Jul 16, 2025 · 1h 4m · bigdeal
My Billion Dollar Shark Tank Investment: Daymond John
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this in-depth interview on the Big Deal Podcast, FUBU founder and Shark Tank investor Daymond John joins Codie Sanchez to break down guerrilla marketing tactics, Shark Tank dealmaking realities, brand positioning, and the essential mindset needed to manage wealth, risk, and family priorities.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Codie holds 26.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Codie as informed peer 3.4 Guest teaching 5.2 Guest disagreement 1.3 Codie pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is Codie, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 33:20 Calling out selfish Shark Tank opportunists
Daymond aggressively calls out founders with millions in the bank who pitch on Shark Tank purely for free airtime, taking life-changing opportunities away from struggling families.
Hardest push from Codie ▶ 15:48 Codie pushes back on flying coachWhen Daymond praises flying coach and Southwest, Codie pushes back humorously by admitting she insists on flying at least first class.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:15 The real math and liability of private aviationDaymond breaks down the exact monetary and operational drain of private flights, showing that flying commercial saves ninety-six thousand dollars on cross-country trips while avoiding massive maintenance headaches.
Codie holds their own ▶ 35:30 Codie recounts mitigating a twelve million dollar cannabis lossCodie demonstrates significant hands-on dealmaking expertise by walking through how she structured a workout that reduced a twelve million dollar loss down to one million.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Codie as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Codie pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episode Preview: Insights and Warnings from Daymond John | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Codie introduces Daymond and asks about his investment criteria with Bombas. Daymond explains how Bombas flipped his core philosophy from needing to succeed first before giving back to making money and mattering simultaneously. | |
| Early Guerrilla Marketing Hacks and Hustling FUBU | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Codie asks about early unhinged guerrilla tactics. Daymond delivers an entertaining breakdown of hustling shirts at the Apollo, reusing 10 shirts across 40 video shoots, and painting 300 store gates. | |
| Dyslexia, Common Sense, and True Wealth Mindset | 2 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Daymond rejects the conventional notion that money is required to build wealth, citing Forbes statistics and how generational wealth degrades by the third generation. | |
| Parenting, Adversity, and the True Cost of Private Jets | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Daymond shares how he insulates his daughters from entitlement by explicitly planning to leave them no inheritance, then walks through the exact math showing private jets are financial traps. | |
| Evaluating Modern Brands and the Meaning of Luxury | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Codie asks which modern brands are winning. Daymond highlights Actively Black, Nike's crowdsourced customization data pipeline, and Hermes' distinction between expensive and true luxury. | |
| Sponsor Segment: Acquiring Profitable Small Businesses | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Following Codie's ad read on acquisitions, Daymond details how he would restructure FUBU today using an Avon-style decentralized campus ambassador network and subscription tiering. | |
| Unit Economics and High-Margin Drivers in Apparel | 5 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Codie discusses loss-leader strategies in home services, prompting Daymond to break down high-margin apparel drivers and why shoe tooling molds scale differently than high-end couture dresses. | |
| Inside the Pitch: What Succeeds on Shark Tank | 3 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Daymond breaks down Shark Tank pitch dynamics, calling out founders who lead with hypothetical market share percentages and contrasting them with genuine storytellers who qualify their credibility. | |
| Screening Opportunists and Protecting the Shark Tank Mission | 4 | 5 | 3 | 0 | Daymond forcefully condemns wealthy founders who appear on Shark Tank purely for free promotion, explaining how he protects the show's founding purpose with non-shopping agreements. | |
| The Weight of Financial Losses and Difficult Decisions | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Codie shares a candid story of nearly losing twelve million in early cannabis deals, and Daymond reflects on the psychological weight and personal responsibility of losing six million dollars. | |
| Navigating AI Disruption and the Rise of Skilled Trades | 4 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Daymond outlines an intense perspective on AI driving societal displacement and argues why practical skilled trades and physical services represent resilient economic bastions. | |
| Sponsor Segment: Finding Your Customer Avatar and Angle | 5 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Codie shares the origin story and branding strategy of Pinks Window Services, while Daymond emphasizes that innovation is almost always about presenting timeless core services with a distinct customer angle. | |
| Personal Branding for Leaders and the CEO Access Network | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Daymond explains his CEO Access initiative, arguing that modern executives must cultivate personal brands to protect their companies against online volatility and access high-level rooms. | |
| Holding Companies, Legal Protections, and Risk Management | 4 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Codie inquires about corporate structuring, prompting Daymond to explain using equity options to avoid tax headaches and warning how small personal expenses can pierce corporate veil protections. | |
| Navigating Lawsuits and Choosing the Right Partners | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Codie and Daymond discuss the inevitable litigation that follows business success and the prevalence of opportunists who claim retrospective credit for foundational work. | |
| Defining Your 'Why' and Choosing Family Over Billions | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Daymond concludes with a powerful reflection on turning down a 1.3 billion dollar institutional buyout program in order to protect his remaining decades with his young daughter and family. | |
| Episode Conclusion, Viewer Feedback, and Next Episode Teaser | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Codie delivers standard post-show housekeeping, summarizing Daymond's appearance, encouraging comments, and teasing the upcoming episode. |
Statements from this episode (34)
Daymond John: I hold the most successful investment in Shark Tank history
“Well, I tell everybody
Whenever I can, that I'm the lead shark with the most successful investment in history, shark tank history on all the shark tanks that exist around the world.”
John: Capital highlights weaknesses rather than solving customer acquisition
“You know, the founders that believe that they need a ton of money. That's not the founder I want because money is going to highlight your weaknesses. If you can't get the same customers with 200 dollars, then you ain't going to get them with two million, right…”
Daymond John: FUBU Reused 10 Shirts Across 22 Music Video Sets
“I took 10 shirts for two years, The same 10. I'd go to every video set I could. I went to 40 video sets. I got kicked off of 18 of them, but the 22 that I got on, I would put an artist, and he'd shoot the video, and I'd take it back.”
Daymond John: FUBU Spray-Painted 300 Storefront Gates Across NY and NJ
“I spray painted 300 gates from New York to New Jersey. Authorized FUBU dealer. I didn't care that you were selling Chinese food. You were an authorized FUBU dealer.”
Daymond John: Eight of the 12 Shark Tank Investors Are Dyslexic
“I think that being dyslexic, I always say eight of the 12 sharks are dyslexic.”
Daymond John: I am not leaving any inheritance to my children
“Because I'm not leaving them anything. You know, I put it in my kid's head ever since I was young that, and then, that they were young, that they were not going to get anything.”
Daymond John: Flying private is a waste of time
“Flying private is a waste of time. Don't do it for other people's reasons.”
Daymond John: NY-CA private round trip costs $100,000
“If I go to California, New York, round trip is a 100,000 dollars privately.”
Daymond John: Actively Black is the modern equivalent of FUBU
“I like a company called Actively Black. They're the new version of FUBU to me, where they had the license for like Marvel, they had the license for Tupac, so they had Black Panther and stuff like that.”
Daymond John: Nike uses custom shoe orders to design next year's lines
“Nike still gets it right, in a sense and I'll just say a reason why. You know, they'll do a custom shoe for one person. You'll say a thirty billion dollar company doing a custom shoe for one person. What they're doing is they're putting that algorithm together…”
Daymond John: We never sold FUBU and still do substantial business
“My partners and I, we never sold a brand because we love what it stands for, but we still do a good amount of business”
Daymond John: I could make FUBU a billion-dollar brand again
“Could I make it a probably
A billion dollar brand again?
Yes, I could. It would be a whole different model.”
Daymond John: Apparel brands make almost no profit outside jeans and t-shirts
“Clothing makes almost zero money off of anything else besides jeans and t-shirts.”
Daymond John: Black and white garments account for roughly 80% of apparel sales
“In the business, for the most part, almost 60% of all sales and clothing is black. 20% is white. The rest is just sprinkled in between.”
Daymond John: Pitching 'if we only get 1% of the market' instantly ruins deals
“The pitch that doesn't work for sure is the people that immediately come in and they just, everything is hypothetical and they assume. They don't have a history of things, and they go, the number one thing that you can say that I immediately check out, or I gi…”
Daymond John: Average Shark Tank pitch lasts 30 to 60 minutes
“An average pitch is one hour long, maybe half an hour to an hour long. 16 cameras shooting it. So an hour pitch is 16 hours of footage for you to see eight minutes.”
Daymond John: Sharks close about 60% of on-air deals after 6-9 months
“Takes us six to nine months to close the deals. We close about 60% of the deals.”
Daymond John: Shark Tank hits 3 in 10 winners versus VC's 2 in 10
“You know, I think two out of 10 is winners. I think we have three out of 10 because we have a baked in commercial.”
Daymond John uses one-year non-shopping agreement to screen Shark Tank founders
“After we do the deal, you know in a handshake, I walk over to them and I send, I give them a piece of paper, very short one, and say, take it to your attorney. And it says on there something like, you know You're not gonna publicly shop this deal for another y…”
Daymond John: Only 96 of 40,000 Shark Tank applicants air per season
“You're only gonna have about 96 people that air. A thousand people will see the producers and 40,000 people applied.”
Daymond John: Wealthy founders seeking Shark Tank publicity are 'selfish bastards'
“If you have two million dollars in the bank, and you have your hat in your hand asking for money, and you have no no, you don't plan on closing a shark, you took that slot away from a family who risked everything, who their kids are not going to college, they'…”
Codie Sanchez: I have never lost money for other investors
“I have never lost money for other people, which is always, like, kind of the line that freaks me out, you know, and that's probably a bad thing in some ways, I should probably get more comfortable with losing.”
Sanchez: Worked out early cannabis investment to cut $12M loss to $1M
“I invested in the industry that really needed regulation to happen, and if deregulation didn't happen, it wasn't going to really change, and so I remember like one deal, we almost lost twelve million, and then it got down to one, you know, and we did a workout…”
Daymond John: AI disruption will trigger civil war in the US
“Because AI is going to turn this country into a civil war. Because when the have-nots don't have anything, they're coming after us.”
Daymond John: Tesla robots will cost $30k in two years and $5k in five
“Well, I think that if robots are going to be 30,000 dollars a piece from, what do you call it? Tesla? In two years? They're going to be 5000 in five years.”
Daymond John: High school trade grads earn $70k, matching college grads
“A kid graduating college today is gonna barely make 70, 80,000. A kid who does a trade, like in my buddy Crash Champions, or HVAC, or these things that people don't want to do anymore, they're making 70,000 coming out of high school.”
Daymond John: Scrub Daddy Has Sold $1.3B in Sponges
“1.3 billion dollars worth of sponges. She's slinging plastic like Happy Meals.”
Daymond John: Billboards Are Today's Most Powerful Marketing Medium
“You know what's the most powerful thing you could do now? Billboards. You can't swipe a billboard when you're on a highway.”
Daymond John: Modern CEOs Without Public Brands Risk PR Crises
“Today's CEO is a person that they need to know who their brand is. The most successful CEOs I know, they're doing millions and billions of dollars, but nobody knows who they are. But yet the kid in the mailroom gets pissed off over a decision you make and put …”
Daymond John: I Have Advised Every Living US President
“And I've advised every single living president till today, they haven't asked me for money, I can walk into any room, and they know who I am, and my name, I can open any company I want to, and I can walk into any room I want to, because my name goes in the roo…”
Daymond John: First-year Shark Tank legal fees hit $750k before software
“I spent about 750,000 dollars in attorney fees alone just to look at the deal. Now I put it through a VC software, it cost me 10,000 dollars to do everything.”
Daymond John structures angel deals as options to avoid K-1 filings
“Also, you know, I look at a lot of the deals I do options on the deals. Because, you know, I'm not trying to fill out all this corporate filing and stuff like that, and especially if you're late on your K ones, and I'm late and all kind of stuff like that. So …”
Daymond John: Turned Down $1.3 Billion Credit Line from Major Bank
“I'm not a billionaire. I'm not a billionaire by choice. I'm offered often, ah, you know, ah, huge venture deals, ah, a bank, very famous, well, the one of the most powerful banks said to me, Damien, you know what? I'll give you a 1.3 billion credit line.”