#82 My Billion Dollar Shark Tank Investment: Daymond John

25:55They started saying, hey, Gillette, you want to put your new razor in all the boxes? You give me a million dollars. So there's different ways to have these subscription slash tiered models. So I know in our businesses, so right now we own a bunch of boring businesses. A bunch of what? Boring businesses like an HVAC, roofing, painting, window cleaning. And I know, for instance, in the painting business, we want to like get a toe in. by you saying we'll paint some walls inside of the house. But what we really want to do is like paint the exterior of your house. We want to paint the whole thing. That's where we really make the money or the big projects.

26:32And then we get like one house on a block. And if we get one house on the block, we know we do a door knocking strategy. So like we'll at least get one to two others on that block. So we're like maybe even lose money on the first house to get on the second or third. I was curious in clothing, like what items sell and they just make the most money? Oh, you're talking about the bread butter, the margin builders, as we call it. Clothing makes almost zero money off of anything else besides jeans and T-shirts. Why? Well, because jeans and T-shirts are easy to make and people go through the T-shirts and stuff like that.

27:09I mean, Louis Vuitton, if you look at Louis Vuitton, I mean, when people leave, what do they really leave? What, a belt, a wallet, or some kind of key chain, right? Those are margin builders as we call them in the business. In the business for the most part, almost 60 % of all sales in clothing is black. 20 % is white. The rest is just sprinkled in between. Interesting. This is a very dumb question, but I always wonder why. So if you go to like Chanel or Louis or whatever, you can buy a pair of shoes for like, I don't know,$600 to$800. But then if you want to buy a shirt, like at Chanel, it's like$4 ,000.

27:47Why are they that much harder to make? The shoes seem like they would be more expensive to make. Well, it depends on what they're making in the Chanel shirt, right? What product they're making. It could be cashmere. It could be a lot of other stuff. But the margin builder is going to be the simple black dress, right? But the shoe itself is once you make the shoe in the mold, you can replicate that mold various different ways. A shoe is actually hard to build. It's almost like building a car because what happens is in the shirt and stuff like that, it fits, it doesn't fit. But on a shoe, there's 130 pounds on that shoe.

28:25And the ER every single night in every single city is there with a woman who split her toes or her broke her ankles due to those shoes. So there's a lot of balance, a lot of stuff going. But once you replicate that mold, you're going to put that same mold together with a different upper, different ways. Yeah, interesting. and I never thought about that. It's always bothered me. I'm like, how come I could buy that for 600 bucks and that's 5 ,000? Yeah, because that 5 ,000 one, they're only making 20 ,000 or they're making 5 ,000 units of that or 2 ,000 units globally, Chanel. And that shoe, they're making 40 ,000, 50 ,000 units.

29:03So they're buying by bulk. You're right. Okay, that explains it. I want to talk obviously a little bit about Shark Tank. You've seen a ton of pitches And I've had friends actually pitch you. I've had friends get money. Ooh, I don't know if I've had friends get money from you, but I've definitely had friends pitch you and pitch all the sharks. If you had to break it down formulaically, what are you like, this is a pitch that works and this is one that doesn't? What is a good way to pitch to get money? The pitch that doesn't work for sure is the people that immediately come in and they just – everything is hypothetical and they assume.

29:41They don't have a history of things and they go, the number one thing that you can say that I immediately check out or I give you some kind of royalty offer like a Kevin O 'Leary. I go, this person's almost out of business is this is a 50 million billion dollar market. and if I only get 1%. I guarantee you every one of the charts are almost out or Kevin O 'Leary will give you a finance offer because he doesn't care if you do well or not. He just wants his money back and he's taking a flyer and if he gets a percentage of the company down the road. The greatest pitches that I have seen, they're always a story.

30:22They're always very infomercial feeling because what they're doing is they're introducing that a problem either exists that you know or exists that you don't know. They're talking about why who they are and why they're qualifying that they're the person to solve the problem. They're giving you some kind of proof of concept and essence on why. So it's like, hey, hey, Cody, I'm Damon John. And you know what? For years, the hip hop community has had to buy their clothing from other designers that didn't care about them that said, give me your money. I don't like you. But I've been a fan of hip-hop for 10, 20 years, and I know everything about hip-hop.

30:58And I'm going to create a clothing line called FUBU. There's no such thing called the internet, but if you're across the street and you see me, you know what I'm into because I'm FUBU. I am going to connect people through a community. And people in the past have had to, if they want to buy African-American type of clothing, they had to do kinte cloth clothing. Who wants to wear orange and green and red? I'm going to create blue jeans like a blue jean. This is the cowboy, the Levi's of cowboys. We are the Levi's of the urban kid. And it's going to be about 20 % more, but it's going to be quality in it.

31:31And if you invest right now, I got super solid LL Couger ready to wear it. Amen. So you're qualifying yourself, you know, and telling the story. Yeah. Now, what about, you know, on Shark Tank? Obviously, it's a TV production. How much of it is actually like produced? Are there takes and they get to go again? And like, is there a fake component of it? No. There's only one component of it that in case I'm talking and I'm saying I'm out and Barbara's just doing her normal rambling because she didn't take her medicine and the mics don't pick it up. We do a day where nobody's there and we say, and for that reason, I'm out.

32:14So you catch the audio of the actual clean I'm out. But there is nothing previous. Just remember, this is our own money. And ABC and Mark Burnett and them, they don't want to get in the way of us spending, losing, or profiting off of money. So an average pitch is one hour long, half an hour to an hour long, 16 cameras shooting it. So an hour pitch is 16 hours of footage for you to see eight minutes. It takes us six to nine months to close the deals. We close about 60 % of the deals. The guy who's with me in the room today pitched on Shark Tank 13 years ago, some little company called Hanukkah Tree Topper.

32:51We ended up licensing a lot of the company out and doing well with it and been head of my sales for 13 years after that. So it's real, real people, real businesses. Fascinating. What percentage of deals like actually made you money? Made what? Made you money. I don't even count what's made me money because if you really think about it, And Barbara's really good with her P &L. When you look at my staff, when you look at me traveling, when you look at the hours and time in it, I don't look at them. But, you know, I'm positive because of certain exits and shares that we've sold. I am positive. But, you know, it's almost like the venture community.

33:32You know, I think two out of ten is winners. I think we have three out of ten because we have a baked in commercial. Yeah, 100%. I mean, you have the hardest part, which is distribution. Yeah. The hardest part wasn't creating t-shirts. Those existed before. It was getting somebody to actually say yes and give you the cash. Correct. And so, I mean, we see this all day. You know, I have this brilliant AI strategy and we're going to change the world. And I go, awesome. Who have you sold it to? And they go, well, nobody. But the second I get the money, what's going to happen is I'm going to sell it.

34:01And you guys get to sell immediately. I mean, I had a few friends that came on Shark Tank and I'm sure you guys saw that. Did you see a lot of people come on Shark Tank that were like actually didn't want your money? They just wanted your distribution. so they gave you crazy fake offers they wanted them the the the commercial yeah yeah sure plenty of people there was a certain time when a lot of people did that so what i do uh is pretty simple after we do the deal you know um in a handshake i walk over to them and i send i give them a piece of paper very short one and say take it to your attorney and it says on there something like you know, you're not going to publicly shop this deal for another year after you air.

34:42Totally up to them to sign. But if I see them hesitating, I know that they're looking for a commercial. I don't mind you looking for a commercial. I get it. However, the serious, there's a serious matter. The show was founded in 07, 08, when we went through a very hard time in this country. You're only going to have about 96 people that air. A thousand people will see the producers and 40 ,000 people applied. If you have$2 million in the bank and you have your hat in your hand asking for money and you have no, no, you don't plan on closing a shark, you took that slot away from a family who risked everything, who their kids are not going to college.

35:22They're about to lose their house and they want a shark to desperately help them. And I think you're a selfish bastard for that. I think there's a lot of other places to pitch those ideas and nothing wrong with founders who have money. But that show is for the American public. And people don't understand you got a million dollars in the bank, not today, when people can't pay their mortgages. So that's why I do it. So I have a problem with people who try to abuse the platform. Yeah. I never thought about it that way actually. I think a lot of people think about Shark Tank not from that sort of like that deep heartfelt portion of it.

35:57It's just like cool company. Give them cash. No, we love these people. These people are our partners. These people are people who are allowing us to invest in their dream. They're holding a space, and there's a fiduciary duty of investing in another person's dream. I agree with that. You know, let's go to the other side of that, which is I've certainly lost a lot of money doing deals. and uh and i like up to now knock on wood i don't know if i'll always be able to do that but i have never lost money for other people which is always like kind of the line that freaks me out you know and that's probably a bad thing in some ways i should probably get more comfortable with losing no i can't sleep at night if i lose some money and i lost money for probably about two guys yeah and i still till today i want to do it the right way if i have another business that they can get in where they're going to make their money back i'm going to make sure they're first up Yeah, yeah.

36:52The place where I regret investing the most was I invested some in the cannabis industry early on. And it's not that I regret cannabis itself. I think I regret the way that it's happened. And now I think the THC levels are like too high. And I think the way we're doing it could actually be bad for people's health, but I'm not a doctor. but I invested in the industry that really needed regulation to happen. And if deregulation didn't happen, it wasn't going to really change. And so I remember like one deal, we almost lost 12 million and then it got down to one, you know, and we did a workout of the deal.

37:26But that was fucking awful, you know, terrible six-month period. But thank God we only lost a million bucks. It sounds like a lot. I was wondering, what do you think is the most amount of money you've ever lost on a deal? Probably about six million. And did that hurt? Like, do you remember what happened? I'm about to try. Yes, it hurts. It hurts a lot. I don't want to actually remember it. Yes, it hurts. Losing that kind of money hurts. It hurts the wallet, but it hurts knowing that you put people to work, knowing that you didn't make maybe the right decisions. You could have done better. It's your job.

38:05What did I do wrong? Why didn't I see it? Did I let my ego get in the way? that I picked the wrong people. Man, how are these people going to look at me now? They trusted me. I don't know what they were going to do with that money. Yeah, they may be wealthy, but it doesn't matter. That's not my problem. I can't count their money. I think most entrepreneurs have something like that, like a moment where you kind of stood in the dark alone, maybe didn't tell your wife, didn't tell your kids. Everything was kind of going sideways. I've certainly had them. My dad calls it the head in the hands moment.

38:38The what? The head in the hands moment. Yeah. And I was curious, have you had one of those? Plenty of times I've had that. I have it now. I have it now. I was speaking someplace and they said to me, what are your hobbies? I said, oh, you know, snowboarding, going to UFC fights and fishing. And I said, wait a minute. I really haven't done none of that in the last year. They said, why? I said, because my head is in my hand. Why is your head in your hand, Damon? Because AI is going to turn this country into a civil war because when the have-nots don't have anything, they're coming after us. So what am I doing right now with this AI that's clear, that's going to put me, my company, and my people in the right place to be that small percentage that's going to be able to thrive?

39:31Because if I don't think and see where that puck is going right now, we're all in trouble in my company and in every company we're all in trouble and then i started thinking about it wait a minute what is ai gonna lose and not have never gonna have community people gonna need to piss shit and eat people gonna need medicine if we are going into some kind of war or problem because 80 of the people are going to be replaced by autonomous vehicles who are truck drivers, retail is gone. And then all of a sudden you got Amazon just bought 750 ,000 robots. So nothing there. If all those people are going to need to feed their families and they're going to come after some of us, well, then I should invest in security companies and various other ways to make the place a safer place.

40:26So my mind is right there. Where is it going? Interesting. So what is your answer to that? What industries are you investing in today and what are you telling your employees to do? Well, I think that if robots are going to be$30 ,000 a piece from, what do you call it, Tesla in two years, they're going to be$5 ,000 in five years. If people are moving further out and they don't have enough income, well, then you can create better glamping in various areas. Imagine having 20 robots on 400 acres of land just cleaning and doing everything it needs to be so that you can create better communities for people.

41:07If biohacking and health is coming around, imagine if you're getting people cleaner ways to take care of their body and their health, it doesn't cost a lot because technology is showing people how to improve their lifespan. You know, if you don't know if you're talking on a screen to a robot or whatever the case is, community is going to be bigger and better. So how do you create better communities so they can educate and they can protect themselves? So we have to find the beautiful things that work in AI. Do I think we're going to be going to be good? Yes, I think we're going to be great. But you have to be the one thinking about it now.

41:43You don't want to be the person who's working at the library saying, why are you looking at Google? Come over here and look through an encyclopedia. You want to be that person looking at Google saying, how are we using it the best? I like your idea. I love buying boring businesses because as fast as AI is, it's not going to change the entire world. Like my buddy, Matt Lieber, who teaches trade, Crash Champions. You know, you can go to college now, and let's say you're a doctor. A doctor used to have the need 20 years of education and look at a scan. AI will look at your scan quicker than a doctor ever will.

42:22Do you really need that now? Trust me, do me a favor. If you're going to cut open people, go to college. But a kid graduating college today is going to barely make$70 ,000,$80 ,000. A kid who does a trade like in my buddy Crash Champions or HVAC or these things that people don't want to do anymore, They're making$70 ,000 coming out of high school. They're not borrowing$500 ,000 to$700 ,000 worth of student debt that they're not going to pay off until their 50s. And they can take college courses at the same time as being an HVAC person or owning a car wash. I think the world is getting really simple, and you've got to go back to the basics and then add AI to it.

42:59Yeah, that's smart. Well, it kind of goes back to your book, which I loved, The Power of Broke, about AI is not going to hustle for you like a human. Like the creative will become so much more important because the everyday will be way too easy. Like it will be too easy to mass spam, mass email people. So you're going to have to fit like it actually might full circle revert back to the door knocking, back to the neighborhood. It is. That's the point. You know, Rick Rubin said something the other day was fascinating to me. He said, you know, AI couldn't have told the Wright brothers to dream. Oof, what a line.

43:33Right? The thing that makes us imperfect makes us perfect. The ability to say, I'm going to knock on all these doors, and I'm going to tell them something the computer can tell them, but not with the emotion, because I'm a pack animal. I'm going to look them in the eye and say, see the house down the block? We painted. Look how beautiful that house is. Yeah, you can get painted from any place else. I'm going to bust my ass and make sure this fucking house is perfect. One of my favorite lines from Damon is the easiest thing to sell is the truth. And if you listen to Damon talk, you'll hear him say again and again and again, that the most important part of building a business is to do it your way with your unique angle.

44:17And there's an angle every single time. We obsess about this in the SMB boardroom, where we teach people what we call finding your avatar, which is finding the angle on your customer. Most people do not spend enough time thinking about brand, customer, avatar, and angle. So we obsess on it for you. For one year, we work together with the best entrepreneurs who are focused on growth sustainably and want to use our operating system in order to do it. If you are running a business that is on a path to do hundreds of thousands of dollars a year or millions of dollars a year, you're going to want to check out the boardroom and see if you're a fit.

44:55We will help you find your angle and your avatar. I'd love your take on brand because I think that's one of your zones of genius, obviously. But we have this window washing company called Pink's. Yeah, it's super cute. I should have brought a hat for you. But anyway, it's these two young dudes and good looking guys, dress real sharp in uniforms, kind of like throwback 50s era uniforms, cursive, like hand stitched, little pink towels they throw over their shoulders. They're good looking dudes, all of them. Now there are a hundred locations all over the country. But when it started, it was just two guys in Austin and they do these, what do they call it?

45:38Comp cleans where they go to local businesses like prominent institutions in Austin and they clean them and make them look nice for free. And their whole thing is like bringing dignity back to window washing, like bringing dignity back. So when they go and pitch, you know the commercial building uh sure there's some big huge company that they're pitching against it's probably cheaper it's probably has better systems but these two guys show up and they look the guy in the eye and they say we not only do i want to do your first one for free but like it's me and my buddy here we started this company and we're going to be out front with like our cool design thing and we want to put you on instagram and they win and so i do think this brand is going to be so important in an era when like a lot of execution's cheaper you're a 100 % on because you got to remember, and I'm a very simple guy.

46:28There's nothing new in this world. I always say it. The voice is not new. It's just American Idol. They just turn the chairs. And American Idol is Showtime of the Apollo, and Showtime of the Apollo is the gong show. It's not new. Young kid in college stood up and said, Mr. John, I'll tell you what's new your old generation doesn't have. Emojis are new. No, they're not. They will call hieroglyphics, you moron. Go sit down. Now, there's nothing new in this world. It's a new way to present it. the top companies in Shark Tank history, socks and a sponge.

47:24slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make Make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. Damn scrub daddy.

47:58Lori ate my lunch on it. That was a great fucking company. And every time I go to the grocery store, I see that damn sponge smiling at me. $1.3 billion worth of sponges. She's slinging plastic like Happy Meals. She's killing our oceans. But you know my buddy Ryan Dice out of Austin? You know Ryan? I do. Not like personally, but I know him. He says, listen, let me show you. You know how you can market? He said he remembered marketing and rolling. He remembered marketing a lawnmower company. He says, I remember I got a brand new lawnmower. I'm going to do it. He said, and I remember I got out there and I got that thing ready and I forgot I needed gas.

48:37And I went to the gas station. He says, I live in Austin. I left. I was 180 pounds. I got back. I was 160 pounds. I'm sweating. The day's gone. I got grass and bugs flying all over me. He says, so I hired a lawnmower company. They came over, and it was Saturday after a hard week of work. I hit this damn lawnmower. I was like, nah, these guys are running around the yard. My wife's naked trying to get dressed. And she's like, who the hell's in the yard? He said, but another company came back and said, you know what? We mow lawns during these hours when you're at work. You tell us when because we want to give you your Saturdays and your Sundays back.

49:11Come on, Lion. You tell us when you're at work, we'll tell you when we're going to be there. and we will be there. Everything has an angle. There's nothing new in this world. So whether it is we're bringing the dignity back. Some people want to feel good. Come to our business. Everything. You see the people cleaning the windows? We're perfectionists in everything we do, from who we hire to who we work with, how these windows are going to look. Great idea. And that's what you sell people. They separate people. People think everything's new. You know what's the most powerful thing you could do now?

49:45billboards. You can't swipe a billboard when you're on a highway. Oh, retail is dead. Yeah, open a retail in an airport. They can't get Amazon in there. It's a high traffic place. And it's a person who knows how to pay a lot of money because they're not taking a train or a car, and they're paying 30 % more. You know, it's so true, because I think what you've had 10 ,000 reps 10 ,000 times from all of these companies that you've not only run, but invested in. And so one One of the cool things I think you're doing now that I don't hear you talk about as much is the CEO access program and how you're kind of like sharing these pieces back to the next generation, not keeping it all to yourself.

50:24Can you talk a little bit about that? CEO access is me. It's a network of people like Cody, right? It's yesterday's CEO used to be making and they will come. Today's CEO is a person that they need to know who their brand is. the most successful CEOs I know, they're doing millions and billions of dollars, but nobody knows who they are. But yet the kid in the mailroom gets pissed off over a decision you make and put something on social media. And now you got to fire 400 hardworking people in your company because you didn't have the time to go get a spin doctor, handle PR because nobody knows who you are.

51:02You know, everybody is a brand today. You remember, like we were talking about, information is easy to get. The new currency of today is attention. And so there's a million real estate brokers. There's only one Barbara Corcoran. There's a million, well, not a million, but there's a lot of basketball owners, only one Mark Cuban. And by the way, I'm not even a great designer. I got to tell you, Tom Ford and Carl Legafell are rolling over saying, how dare he call himself a designer? You put an 05 and a Fubu on a bunch of sweatshirts. That's it. But I'm on Shark Tank, and the world knows who I am.

51:33And I've advised every single living president till today, They haven't asked me for money. I can walk into any room and they know who I am and my name. I can open any company I want to and I can walk into any room I want to because my name goes in the room before I do. There's a million real estate developers, but the most powerful man in this world today knew how to brand himself. It's not only real estate, and I'm not getting into politics. He's the president of the country. So when you look at CEOs, they don't know who to talk to because they're running big companies. But once they were doing 5 million, they could talk to these people here.

52:09Great. 50 million of these people here. Once they start to get to 200 million, who are they going to talk to? Mark Cuban is not picking up the phone. And this person, even though they're doing great, can't help them. So that's what it is because when I go on to a show like with Cody, I go, hey, Cody, I got two or three great. I can't be on the show tomorrow. The episode is all going to be about me. Hey, you're looking for people like Matt Ebert of Crash Champions, my buddy who's doing several billion changing the way hearing is being done. You would say, I'm interested. When I take a stage like Aspire, I can't take number slide at 1 o 'clock and 4 o 'clock.

52:49When I go on the cover of Ink, I start bringing these people through. When I walk ringside at a UFC fight and I say to somebody, you don't know this person? I go to Vanity Fair and I introduce my buddy Brandon to Tim Cook. That's what CEO Access is. Walking CEOs in the room and walking them in the right CEOs for the right reason. People who don't want to be famous, they want to be respected for the right reason as a voice of authority in their space. But you can go to CEOAccess.com. I don't even know it half the time. It's just we qualify people. we'll drop it in the show notes yeah so go click the link i do appreciate it i love that why did you do that why not just keep it all for yourself because first of all i can't use it all myself second of all it really happened because one of my buddies who was a ceo of very successful company said why don't you help me and i said i'm the people shark i'm helping the people he's like i know you're helping the people but i know this man and i know this person is some of the one of the purest people on the planet and i and he said i understand you helping everyday entrepreneurs i think you should but if you help me you got more people like me thinking like you and i'm gonna help millions of people and i said holy shit i'm becoming the thing i was fighting against and i decided to help him and he decided to help so many more people so if i can build an army of a couple people like that um you know it's just it's just great see it's why you help people That's why we help people.

54:27You know, the people in our industry who they come, they go, they show jets, they show cars, they try to sell you this thing. Nothing against them. But the people who are lasting a long time, they get on, they keep talking. They put out more and more books. They help more. They just want to help because we've been rewarded for the people who helped us. Yeah. I mean, one, it's fun. There's like, I don't know that there's a better, it is selfish in some ways. Very selfish. because you learn how other people are doing things that you didn't even think about. Totally. And then when you actually say like, oh, I mean, how about this?

55:00How many people do you think DM you and email you per day asking for advice? DM and email me per day? I would say 100. And then of those, how many, if you gave them the advice they asked for, would actually take action on them? None. One. Yeah, one maybe. But when they do. Yeah, but when they do, it's incredible. And so I think the other part that's really cool is when you find – best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, right? So like when you find somebody who's just done the right thing, keeps moving, takes action, and then they take your – you know they're going to take your advice.

55:34Doesn't it feel good when somebody – and you go, you know what? Your book or what you said that day, I've been doing it and I have this type of business. You go, really? Yeah. And then you feel like, you know what? Honestly, that information was out there. You were going to do it regardless. But thank God you got it for me. Yeah, it's a service. Because in the community, there is people who obviously we don't know and we're training, but then it is me calling my fellow sharks because that's what we do. We say, hey, where are you doing the interview at? One of my COX's people, we've been trying to get their due.

56:11Nelly, of course, but, oh, she's an apprentice. Katrina Camp. And so we always say, I told Katrina, I said, Katrina, here's what we're going to do in the COX's crew. We're all going to get LaBern and Shirley Jackson. because we're going to have a secret, a secret, you know, a secret handshake. She like it? Was she in for that? You're like, I'm cool with the jacket. Handshake. No, not so much. All right. Let's talk. I want to go high and then I want to go low. So when you, let's talk about holding company structure really quickly. I think people think it's really sexy to own a bunch of businesses and invest in them.

56:46And then they probably don't realize a lot of the difficulties. Like, I mean, how much do you think you pay people just to oversee your companies that you have interests in? Really good question. So I first did a lot of the deals, Shark Tank and off Shark Tank. I did a lot of the deals where I had an attorney look through them and this and that. And for the first year in Shark Tank, and the sharks are learning too. And that's like you said, like being a little selfish. The first year in the deal, the deal flow wasn't that good. The show was new. Nobody can understand. I spent about$750 ,000 in attorney fees alone just to look at the deal.

57:20Now I put it through a VC software. It cost me$10 ,000 to do everything. But brand managers looking over it, I could be at a quarter million dollars just looking at brand managers. We're not talking about CFOs. We're not talking about other things like that. Also, you know, I look at a lot of the deals I do. I do options on the deals because, you know, I'm not trying to fill out all this corporate filing and stuff like that. And especially if you're late on your K-1s and I'm late and all kinds of stuff like that. So I try to do if we hit certain numbers, then I can activate my options and my shares in a certain period of time.

57:56Yeah, I love that. Then you basically don't have to deal with the tax consequences of it. And then you know what? In three years, if it doesn't work out, well, the IRS says you're allowed to write that off. Yeah. And then also, you know, the company can keep your equity. Hey, it didn't work out the way I wanted it to, so I'm not being selfish. Yeah. So what did I do? You know what? I went out and I was a spokesperson for a long period of time. It didn't pop. Don't worry about it. Take whatever I did. It's yours. That's super smart. How many bank accounts do you think you have to manage all this?

58:26I probably have about 35, probably, maybe 40. And what about when it comes for organizational structure? So, like, how do you think about the holding company that is Damon John? is that how you think about it is it a holding company you know um i wish you know i wish i was as organized as you may think i am you know i'm willy wonka but the chocolate factory got a lot of going on in it um but yes i do have that um i work with uh there's a lot of different things i i work with a guy named halal presser who was a really amazing attorney for asset protection yeah for holding companies and various other things like that he's one of 12 people out there that this is all they focus on because it's important.

59:12One thing about it's very hard to make money, super hard to keep it. I'll give you an example. I have an RV, and he was telling me, and I was like, okay, well, we got the RV. He said, put it on the RV LLC. No problem. He said, who's the satellite radio? Satellite radio, my wife, because we have a satellite radio account. He said, you just pierced your corporate veil. I said, because if you get in an accident, they can just say, the judge will say, You didn't respect your LLC because your wife, it should have been under the RV's LLC. A lot of people don't realize this. And they can come after everything you own if, God forbid, you had an accident.

59:48That can happen. It's a taxi cab model, the apartment model. You get one holding company, but each taxi cab has its medallion, it's this, it's that. A lot of people don't know about how to protect themselves against a lot of these things because unfortunately the people listening to us are probably good people. The people that wake up every day to wonder how to screw you when you're running a real business, other people are going, I don't have anything to run. I want to scam you. I want to buy the fake Shark Tank ads. All the sharks invested in this pill. I want to put out the if you only loan.

1:00:25So there's a lot of, I hate to say it, there's a lot of bad people that they're looking every day on how to hurt you. Yeah. You know, one of my favorite mentors, he had this line, he has a breakfast he does, and it's once a month with a group of other big time entrepreneurs, much bigger than me. And he goes, there's a price of entry though for it. And he goes, the only people that get invited to this breakfast are people that make, and it was a certain amount of money. So a certain amount of money, people that have been entrepreneurs and divorced before. And then finally people have been sued.

1:00:58He goes, you got to be sued, you got to be divorced, and you got to have made this much money. And then you got to have lost this much money. He goes, and then I know that you will know what it's been like to be an entrepreneur. That's hardcore. It's hardcore. And you know, whether I believe all of that or not, there's a truth to it. Like I have never, have you ever met a successful entrepreneur that hasn't had to go through some type of lawsuit? Absolutely. You You have to.

1:01:25Because the reason why I think as an entrepreneur you go through a lot of lawsuits is, number one, you're taking a lot of swings. Number two, you're really trying to attach to other people because you're this hopeless romantic that everybody wants to strive for better things in life. And then you do get someplace, you start to move up here, and these people start to resent you or not understand. You know, you never hear the story of, you always hear, you know, I helped start the company. No, you weren't shit. You didn't help start the company. You came along after we kind of started the company.

1:02:02You wanted a free ride. We had to move on, and now you're the one complaining. There's a big old five on all the FUBU jerseys. You ever seen this old five? It's a non-stop five. Why? because I always wanted to be five partners. There's only four of us. There's 10 people with that fifth partner that never stuck around. So there's 10 people out there going, you know I'm the fifth member of FUBU. There's 10 of the fifth Beatles running around. I don't think people talk about that enough because it seems to me like one of the most important deals you ever do is the people you partner with. I've never had a pitch going, let me tell you something.

1:02:43I'm not going to do anything I say I'm going to do and I'm going to make excuses about every single other person around me and no matter what, it's going to be your goddamn problem I wish somebody would if we could read their mind, then we'd know that a lot of people think that way yeah, nobody, summary, nobody ever said that to me yeah, but a lot of people do but then I remember that that's the reason why it's easy for people who don't do that to win not easy, but easier like, thank God If every single one of them knew what you and I were going to do, there's no place for you and I. Exactly. So you got to appreciate the haters and the flakers, I think.

1:03:18Okay. I want to end on one last question for you. You got a mic and every entrepreneur you want to speak to standing in front of you, what do you leave them with? What do you tell them? What is your why? Are you doing it because you want to do it? or are you doing it because your parents told you this is what success looks like? Are you doing it because you don't want to take that, you don't want to put up that out of business sign because you're embarrassed of what the community is going to say to you? Are you doing it because you think that somehow you're going to arrive at one moment and the work is going to stop?

1:03:59Why are you doing it? Because once you know why you're doing it, then you're going to know the goals that you need to set and the homework you need to do to enforce those goals. If you don't know why you're doing it, you need to go to a place to understand that why. I'm not a billionaire. I'm not a billionaire by choice. I'm offered often, you know, huge venture deals. A bank, very famous, the one of the most powerful banks said to me, Damian, you know what? I'll give you a 1.3 billion credit line. I'll put a merger and acquisition person over there with you. We bank the top thousand companies in the world.

1:04:39We know they have these initiatives for minority vending. Everybody will respect the fact that you're a minority vendor because of your history and you're on TV. We will give you the money. We want you to acquire, like in a hotel, we want you to acquire a rug company, a lighting company, a furniture company. We want to then put you into bid for this stuff, and you will most likely get the contract because of who you are, the funding we have for you, and your history. And I guarantee you, Damon, you probably will make an average of whatever, whatever. Hmm, I'm 56 years old. That's a 20-year run with 20 ,000 people working for me.

1:05:24I will be 76 at that time. I, the worst time of my life is when I had seven, eight homes and all my friends enjoyed the homes. I can only sleep in one bed. I have a little nine-year-old girl. She will never see me again if I go back to doing that. I already missed my 31 and my 26-year-old growing up because I was so busy working. Why would I do that? No. So what is your why? Why would I do that? So somebody could see me on a yacht? I can rent that yacht and give it right back to the owners and let that be their damn problem. No more pets. Why are you doing it? Why do you not know your wife and your husband?

1:06:05Are you going out making sure that a lot of people see you that can't stand you? But why are you doing it? Know your why. But if you're waking up every day because you're solving a problem for a person, you're bringing them joy, and you love it, then you do that. Damon John, this was amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Damon John is the man. If you guys liked this episode, wait until you see what's next. You're going to want to subscribe and you are going to want to follow along because our next guest is just as good as this one was. And I thought this one was incredible.

1:06:41Also, if you guys want to hear more about Damon's new program, it's CEOaccess.com. I thought it was pretty incredible and I'm excited that he came and talked to us about it today. Lastly, I want to hear what you guys think about this episode. Drop in the comments for me what questions should I have asked that I didn't? What was your favorite question and what did you think was not a very good question? I'll hear all of them from you. I'll read all of them and I'll make sure that we do better every single time. Thank you for being here. You are a very big deal to me and to us.