Daymond John Quotes

Good grooming is integral, and impeccable style is a must. If you don't look the part, no one will want to give you time or money.

You don't have to work for a big corporation if you don't want to.

Life is a cruel teacher. She loves to give you the test first and the lesson later.

Success is waking up every day and doing what you want to do

An entrepreneur must pitch a potential investor for what the company is worth as well as sell the dream on how much of a profit can be made.

I do today what people won't, so I achieve tomorrow what other people can't.

In my mind, there are too many copycat web products out there that are doing the same thing.

It takes the same energy to think small as it does to think big. So dream big and think bigger.

While good business ideas are plentiful, many entrepreneurs struggle to understand payroll taxes, health care and other thorny issues… In other words, they don't have the financial literacy to scale their businesses and attract investors.

If you aren't living your dreams then you're living your fears.

Everyone has an idea, but it’s taking those first steps toward turning that idea into a reality that are always the toughest.

Strategic partners are way more important than money.

It will never be a perfect time, you can only make time perfect.

You don’t get rich off your day job, you get rich off your homework.

Poor people put a low value on themselves and their efforts.

Always dress to what is accurate to who and what you are.

When you succeed you have a million people to thank, but when you fail there is only one person to blame.

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.

We all want the freedom to make our own decisions.

I think it's only failure if you put the word failure on it. I think it's part of the process of learning where you're going to go and what doesn't work.

When you have a large amount of the workforce being laid off, some of them have no other choice but to go out there and invent something.

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.

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

I don't want to leave my kids an inheritance, I want to leave them a legacy

When you sell a product or service, you're making a promise to your audience. If you don't understand your audience, you'll never be able to keep that promise and you'll ultimately let them down.

My mother said, "Money is a great slave but a horrible master." It was her version of a French proverb.

I think the single biggest turn off is people who think that they need money and they need all these people around them so if they get the money they can just buy all the things they need to help the company... [without] hav[ing] to put in the work themselves.

You can make up your own opinion, but you can't make up your own facts, go sell.

A savvy entrepreneur will not always look for investment money, first.

As an entrepreneur, you never stop learning.

Truth is the easiest thing to sell.

Make sure you're doing something that you love, that you're willing to do for the rest of your life. If you're doing it for money, that's the only thing you won't make.

I consider each business investment based on concept and revenue.

I look to work with businesses that know what they are doing but need larger distribution or exposure.

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. Try to go as far as you can without anybody else's help first.

I'm a big advocate of financial intelligence.

Pioneers get slaughtered, and the settlers prosper.

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.

If I invest in a CEO, I need him or her to have experience in sales.

I've come to learn that my initial investment is more about the person versus the product that I am buying into. I've also learned that I really do enjoy giving worthy people an opportunity of a lifetime.

If you can't come clean and tell investors how and why you failed, that raises a red flag. They need to see that you learned from it and came back stronger.

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?'

Product is always king.

As an entrepreneur, you love your business like a child, and you're taught to be laser-focused on the business.

I think a great entrepreneur is learning every day. An entrepreneur is somebody that doesn't take no for an answer - they're going to figure something out. They also take responsibility. They don't blame anybody else. And they're dreamers in one sense but they're also realistic and they take affordable steps when they can.

In entrepreneurship, you decide to give up your day job at the point where either (A) the hobby/new business is at least making some form of ends meet, or (B) you feel that you need to dedicate yourself for a certain amount of time to it and give yourself the last hoorah.

The thing about branding is it isn't etched in stone. A brand is a mark or an image or a perception we stamp on a product, a concept or an ideal, but it doesn't last forever. Like anything else, it needs to be nurtured and reinforced, or it will start to fade.

I'm not a golf player. I think golf and fishing are the same, but at the end of the day, you can't fry up and golf ball and dip it in tartar sauce. So I'm a fisherman.

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.

Whether people know it or not, I'm a big nature guy. I like snowboarding, I like fishing, and those are my ways to wind down.