John Paul de Jora is one of the most flamboyant entrepreneur’s world has ever seen. Right from his eye-gear to this shoes oozes luxury.
But his journey was equally rough. Being a first generation American, things weren’t so easy on him.
His parents divorced as soon as he turned two years old.
He sold Christmas cards and newspapers to support his family till he turned 10 and then was lastly sent to live in a foster home at Los Angeles.
DeJoria also spent some time with an L.A. gang and then joined the US military.
As he grew old, and when his military job was over, he started running out of money.
Industrialization was then kicking in. He realized the opportunity and after doing a low-scale part time job at the Redken Laboratories, he took a 700 USD loan to form John Paul Mitchell Systems.
The company used to outsource and manufacture shampoo products.
To make his market, he went door-to-door to sell his company’s products. During this time, because of lack of money, John used to sleep in his old car instead of renting an apartment.
We were a five men team. Noone was CEO and no bloody hierarchy! Each one of us, including me, hawked door-to-door to sell our Shampoos. I minded nothing except drilling DOWN the quality. Not even sleeping in my old hatchback.
Their product quality was top-notch and the price was set highly competitive.This became their Unique Selling Point.
Eventually, things worked out and their business sky rocketed when one they hit their first big contract with a major state-wide FMCG distributor.
Later, John also created Patron Tequila and then spread out pan industries, from, diamonds to mobile phones.
Today, JPM Systems has a net worth of nearly $1 billion.
