Mark Cuban, best known for being the passionate owner of the
Dallas Mavericks, has been involved in a variety of different businesses, from
theater chains to Internet startups.
Before he decided to purchase the Mavericks, Cuban had started
MicroSolutions, a computer consulting company, and had turned it into a
profitable company before selling to CompuServe. Later on he and an ole college
buddy founded Broadcast.com, which became a leader in streaming video and
multimedia on the Internet. In July of 1999, Broadcast.com was sold to Yahoo
for nearly six billion dollars. Today, along with owning the Dallas Mavericks,
Cuban is the owner of HDNet, co-owns the Landmark Theater Chain, and is also an
investor into start-up businesses.
In 2009, Cuban came up with his own solution to help fix the
hurting economy. His plan: “an open source funding environment.” Cuban has
asked entrepreneurs to comment on his blog with fully developed business plans.
If he likes the idea, then he will send the commenter an email to propose a deal.
Cuban has taken up this mission because he wants to “come up with a course of action
that he can undertake own his own and possibly make a difference. The reason for the open sourcing is that even
if the business plans are “stolen” and used by someone else, the idea is still
helping to stimulate the economy.
Cuban has 12 rules that entrepreneurs must follow if they
want funding. They are:
1. It
can be an existing business or a start up.
- It cannot be a business that generates any revenue from advertising. Why? Because I want this to be a business where you sell something and get paid for it. That's the only way to get and stay profitable in such a short period of time.
- It MUST BE CASH FLOW BREAK EVEN within 60 days
- It must be profitable within 90 days.
- Funding will be on a monthly basis. If you dont make your numbers, the funding stops
- You must demonstrate as part of your plan that you sell your product or service for more than what it costs you to produce, fully encumbered
- Everyone must work. The organization is completely flat. There are no employees reporting to managers. There is the founder/owners and everyone else
- You must post your business plan here, or you can post it on slideshare.com , scribd.com or google docs, all completely public for anyone to see and/or download
- I make no promises that if your business is profitable, that I will invest more money. Once you get the initial funding you are on your own
- I will make no promises that I will be available to offer help. If I want to , I will. If not, I wont.
- If you do get money, it goes into a bank that I specify, and I have the ability to watch the funds flow and the opportunity to require that I cosign any outflows.
Resources:
http://www.biography.com/people/mark-cuban-562656
http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/2/mark-cubans-plan-to-fix-the-economy-with-his-money
