Transcript
The nation's favorite car buying site, Dundeele Motors, is home to the largest range of new and premium used cars from all of Ireland's trusted car dealerships. That's why you'll find Frank Keane BMW on Dun Dundeele. Visit the Frank Keane BMW showroom on Dundeele to find your next car. Dundeele Motors, for confident car buying and deals to feel great about from all of Ireland's trusted car dealerships. Visit dundeale.ie today. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altiger Show on the choose yourself network. Today on the James Altiger Show. Thank God because I told you don't ask me stupid questions, and you are asking me questions that I've never really thought about. If you're in a cubicle today and you're looking at Daymond John, understand that Daymond John is looking at Richard Branson and Richard Branson is looking at Bill Gates. So there's always somebody else to look at as inspiration. But no matter what, you just have to learn from it and keep moving forward. You know what I mean? And you can't try to be like somebody else. You can't be a me too. If it's going to be desperation mode, it has to be desperation mode of if nobody else is going to do it, then I'm going to do it. That's the only desperation mode it should be. It shouldn't be desperation mode like I need to be like you. It needs to be desperation mode of nobody else is doing this thing, then I'm gonna do it. So, Damon Damon John, I'm psyched to have you on the podcast for a second time. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. You know, the the first time that we got together on, The Power Broke, it was absolutely amazing. I got a lot of feedback. I didn't know you had so many listeners. I didn't know I had so many listeners either until I had you on the show. My mother wouldn't read the book until she heard, the podcast with you. You're kidding. Well, say hi to your mom. Thank you. I will. So so I wanna talk more about the Power of Broke, but also I wanna talk about your new company that you're starting, Blueprint Plus Co. Yeah. This is kinda like a WeWork. Right? It's kinda like a a co working space for executives. Absolutely. I think I'm gonna get myself an officer, actually. I'm not even kidding. You're right. You're one of the well You're not paying me to promote that, by the way. I am not. But I looked at the site, and it looks good. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I decided to come up with this concept after so many well, I was already developing the concept because, you know, after all the companies I had on Shark Tank, the ones in New York were were saying, can I come to my office? Can I come to my office? Before I know it, they were sleeping on my couch. Right? And then guys like you and I, we we speak to so many corporations over the course of a year, and every one of them are talking about innovation. They can't get good talent, and then we talk to them. They go off, and they don't do anything about it. Right? Why? Well, I hear these people are smart. They've been funded. They they present themselves. How come they can't find people to work with them? Well, you know what? I'm talking about more of the big ones who all say, come and talk to my, you know, my c level staff about innovation. When your c level staff is, you know, 40, 50, 60, they want their 2 weeks vacation, they sit in their corner office, they don't talk to them, they don't wanna learn about social media conversion, they don't wanna learn about podcasts, they don't wanna learn about anything else. They're doing things their own way, and they're gonna be dinosaurs. But then I find there are some companies and corporations who say, you know what? I wanna put 10 people over, whether it's my company or whether it's my version of Blueprint and Co or 18/71 Chicago, and they go, you can't get good talent out in the suburbs. You can't get, you know, those, those kids with the funny looking mustaches and the tight, the tight jeans riding on skateboards or programming. I could imagine. Yeah. You can't get them to go to traditional corporation because they care now about culture. They care about experience. They care about working with like minded people, and you cannot get them there anymore. So now I'm finding that, the people that are coming to the space are like Lisa Mattresses, the ones who are now changing the way that you get mattresses, and now they're delivered to the home, or Shopify, or Ashley Steward or, a lot of different, like minded people, executives like us, are coming to this space because they don't have a place for innovation. Well, let me take this let me roll this back because this might be related to what's going on in the economy. Like, let's say I mean, do you sort of see that the big corporations kind of shrinking in favor of everybody wants to do their own thing now? Everybody's kind of starting a company or or going to the gig economy or going freelance or going part time? Like, what's what are you seeing from from up high that's happening kind of lower? I I am seeing that. I'm seeing that either up high companies are either acquiring new and faster companies. You know, some of the stats are that 40% of the workforce will be freelance, or or solopreneurs by 2020. Sure. Some of the other stats are 50% of the kids graduating today will end up retiring with a job title that doesn't actually exist today. Wait. Are you reading my blog? I think you're reading my blog to get these statistics. I am. I am. I am. But think about it. Like, you know, the the it's challenging, you know. I was out of CES, and one of the major car companies were saying the biggest challenge they have is for the autonomous cars, they don't have enough technicians because the kids don't realize coming out of school today, you know, being a, you know, being a mechanic is not like when we're looking at Sanford and Son and the guy with the big grease all over him is somebody plugging in and and programming, and they can't get enough jobs. I I spoke to the the the corporation who handles all the operators of heavy machinery. They said their job, filings, they're they're open for 15 months before somebody fills it because these kids don't realize they can make $200,000 come out of school operating or being a technician for heavy machinery. Everybody's, you know, they're they're thinking of the old days, and that's antiquated. It's old. It's over. Well, let you know, I wanna relay this back to to your start. Like, you started out, and I sort of see it's a it's a very classic story in the sense that you combined these two passions you had, which were music and clothes. Like, when you first started knitting hats and going on the corner and selling them, it wasn't the first time you were knitting. You were sewing since you were a kid. I I was sewing to kinda alter my clothes to kinda be, you know, you know, hip hop. Right? I was trying to, you know, buy a pair of jeans and make them more hip hop ish. Yeah. And you and you, obviously I didn't know this actually, until recently. I should've researched it the last time, but you were even, like, a breakdancer. You were gonna breakdancer for Houdini? Yeah. Yeah. I was so I was a I was a I was a popper, you know, and somebody would say, you know, kind of the guy who stood up. I didn't spin on the ground. And I, I was breakdancing, and, I actually had a chance to go on tour and be one of the dancers for Houdini. And my mother said, hell no. Keep your a*s in school. And they ended up picking a kid named, Jermaine Dupri to end up dancing for them. Who ended up being huge in his own way? Yeah. So but you ended up, of course, being huge in your way, which is again, I always feel that combining interests, if you're you you probably weren't the best seamstress in the world. I was horrible. And you probably weren't the best hip hop guy in the world. But combining the interests made you the best in the world at clothes for hip hop. You were the guy. Absolutely. And that was almost like I don't wanna say a shortcut because, obviously, there was a lot of pain and and strain along the way. Yeah. But it is a good way to kind of, skip a lot of steps to success. And I I think to enhance what you're saying is that I didn't realize that both of those things could could be married together because you have to understand when I decided to, start doing clothes, at that time, in my neighborhood, most of my friends were drug dealers, and I did not wanna sell drugs, and I didn't wanna be part of that. So whenever they were going on a run to go pick up drugs or something, I was in the car, I would say, all right, guys, well, let me out of the car. Now fast forward, they start seeing me in the corner selling hats. Laughing at me is a understatement because at that time to be in fashion, you know, the concept of being in fashion was usually it was, you know, gay guys who were designing so. And, you know, I have no issue with anybody's sexual preference, but I wasn't gay. But they would they stopped talking to me and called me gay, and they thought that I was just the gay guy on the corner selling hats. Right? So I was really, like, kind of like, you know, it wasn't cool. But I was doing something that I love so much, and it was so fulfilling to me, forget even making money that I couldn't care less about what they thought at that time. And I lost most of them as friends, but they ended up going to jail anyway. So they're gone. Yeah. They don't either. They're going. Well, no. No. Well, you know what? Who gives people cell phones in jails? Because they write me texts. I swear to you, these texts are like love and peace or peace and war, whatever they get, love and war. Anyway, that's another story. They have a lot of time on their hands now. So so so you're out there on the corner. You're you're you're selling these clothes. And I saw also see a lot in your career about not taking risks, but mitigating risks. Yes. So while you were doing this on the corner and you were starting to make good money, but you were also working at Red Lobster. Sure. You were the Red Lobster for years, and that was another way you kind of dealt with embarrassment is that your friends from school will be showing up and you would be busting their tables. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know what? I was the the the kid who was too smart for his own good and said that I'm gonna take a year off from college, and that year became 3 years, 4 years, 5 years. I was working at Red Lobster, and all these other kids that I thought were dumb were coming back from college. And at that time, I believed that, like many kids today, that you go to college, you automatically are guaranteed a job and a a great life. Right? So now I'm going, I'm an idiot. I'm working at Red Lobster. I'm trying to make hats. So now, you know, one of my one group of friends are calling me, you know, gay, and the other ones are saying I'm an idiot and you're bussing tables. And it was it was it was not a fulfilling, you know, life when I thought about it from the outside. But internally, I just felt that I was good. I felt that one on on in one sense, I wasn't looking over my back like these friends of mine who are drug dealers for the cops and other other other dealers. Right? On another sense, I'm paying my bills, and I'm doing something I love, which are selling hats. Now a lot of people, when they go into business at first, they hear this whole burn all bridges, go balls to the wall, all that crap. No. Keep your day job. I worked at Red Lobster for 6 years while I operated FUBU, and that was important to me. It gave me medical and and insurance. It also kept my lights on, and I was able to keep funding the company and take affordable steps. I was mitigating my risk. Well and then the other thing is is that when you finally you know, at one point, it's kind of this famous story where you you you know, your mom mortgaged the house to get you your a $100,000 so you could buy fabrics and and labor and so on. But what most people don't realize, you had a $400,000 order to fulfill. Like, you had a baked in order from a big company. Yeah. Yeah. So I I went to the the trade show of our industry magic the magic show, and I came back with about the $400,000 in orders. And I went to all the banks, and I couldn't get any funding because, honestly, I didn't have any financial intelligence. So I didn't know how to really fill out a loan application, give them any projections, whatever the case is. And my mother went out and mortgaged the house for $100,000. Now, I don't know how because the house was worth 75 till today. I still don't ask her what she did for the rest of the money. But, the reason she did that is because I had up to $400,000 in orders. Now everybody goes, oh, your mother, you know, she she she took a risk on you. She did. But don't get me wrong, just like we said everybody else, sales cure us all. I had $400,000 in order. So she said, if we mortgage this, you go make the clothes and put the money back in the house. She wouldn't have gave me crap. She didn't give me anything prior to that. And this was this was honestly, this was 7 years or 6 years into the first day that I had, sold a hat. And then and then the final way I feel kinda like you took, care of risk or at least part of the risk was you had the the the network you built. You had LL Cool J wearing your hat. Yeah. No. We had LL Cool J wearing my hat. He was a huge star at the time. But prior to getting LL Cool J know him that well. Like, he grew up in the neighborhood. He grew up in the neighborhood. We didn't know him that well, but a lot of people grew up in the neighborhood, run DMCs, Salt and Pepper. Everybody says there's something in the water in in Queens. Right? But prior to getting to LL Cool J, I had all the local cool kids in the neighborhood wearing the hat. So it wasn't just a cold call. It was kind of like 10 calls until I got to him, and then it was like, hey, man. You see all the guys that you like in the neighborhood that are cool guys wearing it. Why don't you give me a shot? So I kinda, like, had baked the community prior to making that approach toward towards him. So so so building the network, building the community, taking care of risk, combining interests, and there's a certain kind of I don't wanna say arrogance because it's the wrong word, and you're not an arrogant guy. But yet you're up against Adidas. You're up against, you know, all these clothing companies. You're up against companies that were starting to get into the space, like troop and so on. Yeah. How did you think do you think that's the quality of only a young person that you can think you can take on the world? Like, how do you you know, now we're seeing more and more people who are, let's say, our age, who are trying to say, oh, I've gotta start from scratch now, or I've gotta start something new. How do you kinda develop that confidence? You know, I think that it's, it's a passion that you're going forward with, and you keep you're so strong about it. Now you may say that, you know, I had this arrogance to take that on. But in return, I go, well, why didn't FUBU end up becoming Nike, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton? I should've went further. Right? And I remember seeing, Mark Zuckerberg do an interview, and he was doing it with the president of the United States, Obama. And he had said that as he was creating it, he kept going. Somebody else is going to build this big machine, but nobody built it. And he kept building, and he kept building. So as I kept going forward and I saw the direction that I felt the company needed to go, and more importantly, I saw what consumers needed, I kept going, somebody else is gonna do this. Somebody else is gonna do this, but it didn't stop me. I was just anticipating that more people are gonna do it, and nobody else did it. And I just kept going and kept going and kept going, and it was something that I was so passionate about. I would have done this for free if I could have because I love seeing people wear my clothes. There there was something about waking up in the morning, walking down the block, and seeing somebody wear wear your shirt and go, when I was designing it, I was thinking about that person to wear it just like that. And they purchased it because it made them feel better about themselves, or they they felt like they accomplished something, or they felt like they arrived. And it was just this twinkle in my eye that made me wanna keep doing it. So I I didn't care about the other, competitors because I always considered them being huge, and I was just like a flea on their butt. You know what I mean? And I just kept building it and it just kept growing. I think also there's this kind of you had this sort of empowering vision that was like an umbrella over the company, you know, for us, by us, you know, if that's what FUBU stands for. Sure. And kind of this, empowering in the African American community and the hip hop community. And I think that allowed you to sort of put your foot forward and say, this is why you shouldn't buy those other guys. This this is a not only you're gonna look good, but it's empowering for us. Yeah. You know, and and often, it was very you know, a lot of people, you know, thought FUBU was purely for one color or one demographic of, you know, per you know, people, and it wasn't actually because, you know, when I initially started FUBU, it was because, you know, we had heard comments from designers and especially Timberland at that time. They're not owned by the same people. They said that we don't make our boots for drug dealers, and they looked at at this community of hip hop people as 1, as African American, and it wasn't because at that time, you know, some of my favorite rappers were not of African American descent. They were 3rd base or, you know, some of the 3rd base was great. 3rd base was amazing. Right? And, at 3rd base, Beastie Boys or whoever it was. So I had made for us bias about a culture who's gonna just love the rap culture and really love them? So it is powered by a music that was created by African Americans, but by far, I was never gonna be prejudiced like the Timbalands of the world. And the first places I I love saying that bought my product when I started to advertise. It was Seattle, Washington. It was the the grunge skateboarders, you know, in Seattle, Washington, and it was actually Japan. They were starting to buy my clothes first because they just loved hip hop so much. But then this For Us Bias concept came out, I didn't care what color you are as long as you just loved hip hop, like I loved hip hop. And that's what it was. I think the hip hop culture though, kind of, you know, extended out into the suburbs because everybody thought, okay, I don't wanna be boring suburban. I wanna be hip. Yeah. You know? And that's why, like, I used to do back in the nineties, I used to do some work with Steve Rifkin. He had SRC, his his, street teams. He he would get, like, shipments of Pepsi and then hand them out in Harlem and get them Pepsi popular. I boy Gary v said it best. He said that, you know, hip hop was one of the things that knocked down a lot of racial barriers in the, you know, in the world and made, you know, white kids want to be black, and black kids didn't mind being white, and black kids didn't mind looking at Eminem and say, wow. These white boys are crazy too. And black and white boys didn't mind being doctor Dre and Snoop and stuff like that. And I think that it it it brought us a lot of people together and respected other cultures. So absolutely, you it brought it out to the suburbs and around the globe. I'm just curious, like, and this is kinda often a tangent, but what musical kind of direction do you think has happened since hip hop that has made any cultural statement at all whatsoever? Because I don't know of any. I don't know any. I mean, EDM is just, you know, Molly jumping around. Right? And it's And then pop is so sugary. Yeah. It it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't address any issues of, you know, what's going on, whether it's love or hate or police violence or politics. You know, it's funny when when president Bush says one of his worst worst times of his life was when Kanye said Bush hates black people. Right? But whatever it was, you know, I think hip hop has been it's always been the voice of the streets, no matter what. And the the, you know, and the streets are are very pure in their in their in the way they, they vocalize what's going on. And so so it seems like, and this is gonna lead to your latest venture, Blueprint. But what you're doing, you you take FUBU, and then you go on Shark Tank. And then, obviously, when when Shark Tank's on, I often pause it in in front of my kids. I have 2 daughters. And I say, okay. Which shark should go for this company? And if it's a clothing company, they say They say me? Yeah. But but I'm the one who doesn't. I don't want clothing company. I wanna I wanna I wanna, you know, diversify my portfolio. But they but they get the sense and I think everybody gets the sense that, look, if you take a pair of socks, you could start making it in it's you could piggyback on the resources you already have Sure. Absolutely. In in in not in terms of just production, but in terms of distribution. And do you find that that happens? Yeah. You know what? It does. And your daughters are absolutely right in one sense, but, you know, another sense is sometimes, you know, you know, we gotta we we have to really be comfortable with who we are as business people and what, makes us excite gets us excited. And I saw Richard Branson speaking one time, and he said once he sold Virgin Records and then went on to Virgin Airlines, and now he has 300 companies, you know, his the type of entrepreneur he is is he loves to open up a new company, add the fundamentals to it, but see how it blossoms in a new way and apply his self in a new way. You know, with apparel companies, the reason why I actually I actually turned down Shark Tank twice, to be honest, because I said, I'm gonna spend my own money. What are you, crazy? You know, like, Mark Burnett is the real shark. I was like, he's gonna have me pay for everything. But then it was 0 8. Nobody was buying more shirts because they couldn't pay their mortgage. Right? The last thing they were buying was a shirt. I had 12 clothing companies, 10 of them were dead. And I said to myself, is my strength clothing companies or is it marketing, branding, and distribution? So when I go to a Macy's, instead of just selling them shirts and on wanna be on floor 2, I can sell them lotion, electronics, furniture, whatever the case is. Let me acquire more companies for my portfolio so I could take up more real estate in the brands and the companies that I that I know, the Macy's, the JCPenney's of the world. So I actually go on there and I look for other than clothing companies. So, like, what's an example of of some other thing that you've been able to provide your branding expertise and get into Macy's? Well, not necessarily Macy's. Let me think about it. But, you know, I said that because of my years in Red Lobster when I saw, you know, how food was being lost, the waste, or whatever the case is, I never wanna deal with perishables. So if you ever watch the first three years of Shark Tank, I will not buy anything that you can consume, nothing that you can eat. Now my top companies, beef jerky and Bubba's boneless ribs. Right? Because I was able to now go in there. I love what they were and who they were, you know, the the the proprietors or the owners of it, And now those are the biggest companies in my portfolio, and those are things that I was staying away from. But going back to now clothing, I decided to do a deal with a company called Bombas, Bombas socks. And now I have a warehouse full of FUBU socks. Socks are the hardest things to sell because, first of all, if you're wearing them, I don't know who what brand they are. So they don't like a big logo on them. Right? They're in buckets and barrels over at, Burlington Coat Factory. Right? And, you know, actually, you know, you you it's very hard to sell them. But these guys, just like why we're talking about Blueprint and Co, they were selling socks, but they weren't selling in traditional retail stores. They were selling them direct to the customer. I didn't know there's a whole world of people who collect socks, and they're gonna do when they first won a shark thing about $1,000,000, they're gonna do about $20,000,000 this year purely in socks because of 2 things. Number 1, the socks are amazing. They have no seam in the front, so your toe doesn't get jammed up. I've never I didn't even know what kind of machine can be. I've gotta buy them, man. Because I always I this morning, I jammed my toe on them. Exactly. And number 2 is they they they donate a pair to the homeless shelter because the homeless, their one of their biggest challenges are the care for their feet. But I started to learn that I can't sell the crap of socks that I have in a warehouse in Secaucus now, but these guys are selling it in a whole new way. So I started to educate myself on new ways to do business. So, to sum that up, it was I didn't invest in traditional companies, apparel companies, but when I did, they had to have a different angle to them. So they had a different angle where you learn. But, again, how did you provide even with the food companies, how were you able to provide your kind of branding and marketing expertise to to get them going? Give them a kick start they didn't have before. Because no matter what, there's always going to be the blueprint like, like, you know, Richard Branson said, there's always the fundamentals of business. So there's always the key about your numbers, your distribution, your pipeline, your access to information, and access to customers, and how do you get this information out there. So What does it mean access to information? Yeah. So when you look at when you look at any kind of company, you're gonna look at your numbers. So what are your margins? What is your cost directly to b to b, and what does it cost b to c? What's your acquisition cost, you know, in regards to is it $2 a customer, $5 a customer, $17 a customer? What's your return rate? Alright? How are you gonna upsell a customer? There's only 3 ways to deal with a customer ever. There is acquire a new one, upsell a current one, or make one buy more frequently. How do you upsell in in a sock company? Well, upsell well, you well, you upsell a sock. I mean, you you ask them to buy the underwear and then the hats afterwards, knit knit product, or you ask them to buy a 3 pack instead of a 1 pack, or you get them to be a member where they get, you know, 6 pair of socks every month in their, you know, in the mail, something like that. Or you get them to buy a new color, you get them to go instead of you instead of buying athletic wear, you also get them to buy dress socks at the same time. So there's various ways to upsell any current customer. Buying more frequently means, you know, you try to do more sales or you try to have them buy 1, get 1 free, or give 1 to a family member or something like that. You don't want them to have sales fatigue, so you don't wanna always discount and or, put your stuff on sale. So you have to find ways to upsell customers no matter what. For marketing, I feel like TV ads don't work anymore. Like, why I would never buy anything I saw on a TV ad. But if if I am exposed to something over and over again on the Internet, I might take a look and it's one click away buying. Yeah. You know, TV ads are challenging. I think that they do serve a purpose, if you are smart about it. But you know what? You know, the advertising platform is changing so much now because they're we're getting so, we're getting inundated with so many pieces of information, but you look at things like direct mail, it's still very, very strong. Really? Yeah. Because you look at this. You know, many years ago, we used to open our mailbox, and we had all this crap of direct mail. Now it's all in our emails. So now you have two pieces of direct mail that you probably spend more time looking at than that little blast that came across your screen where you just clicked off. Billboards are stronger now than ever because, you know, that thing is not moving. You can't click it. It's not going away. You're watching it. So the way you know, as many things change, some stay the same. Right? So, you know, advertising always changes no matter what. So so, you know, again, as you go in, you you fund the company, you go in, you see you you think they have a good product, a good management team, whatever. What do you see as kind of the fundamental mistakes you usually find yourself fixing again and again in these companies that start up? It's always a power broke. It's always that, you know, they think that more money, unless they're super good at their analytics and then I become the student instead of the teacher, they think that more money is going to solve their problem, and they end up getting into a, whether inventory situation or whether they go out and they say, I'm gonna market more and market more and market more. If you can see that, you know, it it it it's clear. If you're spending 17%, you're you're you're dealing directly to the consumer and you have, you know, a full markup on your product, 17% is good. But if you end up not, you know so I'll give you examples. So, you know, you're you're spending $17 and you're getting a $100 worth of sales. That's good because if you're making a product for 50 and you're selling it for a100 or no. 200, actually, if if you're doing it direct to customer, then that's great. Right? But if you end up spending $60 and you only bring in a 100, then something's broken. The product is not good. The margin is not good. The customer doesn't like it. Something's going on. And the customers that go over the 20 or 25% when they sell directly to the, to to what the the the brands that go over that mark of 20%, 25%, they sell them directly to the customer, At that point, don't go and spend more money. You have to fix something there to reduce either the cost of, customer acquisition or the cost of your product or, you know, or anything else. But I see a lot of companies that go out there and say, well, we need a $1,000,000 in inventory because Christmas is coming, and we need to have that on on-site, and we'll be we'll be able to sell that day, or we need to buy a $1,000,000 in advertising. We need to get more people. If you have crap, then a $1,000,000 worth of advertising is just a $1,000,000 of advertising crap. So I see that the biggest challenge they all have is, spending too much money that they don't have. You know, I see you bring up a really good point that advertising is almost I always call it the 2nd best strategy. The first best strategy is word-of-mouth. Yeah. So if I if I if you're gonna sell something to the person and you know they're gonna recommend it to their friends, then you have a good product. If they're not gonna recommend it to their friends, then the advertising is just gonna buy you one time customers, and that's it. You're absolute you're a 100% right. It is build a community no matter what. It's the same as I always tell people when they have a product, don't give it away to your family and friends and then think you have a great brand. Because if you give a a a a a nasty product out to 10 family and friends, you know what? Your grandmother's gonna come back and say, oh my god. Everybody at work really love this crappy shirt. You should make more of these, but you go and sell it. Like, find a community that wants to buy it because, you know, the good thing about Fubo was this. I used to stand on the corner of how, 1 65th Street and Jamaica Avenue, or I stood in the corner of the Apollo and tried to sell my hats. Here's the best thing about trying to sell your hats in the middle of Harlem at midnight on the corner of Apollo, theater. People not only told me what they thought about my hats, but they told me what they thought about my mother and everybody else. So you got a real, real response by people who have to come out of their pocket with their hard earned money and buy it because they like it or not. And that's it. But, you know, you you tell me that story and it sounds great and almost, like, romantic. Like, I was It's not romantic. I know. But but it sounds that way. And so let's say I'm I'm listening to this, and I hate my job. And I'm thinking, boy, well, he did that when he was 22 years old, and it was the beginning of something hip hop and and closed for hip hop. What what can I do now? What how can I get started? How can I start thinking like that? Well, first of all, you know, if you're thinking like that just to go make money, then you're probably thinking about the wrong thing. You know, where is the passion? What do you do for free? Because it took me a long time to realize that fashion and music could be a combination of something that I love. I didn't start frugal until I was in my twenties, which is, of course, that's young, but I loved fashion and music at the same time ever since I was 10 years old, and I didn't realize I could put it together. Now, yes, I came around at a certain time, but how many people today, whether it's how many people know DJ Khaled now? He built a community. He didn't go out and say he didn't he didn't say 10 years ago, this thing called Snapchat's gonna be, you know, created, and I'm going to make the stupidest videos ever, and I'm gonna build this community. But he built a very strong community for whatever reason. So people have to understand they have to build a community, and it's being done every single day. If you look on social media, there are people that you follow that you would have never known before. They built a community, whether they're a chef, whether they're, a a trainer, whether they're somebody who tells funny jokes, you have to build a community no matter what. And I built a community of like minded people who love this emerging music and love the fashion that came along with it. So so what do you think are this so so take a passion and take a skill for building community, and that's gonna be, to some extent, a recipe for some success. And what do you what would you say are the top skills for building community? No matter what you're interested in. Let's say I'm interested in I don't know. I don't know. I have to think of that. You know? And thank God because I told you don't ask me stupid questions, and you are asking me questions that I've never really thought about. What is the skill for building a community? Because you were great at it. Right? Because you built it like you said, the you had the cool kids in Hollis wearing shirts before you even approached LL Cool J, and then that propelled further community. You know, the building of community is that you have a very, very pointed, idea or, view of something, and you don't waver off of it, and you find other people that have that strong pointed view about it that are passionate about it. I mean, we just went through an election, and that the person who is the president now found people with a very, very strong point of view about things, and I think that that is the thing when building a community. Also, when building a community, not only are you the one preaching, but you're the one following. You know, you're the person who not you now you have the strong point of view, and the other people have the strong point of view. You're not talking at them. You're talking with them. So you're following them back, and you are kind of echoing what they're saying. So they feel like you care about them. The most important thing with dealing with any people is that they want to feel important too. They want to feel valued. So you feel like you value that point of view that they're coming with and you're echoing it. And I think that is the that is the biggest thing about finding a community is being very, very strong about what you think, being laser focused on how you communicate it and following other people that feel the same way and then echoing what they're saying, and it becomes this kind of, like, it starts to manifest and starts to grow and people start to follow. Let's stop to take a quick break. We'll be right back. I mean, now we have all these new tools, like you mentioned Snapchat with DJ Khaled, and we also you also mentioned Gary Vaynerchuk, who that guy does videos. I feel like he does videos 24 hours a day. He does. And I don't know when he sleeps. He's looking at his phone in every Instagram photo. You know, he's constantly hustling. And so it seems like you have to show the community also that you're in it even more than they are. Like, they have to kinda join you. A a 100%. So so Khaled is in on the joke. Right? He he makes fun of himself. He's in on the joke. So he, you know and and he he elaborates on it. Gary, you know, you know that he has this strong, strong passion about empowering people. And as bad as his little potty mouth is, he will say it with conviction, and he won't vary off of that. He'll go to a corporation and say, if you don't like the way I'm cursing, don't don't have me come here. You know, it's like you, you know, when I was, you know, hoping that you would have me on the podcast, we were talking, and my colleague and I, we were saying that you ask the most basic, basic, basic questions because you dumb it down so that even though you've met so many people, you bring it to a level where you're learning with them and you go, I'm not gonna try to overthink this thing. Let's get down to the pure basics and the fundamentals. So people, I think, that listen to your podcast always go, we're always going to bring it back to the fundamentals. We're not going to talk about it at a high level. We could get to that, but we're going to bring it back to the fundamentals. So I think that when you care about something, it's always gonna shine through. You know, like, when I'm on Shark Tank, I care about people. I don't care how you know, and don't get me wrong. I think just like mister wonderful thinks sometimes that's how we think, like, you know, you need to get the hell out of here, but my mother taught me that I need to treat people with respect. So no matter how we think about the product and say we're out, I do it in a very respectful way because I never wanna be treated bad like that. Right? So I think that it is purely about staying tried and true, to who you are, and and your community will find you in return. Well, it also seems like you you used this word a couple of times, and, I had on a few days ago, Sara Blakely, who, of course, started Spanx. Uh-huh. And, you know, part of her kind of bigger purpose was empowering women to feel better about themselves. And you used the word empower several times. You used it about Gary v empowers young people to be entrepreneurs. You were empowering kind of the hip hop culture and community. How it seems, like, really important when you're starting something, when you have something that you're passionate about, to figure out how to elevate it one more level so you can empower other people to feel passionate about it. Absolutely. And and, you know, a lot of people just don't have hope or they don't feel like other people, bond with them, and and, you know, let's go back to when I was saying that, you know, my friends weren't looking at me in the greatest light. They stopped talking to me, but it didn't matter because every person that I sold a hat or a shirt to, they empowered me. They made me feel like you did the right thing. Thank you. Nobody's done this before. I feel good about myself. So every time I would hear a negative about what I was doing, I would hear a positive about what I was doing. And I then felt in return to empower them because I was like, wow. You believe in me. Thank you. I'm I'm making this for you, for me, for us, and you believe in me. And then when I found 10 people like that, 20, a 100 people like that, a 1000, a 1000000 people like that, I knew that I wasn't wrong for what I believed in, and there was somebody else out there who who felt the same passion about this music, about these clothes that I did. And that's exactly what happens when, you know, any of my companies, when it's bomber socks, when they when they go to the the the veterans shelter and they give away these socks and they feel empowered about it, you almost never hear when somebody's out there and they have a company, you almost never really hear them pitching the company. They pitch the cause, and they and you could see why they're doing it because they're usually talking about what it does for others, why they did it, and why it makes others feel good. You never hear them go, you need to buy this sock because it has, Egyptian cotton. They talk about everything else besides the product usually. You know, I don't know. You know, Steve Jobs, when he talked he he talked about, you know, thinking different. He talked about, you know, the he didn't talk about how many gigabytes was in a computer. He talked about how it made people feel and how they can think differently and how they can be themselves and how they can be creative and the tools that he was gonna give people to allow them to be creative. He didn't say it said more gigabytes or whatever it is, megabytes, whatever the hell it is in computers, you know? So so while you were building up and you were feeling good, you were start the the the word was getting out, the clothing words was getting out, You had to have bumps along the road. Like, what were the times when even after everybody else thought you were a success, where you were like, oh my god. I'm a fraud, and I'm gonna get I'm gonna go totally broke, and no one's gonna know, and it's gonna be super embarrassing. Oh, see. This is this is you know what? The these are the this is why people listen to you so much because I don't think that has been asked before, and it goes back to the fundamentals is is what I'm saying. We don't talk on a high level here. We're talking about the fears that many people have because somebody said the other day that, you know, we all compare our blooper reel to everybody's sizzle reel, and my blooper reel was playing for many, many years. Right? Yeah. And, you know, it was when I had 10 shirts and they were all in videos, and I didn't have I was sleeping, you know, on my couch, and I, you know, I was working at Red Lobster, or it was when I had $300,000 in orders, and I said to myself, I'm never gonna be able to produce this. Why did I even even go out and get the orders? So that was back that was, like, over 20 years ago now. Yeah. I wanna know when it happened yesterday. Well, it it was when FUBU was doing, FUBU was all over the place, and it was doing well as far as everybody was concerned, but we went from 400,000,000 down to 200,000,000 down to 100,000,000. It was when I When was that? Like, what happened? That was 2004. It was when we acquired we licensed out Ted Baker, and we brought Ted Baker to the United States, and we failed. And they wanted to go into retail, so we had to they wanna bring retail you know, build retail shops, so we had to give it back. Then all of a sudden, I go and I get Capa, you know, the brand from, Europe, and we thought Socko was gonna be big here. It didn't, so I failed at that. Then I went and acquired a company called Heatheritt, and I spent $6,000,000 and failed at that. So then I was sitting there going, I did get struck by lightning one time. I'm useless. I can't do this again. I am a fraud. FUBU is just luck. I I thought I was mister business savvy guy, and it didn't happen. All of a sudden, we acquire another brand named Coogee, and it starts to take off. Right? You know, so so that started working. It gave me back the confidence, but there had been many, many times or or even like I said to you, why wasn't Fubu Nike? We were supposed to be so great. Right? So why do we not compare the spare? Like, you look at Phil Knight and say, what did he have that I didn't have? What what what I don't you know what? You know, Fubu did $6,000,000,000 over his career. Nike does 18,000,000,000 a year. Right? So everybody thinks that it did so great, but wait a minute. Tommy Hilfiger came back. Why didn't we? Ralph Lauren never went away. Why didn't we? Well, you know, why wouldn't we why didn't we have the same ability to be as consistent as those? We had 27 stores. It never got to a 100. It never got to, a1000. So what do you think I mean and, actually, it's funny because you didn't bring up this stuff last time, nor is this in the power of broke. Like, I feel like this is on your mind right now. Yeah. Well, you're asking me the question, and and, you know, to be a business person, you have to be really, really honest with yourself. And we have the question, what did I not do that, I could have done? Now granted 99% of the brands in the in the fashion space come out there, they don't have that longevity. When I talk about Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, and all those, I'm talking about the unicorns. You know, when I first got into this business, I think I think Levi's was doing 14,000,000,000. They do 4,000,000,000 now. They could be asking themselves the same question that I'm asking myself, but it doesn't matter about what went bad. All I care about is who did great, and those were examples that I could have done. So, of course, I kick myself in the a*s all the time about it. But but you know what? It it it's not a failure. It is a it is a notation, and and that's it. And you just have to move on with it, and you have to question yourself in every single business you go and say, what can I learn from whatever I lost in the last one? But I I think though this, this feeling of what do they have that I don't is not only hitting you, but is is all across the US. People sitting in their cubicles, wondering, well, why did Steve Jobs do this? Or why did Daymond John do this? Like and I'm here, you know, sketching out my ideas, but not able to sort of take it off the ground. Like, how do you overcome that that feeling that that, oh, lightning struck for these other people, but it and it maybe struck for me once, but it won't again. Yeah. You know, I I don't you know, I do that by by, you know, goal setting is something that I do to, again, keep my eye on the prize, keep my eye on what I need to do next. I, again, I notate the successes of others. I notate the failure of others. Like, you take down actual notes? Like, you'll look at, like, Richard Branson and Sure. I will I I will study Richard Branson. I will study Steve Jobs, but I will also study some of the brands that failed, that did not do as well because they weren't able to turn the corner. And I will look at them, and I will notate them as I move along. There are so many different ways and reasons why you succeed or fail, but, you know, if you're in a cubicle today and you're looking at Daymond John, understand that Daymond John is looking at Richard Branson, and Richard Branson is looking at Bill Gates. You know, if Mark Cuban, you know, if if if if, Bill Gates woke up today with Mark Cuban's money, he would cut his wrist and jump out the window. You know what I mean? So there's always somebody else to look at as inspiration. But no matter what, you just have to learn from it and keep moving forward. You know what I mean? And you can't try to be like somebody else. You can't be a me too. You know what I mean? You have to be just focused on what you're doing and just stay the course. I think there's that awareness that, okay, I'm slipping into that that feeling again. Now I've gotta I've gotta reverse it into learning mode instead of desperation mode or or envy mode. If it's gonna be desperation mode, it has to be desperation mode of there's gotta be a better way. Why wasn't this done? And if if if nobody else is gonna do it, then I'm gonna do it. That's the only desperation mode there should be. It shouldn't be desperation mode like I need to be like you. It needs to be desperation mode of nobody else is doing this thing, then I'm gonna do it. Well well, it seems like, again, you know so you took your your your business expertise, your marketing expertise, your branding expertise, your distribution expertise. Now you're taking your physical resources. Like, you're setting up these office spaces that are gonna be co working spaces. It's blueprint plus co. And now you're able to directly provide space for entrepreneurs plus your community building expertise, I imagine. But are you going up against, like like, WeWork, which is gonna be your main competitor? They just raised, like, $200,000,000. Like Yeah. How do you expect to compete? So so here's what I think about it. Again, I I'm not I don't look at those other brands in regards to how can I be like them, and I think that WeWork has done a phenomenal job? I think that they are the pioneers of the industry. I mean, you know, Regence was doing this for many, many years. Right? But when I looked at this space and building Blueprint and Co, it was, me saying, I'm gonna do the forest bias of entrepreneurship. So I'll give you example. If I come back from Shark Tank, seasoned Shark Tank, and I have 15 brands there, no matter who I am and I have the resources, I have 15 different brands. I have every everything from meat companies to tissues to baby apparel or whatever the case is. And I may need a different type of designer. I may need a different type of consumer packaging company. I may need a different type of distribution or some technical aspect of somebody who knows how to create, memberships and, you know, stuff like that. So I want people in the space who are purely like me. Also, corporations if a corporation right now doesn't have their innovation and or some type of spaces like this where they are putting people at, they're gonna lose. They can't keep doing things the same exact way. So these are the type of individuals I'm bringing in there. We're vetting them. So you have to be doing at least $250,000 in, revenue annually or backed by a VC or angel, type of company, or you have to be a, you know, a fortune 1,000 or whatever type of company doing real business to be in the space. This is not for WeWorker does a great job, but a lot of those are start ups. This is not for somebody who doesn't know what a trademark is and know what a patent is. I see. So this is almost like kind of a a high end WeWork in a weird way. This is for us bias, you know, because I'll give you example. I'm a member of, you know, Soho House. Okay. And and it's a great it's a great community out here, and and a lot of people operate out of Soho House, but I can't send my employees to Soho House because I can't have Fortescue or Soho House because then people will be drinking all damn partying. And by the way, you can't use your phone over there and other people there for social reasons, and they're relaxing. They don't wanna be bothered. Right? So I can't send employees there. I also can send employees to some of the lower, type of, co share space where somebody's sitting there eating a tuna fish sandwich with a dog and their socks are off. I can't they can't have a meeting with other like minded p executives in that type of space. So this is a very, very specific type of space, for other executives like myself who are forward thinking, and they want 2 or 3 or 10 staff members there who they want them to understand what's going on and how other people are moving forward in business. So so related to business, but not quite, because relationships and business are all intertwined. It's very difficult. Like, once you once you're you you you've been so passionate about FUBU, both its ups and its downs. It's obviously obviously affected, for better or for worse, your first major relationship. You recently got engaged again. Yep. Congratulations. Thank you. What do you look given that you're gonna have this passion for the rest of your life about business and work and you're gonna constantly be, you know, doing the things you do, what do you look for in a relationship? Give me relationship advice. Yeah. I wish I could. You know, I think I think you said it accurately, like, business is a relationship. So, you know, the partner that I have is somebody who understands fully me and is very, very clear on who I am, and I'm very clear on on what who they are and we understand our, I hate to say it in a bad way or another, but our deliverables, you know, and our deliverables can mean certain things, you know, no stress or taking the weight off each other's back in this in that way. And things will change over 5, 10, 15, 20 years because people change and their objectives change or their desires change. But it's somebody that I could talk to that that's very, very clear with me. And and, this person's been in my life for the last 10 years, so I didn't just rush into it just like any business that I besides Shark Tank. Okay. 10 years, and you and you have a child with her. We just we just had a newborn. You got engaged. What made you go over the over the edge there? You know, I find that in my relationships, it's always been in in the past. It's always been the person you least likely expect to be the one that ends up being the one, I think, because a lot of time in my relationships, I was like, wow, this girl is amazing. Oh, this girl is gonna be the greatest girl ever. And you have such a high, you set the bar and the standard is so high because of the first time you met him or the second time or whatever the case is, and then I think it goes down after that. And then I think in in, you know, in reality is the ones who come in your life who you're like, you know what? Every time I was sad or or when I wanted to share a share a special moment, I kept calling this person. They became a friend before anything else, and you realize that you have a true bond with this person no matter what. And I think that that that's how, you know, it grew from there, and then you realize that you can't live without this person and you want the best thing ever for this person because it started off with, hey, she's cool. She's great. And then all of a sudden, holy crap. You know, like, I really care for this person. So I, you know, it it it's the same thing in a it's same thing in a business, you know. I closed food down 3 times from 89 to 90 2 because I was like, yeah, I'm selling hats. Ran out of a couple of dollars, and I'm like, yeah, whatever. And then I was like, these people were like, wow. Remember that hat you sold me last year? Can I get another one? Can I get another one? Can I get another one? And you're like, yeah. I can make another one. And then again, I closed it down, and then I saw people again. They were like, what's wrong with you? I need more. And then you're like, yeah. I I could do that. I could do that. And then you're like, wait a minute. I can do this. Like and I think it's the same in a relationship. Like, you you you you go into it after a while, and you just didn't expect it. Before you know it, you have something. I think it's important to kind of again, with business or relationships, now we're we're gonna totally mix the 2. But, to sense that excitement, to try things, but then when you sense that excitement, it's like I'm sure it's like what Mark Zuckerberg thought once people started signing up by the millions for Facebook. Like, it's like, wow. Something is happening outside of me that's beyond my control, and you just have to feed it. Yeah. You know You can't starve it. Yeah. The yeah. There is this there is this realistic standpoint. If you're very humble with yourself and you don't you you you don't think you don't take yourself too seriously, after a while, you start to realize other people are gravitating towards you. You start to go, wait a minute. There's something here. Other people talk no. I I didn't just hear this once. I heard this 10 times. Wait. A 1000 people signed up? Wait a minute. However many people listen to my podcast or watch my video or or or requesting my product or requesting information about it. Why is so wait a minute. There is some there are more people like me than I know. And you start to really dig into it. You know? Gosh. I feel like I wanna make clothes now. Like Don't make clothes. Do you think that business is over? Like, you think it's too hard to No. Not at no. Not at all. Not at all. There's, you know, there's nothing you're gonna create new in this world again. It's just gonna be a new way to get it to people, and there are gonna be brands that are gonna come out and dominate, of course. Absolutely. So what would be, like, again, someone sitting in their cubicle, they don't even know how to begin. What would be the first steps? It it seems like the first step is what were you passionate about when you're a little kid? First of all, yeah. The first is not how to begin because it's like, well, how can I make some money? Well, then work more or go go get a further education or do something else. It's not it's not that. It's how do I begin? You know what? I what do you see yourself doing and what, you know, or what do you see yourself missing out there? What do you see this missing out there? Do you like, man, this needs to be created. Well, why don't you create it? What are you super passionate about? A lot of people feel though then an excuse like, well, okay. You need money for that or I don't have any money for that. You know, and that's the whole theory of the power of broke. You don't need money for, you know okay. Yeah. You wanna be a doctor, you probably should go to school if you're gonna do a heart surgery on somebody. Right? But other than that, you know, tell me think of something they somebody needs to do that they said they need money for. What do you think? Well, you know, a great story is Richard Branson starting Virgin Air. He just put up a sign. He he got a deal to get a a a plane from one island to another. Yeah. He couldn't pay for it. Uh-huh. So he put up a sign, who wants to buy a ticket? Exactly. He sold tickets before he had them. Exactly. So and and that's the airline. Yeah. Right? Think about that. That was his whole multibillion dollar airline. Exactly. And and Mark Zuckerberg started off with one friend. Right? And he and he got a couple of, you know, he got a 1,000,000,000 of them now. Right? I I'm just trying to think of it something that you need money for unless it's a career or a a skill. And even that, you can, you know, you can you can start going to school for. I just have I would have to think about something you need money for. Even, like, let's take Blueprint Plus Co. Yeah. You just really needed some extra space in your I needed extra space in there, and and and I and and yeah. Do I have money? Absolutely, I have money. But did I throw money at this? No. Not at all. I, I had some space in there, and I I needed space. And then a lot of my friends I called a lot of my friends like Lisa Mattress or Burst Visuals or VeriDesk, and I said, guys, I'm creating something like, you know, just just a place where all like minded people like myself can go, and we can use best practices and talk to each other about this. And instead of me having 10,000 meetings, just everybody's in the same place or walking by each other going, hey. You need to distribute over there? Wait a minute. Let's go over to this desk over there, and and I people just started coming. That's great. Well, one last question, which is, do you breakdance every day still? Because I'll tell you what. I do it for exercise. You do? Yeah. I do not. No. No. No. I do it once in a blue moon. I usually do it when, I'm out with my daughters and their friends are there so that I can embarrass them. I usually throw my back out doing it. But, but, no, but I but I I I do that then, and, no. And that's it. Alright. Well, I'll tell you, it's good for exercise. It's good for staying in shape. I don't like the gym. It it is, and that's why I'm not in shape. But, but, yeah. So thank you for thank you for the interview. Thank you for thank you for having me. Thank you for asking me questions that other people haven't asked me. Thank god. Don't you know what? I'm glad you didn't ask me. What's the best investment you had on Shark Tank? What's the pitch you remember? Thank you. I really appreciate it. Well, you know, I think it's really important, like, you probably get tired of answering the same questions. So I listen to the other interviews and make sure I'm not gonna answer ask the same questions. Well, thank you. Thank you. And then everybody who, you know, other our like minded friends out there, you know, come check out, Blueprint and Co. What's the website? That is, Blueprint and Co, a n d, co. And, and then, yeah, you know, people people some of our friends out in LA who need a office in New York or a desk in New York, come check us out, and then I hope to have you there so I can I'm gonna be doing a lot of interviews. I'm interviewing Gary Vaynerchuk. I'm gonna interview the sharks. I'm gonna give you, you know, some of the producers of Shark Tank over at the space, and, hopefully, I can get you over there to ask you some questions. That's excellent. Well, I'm gonna rent space there. Well, you're more than welcome, brother. Thanks, David. Thank you. For more from James, check out the James Altiger Show on the choose yourself network at jamesaltiger.com, and get yourself on the free insiders list today. Hey. Thanks for listening. Listen. I have a big favor to ask you, and it will only take 30 seconds or less, and it would mean a huge amount to me. If you like this podcast, please let me know. Please let the team I work with know. 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