Shaan Patel, a 27-year-old from Las Vegas, went from being rejected by every Ivy League school to which he applied to successfully running a business with Mark Cuban.
According to Business Insider, Patel scored a perfect 2400 on his SAT, was named valedictorian of his class, and was recognized as a White House Presidential Scholar (only two academically gifted students from each state are recognized). However, Harvard, Princeton, Brown and Stanford still rejected him.
Instead of being discouraged, Patel used the rejections to motivate and inspire him to create a company called Prep Expert. Prep Expert, founded in 2011, is a SAT test-prep company. The company has been relatively successful, taking in about $1 million in sales per year, according to Business Insider, but when Patel went on the show, “Shark Tank” in January 2016, sales increased exponentially. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban agreed to Patel’s offer of $250,000 for a 20 percent stake in his company, Business Insider reported.
According to Patel, after partnering with Cuban, the company is now doing almost 10 times the sales it used to do, reported Business Insider. He hopes to make Prep Expert one of the largest test prep providers in the country and is currently writing a book with Cuban that teaches kids how to start their own business.
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