Some of it must have been the simplicity of the pitch on “Shark Tank.” Or perhaps it was that Mark Cuban identified with Sam Chason and Matt Gronberg himself. Though money is clearly no object to the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Cuban has been fairly outspoken about his support for student debt relief. Like Gronberg and Chason — who each had to find a way to pay a whopping $70,000 a year at Wake Forest — he too paid down his debt through a variety of college side hustles.
Ultimately, the two entrepreneurs accepted Cuban’s offer of $250,000, even rejecting Robert Herjavec’s offer for twice as much. Cuban was willing to put some real enthusiasm into Storage Scholars after he shook on the deal with investors. In return for a 10 percent ownership stake in the company, Cuban promised to bring them not just a quarter million dollars, but his platform and his connections with schools across the country. “There’s schools that I have connections to and if I get out there starting to talk about it,” Cuban said (via CNBC.com), “the phone’s going to ring for you to open up new schools.”
He was right too. Though Storage Scholars was pitched fairly recently — indeed, Season 14 is still ongoing as of the writing of this article — the company seems to be growing quickly. According to CNBC, it now operates at 48 schools across the United States.
