Mark Cuban had to hustle to get to where he is today. The Shark Tank entrepreneur phoned into On Air With Ryan Seacrest on Thursday, October 10, and revealed his journey to billions didn’t come without hard work.
“I started off as a bartender,” the businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks shared. “Wherever you start, whatever you can do — I had six guys living in a three bedroom apartment; I slept on the floor for almost a year because that’s what it was going to take to start my business — you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”
Cuban, who is again joining season 11 of ABC’s Shark Tank, shared that anyone aspiring to build or grow a business can do it — and on their own.
“The first thing is all of us have those great ideas, right? … The hard part is doing something that you’re really good at because you have to realize you’re going to be up against a lot of competition,” Cuban shared. “… And if you can start on your own … do it by [yourself] without having to go out and raise money,” he added. “… I think the biggest mistake people make is once they have an idea and the goal of starting a business, they think they have to raise money, and once you raise money, that’s not an accomplishment, that’s an obligation. Now you’re reporting to whoever you raised money from. If you can go out there and start it on your own — like I started out by selling garbage bags — whatever it is … try to find something that you can make or that you can buy yourself and sell to people around you and then ask for referrals and grow the business that way and you can turn it into something enormous.”
Listen back to the full interview above to hear more from Cuban, including his thoughts on college athletes getting paid or employed by schools.
Catch Shark Tank for more great ideas on Sundays at 9/8c on ABC.