Daymond John Talks Shark Tank Season 11 & His Alter Ego Chocolate Thunder

I am back in the tank with one of my favorites right here. Do you know it's my five-year anniversary?

Is it?

Yeah. Congratulations. It's like a milestone, a career milestone for me right now. I'm kind of upset that all these years I didn't ask you one very important question. What is chocolate thunder?

Why, yes. It is chocolate thunder. chocolate. Oh. Chocolate chocolate thunder. Chocolate Thunder is a name that because I was I was someplace and there was a there was an earthquake. And what happened was I was at a buffet. And when the earthquake happened, I was pinned underneath uh the buffet for about five or six days. And it was only my aptitude to live and the fact that I um there was a a chocolate fountain underneath there and people were giving me just a little hole. People were sliding me gummy bears and marshmallows and um pineapples. And this is the best made up story. To live and the fact that there was a chocolate fountain right there next to me and that's what happened. Then chocolate thunder was born.

Do you realize that like I my my heart jumped, I was like really believing this for the first few seconds and I'm like, oh my god. Are you saying I'm not

I'm telling the truth. What do you want me to do? This is

Yeah. Wait, but we talk we got to talk about the walk. It's it's not just a name, it's got a whole theme, it's got a whole situation.

My walk, you know, cuz when I come on set, all the other sharks kind of like kneel. They you know, so when they hear the thunder they they they feel, you know.

Yeah, there's like actual sound effects.

Yeah, yeah, it's

So this is like the parking spots even your your parking spots.

you almost lose your life. Once you almost lose your life like, you don't care anymore. You just do what you have to do after that. I'm like 50 when he got shot all those times.

Are you the only one on out of all the sharks that actually has this whole this whole thing.

I I am the only one that has that, but Mark Cuban has a song some people made that plays uh Mark Cuban. I mean it's it's whatever song, but I'm sure he paid them to do that song.

He and he totally tries to probably upstage you. Oh my gosh. Well, okay. So now that you've seen thousands and thousands of pitches. Yeah. I just want to know is there still a mistake that entrepreneurs make when they're doing a pitch that, you know, really gets to you that you're like, oh, haven't you seen all the seasons?

Many uh many key tellers uh is number one, they come on. They start out with give me, you know, a million dollars for 4%. So that indication is that they're valuing it very high. So they either have raised a lot of money and they're hemorrhaging or they don't care. Really? I don't know if they want a deal or they're so egotistical, they're saying you give me a million dollars. I'm only going to give you 4%. I'm going to call you every day. So there's a problem there. And then also the same thing of if I only get 1% of this market and it's a 50 billion. Once they do that, they're they're not working with facts. They're they're crazy. They're crazy. Crazy. Straight up crazy.

Yeah. Um but is there something that you notice now when entrepreneurs do come in the tank that, you know, really is different from just all the years past that, you know, I'm sure like the deals are a lot more sophisticated. It's

Um not really. I mean, you know, I you know, I I do notice that they're looking at the shark. They generally want to do a deal with. You can tell when they come in they're starting look because remember, we don't know them and, you know, they they they do know us. Listen, you end up buying into the entrepreneur. Sometimes there's entrepreneurs that come in this tank and I'm like, man, I need to be in the business with this person no matter what because we're going to do something else together. This thing doesn't work, you know? So They're great.

Lastly, are there any particular industries that you are really into right now? You know, that you really want to get involved in that you haven't yet?

I do like Medtech a little bit. Uh you know, medical technologies and wearables and stuff like that. I think that the monitoring of people to get them healthier with their heart or their life. I think that's important.

Well, should we sign out with like a chocolate thunder sign out?

Yeah, um

There's got to be something. this is chocolate.

You know, did you see uh did you see Anne? I I saw her. I haven't met her yet, but 23 and me. I just did the test. I realized I'm 75% chocolate, 25% thunder.