Mark Cuban – Success comes slowly

Many people seem frustrated in their business. It is a fact that the majority of businesses will fail  within three years  of conception. I believe it only takes one year to KNOW whether it will fail. Here is a quick story of Mark Cuban. For those who are not aware, he is a billionaire. Some think a genius, some think he’s lucky. Either way, the guy has a knack for seeing value where others may not, for locating long-term investments, and for ending up on the right side of the deal.

For those struggling, here is his abbreviated story. After graduating from college, Cubanwas a bartender. Next, he worked for a year as a salesman at a PC software retailer, making $18K in salary, before he was fired for meeting with a client to close a deal instead of opening the retail store.

He later founded MicroSolutions, a systems integrator and software reseller, but it wasn’t until eight years after grabbing his diploma that he sold his first business, which CompuServe acquired for $6 million in 1990. And then, a bit more famously, he founded a company based on his mutual love of college basketball and webcasting (Audionet), turned it into Broadcast.com, and sold it to Yahoo at the height of the dotcom boom for $5.9 billion in stock.

Since then, he’s been involved in a number of projects, most notably helping build the Dallas Mavericks, a team in which he bought a majority stake back in 2000, into an annual playoff contender and Lebron-slaying NBA Champions in 2011.

He’s also become an increasingly active angel investor in tech startups over the last decade and spends quite a bit of his time coaching young entrepreneurs.

So as you can see, no one makes it overnight. Be smart. Evaluate what you can contribute by being innovative. Learn from your mistakes!

So, seeing as he’s spent more than a few minutes growing businesses, investing in startups, and advising companies on how to grow, when to pivot (learn about pivot at the next KRU EXPO), and how to make money, the following are a few responses he had to some questions:

Do you think Groupon is overvalued?

I like Groupon. Their valuation is whatever the market says it is. They can’t pay attention to that noise. They have to be relentless and focused on continuously adding value to their customers at the consumer and retail sides. If they can do it, they will laugh all the way to the bank.

NOTE: They have to be relentless and focused on continuously adding value to their customers

We’ve seen the rise of Pandora and a host of interesting web radio/music services, like Spotify, take off recently. Curious how you view these players both as an investor/advisor. Do you see potential for Amazon/Google Music/Spotify etc to supplant iTunes?

It all comes down to licensing fees from the labels, both direct and statutory. One of my biggest professional mistakes at Broadcast.com was not fighting the DMCA harder. There are so many ridiculous and arbitrary limits that every music company has this as an overhang on their business.

I also worry about patent trolls coming in and killing this business.

As a guy who understands digital video better than most, what are some of the most interesting companies and trends there that you think we should be paying attention to?

Just remember one thing: The future of TV is TV. Television is still the best alternative to boredom. If you look at all the internet video companies that try to complement TV, they are doing well. If you look at those trying to replace TV, they are sucking wind. I categorize Netflix as doing well and a complement. They made a big mistake, but they are still the big dog.

NOTE: Collaborate and create on content and the supplement to TVon the internet will be big. Watch how KRU TV will do this!

Do you think Facebook has a chance to become the OS of the Internet? Or is social/friendsourcing really just in a bubble of its own?

Right now they are the platform that counts. So yes they have a chance to be the end all, be all going forward. They have become the home page for many of us. That said, their mobile solutions as a platform suck. They are very vulnerable to someone coming along and making social built on mobile a far better and more engaging experience than Facebook currently is.

NOTE: While anything is HOT. You must take advantage of anything (like Facebook) while you can and before the next big thing comes out. But then adapt and be ready for that next big thing, too!