Daymond John

“I think that in the earlier days, when I was a 'wantrepreneur,' I was really doing things because I thought what I wanted was to be rich.”

“As an entrepreneur, you never stop learning.”

“I think Wall Street is very important, especially to tech companies. Wall Street will get in their rhythm and go fund tech companies, and tech companies will go create jobs and employ a lot of people, so there's that aspect of Wall Street.”

“When I first came into money, I bought six or seven homes. One weekend I went to Miami and bought an apartment and a mansion several blocks from each other, which was not that bright!”

“I consider each business investment based on concept and revenue.”

“A lot of times, I can put a product together with a distributor when I go into my Rolodex for distributors. I can then put it together with a face, such as an artist. And then I can go into my databank of retailers and people that I've been working with through the years of retail, and then also manufacturing.”

“Learn as many mistakes and what not to do while your business or product is small. Don't be in such a hurry to grow your brand. Make sure that you and the market can sustain any bumps that may occur down the road.”

“Every problem can be solved as long as they use common sense and apply the right research and techniques.”

“Fortunately, right now 'entrepreneurship' is one of the business world's biggest buzz words and so many young people in our country are looking up to this new generation of CEO's as their modern day rock stars. Whenever you have that effect, it makes the job of promoting entrepreneurship much easier.”

“An entrepreneur needs to know what they need, period. Then they need to find an investor who can build off whatever their weaknesses are - whether that's through money, strategic partnerships or knowledge.”

“If you don't educate yourself, you'll never get out of the starting block because you'll spend all your money making foolish decisions.”

“I had a little delivery van, and I did work around Queens. I was also a waiter at Red Lobster, so I was working on the business in between jobs.”

“I think African Americans are resilient and hustlers by nature. I think they need to understand that you can take that hustle to the boardroom, but it has to be an education process.”

“The things that I've learned is, try to make all the mistakes with your own money and on a small level so that when you are responsible for a partner's money or assets, you've learned, and you don't make bigger mistakes.”

“My parents always taught me that my day job would never make me rich; it'd be my homework.”

“Five days a week, I read my goals before I go to sleep and when I wake up. There are 10 goals around health, family and business with expiration dates, and I update them every six months.”

“I started FUBU in 1989 but ran out of money three times and closed it down.”

“I've failed way more than I've succeeded.”

“I already have enough apparel businesses that are either doing well or not really doing anything at all, and I'm looking to broaden my portfolio.”

“There really is no shortcut just because you have a name, or you have some kind of access or some way you can solve all the problems. And I think one of the things I learned with FUBU, you have to understand that there's really only two ways of operating a business: more sales, or lower overhead.”