Daymond John is the founder of Fubu, a clothing brand he began in his mother’s house 1992 which has now been sold price over $6 billion products. He has a net price roughly $350 million and invested nearly $9 million in emerging corporations as an investor on Shark Tank.
But he wasn’t all the time a millionaire and he admitted that he wasn’t financial intelligence at the starting of Fubu when 27 banks turned him down for a loan. That’s why John says it’s important to build strong financial intelligence early on.
“This is the most important part: financial intelligence, creating a structure and a company so that when you need investment, I can invest in you” – John he told CNN Business. “[If] Your bills are in the shoebox. How will I get my a reimbursement? Where is my money going?”
In 2022 John explained that when he started off as an entrepreneur, 27 banks turned him down because he didn’t know what he was doing financially. He didn’t know what forms to fill out and had no security.
“I look back on those times and say, ‘How stupid was I?’ John said. “Because I had no financial intelligence, and I think that’s what we should be teaching kids in third grade, not in college…We don’t talk about money at all.”
Daymond John. Photo: Paras Griffin/Getty Images
Use other people’s money
John said the “power of being broke” can also help businesses, or the idea that they have nothing to lose so they will make it no matter what. He’s also a big fan of using “other people’s money,” or as he calls it, OPM. He says the “M” also can stand for other resources.
“It’s usually about thinking outside the box and using OPM, which should include other people’s money, production, brainpower, manpower, marketing and mentoring,” he said.
John said that if he were starting a business today, he would use other people’s resources first before using his own money.
John said Entrepreneur last month in an interview that he was looking for founders to reply three questions before investing in them: Why me? Why now? And why this?