Mark Cuban, the eclectic entrepreneur
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Cuban, 58, owner of NBA’S Dallas Mavericks, known for his unpredictable investments on the television show “Shark Tank”, has made a number of eye-raising, wide-ranging ventures off camera as well.
Over the past 4 months, for example, the outspoken entrepreneur has put 10 million dollars into a line of Dirk Nowitzky Snuffle Pillows; sunk $1.5 million into Austin, Texas based META SaaS, a software management company; put up $3 million in seed money to DAVE.COM, a fee-based company that protects consumers from overdraft fees; and led the fundraising for Zoobean, a cloud-based software that powers library reading programs.
His most outrageous investment, however, might have been in “The Zebra”, a platform where consumers can compare estimates for car insurance. “The Zebra” was the brainchild of 25 year old Adam Lyons of Pittsburgh, who thought up the business in 2012. Lyons guess Cuban’s e-mail address, then reached out to him with the simple line: “Do you want to disrupt the insurance business”. 25 minutes later Cuban responded, and followed up with an investment—without a face to face meeting.
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This past March Lyons and Cuban shared the stage at SXSW. The Zebra is now 5 years old, and has since attracted more than 21 million dollars in additional funding and has 71 employees.
Cuban’s investment philosophy may be summed up in these rules that he outlined to “The Motley Fool”, an investment guide: Don’t let fear be a roadblock; Creating opportunities means looking where others are not; and It’s not about money or connections, it’s about the willingness to outwork and out-learn everyone else.
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