Shark Tank and FUBU’s Daymond John — How to partner like a shark
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2023
⏱️ 40 minutes
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Summary
How do you create authentic partnerships to build scale? Daymond John, founder of FUBU and one of the original “sharks” on ABC’s Shark Tank, shares lessons from FUBU’s earliest days in Queens, where he partnered with bouncers, bodegas, his neighbor LL Cool J, and his earliest collaborator and investor (his mom) to turn a great idea into a billion-dollar urbanwear brand.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now, |
| 0:07.8 | with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed. |
| 0:17.0 | We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time. |
| 0:24.8 | So search for rapid response in your podcast player |
| 0:28.0 | and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes. |
| 0:31.2 | I'll see you on the other side. |
| 0:34.8 | I was fortunate enough to grow up in Hollis Queens where they believe something's in the |
| 0:39.2 | water because there's got to be 30 hip-hop artists to come out of that area. |
| 0:44.0 | And L. L. Kool did in the neighborhood. |
| 0:47.0 | That's Damon John. |
| 0:52.0 | He's the founder of Fubu and one of the original sharks on ABC Shark Tank. |
| 0:57.0 | But in 1994, he was a man from Queens trying to find L.L. Kooljay. |
| 1:05.0 | In the early 90s, Fuba was a scrappy streetwear brand, |
| 1:09.0 | selling mostly hats and t-shirts. |
| 1:11.0 | They had a small but loyal following in the hip-hop community. |
| 1:14.6 | Damon just needed the right high-powered celebrity endorsement. |
| 1:19.4 | James Todd Smith, better known as L. L. L. Kooljay, fit the bill. |
| 1:25.0 | I remember going over to his house. And he was leaving, he's moving to LA, because he's going to go shoot a show called |
| 1:39.4 | in the house. I didn't know him that well. Well, I waited out there with my partners for about four or five hours. |
| 1:50.0 | Damon and his partners didn't have a pitch deck or a lengthy endorsement contract to sign. |
| 1:55.0 | They had a T-shirt and they wanted L.L. to put it on. |
| 2:00.0 | He came outside and I asked him that he wear the shirt and he said he couldn't because he was going on to a show and he had sponsorship opportunities from Nike and Adidas and all these people and if he wore my shirt, he's going to have to turn |
... |
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