How to start a successful business | Mark Cuban and Lex Fridman

what does it take to take that First Leap into starting a business that's the hardest part it really depends on your personal circumstances like I got fired I mean I was sleeping on the floor six guys in a three-bedroom apartment so I couldn't go any lower so there was no downside yeah there was no downside for me starting a business and it was just like you know I was 25 when we started micro Solutions and you know I just gotten fired and it was like look I'm I'm a lousi employee um I'm going to just start going to some of my prospects that I had at my my job and ask them to front the money that I needed to install some software and found this company architectural lighting who put up $500 for me that allowed me to buy software and have 50% margins and you know that's how I started my company but like by way of advice would you say I mean it's a terrifying thing yeah I mean you've got to be in a position where you're confident you know I get emails and approached by people all the time you know what kind of business should I start that tells me you're not ready to start a business right either you're prepared and you know it or you don't you know in in the United States with the American dream everybody kind of always looks at themselves and say okay you know I have this idea right and then you go through this process of saying okay you know you talk to your friends or family what do you think and then almost always oh it's a great idea right then you go on Google and you say oh my God no one else is doing it without thinking you know 10 companies had gone out of business trying the same thing but okay it's on Google and then people stop right because that next step means okay I have to change what I'm doing in my life and that's not easy for 99% of the people some people look at that as an opportunity and get excited about it some people get terrified because it's okay maybe I'm comfortable maybe I have responsibilities and so whatever your circumstances are if you want to take that next step you have to be able to deal with the consequences of changing your circumstances and that's the first thing you know do you save money you know so you have you know if you have a job do you have a mortgage do you have a family you got to save money you can't just walk you know I mean they've got to eat and they've got to have shelter but on the other side of the coin if you've got nothing it's the perfect time to start a business yeah desperation is a good Catalyst for starting a business but in many cases the decision as you're talking about you're going to have to make is to leave a job that's providing some degree of comfort already so and I suppose when you're sleeping on the floor and there's six guys it's a little bit easier it's really easy right particularly when you get fired and you don't have a job you know and you're looking at bartending at night to try to pay the bills and so um it wasn't hard for me but to your point it it really comes down to preparation you know if it's important enough to you you'll save the money you'll give up you know whatever it is you need to give up to put the money aside um if you have obligations um you'll put in the work to learn as much as you can about that industry so that when you start your business you're prepared and you can always you know at night on weekends whenever you find time lunch start making the calls to find out if people will write you a check you know or transfer you the money to buy whatever it is you're selling and by doing those things you can put yourself in a position to succeed it's where people just think okay you know gono I'm leaving off the edge of a cliff and I'm starting a business that's tough but sometimes that's like the way you do it though there's always examples of any situation orario right right but I mean anotal evidence for everything yeah but if you're if you're going into a new business you're going to have competition unless you're really really really really really lucky and that competition is not going to just say okay let lexor Mark just kick her ass yeah and so you've got to be prepared how you're going to deal with that competition what do you think that is about America that has so many people who have that dream and act on that dream of starting a business you know I think we've just got a culture of consumption and more you know and to get more um you've got to you know creating a business gives you the greatest potential upside and the greatest leverage on your time um but it also creates the most risk so that capitalist machine there's a lot of elements by contrast uh the respect for the law like an entrepreneur can trust that if they pull it off the law will protect them there won't be a government hopefully that's still the case Yeah well yeah there's always uh yeah US versus other countries you're right right so US versus other countries like Joe Biden of all people said to me um it was at an entrepreneurship conference that when he was vice president he had put together and we had gone up there from bunch of us from Shark Tank to talk to young entrepreneurs from around the world and he said to me Mark you know the one thing that separate I've been to every country around the world and the one thing that separates us is entrepreneurship we're the most entrepreneurial country in the world and there's no one else who's even close and when you look at the origin of our big you know the biggest companies in the world for the most part there's an American origin story somewhere behind there and I think you know that just gets perpetuated on itself we see those Horatio Al aler stories we see um examples of the Jeff Bezos of the world the Steve Jobs of the world and those are the types of people we we want to copy yeah we want to be really careful and try to really figure out what that is because we don't want to lose that for sure we want to protect the whatever you know and that's a lot of the discussions about what's the right way to do government big government small government what's the right policies what but also culture like who we celebrate one of the things that troubles me is that we don't enough celebrate the uh the entrepreneurs that take risks and the entrepreneurs that succeed it seems like success especially when it comes with wealth is uh immediately matched with distrust and criticism that kind yeah it's changing for sure because you know you can go back just 12 years right traditional media dominated let's say to through 2012 you know that was the peak of linear television you know newspapers weren't as strong but they still had some some breath and depth to them um and then social media comes along and everybody gets to play in their own sandbox and share opinions with people who think just like them and that and it also gives them the opportunity to amplify um those feelings and I think that's where celebrating entrepreneurs really started to subside some there were always people who were Progressive that were like billionaires are bad or millionaires are bad depending on the time period but you didn't really see it on an ongoing basis right it wasn't going to be on the Evening News it wasn't going to be in the front page of the newspaper um it was going to be if you read a book and someone talked about it or you read a magazine and there was an article um talking about you know this Progressive movement or that Progressive move whatever it may be um you know and then or political parties but now all of that is front and center on social media yeah we're trying to figure out how we deal with the with the mobs of people and the virality of it all and and I I think we'll find our footing and start celebrating greatness again well that I mean that's the whole reason I do shark tank that's true that's that show celebrates the entrepreneur it's the only place where every single minute of every single episode we you know we celebrate the American dream and the reason I do it is we tell the entire country and it's shown around the world even we you know we're we're amazing advertising for the American dream in I don't even know how many countries but every time somebody walks onto that carpet from debuk Iowa or catch them Idaho you know that sends a message to every kid who's watching seven eight nine 10 12 year old kid that if they can do it from catch a Idaho you can do it if they can have this idea and get a deal or even present to the Sharks and have all of America to see it you can do it and that I mean I'm proud of that um the 15 years of that is just it it's just been insane you know now kids walk up to me and go yeah I started watching you when I was five or 10 and I started a business because I learned about it from Shark Tank and so you know I think you know we're being C it celebrates it and we convey it and I don't think it's going away but there are different battles we have to fight to support it yeah I love even when the business idea is obviously horrible just just just the guts to step up to be there to believe in yourself to really reach I mean that's what matters I mean cuz like some of the best business ideas are probably uh maybe even you and Shark Tank would laugh at oh for sure you know without question the good ones we're not going to recognize every good one and then sometimes we'll just motivate people to work even harder to get it done because of what we say to them and and that's fine too you know there's been great success stories that we said no to

Channel: Lex Clips

Views: 107,934

Keywords: ai, ai clips, ai podcast, ai podcast clips, artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence podcast, computer science, consciousness, deep learning, einstein, elon musk, engineering, friedman, joe rogan, lex ai, lex clips, lex fridman, lex fridman podcast, lex friedman, lex mit, lex podcast, machine learning, mark cuban, math, math podcast, mathematics, mit ai, philosophy, physics, physics podcast, science, tech, tech podcast, technology, turing

Id: yLFt0hdBMaI

Length: 9min 18sec (558 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2024