Why brand guru Daymond John’s work is never done By Pamela Babcock
Brand guru and FUBU founder Daymond John looked up to iconic brands at a young age. To keep her son from getting in trouble as a kid growing up in a working-class area of Hollis in Queens, NY, John’s mother had rules about when he had to get home at night.
In the summer, his curfew was before the exterior lights went on outside one of New York City’s most iconic buildings — the Empire State Building.
In winter, when dusk came earlier, he was supposed to be home before the booming 7:45 p.m. supersonic Concorde — which carried the rich who could afford its exorbitant fare — would shake the homes in Queens as it arrived in New York from Europe.
“You have to be faster than the Concorde to get home,” John’s mother, who raised him as a single parent after his father left when he was 10, told him.
John never flew on the Concorde, which was retired in 2003. But years later, his career has taken off and, perhaps not surprisingly, his offices now span the entire 66th floor of the 102-story Empire State Building, where he has landed on his trip from fashion entrepreneur to brand guru.
“I’m halfway to the top,” John, 45, says in his office, his signature style on display in a brown, chalk-stripe bespoke suit from J. Lucas Clothiers, a plaid Tom Ford bow tie and trademark, seemingly saucer-sized, diamond earrings.
Some might argue John is already near the top. Over the last two decades, this multimillionaire and star on the hit television show Shark Tank has evolved from a successful fashion icon who launched a brand that filled an untapped need in the urban clothing market to a celebrity, sought-after branding expert, and business and motivational speaker.
His ascent, complete with plenty of challenges, provides a lesson in qualities that make a successful entrepreneur and illustrates how a brilliant brand strategy can bring unprecedented growth.
Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s Mad Money, has featured John as a guest several times, and says he counts on his business acumen and winning picks to deliver results.
“His judgment about brands and branding is the best, bar none, that I have ever seen,” Cramer says, adding that John told him BlackBerry “had no game” when the stock was in the $70 range and first
isolated that Samsung equipped with Android could catch and pass Apple.
"HE’S MADE MORE MONEY FOR MAD MONEY VIEWERS THAN JUST ABOUT ANY GUEST I HAVE HAD IN MORE THAN 2,000 SHOWS."
JIM CRAMER, HOST OF CNBC’S MAD MONEY”
Looking to the future
John isn’t kicking back anytime soon. He has recently gotten into fitness products. Last year, he and his apparel partners purchased Etonic, an athletic footwear line, and invested in several CrossFit gyms.
Working with a group of high-net-worth investors, he plans soon to launch Shark Associates, a real estate investment venture designed to “revitalize a lot of cities and do a lot of things for entrepreneurs. A couple billion dollars is set aside to start doing some major things for people and entrepreneurs and businesses,” John says.
Andrew Cohn, a Phoenix-based real estate investor working on the project, said the goal is to capitalize on everything from fast food restaurants to hotels and grocery-anchored shopping centers that will pay dividends for years to come.
Cohn says what surprised him most was John’s modesty, openness and ability to grasp “the real fundamentals” of commercial real estate and strip down to the basics quickly.
“The fact that he had no ego was just amazing to me,” Cohn says. “He’s a very down-to-earth guy that obviously worked his way up through the trenches and is appreciative.” John speaks openly about mistakes he’s made, particularly when he first started making money and bought a lot of showy homes instead of “things that were throwing off income,” he says.
“Most entrepreneurs don’t even think they’re set up for failure and their failures are swept under the rug, but he wears his proudly and discusses his baggage without prompting and absent any ego getting in the way,” Cohn says.
John says goal setting has been one key to his success. On his BlackBerry (yes, he still uses one despite his low confidence in its stock), he has six to eight “very aggressive” six-month goals that cover everything from health to family to career. He reads them five days a week: “every morning when I wake up and every night before I go to sleep so it’s the last thing I’m thinking about,” he says.
Want a strong brand? Be prepared to sum it up in two to five words. John says over the past several years, his personal brand has been: “I’m on a quest.”
“It has become a brand of trying to learn and educate myself in various ways — educating myself about what’s going on in the world with technology and all these new developments, educating myself on how I want to be perceived when I leave the planet.