How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It

by Mark Cuban

the key to having a great night out on the cheap. The key was buying a bottle of cheap, cheap champagne. Freixenet Champagne. It was a full bottle, and it cost twelve bucks. (And for those of you who are keeping score, you can go online and buy one today for less than $10!) Tear the label off and as far as anyone knew it was Dom. Each of us would grab one and sip on it all night. It was far cheaper than repeatedly buying beers or mixed drinks, and we never had to buy a drink for a girl, we just gave them some champagne!

To this day, I feel like if I put in enough time consuming all the information available, particularly with the Internet making it so readily accessible, I can get an advantage in any technology business.

Long story short, I go to the bar to get some drinks for all us and when I come back, they aren’t there. Come to find out the next day, Bill stole my girls. As I would learn later in life, money makes you extremely handsome.

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.

The edge is knowing that people think you’re crazy, and they are right, but you don’t care what they think.

I’m also a big believer that financial debt is the ultimate dream killer. Your first house, car, whatever you might want to buy, is going to be the primary reason you stop looking for what makes you the happiest.

In business, to be a success, you only have to be right once.

I’m one of the least organized people I know. Today, I have an assistant and others that help me run my life. If you ask me where I’m going to be in three days, I have no idea. I do know that I have a kick-ass assistant who is going to make sure that when I wake up that morning, I know where I’m going and how to get there.

A local area network or a software program without documentation is a disaster waiting to happen. And disasters did happen. Not to the point where it killed my business, but to the point where I spent far too much time fixing things rather than selling new deals.

I had the choice between lying to myself and pretending that I could turn on a switch and become a details person, or accepting the fact that I’m not, and partnering with someone who is.

The best businesses in recent entrepreneurial history are those that began with little or no money.

There is a reason why venture capitalists are often referred to as Vulture Capitalists.

There are only two reasonable sources of capital for startup entrepreneurs: your own pocket and your customers’ pockets.

It’s okay to start slow. It’s okay to grow slow.

The reality is that for most businesses, they don’t need more cash, they need more brains.

When I (hopefully) turn 90 and look back at my life, would I regret having done it, or not having done it?

the only way you can connect to your customers is to put yourself in their shoes.

It’s interesting to watch different CEOs of different companies and how they deal with the issue of making customers happy.

There used to be a saying that happy customers might tell one person, but unhappy customers tell 20.

What I don’t understand is why so many people think whining has a negative connotation. I don’t. Whining is the first step toward change.

The path of least resistance is why I think Amazon.com, Apple and Google have been so successful.