RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Mark Cuban, the maverick billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the NBA Dallas Mavericks, continues to offer an open wallet to entrepreneurs in search of funding as part of his own economic stimulus plan.

Cuban recently used his blog to invite businesses to submit proposals, and in about three weeks he has received over 1,400 responses. As of last week, he had requested additional information from 12, meaning he was closer to writing a check. Seven made the next cut.

One problem that many applicants had: Not reading the directions.

“As is usually the case with any blog post, the vast majority of people don’t actually read the post before they write a response,” Cuban said in his about his funding efforts. “So the vast majority were dismissed because they did not quality under the required terms.”

So if you are an entrepreneur in search of funding and were unaware of Cuban’s opportunity, here are his rules. But read them ALL before sending him your idea or details about your existing venture. He welcomes ideas about new firms; however, the preference for the investment effort is existing operations.

The Cuban rules:

  1. It can be an existing business or a start up.
  2. It cannot be a business that generates any revenue from advertising. Why ? Because I want this to be a business where you sell something and get paid for it. Thats the only way to get and stay profitable in such a short period of time.
  3. It MUST BE CASH-FLOW BREAK-EVEN within 60 days.
  4. It must be profitable within 90 days.
  5. Funding will be on a monthly basis. If you don’t make your numbers, the funding stops.
  6. You must demonstrate as part of your plan that you sell your product or service for more than what it costs you to produce, fully encumbered.
  7. Everyone must work. The organization is completely flat. There are no employees reporting to managers. There is the founder/owners and everyone else.
  8. You must post your business plan here, or you can post it on slideshare.com, scribd.com or google docs, all completely public for anyone to see and/or download.
  9. I make no promises that if your business is profitable, that I will invest more money. Once you get the initial funding, you are on your own.
  10. I will make no promises that I will be available to offer help. If I want to , I will. If not, I won’t.
  11. If you do get money, it goes into a bank that I specify, and I have the ability to watch the funds flow and the opportunity to require that I cosign any outflows.
  12. In your business plan, make sure to specify how much equity I will receive or how I will get a return on my money.
  13. No multilevel marketing programs.
  14. And one new rule.
  15. If you contact me separately, whether via e-mail or the contact form on the blog, your request WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED. It must be posted on this blog for all to see and comment on.