How Box got Mark Cuban to invest in their startup while still in college — without ever meeting him

Convincing investors to pay attention to a startup is not easy, especially if you’re a college student and you’re trying to attract high-profile investors like Mark Cuban.


BEAM Team

18 Jul, 2017

How Box got Mark Cuban to invest in their startup while still in college — without ever meeting him | BEAMSTART News

- From our Sponsors -

Convincing investors to pay attention to a startup is not easy, especially if you’re a college student and you’re trying to attract high-profile investors like Mark Cuban.

For Aaron Levie, now the CEO of cloud-based file-storage company Box, an early investment came by trying to get press.

Cuban had one of the most popular tech blogs – blogmaverick.com – when Box was founded in a dorm room in 2005. After Levie sent the Dallas Mavericks’ owner a cold email asking him to write about Box on the blog, Cuban decided to do something even better.

Related: You can now raise money on BEAM

“He became interested in investing in the company, and we had never even met, but he did full due diligence, and then our first time meeting him was at a basketball game,” Levie said in an interview for Business Insider’s podcast, “Success! How I Did It.”

Here’s part of the pitch email Levie sent to raise Box’s angel round of financing, which he shared on Twitter.

“10 years ago, these were the “benefits” of investing in Box’s $80,000 angel round. Some of these are obsolete,” Aaron Levie wrote with this portion of his early Box email to investors. Twitter/Levie

The “Shark Tank” star ended up investing a few hundred thousand dollars, according to Levie, which was enough to convince him and his co-founder, Dylan Smith, to drop out of college and focus on the business full-time.


- From our Sponsors -

Latest Jobs

Staff Backend Engineer

Fractional

San Francisco, United States

Full Time

USD 160000 — USD 185000 yearly

UI & Visual Designer

Codingal

Bengaluru, India, United States

Full Time

USD 600000 — USD 800000 yearly

Scientist, Platform Biology

Output Biosciences

New York, United States

Full Time

USD 100000 — USD 160000 yearly

Revenue Management Business Analyst

Sohar Health

New York, United States

Full Time

USD 75000 — USD 85000 yearly

Backend Engineer (Python/AWS/React)

Quindar

Denver, CO, United States

Full Time

USD 140000 — USD 200000 yearly

Senior Product Manager

Titan

New York, United States

Full Time

USD 150000 — USD 210000 yearly

Account Executive (London)

Kula

London, United Kingdom, United States

Full Time

USD 50000 — USD 70000 yearly

Environmental Health & Safety Specialist

Blockstamp

Los Angeles, CA, United States

Full Time

USD 87000 — USD 100000 yearly

Staff / Lead Product Designer

Nimble

Oregon City, OR, United States

Full Time

USD 152000 — USD 178000 yearly

Founding Technical Product Owner

Agave

San Francisco, United States

Full Time

USD 75000 — USD 140000 yearly

BEAMSTART is a hub for everything Startups, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation. Connect with a global community of people, and stay updated with the latest startup jobs, news, and discussions.

 
© 2016 - 2024 BEAMSTART. All Rights Reserved (Legal).