Mark Cuban's Best Advice for Small Business Owners in 2025
The U.S. is built on small businesses. According to the Office of Advocacy, there are a little over 33 million small businesses in the country — that's nearly all of them.
But while starting a small business is relatively easy, making a successful one is another story. So, how do you ensure your small business succeeds in 2025 and beyond? Below is billionaire investor Mark Cuban's advice to small business owners.
Also Cuban said this is the best time to start a business.
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One of the most important things to succeeding as a small business owner is knowing when to listen to other people — and when to tune them out.
'When you're just getting started in a small business, it's easy to drown an opportunity if you let yourself get pulled by different ideas,' Cuban told CNBC Make It. 'People tell you, 'Oh I love your product, but I would buy more if you only did this [or] if you change just one little thing.' You have to sell to them versus them selling to you.'
You can still listen to sound advice. But if you adjust your business plan every time you receive criticism, chances are you'll lose sight of your original goal and fail.
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Not every business idea is the best one. Even if you love it, your strategy could be keeping you from making it lucrative.
If you want to succeed in the long haul, know when to make a change. This starts with paying attention to the money.
'When you see there's no money coming in, that's a sign to change strategies, to lean toward or away from that customer feedback,' Cuban said.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, but running a successful business is challenging.
Roughly 20% of small businesses don't make it past their first year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The success rate goes down from there with only about 30% of small businesses making it to year 10.
As you experience those little — and big — bumps along the way, maintaining confidence is key to success. But Cuban isn't the only successful individual who thinks so. Many others say the same.
In the book, 'Staff Matters: People-Focus Solutions for the Ultimate New Workplace,' Bonnie Low-Kramen — successful author and business owner — discussed this idea as well.
'Confidence is serious business and the single most important differentiator in the workplace,' Low-Kramen wrote. 'It will be the person with high confidence and lower abilities who will get the job over the person with low confidence and higher abilities.'
There are countless business ideas out there. To make yours successful, you need to find what you're good at and pursue that.
'Find the things that you can enjoy, be curious. You don't have to have all the answers but just be curious because you don't have to have the answers,' said Cuban in a YouTube video. 'I'm a hardcore believer that everybody has something that they're really, really, really good at. The hard part is just finding what that is.'
Once you've found what that thing is, pursue it. You can still listen to people (to some extent) and you can make changes along the way if something isn't working, but be confident. Be persistent. Choose that thing you enjoy and are good at it. Your odds of success will increase exponentially.
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