In the mid-1990s, just before the dot-com bubble, a friend of Mark Cuban was approached for a business idea.
As a sports fan, his friend Todd Wagner told Cuban that it would be lucrative to set up an Internet audio company where users could listen to sports games online. Cuban sold his chances and in 1995 the duo created AudioNet, which later became Broadcast.com.
At the time, the Internet was a very new concept for most people, so Cuban and Wagner faced many critics who did not believe the company was successful.
“When I explained the vision to people, they would say,‘ You’re crazy. I just turned on the TV. I’ll turn on the radio, “Cuban said in a recent episode of the Podcast beginning with” Greatness. “
“People would laugh at me.”
But that didn’t matter to the Cubans.
“I knew this would win,” Cuban said on Broadcast.com. “I had no doubt in my head.”
On the one hand, Cuban saw a market for real-time broadcasting, “which at the time we called network broadcasting or Internet broadcasting,” he told “Beginning of Greatness.”
Cuban said he “firmly believed that streaming would take over all television,” because he “believed in the price and performance curve for computers.” [personal computers] and broadband, and as computers continue to be more powerful, the price of disk drives and bandwidth will continue to fall. “
This, Cuban said, “was a key point for transmission.”
“I had this vision that we would follow that path.”
Once the co-founders began marketing the company, Cuban said he noticed a growing demand from those who wanted to listen to sports games or music during their workday, but could not keep a radio on their desk.
“I saw very quickly that user adoption was huge,” Cuban said. “No one has used it and said they don’t need it.”
Then, while Broadcast.com added the ability to watch video with audio, “most of our revenue came from streaming corporate events and meetings by hand,” he said. This was “the real money winner for us.”
Broadcast.com also had a growing consumer base, because it was simple for us.
“I knew it so I could hear OU [University of Oklahoma] sports, I was the path of least endurance, “Cuban said.” I knew that anyone who wanted to watch or hear a Mavericks game, I was the path of least resistance. “
“There may have been competitors trying to do the same and copy us, but we were the only way of less resistance.”
In 1999, Broadcast.com was acquired by Yahoo for $ 5.7 billion in shares.
That’s why, Cuban said, “if you have the technology working in your favor, if you’re the path of least resistance and if you have consumption, then you have to go for it. These are the pieces that create a pit that are very difficult to replicate “.
The experience made the Cuban more open and relied on his gut to invest in companies or ideas that others may find “crazy,” he said. Today it includes its investments in companies focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain.
Investing in these companies today has “the same feeling as the early days of the Internet,” Cuban told “Starting Greatness.”
“You have to really believe in your product” to be successful.
Disclosure: CNBC has the exclusive rights to offline cable for “Shark Tank.”
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