Daymond John’s Secret to Standing Out In Crowded Markets

I meet a lot of celebrities. Only one has ever asked for my home address.

Daymond John and I were backstage in Las Vegas this past August, after speaking to 500 business leaders at Entrepreneur’s Level Up conference. He gave me his cell number. “Text me your home address,” he said. “I want to send you a gift box.”

I did. A few weeks later, a package arrived filled with products from companies in John’s orbit — beverages from Once Upon A Coconut, Boost Oxygen canisters, and more. Another box came the next month. And another after that.

Each time one arrives, I have the same thought: This is how a great entrepreneur thinks.

Most people know John’s origin story — Queens kid, cofounder of FUBU, original Shark Tank investor. But what’s less discussed is how constantly he’s building. Over the years, he’s developed a pattern: He pays attention to the needs, questions, and opportunities that show up naturally in his world, and then builds businesses around them.

Executives kept asking him for social media advice, so he launched an advisory service called CEO Access. His personal interest in biohacking turned into a health and wellness brand, SharkGevity. And because he works closely with both brands and influential people, he realized he could play connector — putting products directly into the hands of people who might amplify them. That’s the ecosystem behind those boxes on my doorstep. He calls it The Shark Group.

The greatest entrepreneurs, like John, don’t invent businesses in isolation. They look at where demand already exists, and then build something better to serve it.

In this conversation, he explains how founders can do the same: stand out in crowded markets, recognize the right opportunities, and earn the attention of investors like him.

Related: ‘We Didn’t Know We Could Do That!’ These Co-Founders Built a Unique Photography Business That Tapped an Unexpected Need — And Now Is Found in 60 Cities

When you and I last saw each other, you looked at my socks and gave me crap for not wearing Bombas. So I want you to know that I’m wearing Bombas right now.
Thank you. It’s the number-one product that has ever appeared on Shark Tank. And by the way, it’s mine.

There are a lot of socks out there, though. How do you take an old idea and turn it into an incredible business?
There really is nothing new in this world. Instead, there’s a new form of delivery. A new customer. A new value proposition. It’s about putting a different twist on the old thing. One of the top products in Shark Tank history, for example? It’s a stupid sponge. That’s Lori’s company, and I lost on it. There’s also Ring — a new version of a doorbell. There’s Poppi. So socks, soda, doorbells, sponges. 

Image Credit: Victor Llorente

That’s a great way to increase visibility for socks, which aren’t an especially visible product.
To market and brand FUBU, I had to put these big “05”s and “FUBU” on the shirts. That made them recognizable. We can’t do that with Bombas; you never know who’s walking around wearing them. But the ambassadors for the brand are at the dinner table every single night saying, “I bought this and it’s helping people. And by the way, I’m buying you 10 pairs because I want you to help 10 people.” 

It’s about communication. It’s about positioning. And it’s about value.

And it’s also about how the customer connects with you, the founder. Let’s talk about that for a moment. Because long before the term “personal brand” was popular, you understood the importance of it. In the early days of FUBU, you hired LL Cool J as a brand ambassador — but also carved out marketing budget to promote you and your FUBU cofounders. Why? 
We divided our marketing campaigns into four different silos: 

First, we had LL Cool J. He’s great. He’s a superstar. But maybe you don’t like his music. Maybe he gets in trouble. Then we would be in trouble ourselves. 

So we had our second silo: models. We showed really beautiful people in the product, so that the customer would say, “Wow, I could see myself looking like that.”

The third silo was the FUBU founders. We wanted people to see that this brand is by and for young African American men.

And if you didn’t like any of that, we had the fourth silo: product. We were saying: “Here is the product. We make it much better than most of the stuff on the market, so invest in that.”

Related: I Sold My Company for Nine Figures. Here Are 3 Hard Lessons That Got Me There

Since that time, it seems like it’s become even more important for founders to be visible. Why do you think?
Because today, people are researching the CEO and founder. They want to know about you. And if you aren’t telling your story yourself, then other people are going to tell it for you.

Also, when you have a strong personal brand, your name precedes you. You walk into a room, people already know who you are. They’ve already done their homework. And they say, “I want to work with this person, or buy from this person. This person cares.”

What’s your advice to founders who hesitate to become more visible?
Your personal brand doesn’t have to be glossy. It just has to be you. You must understand and communicate who you are, and do it clearly.

Here’s something you should try: Describe yourself in two to five words. Do it like Apple: “Think different.” Nike: “Just do it.” FUBU: “For us, by us.” Use that as your navigation, so that your personal brand is as clear as a real brand. 

Image Credit: Victor Llorente

How do you think about your own personal brand? You’re on social media all the time.
Shark Tank airs about 40 times a week on CNBC. We call ourselves the Kardashians of CNBC. And on the show, I can’t have a sense of humor. I don’t do anything else besides sit around in a suit. So that tells a very limited, edited version of me.

On social media, I have an opportunity to tell a more complete story. It’s why my videos contain no editing, unless it’s a brand activation. I want my social media to feel real and personal. I mean, we’ve all seen the fake videos — where a CEO has posted something seemingly authentic, but it’s full of transitions and edits, and you’re thinking: This person set this up. They had the cameras ready.

So most of the time with my social, I’m in regular clothes, right? I’m arguing with my wife, and she’s always right. I’m making sure you understand that I’m a father, that I’m a fisherman, that I’m a prepper because technology’s gonna kill us all. I travel 250 days a year. I want to spend time with my wife. What’s my work-life balance? What am I doing it for? What’s my legacy going to be? How much money is enough? These are all the questions every entrepreneur has. 

I talk about taking care of my health. I love showing that I don’t take private jets, because everybody believes that you have to be on a private jet. No, you don’t. When you show that to people, you get their attention. They go, Wait a minute. I’m getting a peek into your world. So you gotta understand what’s in it for those people.

In other words, you’re consciously filling in the gaps. People see one version of you on Shark Tank, and you want to control the narrative and fill in the rest yourself.
Across all my platforms, I’ve got about 5 million that follow me. But I always think: I’m just talking to a small number of people. I don’t care about the rest of the world.

So who am I talking to? Number one: God is watching me. I make sure that he is okay with what I say on there, and that I will never upset him or go off course. Two: My family’s watching me. I want my daughters to be able to walk into a room when I’m gone and have people say, “Your father was an honest man. I’m going to give you an honest shake.” Three: It’s my employees. It’s my team. I don’t want my team going home, and their mother or husband going, “That’s your boss?” And four: People who want to work with me. 

How do you decide how much of yourself to share?
I put my faults on there. I shared that I’m dyslexic. I shared that I started to think I had a problem with drinking a couple of years ago. I shared that I failed at losing weight for a certain time until I changed my life and became more of a biohacker. I shared that I had cancer, and I decided I was going to write everything off and drink myself to death, until I realized that I had to be here for my little baby girl and my wife.

When you do that, people see the human side. And when they see the human side, they want to get behind you. They want to relate to you. You must have people relate.

Let’s talk about live-selling on social media. I don’t think a lot of people are there yet, but you are. Tell me what you’ve learned.
It’s QVC in your pocket. That is all it is. Like I said, there’s nothing new in this world. You have live selling on TikTok, and you have it on an app called Whatnot. You can stream and make sales live — either selling your own products, or selling other people’s products for an affiliate fee.

My buddy sells on TikTok. He sells this stuff from a brand called GuruNanda. It takes plaque off of your teeth and various other things. He does well into the millions a year on live-selling.

Whatnot runs auctions. People sell things every 15 seconds. So you can turn around the goods about three times a minute.

I was once talking to a makeup artist who was doing my makeup. She was like, “AI is taking all our jobs, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I told her: Do you know how many people in Hollywood have their own makeup lines or brushes? You can sell their products! Reach out to them and say, “I’ll help you get rid of your inventory on my platform.”

To show her what I meant, I pulled up Whatnot. We found people selling brushes. We found one woman selling brushes for $15. The makeup artist watched this, and then told me it doesn’t make sense. The brushes probably cost $5, and she has to ship them, so her profit is probably only $5 per brush. But I said: Look, she sold three of them in one minute. That’s $15 in profit in a minute. Multiply that by hours. In fact, I know a young lady who sells brushes and made $8 million this year. That’s the power.

Have you seen this woman in China, who holds up the dresses?

Related: Forget ‘Disruptive Innovation’ — This Is What You Need to Focus on Instead

Yup, it’s wild. She holds a dress for one second, people buy it, then she holds up another.
They said she did, like, $400 million this year. But do you think she just held up a dress and it sold like that? Let me tell you what happened. 

She has about 100 people that work for her. The week before one of her streams, she hits her entire database, reaching her full community, and she says, “Tuesday, between 5 and 6 p.m., this dress is going up. We only have 2,000 units. So get ready.” So when she holds up the dress, people are ready to buy. It’s a system.

With live-selling, you don’t have to wait for a retailer to answer you. You can get off-price goods gone. You can get rid of inventory without markdown. It used to be: You buy it for $10, sell it to a store for $20, and they sell it for $40. Now it’s: You buy it for $10. You sell it for $30. It’s still a discount. Everybody’s going to benefit.

Remember, there’s only three ways to deal with the consumer. You can acquire a new one, you can upsell a current one, or you can make one buy more frequently. But to acquire a new one is 25 times harder than upselling one or making one buy more frequently. With live-selling, you have a captivated audience. You know who they are. This is where it’s going.

Everyone should be taking advantage of it. Next year on Shark Tank, if I talk to somebody and they didn’t do any form of research on live-selling, somebody else can invest, because I’m out.

Image Credit: Victor Llorente

You’ve said many times that you don’t invest in a company — you invest in a founder. What does a winning founder look like to you?
I want a founder that says, “The train is leaving the station one way or another, with or without you.” That shows me that they’re not going to put all the onus on me.

I want a founder that says, “I hit a brick wall and fell down, and then said, ‘Nope, I’m gonna do it again and here are the things I’ve learned.’”

I want a founder to come in the room and say, “We had 10 problems, and I found eight solutions. These other two, can you work with me on them?”

I want a founder that is absolutely unstoppable. I want the idea of not working with them to give me FOMO. The product is great, and they are always going to figure things out, and I go, “I never want to bet against this person. I want to bet on this person. And maybe, if I do, we’re going to make a lot of money, have a lot of fun, and impact people in a positive way.” 

Related: Avoid These Pitfalls Most Founders Face When Building Their First Team