Mark Cuban used his refined sixth sense for business to build a $6.2 billion empire. 

He’s widely known for starting various successful companies, owning the Dallas Mavericks and investing in businesses on Shark Tank for over 15 years. 

He’s also invested in many companies off-camera, and they might be even more interesting. While you probably can’t afford to own an NBA team, you can easily mirror his simple startup investing strategy.

Through Mark Cuban Cos., Cuban has supported hundreds of startups from many industries. He owns a stake in Samaya AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) company using large language models to provide a new search, summarization and knowledge discovery platform. Another is Joy Milk Tea, a beverage company looking to become the first mainstream milk tea brand. As this is Cuban’s portfolio, investments in crypto-related companies are a guarantee. The billionaire has invested in Tokenproof, a company that enables users to prove ownership of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and crypto tokens without connecting or carrying their digital wallets.

Only three companies have been listed here, but Cuban has invested in at least 212 others. Among them, you’ll find media companies, pharmaceutical companies, fintech companies and companies from many other industries. The reality is that not even the endorsement of one of the most influential billionaires in the world will help some of them. Many of them will fail, but that probably won’t matter much. If only a handful of them go on to have a successful exit, Cuban could easily double his net worth.

That goes for you, too. It has never been easier to go long on early- and mid-stage startups. You can build up an entire portfolio by the end of the day, which is probably the safest way to go. Cuban focuses more on some areas, but his investments are spread across many different niches. That’s not by accident.

Investing in startups is risky, but the potential payoff is much greater than with retail investing. You only need to be right once to compensate for potential losses. While throwing your money without much consideration is like a lottery, a careful analysis of market trends, leadership and a particular company's product can set you up for life. Thousands of venture capital firms and angel investors are living proof that minimizing the luck factor is possible.

Some companies choose to get funding from regular investors, and it takes as little as $250 to own their shares, meaning you can build a beginner’s portfolio of angel investments with $1,000. Unlike the traditional route, it only takes a few clicks.

Click here to discover startups that seek your investment.

Want to get in on the action yourself?

Check out Benzinga's favorite options for investing in early-stage companies with potential for massive growth.

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