John Paul DeJoria

John Paul DeJoria (born 1944) is famous as a former homeless man who went on to become a billionaire businessman. He is worth 3.5 billion dollars estimated by Forbes magazine.

DeJoria was born in Los Angeles and graduated high school in 1962, next joining the Navy, which assigned him to the USS "Hornet".

After leaving the military, he became homeless and lived in his car with his son. When his son was two, he went to public daycare. John Paul would collect soda cans, making $2.00 a day, enough for them to eat. Eventually, his fate changed course when he was offered an entry-level marketing position with Time magazine. It didn't take long before he became the Los Angeles circulation manager. Then in 1971, he knew he'd met his calling when he accepted a position at Redken Laboratories, the leading professional hair salon product company in the U.S. at the time, on a starting salary of only $650 a month. However the real turning point came when Dejoria met up with his stylist friend Paul Mitchell and came up with the idea of starting John Paul Mitchell Systems. When they first started off they only had borrowed about $700 dollars. At this time again Dejoria became homeless and would go from beauty salon to beauty salon to sell his products, while living in the backseat of his car. Today Dejoria enjoys a stream of success through his various business ventures. The first and main one is John Paul Mitchell systems founded in 1980 which have revenues according to reports of 1 billion dollars a year. Also The Patron Spirits Company also exceeds more than a billion dollars in revenue. Further, Dejoria has a host of other business ventures including House of Blues nightclubs (a company he founded with some partners that was sold to live nation in 2006 for 350 million), Patron Tequila (founded in 1992 with business partner Martin Crowley), Pyrat Rum, Solar Utility, Touchstone Natural Gas, Three Star Energy, Diamond Audio, a Harley Davidson dealership, his new John Paul Pet company which is hair and personal grooming products for animals, and even his own diamond company Dejoria. [ [http://www.dejoria.co.uk/about-us.html Conflict-Free Diamonds, Diamond Engagement Rings, Diamond Rings & Diamond Jewellery From DeJoria - DeJoria ] ] Lastly, to commemorate his homelessness on his 20th anniversary he purchased a seat on the New York Stock exchange. He has reportedly said on one occasion that he may be worth more than Donald Trump, who is worth 3 billion.

At one point DeJoria rode with members of the Hell's Angels.

In Media

In the 2008 Adam Sandler comedy movie You Don't Mess with the Zohan, DeJoria made a cameo appearance as his business partner, Paul Mitchell, trying to convice Zohan to join his salon with stock options included. The Paul Mitchell salon and their hairstyle book along with its California beauty school were featured throughout the film.

John Paul DeJoria currently stars in [http://www.thegrindshowonline.tv The Grind Show Online] , an online television show that instructs people on Success Strategies.

References

External links

*http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_38/b4050072.htm
*http://www.horatioalger.com/members/member_info.cfm?memberid=DEJ04
*http://www.usdreams.com/DeJoria5051.html
*http://www.cnbc.com/id/19076094/
*http://www.patronspirits.com/en/functional/company/management/john_paul_dejoria_founder/
*http://www.islandconnections.com/edit/dejoria.htm
*http://www.paulmitchell.com/About_Us/Pages/TheStory.aspx
*http://www.jppet.com/
*http://ww-success.com/blog/index.php/2007/12/23/i-love-a-success-story-from-homeless-to-millionaire/
*http://beautynetwork.tv/podcast/
*http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1328193865&channel=1127772616
*http://www.beniceorelse.com/newsletter/August2005.html
*http://youraddressmagazine.com/cms/node/29
*http://thegrindshowonline.tv
*http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/54/400list08_John-Paul-DeJoria_PYLZ.html