“What people fail to grasp is once you introduce something, whoever the competitors are, they’re going to introduce the exact same thing,” he says. “It’s pretty much impossible to protect ideas like that when you’re already in an industry, so just trying to be faster, better, cheaper, just one-upping somebody, that’s also a red flag. When I see someone trying to be a one-upper, I’m usually turning away.”
The last element he looks at is whether there is a product or a feature.
“You look at things like location-based services — Gowalla, Foursquare and the like — and then you look at Facebook adding places or Google adding places, and you have to ask yourself, ‘Even though Foursquare and Gowalla pretty much wrote that business, are they features of somebody else’s products like a Facebook, or can they operate as a stand-alone business?’” he says. “That’s also a decision point you have to make.”
Cuban says you have to be patient and recognize that timing is part of an opportunity, as well. That’s what he’s done with the model he has now — releasing movies simultaneously for home viewing and in theaters and sometimes even prior to theatrical release — with Landmark Theatres, HDNet and Magnolia Pictures. He had to own all of those different elements, and people had to be open to it if he was to succeed, and it’s catching on now that the market is ripe for it.
“You can’t just automatically walk in and start a business every year or always have the right idea at the right time,” he says. “But you have to recognize when you have a unique opportunity and be able to pounce on it. There’s not always going to be an idea. There’s not always something. You just have to be willing to say, ‘OK, this is the lull period, but I keep on working, and I keep on learning, and if things change, there will be a unique opportunity, and when it comes, I’ll pounce on it.’”
Know yourself
Before Cuban ever made any money, he says he had so much “piss and vinegar” in him that he’d do anything necessary to win, but as his businesses have changed over the years, he realizes that this once-prevalent personality trait isn’t one of his strong suits anymore.
“It used to be picking up the check and closing the deal was the ultimate, and now one, ‘I love you, Daddy; can we go get some ice cream?’ conquers all,” he says.
And it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be if he didn’t recognize it.
“I always thought, ‘I’ll just dive in,’” he says. “It’s like working out. There’s multiple kinds of workouts. Sometimes you tell yourself you’re going to go to the gym and get a great workout, and then you realize that you remember why you need a trainer — you need someone to push you. When you have the piss and vinegar, you don’t need anyone to push you. You just dive in, and you get the best possible business workout.”
He now looks for people with that piss and vinegar in them or in their company so he can complement them. Additionally, Cuban has always been a “big-picture geek” that understood sales, marketing and technology, but when it comes to the administrative side of making all the little things work, that’s where he’s had to find people to help him. He says it’s critical to make sure you’re grounded in reality about your abilities.
“You have to be brutally honest with yourself,” he says. “You (can’t) lie to yourself. You have to know what you’re good at and what you’re bad at. You can’t all of a sudden be a home-run hitter. You can’t be a dunker if you can’t dunk, right? It’s that simple. …You better figure out what you’re good at and be great at it.”
One easy way to tell if you’re being honest with yourself is your success record.
“[It’s] just wanting to win,” he says. “It’s not an ego thing. It’s very binary. Is there money in the bank or not? Are you successful or are you not? It’s very simple. The people who lie to themselves typically end up with more problems.”
