He Was Watching Shark Tank in a Motel 6. He Cold-Emailed Mark Cuban. Cuban Replied in 45 Minutes.
In the summer of 2013, Tim Hwang and his co-founders Gerald Yao and Jonathan Chen were living in a Motel 6 in Sunnyvale, California.
They were 21. They were building FiscalNote — a platform that used AI to predict legislative and regulatory outcomes. They had no investors, no office, and very little money.
One night, Hwang was watching Shark Tank.
He turned to his co-founder and said: "Wouldn't it be cool if Mark Cuban invested in our company?"
Then he searched for Cuban's email address, found it, and sent a message.
Cuban replied in 45 minutes.
What Was in the Email
Hwang has described the email in interviews but never published it verbatim. The structure was simple:
- Who he was
- What FiscalNote did (AI to predict how legislation would affect businesses)
- How far they had come (early prototype, small team, working from Sunnyvale)
- Why Cuban specifically (implied — Cuban was publicly interested in AI and tech investments)
The email was short. It was direct. It did not over-explain.
What made it work, according to Hwang: he did not overthink it. He saw an opportunity, identified a specific investor whose interests aligned with what he was building, found a way to reach him, and sent the message.
Cuban's Response
Cuban's first reply was not a check offer. It was a question — he wanted to know more.
They traded several more emails. Cuban asked about the technology, the market, the team. Hwang answered everything directly.
Cuban agreed to lead the round.
His check: $740,000.
The round grew to $1.3 million total, with Jerry Yang (Yahoo founder) and NEA also participating.
The Credibility Behind a Motel 6
The Motel 6 detail is not incidental. It matters because of what it signals about the team.
Hwang, Yao, and Chen were Princeton students who had relocated to Silicon Valley for the summer to work on FiscalNote full-time. They were paying for the cheapest accommodation they could find because they were putting everything into the company.
Cuban has been explicit about what he looks for in early-stage founders: hunger, resourcefulness, and genuine commitment. Three Princeton students working out of a Motel 6 instead of taking summer internships at McKinsey or Goldman is a very specific signal about what they were willing to sacrifice.
The email communicated the product. The context communicated the founder quality.
What Happened After
Cuban's check was the start.
FiscalNote went on to raise over $230 million in total funding. It became one of the leading AI platforms for government and regulatory intelligence, serving Fortune 500 companies, law firms, and governments.
The company entered a SPAC merger in 2022 at an implied valuation over $1 billion.
It started in a Motel 6 and a cold email sent on a whim after watching Shark Tank.
The Pattern: Mark Cuban and Young, Hungry Founders
The FiscalNote story is the third in a series of Cuban cold-email investments involving very young founders with no track record:
- Aaron Levie (Box) — 20 years old, dorm room, unfinished product → $350K check → $4.6B company
- Tim Ellis (Relativity Space) — 22 years old, no product → $500K check → $5.2B company
- Tim Hwang (FiscalNote) — 21 years old, Motel 6 → $740K lead → $230M raised
The pattern: Cuban does not require traction from young founders. He requires a specific, compelling vision + evidence of genuine commitment + a team he believes can execute.
The cold email's job in each case was not to prove the company. It was to communicate the founder.
What You Can Take From This
The Motel 6 story has one practical lesson that most fundraising guides miss:
Don't wait for the right moment.
Hwang didn't have a polished deck. He didn't have a warm introduction. He didn't wait until he had revenue or a finished product or an office address that looked more credible.
He saw an opportunity, found an email address, and sent a message.
Cuban replied in 45 minutes.
The email you don't send has a 0% reply rate. The email you send — even from a Motel 6, even on a whim, even without a perfectly crafted subject line — has a nonzero chance of changing everything.