Mark Cuban may be a maverick, in both the small and the capital "m" sense given his ownership of the Dallas basketball team, but he has never been shy about sharing how others can follow in his footsteps. Whether he's sitting in his "Shark Tank" chair or posting to social media, the billionaire openly talks about the hard work it took to get where he is.
As someone who worked his way up from the bottom. Cuban also regularly shares the sacrifices he had to make on the way to get where he is now.
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That's not him being boastful — which is something he doesn't shy away from being — instead, it's a cautionary tale for people seduced by the upsides of being an entrepreneur. Cuban wants people to follow in his footsteps, but he also wants them to go into the entrepreneur lifestyle with their eyes wide open.
The NBA owner, Shark, and billionaire who's trying to lower drug prices for everyone with his Cost Plus Drug Company, recently sat down with Wired.com for a free-for-all interview. In the 15-minute YouTube video called "Mogul Support," he did not sugarcoat the process while offering candid advice for anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps.
Image source. Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media
Mark Cuban on when you should quit your job
@YoungEntrup_hub opened the questioning by asking Cuban what his best advice was for anyone thinking of leaving their full-time job to become an entrepreneur.
"Save your money first," Cuban responded quickly and emphatically. "Don't just leave unless you know what the hell you're doing."
Cuban made it clear that while the stories of people who walk away from their jobs and get rich are romanticized, the failures aren't.
"What you don't hear are the stories of people who quit their jobs, started a company, and failed miserably and are now working at a job they hate," he said.
Cuban also suggested that it was a good idea to have at least six months of living expenses saved before you walk away from your job.
Mark Cuban on starting over
The billionaire made it clear that every billionaire who says they could start from nothing and do it again is lying. He noted that luck plays a huge role in reaching the level of wealth he has managed to amass.
Cuban, however, does know what he would do if he somehow found himself back at the beginning.
@JCBAYC asked Cuban what he would do if he had six months, a phone, and only $500 to make as much money as he could.
"I am really, really, really good at sales. I'm going to find a sales job because I already know that if I'm on my last $500 and all I have is a phone, I'm going to get that job and learn more about that industry than anybody on the planet," he said.
Cuban believes it would take him three months to prove to his boss that he's the best salesman at the company and be able to leverage threatening to become competition into a large raise.
Mark Cuban shares some great under-the-radar businesses
Ed Jameis asked Cuban to share some great businesses that people don't know about.
"I'm going to tell you a couple of easy ones off the top," Cuban answered. "If I was going to start a company I would seriously look at this."
The technology entrepreneur believes that Amazon's (AMZN) -) Alexa offers some huge opportunities because the devices are in so many homes.
"You could go and start a business where you could go to your neighbors, to car dealers, to businesses and show them for 50 bucks an hour or more how to use their Alexa in their homes to save energy. to save time in their business," he explained.
Cuban believes there are similar business opportunities around artificial intelligence (AI) products like ChatGPT.
Mark Cuban on why most businesses fail
Cuban was also asked why most businesses fail, and he produced a white board to show off the four reasons at heart of all failures.
- Sales
- Preparation
- Effort
- Brains
"Number one: Sales. No business has ever succeeded without sales. Number two, preparation. When you go to start a business, have you done all the homework to know about your industry, your competition, your products, the profitability, your customer base," he shared.
Cuban also made it clear that you can't succeed without hard work.
"It's not easy starting and running a business. It's hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it," he added.
The first three, however, won't be enough, he shared, if you're not smart enough to pull everything together.
"You go to be smart. You got to learn this stuff," he said. "You have got to be curious to succeed at business."
