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Mark Cuban reveals how he saved his first company from bankruptcy after an employee stole $82K: ‘We were flat broke’
Mark Cuban has opened up about how one particular employee almost drove MicroSolutions out of business.
Mark Cuban has revealed how he bounced back after he was left broke when an employee stole $82K from his first company. “People steal, what am I going to do?” the entrepreneur told Shannon Sharpe on an episode of the Club Shay Shay podcast. “You know what? It’s a good problem to have, right? I can afford it.”
Cuban has reportedly experienced embezzlement in his companies over the years. He has now opened up about how one particular employee almost drove MicroSolutions out of business.
“She took $82,000 of the $84,000 we had,” Cuban said. “We were flat broke.”
Cuban revealed that the money the employee stole had actually been earmarked for his vendors. Only $2,000 was left in the bank after the incident, with the firm at the risk of nearly going bankrupt.
How did Mark Cuban save the firm?
Cash flow problems quite commonly kill small and mid-sized businesses. In an attempt to avoid a disaster, Cuban reached out to his network of vendors and narrated his situation, asking for flexibility. “We had to call the vendors to say, ‘Please work with us, we'll bust our a–, we'll make sure you get paid,’ and they did. They worked with us, right, and the rest is history,” he said.
The company was eventually saved. Cuban later sold it to internet services company CompuServe for $6 million.
Cuban helped the firm get back on its feet when it could have been struck by a huge disaster. According to a survey by Quickbooks State of Small Business Cash Flow, 61% of small business owners have complained about frequently facing cash flow problems. 32% say a lack of cash flow makes them unable to pay money to employees, suppliers, loans or themselves. U.S. Bank says 82% of businesses that fail cite cash flow issues as the reason for the failure.
