Daymond John Quotations

Fortunately, right now 'entrepreneurship' is one of the business world's biggest buzz words and so many young people in our country are looking up to this new generation of CEO's as their modern day rock stars. Whenever you have that effect, it makes the job of promoting entrepreneurship much easier.

Most brands started from a strong base and kept a strong belief.

I've come to learn that my initial investment is more about the person versus the product that I am buying into. I've also learned that I really do enjoy giving worthy people an opportunity of a lifetime.

No matter what business you're in, business is business, and financing and money are critical. I would have made a lot fewer mistakes if I had more schooling in that area.

Good grooming is integral and impeccable style is a must. If you don't look the part, no one will want to give you time or money.

If you go out there and start making noise and making sales - people will find you. Sales cure all. You can talk about how great your business plan is and how well you are going to do. You can make up your own opinions, but you cannot make up your own facts. Sales cure all.

I've learned, like with anything else, business is only as good as your connections and your resources. And some of the resources that I have are the fact that I work with huge artists.

If you don't educate yourself, you'll never get out of the starting block because you'll spend all your money making foolish decisions.

A savvy entrepreneur will not always look for investment money, first.

An entrepreneur needs to know what they need, period. Then they need to find an investor who can build off whatever their weaknesses are - whether that's through money, strategic partnerships or knowledge.

Mentors, by far, are the most important aspects of businesses.

Poor people put a low value on themselves and their efforts.

I think African Americans are resilient and hustlers by nature. I think they need to understand that you can take that hustle to the boardroom, but it has to be an education process.

When looking at trends I always ask myself basic and timeless questions about business, and the one I seem to always come back to is, 'How is this different than anything else in the marketplace?'

If I invest in a CEO, I need him or her to have experience in sales.

I believe the last thing I read at night will likely manifest when I'm sleeping. You become what you think about the most.

As an entrepreneur, you love your business like a child, and you're taught to be laser-focused on the business.

My parents always taught me that my day job would never make me rich; it'd be my homework.

In the founders, I look for a person I feel is trustworthy, driven and smart. I invest in the person first, because in the event the business fails, the person and I can move forward and create another business.

An entrepreneur must pitch a potential investor for what the company is worth as well as sell the dream on how much of a profit can be made.

Five days a week, I read my goals before I go to sleep and when I wake up. There are 10 goals around health, family and business with expiration dates, and I update them every six months.

You don't have to work for a big corporation if you don't want to.

The only thing that scares me in the tech area is that it moves so fast that you have to be ready to invest in 20 things. Because if you just invest in one, next week, somebody has a better mousetrap, and you get taken to the cleaners.

A lot of times, I can put a product together with a distributor when I go into my Rolodex for distributors. I can then put it together with a face, such as an artist. And then I can go into my databank of retailers and people that I've been working with through the years of retail, and then also manufacturing.

I think Wall Street is very important, especially to tech companies. Wall Street will get in their rhythm and go fund tech companies, and tech companies will go create jobs and employ a lot of people, so there's that aspect of Wall Street.

I've failed way more than I've succeeded.

I think a great entrepreneur is learning every day. An entrepreneur is somebody that doesn't take no for an answer - they're going to figure something out. They also take responsibility. They don't blame anybody else. And they're dreamers in one sense but they're also realistic and they take affordable steps when they can.

Make sure you're doing something that you love, that you're willing to do for the rest of your life. If you're doing it for money, that's the only thing you won't make.

Truth is the easiest thing to sell.

Learn as many mistakes and what not to do while your business or product is small. Don’t be in such a hurry to grow your brand. Make sure that you and the market can sustain any bumps that may occur down the road.

In my mind, there are too many copycat web products out there that are doing the same thing.

Pioneers get slaughtered, and the settlers prosper.

I consider each business investment based on concept and revenue.

I'm a big advocate of financial intelligence.

Try to make all the mistakes with your own money and on a small level so that when you are responsible for a partner’s money or assets you’ve learned and you don’t make bigger mistakes. Try to go as far as you can without anybody else’s help first.

I don't want to leave my kids an inheritance, I want to leave them a legacy

In entrepreneurship, you decide to give up your day job at the point where either (A) the hobby/new business is at least making some form of ends meet, or (B) you feel that you need to dedicate yourself for a certain amount of time to it and give yourself the last hoorah.

If you can't come clean and tell investors how and why you failed, that raises a red flag. They need to see that you learned from it and came back stronger.

I look to work with businesses that know what they are doing but need larger distribution or exposure.

It is very, very hard to do that ballroom dancing and I am going to be nowhere near it. Now if you have a hot dog eating contest, call me.

You can make up your own opinion, but you can't make up your own facts, go sell.

The thing about branding is it isn't etched in stone. A brand is a mark or an image or a perception we stamp on a product, a concept or an ideal, but it doesn't last forever. Like anything else, it needs to be nurtured and reinforced, or it will start to fade.

The perfect breakfast is fish with grits and scrambled eggs with onions. I'm getting hungry thinking about that.

Good grooming is integral, and impeccable style is a must. If you don't look the part, no one will want to give you time or money.

When you sell a product or service, you're making a promise to your audience. If you don't understand your audience, you'll never be able to keep that promise and you'll ultimately let them down.

When you have a large amount of the workforce being laid off, some of them have no other choice but to go out there and invent something.

It takes the same energy to think small as it does to think big. So dream big and think bigger.

Strategic partners are way more important than money.

Money is a great slave but a horrible master.

I'm not a golf player. I think golf and fishing are the same, but at the end of the day, you can't fry up and golf ball and dip it in tartar sauce. So I'm a fisherman.

You don’t get rich off your day job, you get rich off your homework.

It will never be a perfect time, you can only make time perfect.

Everyone has an idea, but it’s taking those first steps toward turning that idea into a reality that are always the toughest.

Whether people know it or not, I'm a big nature guy. I like snowboarding, I like fishing, and those are my ways to wind down.

As an entrepreneur, you never stop learning.

While good business ideas are plentiful, many entrepreneurs struggle to understand payroll taxes, health care and other thorny issues… In other words, they don't have the financial literacy to scale their businesses and attract investors.

I think it's only failure if you put the word failure on it. I think it's part of the process of learning where you're going to go and what doesn't work.

If you aren't living your dreams then you're living your fears.

One of my business partners would remind me that no fashion line lasts forever, that we would hit the down curve eventually, and that we needed to look for new brands that complement the first one.

Mentors don't have to be the Daymond Johns or the Mark Cubans. A person running a successful bodega or a tax firm in your community for the last 20 years, that person is working just as much as the individual who's running General Mills.

I don't care if you're my brother - if we go play football, I'm gonna try to crack your head open. It doesn't mean that I don't love you. It doesn't mean that I don't respect you.

FUBU is pretty well licensed out in China and Asia. In America it's a little more of a challenge, obviously, because it's a branded sport.

I already have enough apparel businesses that are either doing well or not really doing anything at all, and I'm looking to broaden my portfolio.

I think that in the earlier days, when I was a 'wantrepreneur,' I was really doing things because I thought what I wanted was to be rich.

When I first got into business, I made a lot of bad decisions.

When I first came into money, I bought six or seven homes. One weekend I went to Miami and bought an apartment and a mansion several blocks from each other, which was not that bright!

I do today what people won't, so I achieve tomorrow what other people can't.

Product is always king.

We all want the freedom to make our own decisions.

Life is a cruel teacher. She loves to give you the test first and the lesson later.

When you succeed you have a million people to thank, but when you fail there is only one person to blame.

I think the single biggest turn off is people who think that they need money and they need all these people around them so if they get the money they can just buy all the things they need to help the company... [without] hav[ing] to put in the work themselves.

Always dress to what is accurate to who and what you are.

Success is waking up every day and doing what you want to do

Every problem can be solved as long as they use common sense and apply the right research and techniques.

I started FUBU in 1989 but ran out of money three times and closed it down.

The things that I've learned is, try to make all the mistakes with your own money and on a small level so that when you are responsible for a partner's money or assets, you've learned, and you don't make bigger mistakes.

I value an entrepreneur I can get behind and trust, because I know they are attempting to move forward in life.

There really is no shortcut just because you have a name, or you have some kind of access or some way you can solve all the problems. And I think one of the things I learned with FUBU, you have to understand that there's really only two ways of operating a business: more sales, or lower overhead.

I'm a firm believer in utilizing celebrities because they tap into people on an emotional basis.

I never knew anything other than wanting to be an entrepreneur. I tried my first business when I was 6 years old, and I started another business when I was 8. I don't think I knew anything besides that.

I'm the kind of person that when I saw a lack of African Americans in the apparel business, that was something I set out to do, and I lead by example.

I had a little delivery van, and I did work around Queens. I was also a waiter at Red Lobster, so I was working on the business in between jobs.

I like to look at things that have been developed and re-developed over the course of time so I know the bugs are worked out of it. And in the business itself, I like to look at sales, by far. I want to see that there is a vetted track record of sales to show the price point has worked.

I always tried to align myself with strategic partners, friends, and information to help me with the things that I did not know, and ultimately, I made it.