Mark Cuban’s time on Shark Tank is what most of the public know him best for, even if they don’t know how he got all the money he’s needed to become an investor.
Cuban has earned his wealth through multiple business ventures, many of which he was introduced to on the show.
When Cuban is not busy looking for the next product to make him millions, he is spending time on the basketball courts of the National Basketball Association.
Without the fortune that Mark Cuban has earned, the world may have never known his name.
Was Mark Cuban Born Rich?
No, Mark Cuban was not born rich.
His parents were working-class citizens, and his grandparents were immigrants from Russia who came through Ellis Island.
When his grandparents first came to the United States, their last name was Chabenisky.
The immigration officials at Ellis Island at the time changed it to Cuban.
Mark Cuban’s father spent his days upholstering the interiors of cars, and his mother worked a yearly rotation of odd jobs.
Most of the people Cuban grew up around thought that he would go to work at the local mill like many of the town’s youth, but his mother wanted him to learn how to install carpeting.
Cuban’s love for business started when he would resell the baseball cards, rare coins, and stamps that he would get on various occasions.
When it was time for Cuban to begin to seriously consider what he wanted to do with his future, he looked into some of the best business schools in the country.
Without even seeing the campus, Mark Cuban decided to attend Indiana University because it had the lowest tuition of the 10 most popular business schools in the country at the time.
He graduated from Indiana’s Kelley School of Business in 1981.
Despite doing well in school and helping sell a variety of products, Mark Cuban was either fired or quit his first three jobs after college.
These jobs included bartending at a bar called Elan, a salesperson for Your Business Software, and a position at Mellon Bank.
Cuban found that it would be better for him to run his own business and work for himself rather than ever work for someone else again.
Mark Cuban decided to step into the world of business with his company, MicroSolutions.
Through this company, Cuban would go on to amass a fortune and become a business icon.
“Tech Geek” Turned Tech Tycoon
After being fired for closing an important deal instead of cleaning the storefront at Your Business Software, Mark Cuban decided that it was time he went out on his own as a business owner and created MicroSolutions.
MicroSolutions was a computer consultation service that helped businesses with their computer-based problems.
It didn’t take the start-up company long before it attracted the attention of CompuServe, which was interested in purchasing the company.
With the money he made from the sale of his first company, Cuban immediately started his second company AudioNet.
Cuban was tired of only hearing about Indiana professional sports games long after they happened, so he decided to create an internet-based way to listen to Indiana radio stations called AudioNet.
With the help of his college friend, Todd Wagner, Cuban was able to expand his idea and decided to rename the online streaming service Broadcast.com.
The company was purchased by the massively successful tech company, Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in April of 2020.
Although Cuban and Wagner sold their first company together, they’ve gone in on multiple business ventures since.
Together, the business duo opened up Landmark Theaters in 2003.
Landmark Theaters was unlike other movie theaters that chased down the latest, most popular movies.
This theater chain specialized in independent films and even Netflix for its movie lineups.
The company even paired up with the subscription ticket service MoviePass to offer its customers a unique theater experience.
The duo eventually sold the chain to CMG.
After selling his movie theater chain, Cuban decided to focus on investing in the world of television.
Cuban has invested in AXS TV, Magnolia Pictures, and HDNet.
However, he didn’t hold onto his ownership of HDNet or AXS TV for long, selling them only a year after purchasing them.
Joining The Cast Of Shark Tank
When Mark Cuban was asked to join the cast of Shark Tank, he knew that he couldn’t turn down this lucrative offer.
The opportunity to find one-of-a-kind companies to invest in while also being able to inspire other people to become entrepreneurs was something that Cuban really wanted to do for both financial and moral reasons.
During an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Cuban told the host that his favorite part of being on Shark Tank is being able to meet the young child who reminds him of himself and hearing how he inspired them to start their own businesses.
Cuban is often amazed by the young entrepreneurs that he gets to meet through the show.
Oftentimes, the young business owners have more motivation to learn the proper way of running a business than the older entrepreneurs.
Mark Cuban claims that he tells all of those who work for him or with him that the one thing they can control is how much effort they’re willing to put into something.
Cuban has made a name for himself on the show for being perfectly honest with aspiring entrepreneurs.
While the world may be crazy and circumstances may be unfair, Cuban expects his employees to try their best and lead their businesses with determination and respect for what they have going for them.
The business tycoon is quick to call out those he doesn’t believe will be able to run a business properly and those products that he believes will fail.
Cuban understands the head of a company is just as important as the product they’re creating.
If the leader of a business is unmotivated or unprepared, it doesn’t matter how good the product is.
Through his time on Shark Tank, Cuban has managed to be introduced to incredible entrepreneurs and life-changing products.
The Best Investments He’s Made From Shark Tank
While Mark Cuban loves the social impact that his presence on Shark Tank has provided, he also isn’t upset about all the successful start-up companies he has been able to invest in.
One of his favorite investments was Tower Paddle Boards.
When Tower Paddle Boards founder, Stephan Aarstol, first appeared on Shark Tank, he received a $150,000 investment for 30% of the company.
Aarstol took $100,000 out of the $150,000 and put it towards paying off a loan.
After appearing on the show and creating buzz for the product, Tower Paddle Boards was quickly able to make another $60,000.
Cuban asked for a $50,000 dividend check, which Aarstol was quick to pay.
A year after Mark Cuban’s initial investment in the company, he loaned an additional $300,000 to Tower Paddle Boards during a critical time of need.
This investment finally paid off when Tower Paddle Boards made $30 million in 2018 alone.
In 2013, Cuban was introduced to Nuts N’ More, which was a nut-based protein treat that came in a variety of sweet flavors such as mint chocolate chip and spiced pumpkin pie.
Being a health nut and having a sweet tooth, Cuban was all about this product.
By 2018, the health food company was making $30 million annually.
Cuban originally joined Robert Herjavec to invest $250,000 into the company collectively.
One of Mark Cuban’s favorite investees has been the founder of Simple Sugars, 19-year-old Lani Lazzari.
The young entrepreneur delayed a year of high school to focus on her company before appearing on Shark Tank.
Mark Cuban initially invested $100,000 for 33% of the young entrepreneur’s company because he saw himself in the Philadelphia native.
The company has been making millions annually.
Buying The Dallas Mavericks
Mark Cuban has always been a massive sports fan and loves the city of Dallas for giving him his start as a businessman, so it made sense when he purchased Dallas’s own basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks.
Cuban became the majority owner of the team in 2000, after a decade of the Mavs not being able to make it far in the National Basketball Association bracket.
Dallas fans had begun to lose interest in the team, and fewer fans were showing up to every game, never filling out their hometown stadium.
A year after Mark Cuban took control, the team was able to make it to the playoffs.
They were able to sell out every home game until December 15th of that year, making it the longest sellout streak in American professional sports.
Under the new leadership of Cuban, the Dallas team was able to find much more success and even won its first National Basketball Association championship in 2011.
While hometown pride was beginning to swell in the hearts of Dallas basketball fans, Mark Cuban wouldn’t make a profit from the Dallas Mavericks until 2013.
Although the Dallas Mavericks’ brand had a long legacy behind it, Mark Cuban felt he needed to start fresh and treat the brand as a start-up company.
One of the first changes he made to the team was to change the focus from the team itself to the fans who had been supporting the team for generations.
Instead of trying to sell Mavericks fans on the team, he began trying to sell Mavericks fans on the experience of going to a Dallas Mavericks game versus going to any other team’s game.
The second change that Cuban made was to treat his basketball players with the respect that they deserved, unlike most sports team owners.
Supporting A Prior Player
Mark Cuban cares very deeply for each of his Dallas Maverick players and has shown how far he is willing to go to support them with his previous Mavericks player Delonte West.
During his time with the Dallas Mavericks, Cuban had watched West struggle with drug addiction, homelessness, and his mental health.
Although Delonte West had been released from the National Basketball Association over his drug use and criminal charges, Cuban did his best to stay in contact with West and offer him any of the support that he needed.
West’s struggles with drugs and mental health had left him nearly unrecognizable due to all the weight he had lost.
He was found panhandling on the sides of roads on social media for a while, but it wasn’t until a fan had posted a video of Delonte West outside of a gas station that Cuban knew where he was or how he was doing.
Luckily, West was only a few miles away from Mark Cuban’s Dallas home at a gas station that he recognized.
Cuban got in his blue Tesla Model S and raced his way over to pick up the suffering player, paying for a hotel room for him and the rehabilitation treatment that West so badly needed.
The video of Cuban picking up West went viral, but Cuban didn’t want to say more about West because he believed that the former player needed privacy in his time of healing.
All that Cuban has said about picking West up has been to confirm that he did find West and he was currently helping him and his family.
This act from Cuban inspired many of West’s prior coaches and teammates to vow to support West and his family after the struggles he faced in the National Basketball Association.
Famous Actor Mark Cuban
While most people will bring up Mark Cuban’s wealth or his time on Shark Tank when they talk about the unimaginable things that Cuban has done, it is rare that anyone ever talks about his acting career.
Although his performances may not have qualified to win any awards, they’re definitely comical and strange to think about.
Mark Cuban landed his first acting role in the 1994 movie Talking About Sex, which follows author Andie Norman who has found a new way to discuss assertive communication skills in a way that will grasp a younger audience.
Cuban takes on the minor role of Macho Mark.
The following year, Cuban was cast in the role of a nameless villain in the action movie Lost at Sea.
He starred alongside actor and director Steve Sayre, Lori Morrisey, Caroline Ambrose, and Richard Raynesford.
Mark Cuban also appeared in Chuck Norris’s 2000 television series Walker, Texas Ranger.
In the episodes Wedding Bells Part: 1 and Wedding Bells Part: 2, Cuban played Mark Smith.
When he appeared in a later episode of the show called Soldiers of Hate, he would only be making a cameo appearance.
Cuban made his second cameo appearance on the comedy show Arli$$ in 2001.
He appears in season six of the series on the episode Hard Choices.
Mark Cuban played Seamus in the romantic comedy film One, Two, Many.
The movie is about a man on the hunt for a girlfriend who will agree to have another person in the relationship, which didn’t get great reviews when it came out in 2008.
Cuban has even taken on voice acting roles, like the time he appeared in an episode of The Simpsons, titled The Burns and the Bees.
In the episode, Mr. Burns wins Cuban’s professional basketball team and has them move to Springfield.
His Philanthropy Work
As someone who grew up in a working-class family, Mark Cuban has a deep appreciation for the position he has gotten to financially and understands how difficult it can be to get out of the rut of financial struggle.
Because of his upbringing, Cuban makes a point to donate and support causes that he believes will make a positive change in the world.
When he was awarded Dallas’s 2020 Community Hero award, he told interviewers that he chose to speak out and give hands-on support to those who needed it most because he had the freedom to do so.
He has no political affiliation and business rule that says that he can’t speak out freely, so he uses this to his advantage.
Cuban was given this award because of the work he did and the money he donated during the pandemic.
When COVID-19 had sports stadiums around the country shutting down and not being able to keep their workers, Cuban was determined that he wasn’t going to have the same happen to Dallas’s own stadium.
He and the players of the Dallas Mavericks donated towards paying the lost wages of the stadium workers who allowed their stadium to run as smoothly as it had been for decades.
Cuban understands the importance that the team has on the locals’ lives, having met dying children who wanted nothing more than to meet their favorite players and grieving parents bury their children in the team’s jerseys.
Mark Cuban also started the Fallen Patriot Fund, which is a fund set up by The Mark Cuban Foundation.
This fund was set up to support any United States military personnel who were killed or severely injured during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The money goes towards paying for funeral costs and ensuring that their families are financially supported.
Becoming One Of The Most Famous Investors
It’s not often that someone earns the majority of their fame from the money they invest in companies, but Mark Cuban has found a way to teach people the skills of entrepreneurship in an interesting way with his appearance on Shark Tank.
Despite all of the money that Cuban has made, he has not lost sight of what is truly important to him, which is making the world around him a better place.
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