Daymond John is a self-made entrepreneur, having started the clothing line FUBU in the early 1990s.
Today, he’s one of the more-recognizable faces in tech entrepreneurship, thanks to his recurring role and founder status of the TV show “Shark Tank.”
He will give a keynote speech at IZEAFest, a social marketing conference in Orlando on Saturday. To see who is coming to Orlando for the conference, check out the festival’s website.
We caught up with him to ask about his history with entrepreneurship and whether he has any advice for today’s tech entrepreneurs.
How has entrepreneurship changed during the last few years?
The biggest thing is how low the barriers to entry for starting a business have become. You have people now starting their businesses with just a cell phone. It’s amazing because now everyone has that opportunity. However, what they do with that opportunity is another thing, but it’s great to see that people are way more able to turn their idea into a reality today.
What advice would you give early stage startup companies who can’t find local money?
Get the best kind of investment: revenue from customers! Go out, sell your product, and use that cash to build up your business. It’s the best because you don’t have to give away any equity and you see if your product or company actually has some real-world traction. Too often founders are looking for an investment from investors way, way too early, and they give away a huge chunk of their company. Meanwhile, they could have dug in deep for a couple months, operated on a very lean level, focused extremely hard on sales, and put the company in a much better position than taking any sort of check from an investor.
Can large companies help foster a startup ecosystem locally? Should they?
Absolutely they should. That’s one of the biggest things I talk about when I consult or speak with companies. I’ve actually worked with some of the biggest Fortune 500 companies to help implement systems and procedures to help foster this mindset. Promoting “intrapreneurship,” as I like to call it, is incredibly important because it allows those employees of a mega-corporation to feel like they have a voice in their big machine of a company. Also, we’ve seen some amazing ideas come from employees because many times they’re the ones in the actual trenches of the business, and they’ve seen a problem time-and-time again.
Why so much talk about entrepreneurship?
Because it’s what entrepreneurship is all about. You have to pay it forward. There is no successful entrepreneur on the earth that did it 100 percent by themselves. Whether it's someone like Russell Simmons or a convenience store owner from Queens, I’ve learned from everyone, and it’s my duty to help share this knowledge with as many people as possible.
Why do you think “Shark Tank” is as popular as it has become? Is it because of the growth of entrepreneurship or did the show help create that?
I think it was the perfect storm of both. You know, when the show first came out in 2009, this country was in the heart of the recession. Millions of people lost their jobs just like that, and had no idea what to do. Fortunately, the entrepreneurial spirit was there and people who had lost their job decided to create a job. I think Shark Tank helped bring this mindset to the mainstream and show the country that you didn’t need to be a Harvard MBA with $5 million raised to be an entrepreneur. You didn’t need to be a founder of a $1 billion-plus company to be an entrepreneur. You could be a great entrepreneur doing $300,000 a year in revenue, bring back home a decent salary, be able to put food on the table for your family, and have a nice life.
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