How did Mark Cuban start his business?

Mark Cuban's journey into business began out of necessity and opportunity. He was fired from a job at a software company, which spurred him to start his own venture. Initially, he had little choice as he was living with six other people in a three-bedroom apartment, and there was "no downside" to taking the leap into entrepreneurship 1.

He founded his first business, MicroSolutions, by leveraging the contacts he had made while working in sales. Cuban convinced one of his prospects to front $500, which he used to buy software and sell it at a profit with 50% margins 1.

Cuban attributes his success to his resourcefulness and the preparation he put into learning about the tech industry. His journey in tech began when he got a job at a software company in Dallas, despite having minimal knowledge about software at the time. He educated himself in various programming languages and network systems, which laid the foundation for his entrepreneurial success. Eventually, he sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe 2 3.

MicroSolutions was a systems integrator, meaning they modified software to meet specific business needs, installed it, and provided ongoing support until everything worked seamlessly. The organization skills of his partner, Martin Woodall, played a crucial role in the company's success 3.

The first significant financial breakthrough for Cuban was when he co-founded Audionet, which eventually transformed into Broadcast.com. This company, which specialized in streaming audio over the internet, was sold to Yahoo for $5.6 billion 4.