“In business, you only have to be right once. One time, and you’re set for life
Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and investor who started out with just $60 and had to move into a friend’s apartment after college, has amassed a fortune of over $5 billion.
Cuban’s entrepreneurial spirit started at an early age, with ventures like selling trash bags at age 12, transitioning into selling stamps and coins and even running a small business releases during a strike in Pittsburgh at age 16. His determination led him to pursue studies in management. at university, setting the stage for his future endeavours.
Cuban graduated from Indiana University in 1981 and began working at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh. At Mellon Bank, he transitioned from paper-based processes to computer systems. He also launched a newsletter and hosted a happy hour group for younger employees to interact with senior executives. His boss was not supportive of these efforts.
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“He told me that I should never approach him or approach him or he would run over me,” Cuban recalled in a Forbes essay. “I knew then it was time to get out of there.”
After leaving Mellon Bank, Cuban worked for the Tronics 2000 television repair franchise in Indiana before moving to Dallas. At 24, Cuban shared a three-bedroom apartment in Dallas with five roommates. He only had $60 under his belt.
Cuban attempted to start his own business selling powdered milk, but soon realized it was not a viable business. “I honestly thought it would make for a killer deal and it only lasted a few minutes,” Cuban said.
Then he got a job with software company PC Your Business Software, earning $18,000 a year plus commissions. This role was also short-lived. Cuban had the opportunity to make a sale for $15,000, which would have earned a commission of $1,500. It was a chance for him to improve his living conditions.
He informed his boss – the company’s CEO – that he intended to close the deal during his regular shift, with someone to replace him. His boss, against his project, forbade him to implement it. Cuban proceeded anyway, thinking his boss would be impressed with the sale.
Instead, when he returned to the office, his boss immediately fired him for disobedience. Cuban described this incident as “the determining factor in my professional life”.
This setback motivated him to start a PC consulting company named MicroSolutions, which he later sold to CompuServe for $6 million.
Building on this success, he founded Broadcast.com, an Internet radio company. Yahoo! Inc. acquired the company in 1999 for $5.7 billion in stock. Despite the potential for his wealth to increase with the rising stock price of Yahoo, Cuban decided to sell his shares immediately. This choice turned out to be a sound one: the dot-com bubble burst soon after, making Yahoo’s acquisition of Broadcast.com one of the most unfortunate deals in history. Ultimately, investing in himself and the startup world paid off for Cuban.
In 2000, Cuban bought NBA team the Dallas Mavericks for $285 million. Cuba is now worth $5.1 billion, according to Forbes.
In his book “How to Win in the Sport of Business,” published in 2011, Cuban emphasized the importance of perseverance in business, noting, “It doesn’t matter how many times you go for it. In business, to be successful, you just have to be right once. Just once, and you’re set for life. That’s the beauty of business.
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This article Mark Cuban had $60 under his belt and was laid off from multiple jobs – one move made him a billionaire overnight: “In business, you only have to be right once. Once, and you’re set for life” originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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