Latest news with #CompuServe
Economic Times
a day ago
- Business
- Economic Times
He was 24 with just $20: Mark Cuban's first business venture failed in 30 days, but the lesson he learned is priceless
Agencies Mark Cuban's initial entrepreneurial attempt involved selling powdered milk, which failed within a month, teaching him valuable lessons about business. Long before Mark Cuban became a billionaire entrepreneur, NBA team owner, and household name on Shark Tank, he was just a broke 24-year-old college grad with a hustle — and a handful of powdered milk packets. In a recent episode of the 'Aspire' podcast hosted by Emma Grede, Cuban revealed how his very first business venture — selling powdered milk — failed spectacularly in just 30 days. Armed with under $20 and unshakable optimism, Cuban believed his budget milk substitute could revolutionize frugal kitchens. 'I remember taking samples to people, mixing it up, like, 'Look, milk's expensive. We're broke, right? This will save you money,'' he said on the show. The response? Indifference at best, revulsion at worst. That sting of rejection might have ended the story for most — but for Cuban, it was just the first step. The powdered milk venture was Cuban's crash course in entrepreneurship. 'It did not sell,' he admitted plainly. But that 30-day loss proved to be a long-term gain. 'It doesn't matter how many times you fail. You only have to be right one time,' he reflected. And he was. Shortly after, Cuban launched MicroSolutions, a software reseller company. With no outside funding and no time off ('I didn't take a vacation for the next seven years,' he told The Playbook by Entrepreneur), Cuban hustled his way into profitability. By 1990, he sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe for $6 million. Nine years later, he made internet history by selling to Yahoo for $6 billion. Cuban's early struggles were far from glamorous. He was fired from a computer store, lived with six roommates in a cramped apartment, and often slept on the floor. But instead of retreating, he went all in — and stayed all in. 'There is no balance,' Cuban once told Sports Illustrated. 'If you want to crush the game, whatever game you're in, there's somebody working 24 hours a day to kick your a*s.'. What if you're starting with nothing today? Cuban says the answer lies not in bank accounts, but in sweat equity. If he had to build from scratch in 2025, he'd lean into artificial intelligence — and not by spending, but by learning. 'I'd be all about AI,' he said. 'If I had access to a library and $0, I'd be in there till they kicked me out.' He suggests learning to prompt AI tools effectively, then offering services to small businesses to improve efficiency. In other words: find a skill, sharpen it for free, and sell it. Despite his massive fortune (estimated at $6 billion, per Forbes), Cuban's proudest achievement might just be the control he now exercises over his own time. At SXSW 2024, he shared a telling anecdote — after making his first million, he threw away his watch. 'I didn't want to respond to anyone else,' he said. 'I wanted to own my time.'
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Business Insider
A day in the life of Mark Cuban: He reveals his productivity hack — and how everyone can use it
One of our biggest series this year is Power Hours, an inside look at the daily routines of top executives, founders, and creatives across industries. We want to understand what makes these people tick: why one wakes up at 4:15 a.m. to hydrate and meditate, another runs a 10K after arriving at the office, and a third moonlights as a Lyft driver. BI's Power Hours series gives readers an inside look at how powerful leaders in business structure their workday. See more stories from the series here, or reach out to the editor Lauryn Haas to share your daily routine. When we reached out to Mark Cuban, we figured he'd be ripe for this series — a billionaire who has founded several companies, invested in hundreds of small businesses, and hosted the popular TV show " Shark Tank." His response: "My day is boring." "I read and respond to emails," he wrote in an email. "I work out. I read and respond to emails. I do a couple Zooms. Then I read and respond to emails. Then I eat dinner. Then I read and respond to emails." (To be fair, he also shared that he follows his morning email session with decaf coffee, a cookie, and a shower, before taking his daughter to school, then working out at Life Time Fitness, taking a second shower — and returning to email.) This raises the question: Why is a billionaire spending most of his day in his inbox? What's so great about email? And why doesn't he hire an assistant to do all this emailing? We had to investigate. So we sent him more emails. Here's what he told us (via email). Mark Cuban: I receive around 700 emails a day and use three phones (two Android and one iPhone) to manage everything. I'd rather get 700 to 1,000 emails than sit in long, boring meetings. I can easily search them decades later. I have emails going back to the 90s. It's asynchronous. I can write or respond any time, from anywhere in the world. That makes things much easier. There's also really no limit to the type or format of the content. I can include it in emails or attach whatever. Everyone has email. In 2025, I don't know anyone who doesn't. It's fast. Particularly now, with Google's auto replies. For maybe 10 to 20% of my emails, I just have to choose one of Gmail's recommendations. If not, I can usually give very short responses. People expect them from me. How do you keep your inbox organized? Do you use filters, folders, or an email extension? I have folders. I used to have too many emails, and Gmail couldn't keep up, so I had to segregate them into different accounts. Now, that typically isn't an issue. I spend most of my day trying to get my unreads under 20. It acts as my tickler file and keeps what's important to me, right in front of me. Have you ever hired someone to help manage your email? If so, how did that go? If not, have you considered it? Never. That just slows things down. I started sending messages in the 1980s on CompuServe. It was fast and easy. For my company back then, I had everyone get an address. It worked great then, too. I still have a bunch of those folders with emails! Do you ever ignore your email (like on vacation)? Or do you always keep up with it? For a short period of time, sure. But for a full day or longer, only in extraordinary situations like a special event for a family member. I have a hard time disconnecting. It's faster to just get it out of the way. Do you like to achieve Inbox Zero? Won't ever happen. I get down under 10 now and then, but I also use my unreads as a reminder of what I need to get done today. Would you ever consider letting AI write your emails? Only the autoreply. Anything else, if I have a long response, I might use AI as a typing hack to save time, but I'm typically going to add some flavor somewhere. For a long, long time. Usually commenting that I'll respond or create emails at all hours of the day. Which is fact. If it comes to mind, I'm writing and sending. Or if the only time I have to clean up my inbox is after everyone is in bed, that's when I'll work.
Business Insider
6 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Business Insider
Mark Cuban reveals his productivity hack — and everyone can use it
One of our biggest series this year is Power Hours, an inside look at the daily routines of top executives, founders, and creatives across industries. We want to understand what makes these people tick: why one wakes up at 4:15 a.m. to hydrate and meditate, another runs a 10K after arriving at the office, and a third moonlights as a Lyft driver. BI's Power Hours series gives readers an inside look at how powerful leaders in business structure their workday. See more stories from the series here, or reach out to the editor Lauryn Haas to share your daily routine. When we reached out to Mark Cuban, we figured he'd be ripe for this series — a billionaire who has founded several companies, invested in hundreds of small businesses, and hosted the popular TV show " Shark Tank." His response: "My day is boring." "I read and respond to emails," he wrote in an email. "I work out. I read and respond to emails. I do a couple Zooms. Then I read and respond to emails. Then I eat dinner. Then I read and respond to emails." (To be fair, he also shared that he follows his morning email session with decaf coffee, a cookie, and a shower, before taking his daughter to school, then working out at LifeTime Fitness, taking a second shower — and returning to email). This raises the question: Why is a billionaire spending most of his day in his inbox? What's so great about email? And why doesn't he hire an assistant to do all this emailing? We had to investigate. So we sent him more emails. Here's what he told us (via email). Mark Cuban: I receive around 700 emails a day and use three phones (two Android and one iPhone) to manage everything. I'd rather get 700 to 1,000 emails than sit in long, boring meetings. I can easily search them decades later. I have emails going back to the 90s. It's asynchronous. I can write or respond any time, from anywhere in the world. That makes things much easier. There's also really no limit to the type or format of the content. I can include it in emails or attach whatever. Everyone has email. In 2025, I don't know anyone who doesn't. It's fast. Particularly now, with Google's auto replies. For maybe 10 to 20% of my emails, I just have to choose one of Gmail's recommendations. If not, I can usually give very short responses. People expect them from me. How do you keep your inbox organized? Do you use filters, folders, or an email extension? I have folders. I used to have too many emails, and Gmail couldn't keep up, so I had to segregate them into different accounts. Now, that typically isn't an issue. I spend most of my day trying to get my unreads under 20. It acts as my tickler file and keeps what's important to me, right in front of me. Have you ever hired someone to help manage your email? If so, how did that go? If not, have you considered it? Never. That just slows things down. I started sending messages in the 1980s on CompuServe. It was fast and easy. For my company back then, I had everyone get an address. It worked great then, too. I still have a bunch of those folders with emails! Do you ever ignore your email (like on vacation)? Or do you always keep up with it? For a short period of time, sure. But for a full day or longer, only in extraordinary situations like a special event for a family member. I have a hard time disconnecting. It's faster to just get it out of the way. Do you like to achieve Inbox Zero? Won't ever happen. I get down under 10 now and then, but I also use my unreads as a reminder of what I need to get done today. Would you ever consider letting AI write your emails? Only the autoreply. Anything else, if I have a long response, I might use AI as a typing hack to save time, but I'm typically going to add some flavor somewhere. For a long, long time. Usually commenting that I'll respond or create emails at all hours of the day. Which is fact. If it comes to mind, I'm writing and sending. Or if the only time I have to clean up my inbox is after everyone is in bed, that's when I'll work.
Otago Daily Times
03-05-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
He put the ‘Mac' into Mactodd
Alan Macalister's practised law in Queenstown for 50 years, if in a more limited role of late. PHOTO: PHILIP CHANDLER Fifty years ago, Alan Macalister became just Queenstown's third full-time lawyer when he started what's today the resort's largest locally owned law firm, Mactodd. After successfully growing the firm, he retired in 2001, but remains a consultant. Following secondary school at Dunedin's Otago Boys' High School, Alan says he enrolled to study law because of "rather distant family connections to the practice of law". After two years at Otago Uni and short of funds, he joined the Public Trust as an estate administrator for three years. His sole connection to the university was one capping week during which he was engaged in the capping concert, wool store hops, in which bands performed in a wool store, and leading the capping pipe band through the Public Trust Office and numerous other premises then onto the air at 4ZB. After a meeting with the law faculty dean, however, he resumed his studies and qualified as a solicitor of the High Court two years later. He was employed by Dunedin's Ross Dowling before joining Macalister Bros in Invercargill which he became a partner of — his grandfather and other Macalisters had formerly been there. He was then invited to open a Queenstown office. Alan's initial office was a tiny two-bedroom cottage in Shotover St. Two years later he bought his partners out and set up APM Macalister. In those days he says he had no option but to practise all areas of law including court work. He did quite a bit of commercial work and also got business from the borough and county councils, then the waterways and airport authorities. In those pre-internet and even pre-fax days, "you had to get things done in Queenstown — instructions didn't float away to other centres". With growth, Alan took on ever-bigger offices and, significantly, brought onboard in the 1980s partners Graeme Todd and Kevin Phillips as the firm was renamed Macalister Todd Phillips. A lot of his commercial work involved overseas clients, including, he recalls, with realtor Locations, offering 13 commercial properties, not on the market, to offshore clients who purchased 12. Alan says the firm was always technologically advanced, and pre-internet used CompuServe when serving overseas clients. Famously, they produced Christmas cards for many years depicting the partners in funny poses. At the bottom was the wording, 'lest we take ourselves too seriously' — "that became an internal motto". Alan also served as the local coroner for about 30 years, investigating, as he said when he stepped down in 2011, "unexplained and violent deaths". "I'm not aware of any other coroners exceeding 30 years — no doubt there are some out there. "Many of the inquires were interesting in themselves, and also important to resolve for the families and friends involved." Legal work even took him to the United States, India, Pakistan, Singapore and Malaysia. Outside of law he's a proud father of James and Jacqui. In the mid-'90s he converted to Buddhism and went on many retreats as well as a pilgrimage in the footsteps of the Buddha in northern India. "Meditation formed an important part of daily life, but simply practising compassion makes life easier." He's a founding trustee of the Lake Street Trust and Rainbow Mountain Trust — the former operates the Dharma Centre in Lake St. Alan was founding deputy chair of the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce. He was also approached by two Rotarians to set up Abbeyfield's elderly housing in Frankton, which took five years. He did the job on the proviso he didn't have to report to a committee. "My modus operandi has been to help set [projects] up then move on — committee membership is not my strong point." Now 83, Alan's main roles at Mactodd, as it's now called, are as a notary public, verifying the authenticity of documents, and as an adviser to charitable organisations. With most charitable projects he's been involved with it's been to facilitate funding, often funding of last resort, through Amisfield Trust, of which he and David Swiffen were founding trustees, and Mactodd Community Charitable Trust. As for Queenstown's growth, "I thought the growth was there, to be honest", he says. He still has great faith in its future, saying people who think it's been ruined were saying this even last century. However, having been here 50 years "I'd have to admit the difficult parking and traffic jams were not something I thought I was signing up for".
