FUBU: Daymond John (2018)

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2019

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Daymond John grew up during the 1980s in the heart of hip hop culture: Hollis, Queens. In his early 20s, he was working at Red Lobster and trying to figure out how to start a business. Eventually, he stumbled on the idea of making clothes for fans of rap music. In 1992, he started FUBU (For Us By Us) and began selling hats outside of a local mall. Three years later, FUBU was bringing in $350 million in sales. Today, he's a judge on Shark Tank, and a motivational speaker and author. PLUS in our post-script "How You Built That," we check back with Loren and Lisa Poncia who turned a 100 year-old family business into an organic beef supplier: Stemple Creek Ranch. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	New years is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.
0:13.0	As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.
0:17.0	So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.
0:24.0	Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
0:27.0	Hey, everyone. So before we start the show, I just want to let you know that we are very, very close to selling out our live show in Denver, Colorado.
0:36.0	It's happening November 13th at the Paramount Theater, and I'll be interviewing Kurt Richardson, creator of the Otterbox Phone Cases.
0:43.0	This show is supported by American Express. It's our last live show of the year. So please come see us in Denver on November 13th.
0:51.0	If you want to get tickets, go to nprpresents.org, and I hope to see you there.
0:59.0	So Damon John's story starts with $40 worth of fabric and a four-letter word.
1:06.0	Fubu, for us, bias. He wanted to make hats and jerseys and jackets for hip-hop artists and their fans.
1:14.0	And even as his brand began to explode, Damon held onto his day job as a waiter at Red Lobster.
1:21.0	And if you haven't heard this episode, or even if you have, it is one of the funniest and most inspiring episodes of High Built This.
1:28.0	At first ran back in April of last year, take a listen.
1:35.0	You come back to New York with $300,000 worth of orders. How are you going to finance that?
1:41.0	That was a big question right there. I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't have any financial education.
1:46.0	I didn't even have an accountant at the time. So I went to all the banks I could and I got turned down by 27 of them.
1:54.0	27 banks.
1:56.0	Yeah, it was so bad loan sharks were turning me down.
2:00.0	From NPR, it's how I built this. A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind the movements they built.
2:15.0	I'm Guy Ross and on today's show, How Damon John went from waiting tables at Red Lobster to building Fubu, one of the biggest hip-hop clothing brands ever created.
	...

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