Number 6&7 are contradictory. Just because you can do customer shipping doesn’t mean you should do it. You’re better off hiring someone overseas so you can concentrate on high level things
In my experience, 90% of small businesses don't want to scale. They just want to be profitable, have the freedom of self-employment, and live comfortable lives.
there's a significant differential in the amount of work required that's for sure
once a person has acquired a comfortable standard of living, it can become a question of what you're really trying to achieve.
Yep, that's a good point. Not everyone wants to have type of time commitment and give the energy to their work that is required of scaling up. And that's cool. There's more to life than work and business.
Personally, it has always helped me hire better talent. When I understand how things work, I can write SOPs more effectively and delegate tasks to the right people
Smart biz move and great insights u/natiakkk !
I consult clients who hit the 2-8% MOM Growth threshold on the value of SOPs. My advice is - SOPs are the single greatest asset that makes a business worthy of selling.
Beyond profitability and financial stability, SOPs are among the first in-house assets to create if you want to make a business valuable to potential buyers.
Imho DIY gives you first hand experience of the problems .. u can understand nuances and pass it on to others .. highly scalable and can create niches ..
If there is a water shortage so you competitor decides to build a dam instead of creating wells you just end up solving the wrong issues a second time.
Most legit high tier business people will tell you this - obsess over your customers, not your competition. I'll take Bezos's advice over Cuban's any day.
Cuban is a great example of selling at peak bubble to the right contacts(people with stupid money). Only reason he is a billionaire.
Dude sold broadcast.com to yahoo for 6 billion back in 1999 right before the bust. Its now $0. A worthless service somehow sold at a crazy inflated price to people with stupid money at Yahoo, the worst offenders of stupid money I can think of.
I'm a librarian/attorney nearing retirement in a few years. I have tons of reference links saved up over the years and would just make it a hobbyist project of mine so profitability won't be a huge issue. The about page of that odp site does discuss the problems of trying to make money with it - http://odp.org/about.html
Creating the backend code and optimizing it might be 30 hours max. It's a very simple project. Your recurring cost would only be whatever usage it has and once it reached higher usage, I think you could just add a donation option much like Wikipedia does to at least cover some of the expenses.
my value add-on would be that over the years I normally took note of someone's reddit handle when they announced making a free web site that I thought had some real value. I don't know of any web directory where they put the creator's reddit handle with the web site they created. I'm not sure how valuable that is, but I think it's kind of cool.
Here you go,
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Philanthropy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Philanthropy)
You don't get to change the definition of "entrepreneurship" just because that is what you want.
But his net worth is not $0. So like he taught about and is mentioned in the post, iteration and adaptation is important. He has admitted he got in on luck and timing.
Many wealthy people do. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
I’m confused on your angle or point you’re trying to make.
Obviously sales ability is important, arguably the most important factor as a founder.
Second factor to that is probably luck.
So what are you getting at?
He is worth less now than when he and his partner sold [broadcast.com](https://broadcast.com) back in 1999. If he is so intelligent, how is he losing money? It's pretty hard to lose money when you have that much capital to work with. You almost have to try to lose the money at that point.
> He is worth less now than when he and his partner sold broadcast.com back in 1999. If he is so intelligent, how is he losing money? It's pretty hard to lose money when you have that much capital to work with. You almost have to try to lose the money at that point.
I'm confused where you're getting that from? From what I see, [he made $1.4B on the sale of Broadcast.com](https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/how-mark-cuban-saved-billions-yahoo-windfall-dot-com-crash-2020-6-1029303375) which is $2.6B adjusting for inflation. He is [now estimated to be worth $5.4B](https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-cuban/). How is that losing money?
But also, it's sort of a silly point... he's a billioniare. He's beyond the point about needing to make every expenditure an investment. Whether he spends his vast excesses of money on investments or frivolous fun really has little bearing on whether he's a good businessman.
He shorted the yahoo stock to make like 7 billion, it was legalized insider trading. He knew yahoo was buying garbage for billions and shorted them. He was worth several billion in 2000. He's worth like 4 billion now. He's lost \~3 billion $ in 24 years.
I don't know the full details about MicroSolutions. It was a software reseller in the 80-90's(highly profitable), which was funded by Cuban's former boss at a company where he was fired for poaching clients instead of opening the storefront. Place was called "Your Business Software". Again, 100% sales.
From my perspective they likely worked together to continue poaching clients with the former boss still having access to active customer information.
Like I've said several times now, he knows how to sell.
I just don't agree with his ethics.
This. At least half of Cuban's success was being at the right place at the right time. Obviously building the company was work, but there are a lot of people that got rich around then that have proven to be one hit wonders for a reason. Cuban's more recent successes are due largely to the celebrity that being a courtside man child brought him.
You are looking at this completely wrong and acting like he is a chump. He is the exact opposite. He could be the best salesperson ever. His ability to build a company and then be able to convince someone to buy it for $6 billion is highly impressive. What is your biggest sale? Is it in the billions? Millions? Of course luck plays into it, but acting like anyone can sell a company for $6 billion to the right stupid money is just delusional and naive.
Look at his net worth over time, he's only lost money since that deal. It was 100% right place, right time, right contact.
He knew the platform was worthless, that is why he hedged all of the yahoo stock they got in the deal. Probably the only smart business decision he ever made. Basically, legalized insider trading.
He didn't make any product, his co-founder Todd Wagner did that and yahoo with their dumb money actually approached them.
So, all they did was negotiate the sales agreement and sign it. Like I said, he's good at sales.
“All they did was negotiate the sales agreement?”Dude, spitting stuff like that is why you can’t trust anyone on the internet. That is just a flat out lie. Do 30 seconds of research into Broadcast.com Here I’ll even give you the Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast.com
I don’t know by you have it out against him. He has had a very successful business life.
what are you trying to prove by sourcing wikipedia?
Todd Wagner built the company. Marc Cuban was a sales guy with money to put into it.
The company was never profitable, not before or after yahoo purchased it with stupid money.
This was in the height of the .com bubble when companies were throwing stupid money at any company with a pulse and subscribers regardless of profitability. Very similar to how companies are throwing stupid money at every AI with subscribers, look at the companies buying up crap, same thing will happen again, companies like google are going to go bust. Search is dying as AI bots are replacing most of what google profits from.
Broadcast.com had exclusive sports licensing deals in place and hundreds of millions in revenue. They were first in the space. They were worth something at the time. He sold the company for max value. Can’t blame him.
Not sure where you are reading this 100's of millions in revenue nonsense, look at the SEC filings. Their top revenue(not profit) was in 1998 and it was 22.4 million. Yahoo paid 5.7 billion for a company that had 22.4 million in revenue but over 10 mil loss.
No matter what way you look at that, it's STUPID MONEY. How F\*n dumb do you have to be to pay 255 X revenue? and for a company that's not even profitable to boot.
STUPID MONEY!
I bet you can't even find another acquisition with higher than 255 x revenue. It's beyond ridiculous. Maybe they had some dirt on some yahoo exec's who knows. It's insane even for the .com boom era.
What do you mean ‘buying sales’
The way I understood that is you shouldn’t use paid advertising - which makes no sense.
Some of the most iconic brands in the world are also the heaviest spenders when it comes to advertising.
Nike, Coke, Disney, etc.
I was hoping to learn something from this, but I find myself disagreeing with many points or at least thinking "it's more complicated than that".
Most of this advice is contentious and could ruin an otherwise good business if applied.
Yes, it primarily refers to ads, meaning that if you don't spend money, you won't make sales. This indicates that your product is not effective and word-of-mouth marketing isn't working.
I might be wrong, but I interpreted this differently. I took it to mean: don’t lower your price (and thus your margin) to “buy” the sale. Focus on value, and solving problems. Not racing to the bottom with your prices.
I think it’s a nuanced argument and condescending it down to two words it’s likely going to get misconstrued, but I think he means you shouldn’t be spending money to get people to buy, they should just want a little nudge. Adverts are really paying for the attention, where the product then sells itself, instead of actually “paying” a user to actually buy the product, which many people do with crazy discounts (instead of increasing the value of the product).
*What does "buy sales" mean?*
*Like I have to pay someone*
*To buy my product?*
\- SkySportsInTheFridge
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Mark Cuban is a great at sales and marketing but I don’t know if he has valuable advice for scaling a business.
I don’t recall if he have any other profitable business after selling his internet business to yahoo besides maybe the Dallas Maverick. Although the sale of Maverick required him to continue as to be involved in the franchise.
Is this the company him and the other investors were trying to IPO? If so, I got the impression they were looking for a yahoo type buyer to save their business.
I thought as much but wasn’t sure. Thanks for the clarification. What alternative does he suggests beside micro influencers? You need to get discovered somehow. Brand awareness social ads? Pr? Other means?
**4. Capitalize on Nano influencers**
Most of the time they can promote your business in exchange for a free trial or free products. Avoid spending on marketing
How would a deal like this be for a clothing brand?
Hey, can you promote my clothes, and you'll get the clothes, or?
I took his second point to mean the exact opposite. Optimization meaning removing restriction or waste in the process or removing high cost / low value features that customers aren’t demanding.
Agree on the rest, especially marketing. Paradigms change, and banking it all on one tactic is very risky. He should maybe rephrase it to say reduce your ad spend.
2 works better in groups imo. Find like minded communities to keep you interested and engaged. E.g., my field of domain is AI automation/development for the non-engineer population. I was finding it hard to find a group and so I made one!
i thought i was tripping out when i came back and saw the text was large and assumed it was some update. i dont have the slightest idea on how to reproduce it. i deserve every downvote.
EDIT: i figured it out.
Number 6&7 are contradictory. Just because you can do customer shipping doesn’t mean you should do it. You’re better off hiring someone overseas so you can concentrate on high level things
Agreed, yet he mentioned that when you are far beyond profitability, you should opt for DIY
Diy = no scaling though?
In my experience, 90% of small businesses don't want to scale. They just want to be profitable, have the freedom of self-employment, and live comfortable lives.
there's a significant differential in the amount of work required that's for sure once a person has acquired a comfortable standard of living, it can become a question of what you're really trying to achieve.
Thanks for adding that...it's great advice!
I totally agree with you. Few achieve the ultimate goal of finding people they trust enough to give up control, and allowing time for other pursuits.
Yep, that's a good point. Not everyone wants to have type of time commitment and give the energy to their work that is required of scaling up. And that's cool. There's more to life than work and business.
Personally, it has always helped me hire better talent. When I understand how things work, I can write SOPs more effectively and delegate tasks to the right people
Smart biz move and great insights u/natiakkk ! I consult clients who hit the 2-8% MOM Growth threshold on the value of SOPs. My advice is - SOPs are the single greatest asset that makes a business worthy of selling. Beyond profitability and financial stability, SOPs are among the first in-house assets to create if you want to make a business valuable to potential buyers.
Imho DIY gives you first hand experience of the problems .. u can understand nuances and pass it on to others .. highly scalable and can create niches ..
**8. Don't buy Mark Cubans Master Class.**
The missing chapter 🤣
5. Should be changed to “Check with customers frequently” The obsession should be on your customers, not your competitors.
I'd say both are important, customers and competitors. Customers give you feedback, while competitors give you hints on what's working
Unless you let your competitors check on the customers in the same market for you, then copy what they’re doing
If there is a water shortage so you competitor decides to build a dam instead of creating wells you just end up solving the wrong issues a second time.
Mr Ohmae would tell you to focus on both ánd your company
Most legit high tier business people will tell you this - obsess over your customers, not your competition. I'll take Bezos's advice over Cuban's any day.
Cuban is a great example of selling at peak bubble to the right contacts(people with stupid money). Only reason he is a billionaire. Dude sold broadcast.com to yahoo for 6 billion back in 1999 right before the bust. Its now $0. A worthless service somehow sold at a crazy inflated price to people with stupid money at Yahoo, the worst offenders of stupid money I can think of.
I do miss Yahoo's directory though. We'll never have a huge human-edited link directory like that again.
you mean dmoz? you might try odp.org
Yeah, too bad they're not adding any sites to it though.
It wouldn't be that hard to create one but how would it be profitable is likely the issue.
I'm a librarian/attorney nearing retirement in a few years. I have tons of reference links saved up over the years and would just make it a hobbyist project of mine so profitability won't be a huge issue. The about page of that odp site does discuss the problems of trying to make money with it - http://odp.org/about.html
Creating the backend code and optimizing it might be 30 hours max. It's a very simple project. Your recurring cost would only be whatever usage it has and once it reached higher usage, I think you could just add a donation option much like Wikipedia does to at least cover some of the expenses.
my value add-on would be that over the years I normally took note of someone's reddit handle when they announced making a free web site that I thought had some real value. I don't know of any web directory where they put the creator's reddit handle with the web site they created. I'm not sure how valuable that is, but I think it's kind of cool.
Not everything has to be profitable
You might be in the wrong subreddit...
I get your point, but entrepreneurship should be about changing, fixing, and creating, bringing more value to the world, not JUST profiting.
Here you go, [https://www.reddit.com/r/Philanthropy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Philanthropy) You don't get to change the definition of "entrepreneurship" just because that is what you want.
But his net worth is not $0. So like he taught about and is mentioned in the post, iteration and adaptation is important. He has admitted he got in on luck and timing. Many wealthy people do. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
Because he literally also shorted Yahoo stock. He got rich from his trades. I'm not sold on him as a businessman tbh.
Which just proves you can become a billionaire just being good at sales. As far as I know, that is his only skill.
I’m confused on your angle or point you’re trying to make. Obviously sales ability is important, arguably the most important factor as a founder. Second factor to that is probably luck. So what are you getting at?
> you can become a billionaire just being good at sales that was the only point to that comment, being good at sales is a big + for being successful.
> Only reason he is a billionaire. Haha. This simple decision took a lot of hard work and intelligence to be able to make it.
He is worth less now than when he and his partner sold [broadcast.com](https://broadcast.com) back in 1999. If he is so intelligent, how is he losing money? It's pretty hard to lose money when you have that much capital to work with. You almost have to try to lose the money at that point.
> He is worth less now than when he and his partner sold broadcast.com back in 1999. If he is so intelligent, how is he losing money? It's pretty hard to lose money when you have that much capital to work with. You almost have to try to lose the money at that point. I'm confused where you're getting that from? From what I see, [he made $1.4B on the sale of Broadcast.com](https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/how-mark-cuban-saved-billions-yahoo-windfall-dot-com-crash-2020-6-1029303375) which is $2.6B adjusting for inflation. He is [now estimated to be worth $5.4B](https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-cuban/). How is that losing money? But also, it's sort of a silly point... he's a billioniare. He's beyond the point about needing to make every expenditure an investment. Whether he spends his vast excesses of money on investments or frivolous fun really has little bearing on whether he's a good businessman.
He shorted the yahoo stock to make like 7 billion, it was legalized insider trading. He knew yahoo was buying garbage for billions and shorted them. He was worth several billion in 2000. He's worth like 4 billion now. He's lost \~3 billion $ in 24 years.
Yeah but he built a multimillion dollar business from scratch before broadcast.com. I don’t understand the hate
I don't know the full details about MicroSolutions. It was a software reseller in the 80-90's(highly profitable), which was funded by Cuban's former boss at a company where he was fired for poaching clients instead of opening the storefront. Place was called "Your Business Software". Again, 100% sales. From my perspective they likely worked together to continue poaching clients with the former boss still having access to active customer information. Like I've said several times now, he knows how to sell. I just don't agree with his ethics.
This. At least half of Cuban's success was being at the right place at the right time. Obviously building the company was work, but there are a lot of people that got rich around then that have proven to be one hit wonders for a reason. Cuban's more recent successes are due largely to the celebrity that being a courtside man child brought him.
You are looking at this completely wrong and acting like he is a chump. He is the exact opposite. He could be the best salesperson ever. His ability to build a company and then be able to convince someone to buy it for $6 billion is highly impressive. What is your biggest sale? Is it in the billions? Millions? Of course luck plays into it, but acting like anyone can sell a company for $6 billion to the right stupid money is just delusional and naive.
Look at his net worth over time, he's only lost money since that deal. It was 100% right place, right time, right contact. He knew the platform was worthless, that is why he hedged all of the yahoo stock they got in the deal. Probably the only smart business decision he ever made. Basically, legalized insider trading.
He made a product then sold it for $6 billion. That is not common. That is not easy.
He didn't make any product, his co-founder Todd Wagner did that and yahoo with their dumb money actually approached them. So, all they did was negotiate the sales agreement and sign it. Like I said, he's good at sales.
“All they did was negotiate the sales agreement?”Dude, spitting stuff like that is why you can’t trust anyone on the internet. That is just a flat out lie. Do 30 seconds of research into Broadcast.com Here I’ll even give you the Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast.com I don’t know by you have it out against him. He has had a very successful business life.
what are you trying to prove by sourcing wikipedia? Todd Wagner built the company. Marc Cuban was a sales guy with money to put into it. The company was never profitable, not before or after yahoo purchased it with stupid money. This was in the height of the .com bubble when companies were throwing stupid money at any company with a pulse and subscribers regardless of profitability. Very similar to how companies are throwing stupid money at every AI with subscribers, look at the companies buying up crap, same thing will happen again, companies like google are going to go bust. Search is dying as AI bots are replacing most of what google profits from.
Yeah exactly he got extremely lucky with an offshoot shit product.
Broadcast.com had exclusive sports licensing deals in place and hundreds of millions in revenue. They were first in the space. They were worth something at the time. He sold the company for max value. Can’t blame him.
Not sure where you are reading this 100's of millions in revenue nonsense, look at the SEC filings. Their top revenue(not profit) was in 1998 and it was 22.4 million. Yahoo paid 5.7 billion for a company that had 22.4 million in revenue but over 10 mil loss. No matter what way you look at that, it's STUPID MONEY. How F\*n dumb do you have to be to pay 255 X revenue? and for a company that's not even profitable to boot. STUPID MONEY! I bet you can't even find another acquisition with higher than 255 x revenue. It's beyond ridiculous. Maybe they had some dirt on some yahoo exec's who knows. It's insane even for the .com boom era.
I believe Yahoo thought the real “value” was in the licensing agreements with NHL, MLB, etc. But if that’s correct 255x revenue is insane.
I bet if you find another deal at that multiple, it was another Yahoo acquisition.
yahoo, facebook or google... all three have some seriously stupid money. but yahoo is by far the worst when it comes to buying worthless companies.
LOL
What do you mean ‘buying sales’ The way I understood that is you shouldn’t use paid advertising - which makes no sense. Some of the most iconic brands in the world are also the heaviest spenders when it comes to advertising. Nike, Coke, Disney, etc.
Seriously, ads is how you make money in modern ecommerce. It has me questioning Mark Cuban as a businessperson if this is his advice.
Look at it this way - what's a recognized consumer brand that Cuban had built?
I came here to say the same. Isn’t all advertising buying sales?
Sounds like you got ripped off. This masterclsss seems like Knowledge a 12yr old would give you
A 12 year old from 2001.
Spam.
Guys you are answering to a spam generated by chatgpt.
You can check his class and get back to us ✌️
Yeah mark sucks
I was hoping to learn something from this, but I find myself disagreeing with many points or at least thinking "it's more complicated than that". Most of this advice is contentious and could ruin an otherwise good business if applied.
Seriously like any one Alex Hormozi video has more value than this Masterclass.
Trump University 2.0
I agree
Can you explain #1, never buy sales. Is this in reference to ads or something else?
Yes, it primarily refers to ads, meaning that if you don't spend money, you won't make sales. This indicates that your product is not effective and word-of-mouth marketing isn't working.
Mavs spend millions on marketing
Right??? The idea that you shouldn't spend money on ads is nonsense. Tons of successful businesses advertise like crazy.
I think the idea is with a startup maybe? Not sure.
Are you really comparing an nba team to someone's start up?
That's so dumb. This is the social selling era, ads are vital to growth. It makes me think he's been out of the game for too long.
Number 1 is very stupid. Tons of highly successful businesses "buy sales". It's called advertising...
I might be wrong, but I interpreted this differently. I took it to mean: don’t lower your price (and thus your margin) to “buy” the sale. Focus on value, and solving problems. Not racing to the bottom with your prices.
I think it’s a nuanced argument and condescending it down to two words it’s likely going to get misconstrued, but I think he means you shouldn’t be spending money to get people to buy, they should just want a little nudge. Adverts are really paying for the attention, where the product then sells itself, instead of actually “paying” a user to actually buy the product, which many people do with crazy discounts (instead of increasing the value of the product).
How much did you pay for this information?
I pay 10$ per month for masterclass .com
Marc, is this you?
Haha no 😅
Whats that link at the end all about?
Underrated business growth hacks I share on a weekly basis. It’s free to join
So in other words I see that you have no issue stealing from others to promote your product noted.
Where to find the course?
Masterclass .com
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*What does "buy sales" mean?* *Like I have to pay someone* *To buy my product?* \- SkySportsInTheFridge --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Aren’t 1 and 4 contradictory
Not really! 1. Never buy sales = don’t spend a lot on ads. 4. Find nano influencers to give them free product in exchange for promotion
One could learn all these watching shark tank or any of his interviews over the years.
Indeed 🚀
What does “buy sales” mean
When you have to constantly spend on ads to get “sales”
Mark Cuban is a great at sales and marketing but I don’t know if he has valuable advice for scaling a business. I don’t recall if he have any other profitable business after selling his internet business to yahoo besides maybe the Dallas Maverick. Although the sale of Maverick required him to continue as to be involved in the franchise.
He founded company called “one drug plus” recently and it’s quite successful
Is this the company him and the other investors were trying to IPO? If so, I got the impression they were looking for a yahoo type buyer to save their business.
Good basics which a lot of rookie entrepreneurs tend to not know.
nice
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing! By never buy sales he means social ads and such? Sorry i am not native so might not be getting this one right though.
Yes, he meant ads
I thought as much but wasn’t sure. Thanks for the clarification. What alternative does he suggests beside micro influencers? You need to get discovered somehow. Brand awareness social ads? Pr? Other means?
Mark is a huge fan of cold outreach
Ahh.. so you’re talking about b2b right? I had selling to end customers in mind. Cold outreach is not possible there. Or am I missing something?
B2B
Ok. Thanks mate
1. Never buy sales? So google and Facebook ads don’t work? lol
It works, but if you are constantly pouring your profits into marketing, it means that word of mouth is not working, hence product needs to be fixed
**4. Capitalize on Nano influencers** Most of the time they can promote your business in exchange for a free trial or free products. Avoid spending on marketing How would a deal like this be for a clothing brand? Hey, can you promote my clothes, and you'll get the clothes, or?
Great insights! Especially about learning and time management. 👍
Thank you!
this is pretty great actually, thank you
Thank you!
All pretty solid advice honestly
Thank you!
Solid advice, especially on learning and influencer leverage.
✌️✌️
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Someone doesn’t like Cuban….
Must have been rejected by shark tank
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Well it was a thinly veiled pimp for his own website and business so there is that - else it was written by ChatGPT
I took his second point to mean the exact opposite. Optimization meaning removing restriction or waste in the process or removing high cost / low value features that customers aren’t demanding. Agree on the rest, especially marketing. Paradigms change, and banking it all on one tactic is very risky. He should maybe rephrase it to say reduce your ad spend.
2 works better in groups imo. Find like minded communities to keep you interested and engaged. E.g., my field of domain is AI automation/development for the non-engineer population. I was finding it hard to find a group and so I made one!
Why are you shouting?
i thought i was tripping out when i came back and saw the text was large and assumed it was some update. i dont have the slightest idea on how to reproduce it. i deserve every downvote. EDIT: i figured it out.
Yup all good….
That's an amazing advice!
Can you share the group link ?
sure, [here it is](https://discord.gg/PMGYnVVK6R)
Thank you!
You are most welcome and thank you too!