Whether you are just beginning your business career or you are an entrepreneur already building your brand, you can learn several lessons from Mark Cuban’s perseverance. Cuban’s business start occurred when he was 12 and he sold sets of garbage bags to buy a pair of shoes. He created lots of odd businesses to pay his way through college and after graduation landed a job selling computer software. After Cuban was fired for not listening to a boss, he created his own computer consulting business, MicroSolutions. He later sold the firm for $6 million and with a business partner created a Internet broadcast company which they sold to Yahoo! for $6 billion.

Since then Cuban has diversified his market by starring in the reality tv show Shark Tank and has purchased an NBA team, theatre chain and film production company. Listed below are three lessons entrepreneurs can learn from the self-made mongul.

1. Hard work is a necessity

When Cuban was learning about the software and computer industry, he would bring home a different manual every night to study. We have seen his hard work pay off and you should follow in his footsteps. Your business requires all of your energy and if you don’t provide the necessary effort it will not last. Cuban has been quoted saying one of the top reasons people fail is because a lack of effort.

Even if you achieve some success, you can’t put the business on the back burner because there are hundreds of other entrepreneurs trying to take your place. After the success of MicroSolutions, Cuban noticed the PC industry was in a slump, so he recommitted himself to getting up early, staying up late and pouring over information to find a competitive edge. You have no control over the behavior of your business industry, clients or competitors, but you do have control over the effort you put into your work.

2. Find your niche

As an investor Cuban looks away from the old trends and searches for companies that are carving their own niche. It is important to look for opportunities to differentiate yourself from competitors. Just because something has been done a specific way for years doesn’t mean you can’t create a business that improves upon that. You want to think of the future and what your customer needs to create something new or improved. If you wait for your customer to tell you what they want, it will be too late. This way of business selling for a reason is something Cuban learned as a young entrepreneur. Customers are more likely to buy z-wave products from people they trust and the easiest way to gain that is by providing a product or service that makes their lives easier. This can include solving a problem, increasing a product’s efficiency or saving people money.

3. Be the expert in your field

Cuban believes that knowledge is an important part of building a successful company. In fact, Cuban said, “Know your business and industry better than anyone else in the world.” To stay informed on his industries, Cuban spends a lot of time reading trading publications. Successful entrepreneurs know their customer’s needs, their products, their industry and their competitor’s offers. This knowledge keeps them thinking forward to the future of their business as well as how to stay ahead of their competitors. When Cuban was getting into the technology sector in the early 2000s, he bought a computer for $99 and taught himself how to program. This knowledge left him with a thorough understanding of the technology he was selling as well as information on how to improve it.

Cuban is an example of a middle-class citizen that worked extremely hard to get ahead in the technology industry and was awarded with successful start-ups. His patience and perseverance led him to become a businessman, author, tv personality, philanthropist, investor and billionaire. Cuban has the ambition to make things happen which is why entrepreneurs should take insights from his career to help them achieve their own dreams.