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I've failed way more than I've succeeded.
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My parents always taught me that my day job would never make me rich; it'd be my homework.
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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.
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When looking at trends I always ask myself basic and timeless questions about business, and the one I seem to always come back to is, 'How is this different than anything else in the marketplace?'
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I'm a firm believer in utilizing celebrities because they tap into people on an emotional basis.
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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.
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You don't have to work for a big corporation if you don't want to.
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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.
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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.
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I'm a big advocate of financial intelligence.
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In the founders, I look for a person I feel is trustworthy, driven and smart. I invest in the person first, because in the event the business fails, the person and I can move forward and create another business.
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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.
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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.
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Poor people put a low value on themselves and their efforts.
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In my mind, there are too many copycat web products out there that are doing the same thing.
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I value an entrepreneur I can get behind and trust, because I know they are attempting to move forward in life.
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When I first got into business, I made a lot of bad decisions.
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The only thing that scares me in the tech area is that it moves so fast that you have to be ready to invest in 20 things. Because if you just invest in one, next week, somebody has a better mousetrap, and you get taken to the cleaners.
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I always tried to align myself with strategic partners, friends, and information to help me with the things that I did not know, and ultimately, I made it.
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A savvy entrepreneur will not always look for investment money, first.
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As an entrepreneur, you love your business like a child, and you're taught to be laser-focused on the business.
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FUBU is pretty well licensed out in China and Asia. In America it's a little more of a challenge, obviously, because it's a branded sport.
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No matter what business you're in, business is business, and financing and money are critical. I would have made a lot fewer mistakes if I had more schooling in that area.
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I'm the kind of person that when I saw a lack of African Americans in the apparel business, that was something I set out to do, and I lead by example.