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