Daymond John talks with Ahmad Ali Alwan about the FUBU Journey and the Power of Community

Founder, investor, a leading voice on entrepreneurship.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Uh, so I wanted to know what inspired you, what does the name, uh, mean for you?

And I'd say what was the pivotal moment for you and with Fubu?

Well, you know, uh, the name for us by us, a lot of people, um.

You know, thought it was only for a color by a color, but then I would have been guilty of the same bigotry and various of the things that I was fighting against, and I was always told never become the thing you're fighting against. uh, Forest Bias was, uh, at the time in my limited scope was just people who loved hip hop, uh, and we were making for people to love hip hop by a bunch of guys that.

That love hip hop, you know, Foo was started to become reinterpreted in different countries and in Korea it's more like a skate brand in Manila it's still a huge hip hop brand, um, so, so that was really the, the origin of it was really people that.

Remember at that time we called this the first hashtag of clothing at that time there was no social media there was no internet, but if I'm walking across the street I can tell the music that that person liked, right?

It was our form of a community, uh, a form of communicating and giving somebody a nod without even ever having to talk to that person.

Um, so how did the LL LL Cool J come about?

And I should maybe tell the audience, so I'd say one of the biggest, I'd say maybe brand moments, correct me if I'm wrong, was when LL Cool J actually wore a football on, uh, a national TV ad.

Yeah, so, so the Gap, you know, a lot of people are always gonna wanna get into your industry and the gap wanting to get into the hip hop industry and.

Uh, they put in LL Cool J, but he felt a little offended at the way they were treating him.

So within that commercial he says for us by us on the low again there's no social media out.

The Gap spent $30 million for a month and a half airing that ad.

Nobody could have hit the gap and said.

Hashtag fail or what's going on.

They spent $30 million airing that ad and in that ad he's talking about Fubu.

It became one of the biggest advertising, uh, you know, uh, topics when we talk about, uh, guerrilla marketing.

Now I do wanna give a compliment to that, the gap because, um, they did their analysis and they or their, you know, and they looked and they realized that the target market they were trying to hit.

Increase 300% because the kids thought they could get food with the gap.

They called us up we gave each other a big old hug and they reaired that ad, uh, but you know that that's why you think about your companies, your organizations, you need to have people in the organization that look and think like the people you serve.

You know what's is very inspiring and you know when um when I see how much you thought about um what you got out of uh a football, and I, I listen, listening to your story and listening to you now, I know for me and, and this is, I think the parallelism I I now draw with Hub 71 is just the community, the importance of serving.

Building momentum for whatever you're selling, whatever you're pitching, but maybe I'll, I'll go from there to, um, which I'm sure was an inspiration to you to writing among your number of several bestselling books, The Power of Broke, Rise and Grind, Power Power Shift, all focused on entrepreneurship and mindset.

Um, I know it's difficult to sum up, but what would you say are the core mindset that you think founders should take from those books?

You know founders need to understand a couple of things that they're always going to be, uh, you, and many people are not gonna agree upon what they think because if everybody agreed upon it you would have the lowest common denominator.

A founder is absolutely obsessed with their customer and they can't, they, you know, they can't sleep at night without solving a problem.

Well really founders.

They act they learn and then they repeat they don't try to make things big.

They try to do the best they can do today for their customers and then the best they can do tomorrow a little bit better, right?

Uh, founders are they, they you're supposed to walk in the room vulnerable when you walk in the room as a founder and say, hey, I know a lot about this, but I don't know about this.

Can I be of value to you with this?

And if so, can you just, can you mention, can you help me out a little bit when you are a founder like that you're always learning my Bamba socks, guys, I gotta tell you, if they call me 10 times for something they probably listen to me 1 time, right?

Because they're calling 10 other people like me.

They don't stop.

They're constantly, uh, evolving.

They're constantly looking for education.

They're constantly wanting mentors and they're constantly talking to the consumer.

The most valuable thing besides a purchase and and a recommendation that your consumer can give you is actually a customer complaint, you know, in large corporations over 90% of the most profitable things in large corporations came out of customer complaints because if you solve that complaint, well, now you have an ambassador who says when I complain, remember what they they did for me other than that.

People just can move on they never even need to tell you what is the problem with your product or your services or your goods or your financial instrument or anything else.

Yeah, any of these pitches ended up sticking with you and if so, was there a specific reason?

Well, the only pitch really ended up sticking with me is the pitch I got beat out on, and it's the #3 best selling product in Shark Tank history.

It's a stupid looking little sponge.

Well, the scrub daddy.

Laurie beat me out on that and that that thing will do about $1.4 billion this year.

Yeah, OK, that actually it's a good caveatat because I, I was gonna ask one of you looked back and you thought that uh there were deals that you.

Um, you know, left on the table, but I guess that answers that.

Damon, your story reminds us of the foundation that every great venture is a dream, is belief.

It's belief in the product, the mission, and the people behind it.

We see the same energy with our founders and shaping, that's shaping Abu Dhabi's ecosystem.

So thank you for showing the world that tussle, creativity, authenticity are timeless ingredients for success.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.