Mark cuban quotes

Treat your customers like they own you. Because they do.

Sales Cure All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.

I hate politics. It's slimy. Any job where people pander for votes I don't like. The country has gotten so partisan that if you're not on my side, you're the enemy.

I think college is an absolute. In this world you have to learn how to learn and get in the habit of always wanting to learn. Some kids have that out of high school and may be able to do the college equivalent of home schooling. Most kids can't. So I highly recommend going to college.

I wouldn't be where I am now if I didn't fail ... a lot. The good, the bad, it's all part of the success equation.

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that we lie to ourselves. We don't step back and look at ourselves like a competitor would.

I think one of the biggest curses in the U.S. is that we have only two political parties.

Get me selling and I can figure out the industry. Once I can figure out the industry I can start a business in that industry.

Most people think it's all about the idea. It's not. EVERYONE has ideas. The hard part is doing the homework to know if the idea could work in an industry, then doing the preparation to be able to execute on the idea.

Don't get caught up in how many hours you work. Judge success based on having goals and measuring your results. Hard work, and lots of it, is certainly needed, but focus on what you get done.

Business is the ultimate sport. In business, as in sport, the one thing you can control is effort.

It doesn't matter how many times you fail. It doesn't matter how many times you almost get it right. No-one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you. All that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.

Sports, music, movies - basically, fans of any form of entertainment don't do a resume analysis before picking their favorite.

I create offbeat advice; I don't follow it. I rarely take third-party advice on my investments.

I rarely think the market is right. I believe non dividend stocks aren't much more than baseball cards. They are worth what you can convince someone to pay for it.

I'd rather be tired than broke!

It's not in the dreaming, it's in the doing.

Sweat equity is the best startup capital.

I don't care what anyone says. Being rich is a good thing.

Time is the most valuable asset you don’t own. You may or may not realize it yet, but how you use or don’t use your time is going to be the best indication of where your future is going to take you .

There are no shortcuts. You have to work hard, and try to put yourself in a position where if luck strikes, you can see the opportunity and take advantage of it.

Doesn't matter if the glass is half-empty or half-full. All that matters is that you are the one pouring the water.

Executives should blog if they have a vision they are trying to communicate, or if they are very visible in the media.

Sometimes you buy the horse, sometimes you invest in the jockey. It really comes down to the actual business and the upside.

When you first start working for me, directly for me, I micromanage until I trust you.

When you hit send on a text or tweet, you lose ownership of it - but you don't lose responsibility. Every text you have sent may have been saved and could be out there waiting to be used in ways you didn't imagine. Even the most simple of posts can be used out of context, often unintentionally, and change your future.

My first company was MicroSolutions. I worked 20 hours a day. I didn't take a vacation for 7 years. I didn't even take the time to read a fiction book. It was all about work. When I sold it, I promised myself I would never wear a watch and only wear a suit to weddings, funerals and to meet the President.

The beauty of success, whether it’s finding the girl of your dreams, the right job or financial success, is that it doesn’t matter how many times you have failed, you only have to be right once.

Everyone tells you how they are going to be "special", but few do the work to get there. Do the work.

Do the work. Out-work. Out-think. Out-sell your expectations. There are no shortcuts.

If you really want to know where your destiny lies, look at where you apply your time.

One problem people have is that they lie to themselves. You may think you are more talented then the next guy. Which is exactly what the next guy thinks as well. Rarely is talent enough. You have to find ways to make yourself stand out. You do so by playing to your strengths and making people aware of those strengths. Always remember that no matter how many times you get shot down, you will get smarter, better and you only have to be right once to be successful.

If you don't follow the stock market, you are missing some amazing drama.

Because if you're prepared and you know what it takes, it's not a risk. You just have to figure out how to get there. There is always a way to get there.

I still work hard to know my business. I'm continuously looking for ways to improve all my companies, and I'm always selling. Always.

I love to compete. To me, business is the ultimate sport. It's always on. There is always someone trying to beat me.

If you can, you will quickly find that the greatest rate of return you will earn is on your own personal spending. Being a smart shopper is the first step to getting rich.

Once you have found out what you love to do, there is only one goal: to be the best in the world at it.

Work like there is someone working twenty-four hours a day to take it all away from you.

If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail.

Sweat equity is the most valuable equity there is. Know your business and industry better than anyone else in the world. Love what you do or don't do it.

Do your homework and know your business better than anyone. Otherwise, someone who knows more and works harder will kick your ass.

I'm the one guy who says don't force the stupid people to be quiet - I want to know who the morons are.

In my opinion, right now there's way too much hype on the technologies and not enough attention to the real businesses behind them.

Sales is the most important aspect of a company, which in turn is about how well you treat your customer and stay ahead of your customer's requirements.

Never settle. There is no reason to rush.

Being rich is a good thing. Not just in the obvious sense of benefitting you and your family, but in the broader sense. Profits are not a zero sum game. The more you make, the more of a financial impact you can have.

Relaxing is for the other guy.

Doesnt matter what your skill and physical gifts are if you cant get your head right.

I never look at the glass as half empty or half full. I look to see who is pouring the water and deal with them.

Make sure you are the boss. I don't think I would encourage executives that work for me to blog. There can be only 1 public vision for an organization.

Do the things that make perfect sense to you, [and] don't be afraid to shout it from the mountain tops just because it's outside the box or against the grain in your industry. More often than not, you're probably going to be right.

I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I wake up every day just fired up. My one rule is, don't let anyone pinch me, because I don't want to wake up.

Nothing can kill the future dreams and goals of a new graduate than 50k of debt like an anvil over your head. I got to Indiana University not because I visited the campus and loved everything about it. I picked Indiana University because I saw a list of the top 10 business schools and it was the cheapest.

Most people think money is the key to reducing risk. Prepartion is.

It doesn't matter how many times you fail. You only have to be right once and then everyone can tell you that you are an overnight success.

If you've got $25,000, $50,000, $100,000, you're better off paying off any debt you have because that's a guaranteed return.

Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.

You never win any games you don't play.

If I own stock in your company and you move offshore for tax reasons I'm selling your stock. There are enough investment choices here.

Never follow your dreams. Follow your effort. It's not about what you can dream of. That's easy. It's about whether or not it's important enough to you to do the work to be ready to be successful in that business.

I'm always afraid of failing. It's great motivation to work harder.

It's always the little decisions that have the biggest impact.

Success is about making your life a special version of unique that fits who you are - not what other people want you to be.

Ideas are easy. I've never met a single person who didn't think they had a world class idea. The hard part is making it a business.

A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo-embroidered polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, it's okay to buy for your own employees, but if you really think people are going to wear your branded polo when they're out and about, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money.

Once you are prepared and you think you have every angle of preparation covered, you have to go for it.

Money is a scoreboard where you can rank how you're doing against other people.

It's not about money or connections. It's the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.

Pay off your debt first. Freedom from debt is worth more than any amount you can earn.

Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don't find one, it's you.

You learn in life that a lot of things are the result of effort, but some things, in terms of scale, are random.

Find something you love to do. If you don't make money at it, at least you love going to work.

All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal.

I'm not the type to pat myself on the back and all that, but somebody has to be lucky, right? When I got to Dallas, I was struggling - sleeping on the floor with six guys in a three-bedroom apartment. I used to drive around, look at the big houses, and imagine what it would be like to live there and use that as motivation.

One thing we can all control is effort. Put in the time to become an expert in whatever you’re doing. It will give you an advantage because most people don’t do this.

Video for the Internet has become a testing ground for mediums that actually have revenue.

The sport of business is the ultimate competition. It's 7 × 24 × 365 × forever.

It's not whether the glass is half empty or half full, it's who is pouring the water. The key in business and success at any endeavor is doing your best to control your destiny. You can't always do it, but you have to take every opportunity you can to be as prepared as-and ahead of-the competition as you possibly can be.

I love to compete. I want to get out there and kick your ass in the business world. That is what inspires me.

It takes a lot of things to work together in order to be wealthy but with a little luck, a lot of luck... You've got to be good at something. For a 20-year-old, you don't have to know exactly what you want to do, you've just got to go find something you can be great at, and then go be great at it.

While some people might find it distasteful to pay taxes, I don't. I find it patriotic.

When I got to the Mavericks people were all giving me advice - change this, change that - and one thing that I didn't do was fire anybody.

Perfectionism is the enemy of profitability.

Selling is never about convincing. It is always about helping.

There are no shortcuts. NONE.

Business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

A long list. From getting cut from the high school basketball team, to getting fired from jobs, getting credit cards rejected and cut up. Rejection has only been a distraction, not a roadblock. “Every no gets me closer to a yes,” was the saying I used to use.

Wherever I see people doing something the way it's always been done, the way it's "supposed" to be done, following the same old trends, well, that's just a big red flag to me to go look somewhere else.

The only thing in your control is effort. That's all, and that's everything.

Never follow your dreams. Follow your effort.

It takes time, it's a grind. There are no shortcuts. You've got to grind and grind.

The thrill of victory in business blows away the thrill of victory in sports. Business is a sport 24/7/365.

Learn to sell. In business you’re always selling: to your prospects, investors and employees. To be the best salesperson put yourself in the shoes of the person to whom you’re selling. Don’t sell your product. Solve their problems.

If you're looking where everybody else is looking, you're looking in the wrong spot.

My businesses are usually built around challenging conventional wisdom, so I tend to gain by taking the other side. It's been very profitable and entertaining for me

Don't start a company unless it's an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it's not an obsession.

Always wake up with a smile knowing that today you are going to have fun accomplishing what others are too afraid to do.

Today is the youngest you will ever be. Live like it.

Wherever there is change, and wherever there is uncertainty, there is opportunity!

Every kid thinks they have something special about themselves. Every adult thinks they have a big idea at some point in their life. Rather than pursue every thing they possibly can to prepare themselves to enable their idea or special talent, they tend to wing it and make excuses.

Focus on building the best possible business. If you are great, people will notice and opportunities will appear.

Time is the most valuable asset you don't own.

One problem people have is that they lie to themselves. Rarely is talent enough. You have to find ways to make yourself standout. You do so by playing to your strengths and making people aware of those strengths.

The NBA (National Basketball Association) is never just a business. It's always business. It's always personal. All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal.

I was lucky. I grew up knowing that hard work and smart work has a greater impact on results than being passionate about something.

Every 'No' gets me closer to a 'Yes'.

There is only one thing in life you can control: Your own effort.

Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap.

Creating opportunities means looking where others are not.

I learned how to become wealthy because I asked the right questions when I was broke.

Love what you do or don't do it.

The reason I do Shark Tank isn't to try take make more money of the deals, even though every deal I want to make money off of and even more so I want the entrepreneurs to be very successful and make money, but Shark Tank sends a message to everybody that the American Dream is alive and well.

All you need is a laptop or a PC and an Internet connection and you can pretty much do almost anything and create almost any type of company.

Sweat equity is the most valuable equity there is.

In business, one of the challenges is making sure that your product is the easiest to experience and complete a sale.

It is called working your ass off. The difference is what you are willing to sacrifice. For every writer who wants balance in their life, there is a guy like me who gives up a lot to make their dreams come true. There is always going to be someone out there that knows they have to compensate for maybe having less talent with harder work and preparation.

Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I'm just telling you, when you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That's rule No. 1 of business.

What I’ve learned is that if you really want to be successful at something, you’ll find that you put the time in. You won’t just ask somebody if it’s a good idea, you’ll go figure out if it’s a good idea.

When you post something, when you text something, you lose ownership of it when you hit enter or send. Who you send it to, where you post it, they take ownership of that information whether you like it or not

Being a smart shopper is the first step to getting rich.

With every effort, I learned a lot. With every mistake and failure, not only mine, but of those around me, I learned what not to do. I also got to study the success of those I did business with as well. I had more than a healthy dose of fear, and an unlimited amount of hope, and more importantly, no limit on time and effort.

One thing we can all control is effort

But we have to ask ourselves, what's the purpose of the stock market? It's supposed to be a source of capital for growing business. It's lost that purpose.

Forget about finding your passion. Instead, focus on finding big problems.