The Power Of Broke

The Power Of Broke shows you how to leverage having no money into an advantage in business by compensating it with creativity, passion and authenticity.

Gary Vaynerchuk often talks about wishing everybody was an immigrant and it’s because as an immigrant, your default setting is that you have to prove yourself. You’re looking for opportunity where other people see only problems. Well, being broke is similar to being an immigrant.

You know that old saying “necessity is the mother of invention?” When you don’t have anything, it forces you to use whatever you’ve got, leading you to use resources in new, creative ways other people don’t see.

In 2012, I went to a Steve Aoki concert. One of my good friends was a fan of his and we happened to be in Chicago that weekend, so we saw the crazy, club-climbing, cake-throwing DJ, who was immensely popular already. But he too comes from humble beginnings.

At 19 years old, Steve started a music label with $400 and a few friends, cramming up to 13 of them into his apartment, which was the office. They’d produce a single, get Steve a gig for $100 and sell it after the show – out of the trunk of his car. Until they could afford to make another one.

He got this resourcefulness from his father, Rocky Aoki, an immigrant. Back in the 60s, Rocky drove an ice-cream truck around New York City, until he had saved $10,000 to open a Sushi restaurant, which has now become the little-known restaurant chain Benihana – with 5,000 employees.

When passion, creativity and authenticity are all you’ve got, you’ll use them, and that often works out better than having money, but none of these things.

The power of being broke isn’t limited to when you’re starting. Daymond says there are four stages in a business’s journey to success and it’s helpful in all four. Item. Initially, you’ll have no name, no logo, no brand and no marketing. Just a product or service that (hopefully) satisfies a need. How good can you make it without money? Label. Once you do give your product a name, customers have something they can remember and ask for. In 1992, Daymond and his four first employees showed up to a trade show they couldn’t even afford the booth at. All five slept in one room, but what they represented was FUBU, not themselves. They managed to collect $300,000 in orders. Brand. A logo, a style, a brand presence all eventually follow. But even here you can be creative. In 1997, LL Cool J, who was once Daymond’s neighbor, pulled another marketing stunt for the brand: he wore his FUBU hat in a…