Mark Cuban
In every job, I would justify it in my mind, whether I loved it or hated it, that I was getting paid to learn and every experience would be of value when I figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up. (Location 55)
Heck, three bucks for a magazine, twenty bucks for a book. One good idea would (Location 242)
lead to a customer or a solution, and those magazines and books paid for themselves many times over. Some of the ideas I read were good, some not. In doing all the reading I learned a valuable lesson. Everything I read was public. Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn’t want it. (Location 243)
I can get an advantage in any technology business. Of course, my wife hates that I read more than three hours almost every day, but it gives me a level of comfort and confidence in my businesses. (Location 251)
Lesson #1: Always ask yourself how someone could preempt your products or service. How can they put you out of business? Is it price? Is it service? Is it ease of use? No product is perfect and if there are good competitors in your market, they will figure out how to (Location 291)
The sport of business isn’t divided into games. It’s not defined by practices. It doesn’t have set rules that everyone plays by. The sport of business is the ultimate competition. It’s 7 × 24 × 365 × forever. I love the sport of business. I love the competition. (Location 311)
I could take the time to read a fiction book, but I don’t. I would rather read websites, newspapers, magazines, looking for ideas and concepts that I can use. I spend time in bookstores because one idea from a book or magazine can make (Location 316)
me money. I’m not going to go to dinner with you just to chat. I’m not going to give you a call to see how you are. Unless you want to talk business. Other guys play fantasy sports. I fire the synapses to get an edge. (Location 318)
That’s what success is all about. It’s about the edge. It’s not whom you know. It’s not how much money you have. It’s very simple. It’s whether or not you have the edge and have the guts to use it. (Location 320)
I was at work. That’s the worst way to measure effort. Effort is measured by setting goals and getting results. (Location 371)
Learn as much as you can about business. Read biographies about businesspeople. (Location 390)
In business, the odds are a little different. You don’t have to break the Mendoza Line (hitting .200). In fact, it doesn’t matter how many times you strike out. In business, to be a success, you only have to be right once. One single time and you are set for life. That’s the beauty of the business world. (Location 422)
“Everyone has got the will to win; it’s only those with the will to prepare that do win.” (Location 464)
I have been in situations where I have told myself that I’m smart, I know what I’m doing, that I will figure things out as I go, so it’s okay to take on this new opportunity. Those were usually the times I made mistakes. In a lifetime of running businesses I have developed a lot of rules that have been almost infallible. Here are a few of them that I use religiously to this day: (Location 470)
I deal with operational issues, but pretty much every other strategic element of my businesses I have learned to delegate—that’s not easy for an entrepreneur to do. (Location 508)
If you are the main engine behind your company, taking on new challenges will only dilute (Location 512)
your ability to win the wars you are in and increase the risk of injuring your primary business or core competencies. (Location 513)
Every minute that I or our top people spend dealing with the rest of the world is a minute not spent fighting the battle to make HDNet and HDNet Movies the best networks they can be here in the U.S. We are not a business that has maximized our growth here; we are just starting to accelerate. Taking any resources away from that battle would be a huge mistake. (Location 525)
It’s a huge lesson for entrepreneurs. Win the battles you are in first, then worry about expansion internationally or into new businesses. You do not have unlimited time and/or attention. You may work 24 hours a day, but those 24 hours spent winning your core business will pay off far more. (Location 529)
Far too often when an entrepreneur hits a rough patch or competitive challenge, the temptation is to “turn on the thinking cap” and find something new for the company to do. Don’t fall prey to the temptation. As an entrepreneur you have to know what the core competencies of your business are and make sure that your company focuses on being the absolute best it can be at executing them. Bottom line is this: If you are adding new things when your core businesses are (Location 535)
the challenge, you are either running away or giving up. Rarely is either good for a business. In fact, by chasing these opportunities, you may be assuring that you drown in them. These rules are things I check off against before I undertake new elements of a business. (Location 539)
Entrepreneurs who don’t follow The Rules are far more likely to fail. There is no doubt about it. (Location 579)
Rule #1: Sweat equity is the best startup capital (Location 581)
In all of my businesses, I started by putting together spreadsheets of my expenses, which allowed me to calculate how much revenue I needed to break even and keep the lights on in my office and my apartment. (Location 584)
I wrote overviews of what I was selling, why I thought the business made sense, an overview of my competition, why my product and/or (Location 585)
service would be important to my customers and why they should buy or use it. All of it went down on a piece of yellow paper or in a word processing file, and none of it cost me more than the diet soda I was drinking while I was writing it up. (Location 586)
MicroSolutions was very simple—to use microcomputers and software to help our customers become more productive and profitable and gain a competitive advantage. (Location 588)
Once I could put the idea on paper, I gave the company a name. From there, I took the most important step: I tried to find people to shoot holes in the name. (Location 591)
The minute you ask for money, you are playing in their game—they aren’t playing in yours. You are at a huge disadvantage, and it’s only going to get worse if you take their money. (Location 612)
Family cares about your dreams. Investors care about money. There is a reason why venture capitalists are often referred to as Vulture Capitalists. (Location 616)
“Treat your customers like they own you. Because they do.” (Location 648)
The best focus groups are your customers telling you what they think. No company is perfect, but the CEO who doesn’t listen to direct feedback from customers will not take the company as far as it can go. (Location 662)
But it gets worse from there for CEOs who don’t communicate with their customers. (Location 664)
It was Aaron Spelling, I believe, who said, “TV is the path of least resistance from complete boredom.” Which is another way of saying that it’s easier to watch TV than to sit there and do nothing. Which describes exactly how people make most of their choices in life. They take the easy way. They take the path of least resistance.There are certain things in life we all have to do. (Location 699)
When Broadcast.com was around, we understood that our strength came from being the path of least resistance for out-of-market sports that weren’t available on national TV. If we had the option of offering a football game that was going to be on national TV in the evening, it wouldn’t matter how good the game was. No one was going to choose to listen online because it was easier to watch on TV. (Location 703)
Offering content for which the path of least resistance was watching or listening online was a key to our building an audience. (Location 708)
It’s easier to pay a premium for access to the (Location 714)
movie than to deal with the kids screaming about not being able to go. (Location 714)
The path of least resistance is why I think (Location 717)
Amazon.com, Apple and Google have been so successful. I buy everything from books to electronics to toiletries on Amazon because it’s easier than schlepping to the store. They show up in the mail as quickly as I am willing to pay to have them show up. (Location 718)
Google one-upped Yahoo! a few years ago by making it simple and easy to plug in a search and get results. Yahoo! made us scan through their home page to make a search and often took us to directories and other intermediaries. Google was the path of least resistance for simple searches. (Location 722)
In business, one of the challenges is making sure that your product is the easiest to experience and to sell. (Location 726)
Moral of the story: Make your (Location 732)
product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you. (Location 733)
Amazon.com or Netflix.com, both of which do a great job of “suggestive programming.” We will get a personalized page with options that it thinks we might like based on our previous viewing decisions. (Location 745)
If you can sell, you can find a job in sports. I will take a high school dropout who is caring, involved and can sell over an MBA in sports management almost every time. (Location 768)
The best salespeople are the ones who put themselves in their customer’s shoes and provide a solution that makes the customer happy. The best salesperson is the one the customer trusts and never has to question. The best salesperson is the one who knows that with every cold call made, he is closer to helping someone. The best salesperson is the one who takes immense satisfaction from the satisfaction her customer gets. (Location 771)
The best salesperson is the one who wakes up early every morning excited to come to the office, get on the phone and let people know exactly why he loves his product, job and clients. (Location 775)
successful. If I am selling any of these to someone and they say no, I will always ask for their objections with something like, “Thank you for taking the time to listen/read. Would you mind sharing with me what you didn’t like about the product or why you like the product you chose?” And if I have a good counter to their objection(s), I will let it fly and see what happens. (Location 787)
“Every no gets me closer to a yes.” You have to move on and start communicating with someone you know might buy your product rather than wasting more time with someone you already know won’t buy your product/service/idea. (Location 793)
next. It is very, very easy to send someone an email every day or even hour. That is what a lazy person is going to do: spend all of two seconds hitting the resend button. A smart, focused and successful salesperson will gear up and do the homework necessary to find their next customer. (Location 798)
Creating opportunities means looking where others are not. Look outside of where all your friends are looking. Make a list of jobs and businesses that are beyond the norm. (Location 817)
But why fight the crowds? Go where people are not. (Location 819)
4. Figure out how to be the best Once you have found out what you love to do, there is only one goal: to be the best in the world at it. It doesn’t matter if you are a filing clerk, an athlete, an accountant or a bartender. (Location 834)
A great quote from technology luminary Alan Kay that every entrepreneur needs to remember: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” (Location 849)
Then it made a fatal mistake. It asked its customers what features they wanted to see in the product, and they delivered on those features. Unfortunately for this company, its competitors didn’t ask customers what they wanted. (Location 851)
Entrepreneurs always need to be reminded that it’s not the job of their customers to know what they don’t. (Location 859)
Instead, part of every entrepreneur’s job is to invent the future. I also call it “kicking your own ass.” Someone is out there looking to put you out of business. Someone is out there who thinks they have a better idea than you have. A better solution than you have. A better or more efficient product than you have. If there is someone out there who can “kick your ass” by doing it better, it’s part of your job as the owner of the company to stay ahead of them and “kick your own (Location 862)
ass” before someone else does. Your customers can tell you the things that are broken and how they want to be made happy. Listen to them. Make them happy. But don’t rely on them to create the future road map for your product or service. That’s your job. (Location 865)
NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications you already read, on the shows you already watch and at the websites you already surf. (Location 889)
Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them a message introducing yourself and the company. (Location 890)
Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communication with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you. (Location 891)
In the search for success, you can fail any number of times, but you only have to get it right one time. (Location 909)
When I catch myself daydreaming about how I’m going to do this or that, I always try to wake up and ask myself just how I’m going to get from where I am to where I want to be. What EXACTLY is it going to take to DO it, rather than dream about it. (Location 932)