Got ripped off once, learned what not to do

"The first time I did it, I got ripped off. Every step of the way you learn something new." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Lessons #Entrepreneur

Give away shares and you never get them back

"Shares is like money. You give that person shares... you can't get them back. It's simple, man." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Equity #Shares

Packed up the family and moved to Charlotte

"I packed up my family and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. I started doing my thing there. The deal was actually in Atlanta." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Entrepreneur #Charlotte

Bankruptcy and charge-offs: can you still get capital?

"How does somebody that has a bankruptcy... are those two marks preventing you from getting capital?" - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Bankruptcy #Capital

Church musician at six, songwriter with royalty checks later

"As a child, six years old or so, I started really playing music. As I got older I started writing music for different artists. We would get royalty checks every three months." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Music #Royalties

Eager to develop, I bought land and built a subdivision

"I got taken advantage of because I didn't really understand. I went out and bought some land and put houses on that land." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #RealEstate #Lessons

Balance sheet, cash flow, income statement: know all three

"You got a balance sheet, cash flow statement, income statement. Very important." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Finance #SmallBusiness

Every failure taught me something new. Call it experience.

"I didn't really call it failure. What I call it was a new experience. Each time that I failed, I learned something new." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Failure #Growth

Creative minds everywhere, but almost nobody understood money

"I realized that everyone here understood creativeness, but very few understood money." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Money #TaxCredits

Finding investors was easy. Paying them back wasn't.

"The real problem was not getting the money, but getting the investors back." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Investors #Business

Your price, my terms: structure beats capital

"It's not about the capital, it's all about the deal structure. I'll give you your price if you give me my terms." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #DealStructure #Capital

Be the bank: from a car lot to real estate

"I knew that if I could be the bank, then I would be okay. And from there I started buying real estate, and I started flipping houses." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #RealEstate #Entrepreneur

Went into debt and woke up to a missing car

"I went and got in debt. Couldn't pay the bill, went outside and found out... I thought I had misplaced my car. So I vowed to never let another person take anything from me." - Mark Jones, the Deal Surgeon #DealRoom #Debt #Comeback

Indian-origin founders who grew up in India are linked to $560 billion in value across overseas unicorns, the Indian Diaspora Index by Prosus and Dealroom said in its report.

Read Full Article: deccanfounders.com/2026/22/news...

#IndianFounders #UnicornStartups #Prosus #Dealroom #deccanfounders