Serial Entrepreneur: Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban made millions off of tech startups, then billions off of stocks — and later went on to buy and revive the Dallas Mavericks. He has come to define the persona of the serial entrepreneur. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Every business I've started, I would count the months. You know, am I profitable? You know, do I have enough to pay the bills? I mean, I've been in the situation enough times with startups where the bill collectors were calling on a continuous basis. You know, and back then you had answering machines and it was like you didn't want to, you know, hit the button on the answer machine because, hello, Mr. Mark Cuban, I've left 17 messages.

• 0:35Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 0:47Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how Mark Cuban figured out that something called the Internet was going to transform the economy and how he turned that hunch into millions and then billions of dollars.

• 1:02Guy Raz?

  So if you know who Mark Cuban is, you've probably seen him on Shark Tank.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  Who are the Sharks? They're self-made millionaire and billionaire investors who are entrepreneurs themselves.

• 1:14Guy Raz?

  And if you don't know the show, basically, there's a panel of investors who are the Sharks, and they hear a bunch of pitches from people who are trying to start a business.

• 1:23Speaker 03

  So do you like the idea? And would you want to see a net increase of 30% to 50% in your company?

• 1:28Speaker 00

  Again, what was my question to you?

• 1:31Guy Raz?

  And when Mark Cuban is doing the judging, he can sometimes be kind of a jerk.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Of course, I like the deal, which is why I offered you a chance to close it. You should just shut up and take the deal. Hallelujah. Instead of keep on selling. And you kept on trying to sell.

• 1:47Guy Raz?

  OK, so this is the Mark Cuban that many of us are familiar with. Self-made billionaire at age 40, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. But how he got to this point? Here's the story.

• 2:00Guy Raz?

  All right. So tell me, tell me who, like, what was Mark Cuban like that day he graduated from college? Like, paint that picture for me.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  You know, I was a hustler. I was an entrepreneur. I didn't know. I remember making a list of potential industries I wanted to go into.

• 2:18Guy Raz?

  You just wrote them down on a piece of paper?

• 2:19Speaker 00

  I wrote them down.

• 2:20Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 2:21Speaker 00

  You know, cable industry, technology, all these things that I thought would be up and coming industries. And I was just going to start applying for jobs until I got one. And my first job out of college was at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, which I kind of backed into because they thought I had my MBA. But I didn't. I had just taken all my MBA classes starting my freshman year at Indiana. Then they were kind of disappointed that I didn't quite have the chops that they expected.

• 2:49Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  So back then, banks were just going through the process of converting from paper systems to digital systems. So my job was to do systems integration or systems conversions.

• 3:00Guy Raz?

  This is in the early 80s?

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Yes. And so that's where I got my introduction to computers and really where I found that I really liked computers because I hadn't really taken it at Indiana.

• 3:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  And then I quit and went back.

• 3:13Guy Raz?

  Why'd you quit?

• 3:14Speaker 00

  Just because I had no future there. It just wasn't for me. I just was not a good employee. But I tried to take initiative. I remember thinking to myself, I'm going to have an impact and I'm going to try to do things differently to stand out. And I started writing a little newsletter, you know, I'm thinking.

• 3:27Guy Raz?

  While you were there?

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. While I was there, right? It was just like, this is my mindset. I'm going to have an impact. I'm going to do what I think is.

• 3:32Guy Raz?

  You were a newsletter for like, other employees there at the bank?

• 3:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, other employees at the bank and employees of the bank and of the bank we were doing the conversion for. And I had, it was lots of humor in it. And it was hysterical, if I have to say so. And then all of a sudden, it got back to my direct boss, who basically had just dismissed me once they found out I didn't have an MBA. And he just tore me a new one.

• 3:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 00

  He just ripped me and just like, and I'm like, okay, I don't belong here.

• 3:57Guy Raz?

  Because he thought you were like this annoying upstart kid who was just

• 4:01Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:01Guy Raz?

  kind of going over his head?

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, basically. He was like, who the hell do you think you are?

• 4:08Speaker 00

  You know, and he didn't use that nice language. And, oh, yeah, he just crushed me.

• 4:19Guy Raz?

  So how did you end up in Dallas? I mean, you were a kid from Pittsburgh. You went to school in Indiana. How did Dallas happen?

• 4:26Speaker 00

  I had a bunch of buddies from IU who went down there and they said, "The weather's amazing, the girls are hot, and the economy is getting better." Because you've got to remember, when I graduated from Indiana, I mean, it was not a good time. You know, there was a recession, and this was pre-PC. And a bunch of my buddies went down to Dallas and said, "You've got to come check this out."

• 4:45Guy Raz?

  So what did you think you were going to do down there?

• 4:47Speaker 00

  I had no idea. I had no idea. I figured, worst case, I'd have fun. You know, I started a bar my senior year in college, so I knew how to bartend. I understood the bar business. And so I figured, worst case, I'd get a job working as a bartender and then see what came along. And that's exactly what I did. I got a job at a place called Alon's, working as a bartender. And in the meantime, I would go through the Help Wanted ads. There was an ad in the local paper that said, "Come to this agency and we'll help you place." And I'm like, "Look, I'm not paying a fee." And they're like, "No, the employer pays, don't worry." So I got sent to a company called Your Business Software, and they started quizzing me. And actually, smart questions, but it was, you know, "What do you know about PCs?"

• 5:32Speaker 00

  And this was 1982 at this point.

• 5:34Guy Raz?

  And PCs were not a thing. No, people did not have their own computers.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  No, no, no, nobody did, right? It was brand new. And I was like, "I don't know a lot, but what I do know is how to open up a manual and read and teach myself," and gave them the examples of what I taught myself at Mellon Bank. And so I got a job for 18 grand a year, plus commissions, at Your Business Software.

• 5:56Guy Raz?

  And so what did you have to do for the company? Like, what was your actual job?

• 6:00Speaker 00

  My job was, it was a retail store. And my job was to get there and open the store by 9:30, have all the PCs dusted, the windows cleaned, set up the software, and then learn all the software that we were selling so that when people came in, I could answer their questions.

• 6:16Guy Raz?

  So you would just tinker and read the manual, and that's how you figured it out?

• 6:19Speaker 00

  That's how I taught myself everything, yeah. Because I couldn't afford, I actually tried to buy a TRS-80 from Radio Shack, and I didn't get approved for credit. I'd already had my Sears credit card and my Discover card taken in and cut up. And so, since I couldn't afford to buy my own PC, I would stay there late, or I would take one of them home and just... Crunch the hours and teach myself.

• 6:42Guy Raz?

  Were you a good salesman? I mean, did you like?

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Oh, are you kidding me? I was the best. I crushed it.

• 6:48Guy Raz?

  How were you the best?

• 6:50Speaker 00

  You know, one of my strengths has always been being able to put myself in the shoes of any type of business. You got a shoe store, okay, I understand how that works. You got a bank, I understand how that works. You got, you know, an oil refinery, I'll figure out how that works. And so if I'm able to figure out how the business works and what makes it profitable, then I'm able to, you know, figure out how to apply the software to solve a problem. And the thing about the industry back then was it was brand new to everybody. And that's what I would tell people. It was so new to everybody that if I put in the time to learn it, I could stay ahead of everybody. And new stuff was coming out every day, you know, not as much as you see today with apps and everything, but new stuff was coming out every day. And it wasn't that hard if I put in the time to keep up with it.

• 7:34Guy Raz?

  So was that your plan, like to just keep working for this company or whatever company came along?

• 7:40Speaker 00

  No, my, my plan was, I knew I was not going to be an employee long term.

• 7:43Guy Raz?

  You knew you were going to do your own thing?

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 7:46Guy Raz?

  How did you know that?

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Just, just who I am, you know, who I was my entire life.

• 7:53Guy Raz?

  I mean, I read that you, like you wanted to be rich from, from an early age.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I really did.

• 7:58Guy Raz?

  But lots of kids want to be rich. There's a difference in wanting to be rich and then becoming rich. So what, what, what did you do as a kid?

• 8:04Speaker 00

  I, I just tried stuff, you know, from packaging baseball cards when I was nine or 10 years old and taking them down to the park and reselling them and marking them up. You know, buying and selling stamps, selling garbage bags door to door. You know, getting together a crew of kids and selling candies door to door. I mean, I remember thinking when I was 11 years old, literally looking out the window in our house thinking, you know, if I hustled, I could, I can move out of this house and take care of myself and pay my own bills.

• 8:31Guy Raz?

  Whoa.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  11. Once I realized I could sell and, and once I learned that selling was about helping people, then it, it almost became easy. And then it was just a question of effort.

• 8:48Guy Raz?

  So how did you, how did you start your first company? And how old were you at the time?

• 8:54Speaker 00

  First, I got fired from Your Business Software because I went and I sold a deal that was going to make me a $1,500 commission. And the customer wanted me to, you know, come pick up the check in the morning so that they could get started as quickly as possible. And so I said, yes. And then I told my boss, look, you know, this guy wants, Kevin was that, Kevin wants me to come pick up the check or now because they want to get started. He's like, no, you've got to open up the store. I'm like, I've got Barbara doing that. He goes, no, you've got to open the store. And so I made the executive decision to go pick up the check, thinking when I handed him the check, all would be okay. He fired me.

• 9:31Guy Raz?

  So, so what'd you do?

• 9:32Speaker 00

  You know, I took my commission. Because I was fired, I went and took some other customers I was working with and started a company called MicroSolutions.

• 9:44Guy Raz?

  So, so describe what MicroSolutions actually, what did it actually do?

• 9:48Speaker 00

  We're a systems integrator.

• 9:49Guy Raz?

  So what's that, what does that mean?

• 9:50Speaker 00

  What that means is we would take software and we would modify it to your particular business need, install it and stay with it till it worked.

• 9:58Guy Raz?

  So you were just doing this on your own? It was just you?

• 10:01Speaker 00

  I had a partner that helped do some software development, Martin Woodall. And he basically did our accounting. But more importantly, he was organized. You know, he was anal as they come. His organizational skills is really what, it really helped us because I didn't have to worry about the accounting getting done, checks getting written, all that kind of stuff.

• 10:20Guy Raz?

  How did you get people to hire you? How did you, and would you go door to door? Would you cold call?

• 10:25Speaker 00

  I would network. One success led to another. And so I went to a company called Architectural Lighting, who I'd been talking to. And I said, look, your software costs you 500 bucks. I don't have the money to, to buy it from the wholesaler. If you guys would advance me the money, I won't charge you anything to install it. And I promise you that I'll make it work. And if for some reason it doesn't, then I will, you know, work for you or figure out a way to give you the money back. And they did, and it worked. And then I went to the next one and the next one and the next one. And you've got to realize that, you know, my, my personality is such that I would start learning software, working on an application that I was writing. And I'd start working on it and I'd look up and it'd be 36 hours later.

• 11:07Guy Raz?

  You were just a workaholic.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Not even a workaholic, it's just when I didn't look at and say, okay, I'm gonna try to work 24, 36 hours or whatever. I looked at it as saying, okay, this is fascinating, this is intellectually challenging. I want to solve this problem. And if I don't do it, I'm not going to get paid and I'm going to lose all this time. So solve the problem and that's what I would do. And you know, the thing about programming, you know, you concentrate so, so, so, so hard that time flies.

• 11:33Guy Raz?

  So as, as the company grew and, and became more successful, when did you think, okay, this is it, I've made it?

• 11:42Speaker 00

  I remember being 26 and being at a bar with my buddy, leaning back and going, I have $100,000 in the bank. Never in my wildest dreams that I think I would have $100,000 in the bank. But then it got, you know, business kept on growing and things kept on getting better. And then I remember having $800,000 in the bank, and this was the 80s, and getting an offer to sell the company.

• 12:10Guy Raz?

  Somebody wanted to buy MicroSolutions?

• 12:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:13Guy Raz?

  Who was it?

• 12:14Speaker 00

  If you remember the company CompuServe by chance?

• 12:17Guy Raz?

  Yeah, of course.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  And they were part of H&R Block. And so we sold it to CompuServe and named it the CompuServe Systems Integration Group. Sold it for $6 million, gave a chunk of it to my employees, ended up with $2 million, and Martin ended up with $2 million, and boom.

• 12:33Guy Raz?

  So you sell the company for $6 million, you walk away with $2 million, and then you gotta pay some taxes, of course. So you're like in your early 30s at that point?

• 12:42Speaker 00

  No, just turned 30. And I remember finding a stockbroker, Raleigh Rawls, and telling him, I want to invest like a 60-year-old man. He goes, why? And what I told him was, I'd read this book, How to Retire at the Age of 35. That was like a book I kept on my desk. That was my mission. You know, and in this book, How to Retire at the Age of 35, the whole theme was, if you live like a student, you know, and save a million and a half dollars, as long as you're living like a student, you can live a long time just like this and, and really enjoy your life. And that's what I, that was my mission. But what happened along the way was Raleigh was at Goldman Sachs. And because I knew the technology business and Loquary Networking Business,

• 13:24Speaker 00

  and I started getting questions from all their analysts.

• 13:28Guy Raz?

  Like, what kind of questions?

• 13:30Speaker 00

  You know, you just installed this Synoptics router. Tell me about it. What do you think about it? What works? And I knew the intricate details of all these, all this hardware and software. And so, you know, I'm like, wait a minute. These guys are using my information to make decisions on the quality of these companies and stocks? He's like, yeah. I'm like, well, maybe I should start doing that, too. And, and so I started buying these stocks and, and selling stocks just based off of my knowledge of the companies and knowledge of the products. And I was killing it. I mean, literally, you know, over the next four years, I made 20 some million dollars.

• 14:05Guy Raz?

  Just by buying and selling stocks with that $2 million?

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:09Guy Raz?

  So like, I'm assuming at this point, you have nothing to worry about.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I had just had, I had to worry about not screwing it up.

• 14:14Guy Raz?

  Wait, you were still worried about screwing up at that point?

• 14:18Speaker 00

  Trust me, I had a healthy dose, dose of fear. You know, every business I've started, I would count the months. You know, am I profitable? You know, do I have enough to pay the bills? I mean, I've been, been in the situation enough times with startups of my own, where the bill collectors were calling on a continuous basis. You know, and, and back then you had answering machines. And it was like, you didn't want to, you know, hit the button on the answer machine. Because, hello, Mr. Mark Cuban, I've left 17 messages.

• 14:50Guy Raz?

  Coming up in just a minute, how Mark Cuban figured out that audio on the internet was going to become a huge thing. And how that turned him from a millionaire into a billionaire. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 15:18Guy Raz?

  It's How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So Mark Cuban taught himself computer programming. He started a software consulting company. He sold it for a few million and was officially retired at the age of 35. But that retirement, it did not last long because in the mid 1990s, Mark Cuban wound up starting another business. So what was it? How did it start?

• 15:44Speaker 00

  So my college buddy Todd Wagner came to me. And we used to get together all the time. And remember, I was retired. So I was the guy, let's go to lunch, let's have a drink.

• 15:52Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  So we would get together and he's like, look, he's got this other guy he knows who's doing this thing with pagers to try to get sports audio transmitted to pagers. And I'm like, no, that's crazy. And I'm like, look, Indiana basketball. Right now, if we try to listen to Indiana basketball, we would have to have somebody in Bloomington, Indiana, hold--

• 16:12Guy Raz?

  A phone.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  A phone, yeah.

• 16:14Guy Raz?

  To the radio.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Right. And then we would listen to it on the other side here in Dallas, which was crazy. There's got to be a way, this new internet-- and I'd been playing with the internet. I'm like, there's got to be a way that I can figure out how to transmit audio and eventually video over the internet so that we can solve that problem.

• 16:30Guy Raz?

  I mean, right now, that just seems totally obvious, right? But at that time, like in the mid 90s, did people think this was a good idea?

• 16:38Speaker 00

  No, hell, no. People were laughing at me. Buy a damn radio.

• 16:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah. But was a technology even there?

• 16:46Speaker 00

  No, it wasn't at that point. But I figured I could figure it out. And I was playing with NFS files and all this other stuff. I went and bought a Packard Bell computer for $3,000. I set up an ISDN line at my house and just started playing and playing and playing and trying different things. And there were ways using WAV files and stuff that you could transmit audio. That had been done for a long time. But actually streaming it and over the internet in a more efficient manner, that hadn't been done. So I set up a website and we called it Audinet. And then we went to a local radio station here in Dallas, KLIF. I went to him and I said, look, you know how cable TV is just blown up? And now you can get any network, anywhere you have a TV.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  I think this internet thing is going to do the same thing for audio and eventually video. That you're going to be able to stream things digitally all around the world. And we're going to really make the world a much smaller place. And you can make your signal a much more global business. And here's what we need to do. I'm going to bring an eight hour VCR. And we're going to record your Norm Hitzke's show and all this stuff, all your sports shows. And then I'm going to encode it and put it on AudioNet.

• 17:58Guy Raz?

  So, so what did, were people, did people start listening?

• 18:02Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And people started coming and we started getting emails from all around the world going, oh, my God, you just cured my homesickness. I'm leaving, living in Korea. You know, I'm living in Oklahoma or California and I miss Dallas. And, or I'm stuck in my office and now I can finally get A, B, and C. And we're like, damn, we got something. And, you know, we just started taking off from there.

• 18:34Guy Raz?

  So this is, this is kind of a weird question, but, but just to remind people, like, you were a multimillionaire at this point. Like you are sitting, like burning the midnight oil, like sitting in front of a glowing screen night after night after night. Why? Why were you doing that?

• 18:50Speaker 00

  That's who I am because I wanted to win, right?

• 18:52Guy Raz?

  What does that mean? You wanted to win? What do you mean when you say that?

• 18:55Speaker 00

  I wanted to.

• 18:55Guy Raz?

  Against what? Against who? Against you?

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Well, I knew, I knew streaming was the future. There was no doubt in my mind. And, you know, and that, that's who I was. I mean, I liked the idea of, you know, people used to say I could see around corners. What's next? What's next? What's next? And there was no doubt in my mind that streaming was next. And I, I remember telling our employees, we're either going to be a multi-billion dollar company or we're just going to be friends and it's going to be a big flame out. But streaming is going to be enormous and we have a chance to own it.

• 19:23Guy Raz?

  How were you making a profit?

• 19:26Speaker 00

  We wanted this, I, I failed on my keep every, my monthly profitability goals.

• 19:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah, because you weren't selling anything, right?

• 19:32Speaker 00

  No, we weren't at that point, no. But it was, it was really obvious to me that this was going to be huge, enormous. If only just to reach offices because there was no other way to get media at your desktop at work. You know, you couldn't have a TV there. And, you know, most people couldn't have radios there. And so we were the media device and people were putting media, you know. PCs on every desktop and, and you know, you had the broadband bandwidth of corporations. And so, you know, it was a perfect storm for us. We just had to have the content. And so we just kept on growing and growing and growing. And so I went out and raised some money from friends and it was like, what are we going to value this company at?

• 20:12Speaker 00

  We're like, well, the last company I sold after seven years for six million, let's just cut that in half. Three million, that'll be our valuation. And so we sold, you know, 1% chunks for $30,000 to our friends. When we sold the company, those $30,000 chunks were worth $22 million.

• 20:33Guy Raz?

  You sold the company to Yahoo for how much?

• 20:36Speaker 00

  5.7 billion in stock.

• 20:38Guy Raz?

  Gotcha. Okay. So what percentage of the company did you own at that point when you sold it?

• 20:41Speaker 00

  33%.

• 20:42Guy Raz?

  In 1999?

• 20:44Speaker 00

  Yes. It actually closed in 2000.

• 20:49Guy Raz?

  Okay. You were a billionaire at this point and you're thinking, okay, now I'm going to retire?

• 20:55Speaker 00

  Hmm, yeah, kinda, pretty much.

• 20:58Guy Raz?

  And like, how did you start to think about buying the Dallas Mavericks? How did that come about?

• 21:03Speaker 00

  I didn't, I didn't. How that came about was it was October or early November of 1999. And I'd been a Dallas Mavericks season ticket holder for a few years. And I remember going to the game to start of the 99-2000 season and it wasn't a sellout. And I was excited, but nobody else was. And I remember looking around thinking, God, I can do a better job than this. And I was with my girlfriend, now my wife, and I remember telling her, you know, I can do a better job. And then, you know, ding ding ding, the light bulb went off. I'm like, wait, I can put my money where my mouth is. And so that's exactly what I did. I talked to my sales rep who put me, connected with a guy named Mark McGuire, who was a former player working for Ross Perot Jr., the owner, connected with Ross.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  Didn't even negotiate. I just said, you know what? Whatever. And I paid him 285, which is probably 100 million too much. But yeah, so it wasn't like it was preordained or was planned. It was my all time goal. It was, I've always been a basketball junkie. I've always loved the game. I played pickup. I still play pickup. It's in my blood and. You know, it was just seemed like, why not?

• 22:10Guy Raz?

  So, so wait, you say you paid 100 million too much for the team?

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. When I bought the Mavs, everybody like, are you an idiot? It was the highest price ever paid for a sports team, 285 million dollars. And everybody thought I was a moron.

• 22:21Guy Raz?

  I mean, it seems so crazy now because NBA teams are worth like, you know, more than a billion dollars. I want to ask you about, about the NBA because you, you get in a lot of trouble. Like you have been fined a lot of money for, for like yelling at the refs. So do you, do you cause trouble for fun? Or do you, do you just do it because you like to fight?

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Just depends on the circumstance. If I'm playing pickup or if I'm playing in a, in a league, I'm never arguing over calls or whatever. I never have, you know, if I'm in a league and there's a bad call, okay, that's the way it goes. You know, in the NBA, it's a lot different, particularly when I first got there. When I first got to the NBA, refs really worked at managing the game rather than calling the game by the rulebook. And I remember early on, reading something from the director of officiating back then, who said, "We don't call the game the, the same in the last minute as we do in the first minute," which just infuriated me to no end. And then from there, it was just like, okay, I'm on a mission to, to make this fair. And it, it set me off with a lot of those guys and probably cost me a championship in 2006.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  But, um, you know, it's come a long way since and I think, you know, I'm better for it. And the NBA is better for it since.

• 23:33Guy Raz?

  Cause you, cause sometimes you yell at, at, at refs and stuff. I mean, do you, do you?

• 23:37Speaker 00

  That's my, but you know what? And to be honest, you know, if you just see me outside a game, I'm as mellow as you can, you can be.

• 23:45Guy Raz?

  So you're not like an angry guy?

• 23:47Speaker 00

  No.

• 23:47Guy Raz?

  You don't have many reasons to be angry?

• 23:49Speaker 00

  No, I have no reason to be angry. But during the game, that's where I let out my stress. It's like when I played, used to play rugby, like during a rugby game, I'm going to try to beat the hell out of you. And then we'll drink afterwards. But that was where I let out my stress and, and during the Mavs game, you'll see me yell and scream. And you know, that's my, my stress. Reduction.

• 24:08Guy Raz?

  Is that the same thing on Shark Tank? Because you can, you can actually be kind of mean to contestants.

• 24:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:14Guy Raz?

  Right? Why? Is that?

• 24:15Speaker 00

  Well, it depends who I'm talking to. If there's an entrepreneur who's got their life tied up in something, I'm not going to be mean. Right? I'm going to be supportive and I'll come up with suggestions, even if I'm not investing. But if you're trying to scam me, if you're trying to pull a quickie, or your product's a scam, I'm going to nail you, you know? Because I don't, I know that people see these products and they'll go to buy them. You know, we had one on the end of the season where it was called Pavlok, I think, where they had a Fitbit looking device that shocked you. And the whole idea was aversion therapy. So that if you don't want to smoke, you shock yourself when you're getting ready to smoke, or shock yourself when you're getting ready to eat, you know, whatever it is that you're trying to avert, and it would train your brain.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  And when they tried to show the science, they gave all this science for aversion therapy in general, but nothing specific to their product, and I called them out on it. You know, it was like, okay, why don't you just use a rubber band, you know, and snap yourself when you are going to smoke? And so those situations, I'm going to crush you. If, if your heart's into it, and your heart's in the right place, and your effort's there, I'm going to support you.

• 25:21Guy Raz?

  You've invested like almost $20 million, I guess, in Shark Tank companies. Have you made money yet off of any of those?

• 25:28Speaker 00

  Have I gotten $20 million back? No. Have I gotten, you know, if, you know, if I was going to value it, would I have more than 20 million of value? Absolutely. So out of the 70, give or take, companies that I've invested in, I'd say two are out of business, two are out of business and just aren't smart enough to know it. And then the next, you know, the top 12 that are making 500,000 or more in profit per year, and have paid me back a lot of money, or reinvesting a lot of that money into growth. And then there's others in the middle that are just growing and, and running their businesses the way they should. And, you know, we'll see if they click and take off or not.

• 26:05Guy Raz?

  You know, Mark, it's kind of amazing because unlike other people who've been on the show, it doesn't seem like becoming a billionaire was weird to you. Like, I mean, like, all of a sudden, you're, you know.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  Oh, no, it was weird. Trust me.

• 26:18Guy Raz?

  Was it?

• 26:18Speaker 00

  It was weird.

• 26:19Guy Raz?

  How was it weird?

• 26:20Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. To this, it is so much money. To this day, it weirs me out. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I knew I'd be wealthy.

• 26:26Guy Raz?

  You knew that. You just knew it.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. Look, I mean, from the time I was 25 on, I was making money and saving money and increasing my net worth, you know, on a monthly basis. But to this day, I remember, I mean, yesterday, I remember being in my backyard and my kids are there and just thinking, you know, I never would have imagined, never in a million years would I have imagined that I'd be in this position, you know, and just trying to appreciate it. It is crazy.

• 26:54Guy Raz?

  If you woke up tomorrow and found out that everything was gone, all your money, your wealth, your house, like, it was gone, you had to start over, what would you do?

• 27:04Speaker 00

  I'd get a job as a bartender at night and a sales job during the day and start working.

• 27:09Guy Raz?

  And probably make some of it back, do you think?

• 27:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, could I be a billionaire? To be a billionaire, you got to get lucky, right? I started my company, you know, at a time when the stock market was going nuts. And that was my luck. And I was smart enough to do it, smart enough to run it, smart enough to execute on it, smart enough to hedge it. But no question, there was luck involved. And so, you know, could I become a multimillionaire millionaire again? I have no doubt. Because I would work hard enough. And I, and look, and I don't mean that to sound disrespectful. There's a lot of people who work really hard. But in sales, you know, knowing what my sales skills are and the products that I'm able to sell, I think I could find a job selling a product that had enough commissions or rewards for me and then leverage that up

• 27:58Speaker 00

  to start a company somewhere, somehow, and then, you know, build some wealth. Now, maybe not the same, but enough to pay the bills.

• 28:11Guy Raz?

  Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. By the way, for many years, he really wanted to learn how to dunk a basketball, like Michael Jordan. And he tried, and he trained, and he tried, and he trained. And at the age of 37, after years of training, he finally did. He finally dunked the ball. Hey, thanks for listening to the show this week. If you want to find out more or listen to previous episodes, you can go to howibuiltthis.npr.org. And if you have a chance, please subscribe to our show through iTunes and let other people know about it. You can also write us directly at [email protected], or tweet us, that's at howibuiltthis. Our show was produced this week by Ramtin Arablouei, who also composed

• 28:53Guy Raz?

  the music. Thanks also to Neva Grant, Sanaz Meshkhanpour, and Jeff Rogers. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 29:15Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks for sticking around to the very end of the show, because this is the part of the show where we've been hearing from you guys about the companies and ideas that you're building. Thousands of you, literally thousands of you, have written in. And if you haven't, please do tell us your story. You can go to build.npr.org, that's build with a D, where you can follow the instructions. It'll tell you exactly what you need to do. OK, that's out of the way. Here's this week's story.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  So my name is Marnie Peters, and I live in Gastonia, North Carolina.

• 29:48Guy Raz?

  Which is about 20 miles outside of Charlotte, where Marnie works as a massage therapist. Anyway, back in 2009, Marnie had to fly from North Carolina to Maryland, and she was with her two little kids. And one of the kids, it was her baby son, was swaddled to her chest. And her other kid, her 18-month-old daughter, was strapped into the seat beside her, and she was demanding to play with her toys.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  And each toy I gave her, she'd drop on the ground. And because I had my son wrapped around me, I couldn't bend down and get them.

• 30:20Guy Raz?

  And so during the flight, the toys kept slipping off the tray table and rolling down the aisle. There were crayons and stuffed animals and figurines all over the plane.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  And so as I was sitting there, closing my eyes, going, OK, what would help me in this situation, I started to make this product in my head.

• 30:40Guy Raz?

  And what came to mind, at least at the beginning, was an inflatable lap tray for kids. But-

• 30:47Speaker 04

  The more that we traveled, the more I realized that they need a place to put their things, that they need a pillow, that they have to be able to carry it themselves.

• 30:54Guy Raz?

  A bag, a pillow, a tray table, all in one. So Marnie started to sketch out some ideas. She went to friends and family. She raised about $20,000. And then she went looking for a manufacturer.

• 31:08Speaker 04

  And there was really only one company that was willing to work with me as a small inventor. And they were marvelous. For 18 months, we went back and forth with samples and prototypes and finally came to an agreement this past spring and was able to actually get the first shipment at the end of August.

• 31:30Guy Raz?

  And Marnie's invention, she calls it Pet Pak. That's P-E-T-P-A-K.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  It is a stuffed animal that you unzip the belly and it's a lap tray. And you can unzip the back of its neck and it has a little pack that you can put your books and your trinkets and toys. And then you can turn it over and it becomes a little pillow.

• 31:52Guy Raz?

  It's kind of like a stuffed animal transformer. And right now, there are four designs. There's an elephant, a panda, a lion, and a pig. And so far, Marnie says, she sold about 50 of them, mainly on Amazon.

• 32:05Speaker 04

  Everyone really wants to see me succeed. And because I've surrounded myself with these pretty amazing people, my friends, my family, it keeps me going, even when you have those entrepreneurial slumps where you just go, OK, I don't know if I can do this anymore.

• 32:20Speaker 04

  And every time I feel like that, I have somebody behind me going, yes, you can. You've made it this far. You can keep going.

• 32:25Guy Raz?

  Nowadays, whenever Marnie travels with her kids on a plane, all their stuff stays together in one place on that tray. If you want to check out PetPak, see what it looks like. Marnie is currently selling them on Amazon. You can find them by going there, typing in P E T P A K in the search box. And if you want to tell us about the company or idea you're building, go to build.npr.org. That's build with a D, dot NPR, dot org. And thanks.

• 32:57Guy Raz?

  As the end of the year approaches, a lot of you have been asking about the best way to support How I Built This. So first of all, thank you for asking, and it is pretty easy to do. You go to stations.npr.org. You find your local station and you make a year-end contribution. Or even better, you become a regular monthly donor. And when you do, please tell them that How I Built This sent you. So find your local station at stations.npr.org. It takes like two minutes. It's totally tax deductible. And please do tell them How I Built This sent you. Again, that's stations.npr.org. And thanks.