even in today environment, you can still start a business. And this was enhanced by the fact that three point seven billion people, which is two thirds of the population according to the World Health Organization, have the cold sore virus cold. So just just a step back for a second. How do you go from I understand our hair care products, that's company billionaire,
product number one. Sure, then you go to Trump R Tequila that's product number two, also successful. Where did you come up with the idea for Abbio? A friend of mine had given me this product, he said, you know, anyone that has cold soors anything related to it. Given this product. It's plant based and it works. Set in my drawer. Three months later in my assistant gave to a few people that cold source and skin problems and it worked. So I took a whole bunch of the
samples gave it to everybody. I knew that cold sores are pretending to have a cold story. I think you're having in the future. It worked on everybody. I was blown away. And it's all plant based, I mean the main basis plants. So we experimented with it and then I invested quite a few millions of dollars to do double blind studies because of two thirds of population have the cold sword virus. My god, what a market. And it makes you beautiful, so it's in beauty, no cold
stor you look a little handsomer and beautiful. So that's when Abbio A U B I O came along AU for Gold, Bio for nature Nature's Gold. So because it was so unique, I had two things I wanted. Number One, we have to whatever, we have to, even double blind studies to sell it over the counter. Second thing is it must be affordable for everybody, and it is today, we just put it in every Target store, every Rite aid,
every CVS. It's on Amazon, uh and twenty nine dollars and cents for it to and a lip bomb is only ten dollars. But the amazing about this it works are double blind study showed that nine three per cent of everyone that used it, it worked like immediately, within two days it's gone. It's really remarkable. You say it's plant based, what what? What can you give us any hints and plant Some of the plants are carnivorous from the Saracenian plant group, which is part of the Picture
family of plants. Their carnivorous plants. But over all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, they've built up unbelievable immune systems. Example, when you eat mosquitoes, when you eat flies, when you eat every kind of a thing, they've got a lift. So they've adjusted to everything. And it's amazing what comes out of these plants, the healing
properties for a variety of skin things. Right now we're just doing cold sores, but we've already found out that it works on so many other skin ailments better than anything else one's ever discovered. So this is very exciting abio a U bio. If you want to know more about it, one could go for the studies to abbio a U b I O dot com. I confess my botany skills are limited. Is this in the same family? Is like the venus flytrap? Yes, it is same family.
Carnivorous plants? And where are these plants grown all over the world? All the ones we have are all grown in the United States of America. We even have a greenhouse where we're growing hybrids. They're a little bit bigger than the normal carnivorous plant, but not so big as you know, a little shop of horrors where they eat everybody. Not that big, but pretty big, where they can probably
get a frog. Well, I'm I'm glad if I set your finger there, Just just to sort of maybe put it into your life a little bit, into perspectives people may not have known about this. Just give us the synopsis of your trajectory to building these kinds of Yeah. Started Paul Mitchell Slowan haircare in nineteen eighty our backer pulled out. We never got a dime. We virtually started that company with seven hundred dollars. Lived in my car
for a couple of weeks. Took us two years just to pay our bills on time, but we knew the quality of the product we were making for hair was so good hairdresser would use and recommended, even though we had no advertising budget, So we kept true to our tune the very best product you could possibly imagine, and through a hair dresses organization. Then it went nine years later in Patron, where why the opportunity developed the finest, smoothest premium tequila ever made. We introduced to the United
States of America Alter premium tequila. Today, Patron is the number one alter premium tequila in the world and it's still growing. But what are the secrets. It's not really a secret. It's like what we do in our country in the world. If you have the finest quality product and it's realistically priced, and you don't go into selling business, you go into the reorder business, where your service or your product is so good people want to tell others about it or keep on reordering it. That's how you
do it. Now you have sustainability and every company gives back. Every company Paul Mitchell with their culture Patron Abbio also we all give back because we believe that success and shared his failure. Now I'm glad you mentioned the word sustainability because I want to remind people and maybe you can tell us more about your Grow Appalachia. You bet you.
I started that back in two thousand and ten, and when I looked around the United States and what more can I do philanthropically with the money that I make from Paul Mitchell or Patron to change the world. Well, we're doing things all of the world. How about the United States. A gentleman that worked for me, Tommy, said JP, I'm from Appalachia and all over the Appalachian Mountains, Kentucky, Tennessee,
North Carolina, West Virginia, Virginia. There's a hundred fifty thousand people up there that are out of work, that want jobs. But the coal mines are closing up. They're bringing machines and replace them. They're on food stamps. They don't like this. So I thought, well, let me see what I could do. So I want to partner with Brea College who could help me get the right staff. And they were right in the area. And I spent all the money, and I thought, let me feed these people. So we put
the other program called grow Appelasia. I provide the money to buy seeds, fertilizer, equipment, whatever it took to get people into local farming or some big community farms to feed themselves. Number one priority was feat yourself and can for the winter. Will show you how to do it. It's your family as vegetables year round, planned to the second years, grow electra and sell it in local markets or organically growing produce haven't income. Thank you very much
for stopping pie. John paula. He is the co founder of Patron Spirits, Paul Mitchell and now this is Bloomberg