Advice Line with Daymond John of FUBU

**Guy Raz** (0:01)
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Hello and welcome to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298.
Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me today is Daymond John. He's a longtime judge on Shark Tank, of course, a speaker and an author and the legendary founder of the streetwear clothing brand FUBU. Daymond, it's great to have you back on the show. Welcome back.

**Daymond John** (3:22)
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

**Guy Raz** (3:24)
When we first had you on, this was back in 2018 You, of course, told the incredible story of how you were working a red lobster in your 20s and trying to start your own business, and this was in the early 90s, and how you came up with the idea of creating a clothing brand, the brand that, of course, would become For Us, or FUBU for short, that brand became a huge hit, and the story of how it happened is just incredible. As always, for anyone listening who has not heard Daymond's episode of How I Built This, you should absolutely listen to it. We will put a link to it in the show notes. Daymond, over the years, you've worn tons of different hats, but I'm curious, as a Shark Tank judge, you've seen hundreds of pitches by early stage founders.
What tends to grab your attention in a pitch? What are you personally looking for in a founder or in their brand or company to make a decision on whether to invest?

**Daymond John** (4:19)
Well, I always say that nobody has the right to judge you, but God, we're only judging what is working for us. So I'm listening to the story and seeing if it's a play for me. Will I add value? Can I either reduce costs or increase sales by what I'm doing? If not, my money is just as good as anybody else's money. But now when I get out to the founder, did they create this because they had a pain or they were trying to bring a customer joy? What is the backstory to the failures that they've had and how they still decided to overcome that failure because they knew that the solution or the pain they were solving with somebody else was something bigger and better?