Whether your small business is fashion-related or not, you can’t help but admire Daymond John’s incredible rise to success and fame.
Yes, he did get breaks (like having famous friends) and lots of help, but nobody makes it without help, and your business doesn’t have to become a global brand like FUBU to be successful. The fact remains that anyone can find inspiration from the early part of Daymond John’s journey (recounted below) to power through their struggles and become their best self.
Born in 1969 in Brooklyn, Daymond John grew up in Hollis, Queens; the neighborhood later made famous as the hometown of the groundbreaking rap group Run DMC. His parents divorced when he was ten years old, and John first joined the working world, taking jobs like the one he had handed out flyers for $2 an hour.
That experience led to his decision to join a high school co-op program that alternated weekly between working and studying. John traces his entrepreneurial aspirations back to that co-op program, and he wasted no time after graduating high school by trying his hand at different ventures, including a commuter van service. He also worked full-time while operating his businesses to pay the bills.
Growing up at ground zero of an emerging hip-hop culture that would eventually change the world, John was naturally drawn to its six official elements: MCing (and rap music), b-boying (breakdancing), graffiti, DJing, beatboxing and knowledge, and its unofficial seventh element – style. From baggy pants to bandanas to fisherman hats, current street fashion has always been an integral part of hip-hop culture. Around 1992, when Daymond saw that department stores were selling tied-off wool ski hats and other hip-hop-inspired clothing at overly inflated prices, he took matters into his own hands. Sewing together 90 hats with a neighbor, them at concerts and festivals, pulling in $800 in a single day, and forever changing their lives.
John would recruit friends Alexander Martin, Carl Brown, and Keith Perrin when founding For Us By Us (FUBU), which got its start selling those hats and got into t-shirt printing, selling them on consignment. They later added hoodies, hockey jerseys, and baseball caps. But before they reached that level, Daymond still had to continue working as a server at Red Lobster full-time. His mother also famously mortgaged her home to give Daymond’s newborn startup the cash it desperately needed. FUBU grew as John loaned hockey jerseys to rappers to wear in their music videos.
Despite getting neighborhood friend and arguably the most popular rapper at the time, LL Cool J, to wear one of their embroidered jerseys in a Macy’s commercial and say “for us, by us,” FUBU was far from an established business or brand. They had the reputation of one, but Daymond John, his mother, and friends at FUBU ironically experienced their largest crisis after receiving orders for $300,000 in clothing and being invited to represent Macy’s in Las Vegas at the Magic fashion trade show. They didn’t have the money for either. Daymond’s mother took out a second mortgage, yet they still couldn’t cover the costs to fulfill their obligations.
Daymond applied for funding from 27 banks and was denied a loan at every single one when his mother, out of desperation, threw a Hail Mary and used the last of her cash to take out an ad in the New York Times describing their situation. The ad was answered by Samsung Textiles, orders were filled, and FUBU would grow and evolve, making its creator, Daymond John, an eventual $350 million dollar man.
