Mark Cuban has made his decision.
And it is certain that this one will delight the many fans of the hit TV show Shark Tank, of which he is one of the pillars.
The successful entrepreneur's future on the show has been speculated for several weeks now, as Season 14 is underway.
Will he come back or will he close this chapter? This is the question currently preoccupying fans and entrepreneurs. And there are many of the latter who come to this show in the hope of benefiting from his advice and especially from his personal involvement, in the form of an investment in their business.
The concept of the show is simple. On one side, you have entrepreneurs who have a creative project, or an existing business which they want to expand. On the other side, you have investors, all "self-made” entrepreneurs, who have earned millions of dollars with their businesses and who are on the lookout for disruptive innovative concepts.
Dallas Mavericks
'I'm Definitely Back'
Entrepreneurs present their projects and try to convince at least one "shark" to invest in their business, in exchange for a stake in their company. They often look to benefit from the skills and the relationship networks of the “sharks” as much as from their money.
The result is a program full of brilliant ideas… or absurd ones, pitches of entrepreneurs succeeding in convincing… or failing miserably, hard negotiations, real moments of emotion, screams, laughter and tears. Above all, there are many lessons to be learned for entrepreneurs, or even for investors, on negotiation, sales and the art of influencing and convincing.
In an interview by email with TheStreet, the billionaire has just announced his decision.
"I'm definitely back next year," he said.
This means he will be there for Season 15th. He didn't say whether he will return in 2024.
The outspoken entrepreneur has already expressed his need to spend more time with his family. Cuban has three children: two daughters, Alyssa and Alexis, and one son, Jake.
From Entrepreneur to Investor
A departure of Cuban from Shark Tank is likely to leave a great void as the tech billionaire and owner of the NBA franchise, the Dallas Mavericks, has succeeded in injecting his personality and his infectious energy.
By last July, the outspoken investor had been on 111 episodes of Shark Tank and had closed 85 deals for a total investment of $19.85 million, according to Sharkalytics. His biggest individual investment was in the company called Ten Thirty One Production, in which he invested $2 million against a 20% equity stake.
Overall, Cuban has invested an average of $233,529 in exchange for an average participation of 23% in the ownership of the companies he chose to fund.
Here is the list of companies he has invested in via Shark Tank.
In 1983, the entrepreneur, who was born in Pittsburgh before he transplanted to Dallas in 1982, and Martin Woodall, a former Texas Instruments executive, founded a company called MicroSolutions, which was sold in 1990 for $6 million.
Five years later, he and lawyer Todd Wagner founded Broadcast.com, a platform for streaming radio broadcasts over the internet. They would sell the company in 1999 to Yahoo! Inc for $5 billion. He made more than $1 billion from the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.
