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Every successful entrepreneur has made countless mistakes, a fact that is arguably causal: as a 2016 study published in the Annual Review of Psychology found, the bigger the error you make -- and the more confident you are about being right -- the more likely you are to learn from that mistake.

Even so, what's one mistake Mark Cuban feels startup founders should never make?

As Cuban says in his just-released class on MasterClass:

The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is making how much money they think they need to raise part of the equation for starting a business. They come up with an idea and their next thought is, "How much money can I raise?"

When you incorporate a company... you own 100 percent of the shares in that company. All the extra work you're doing because you didn't bring in money that allows you to hire someone, or whatever, that's called sweat equity: you're putting your sweat in to retain equity rather than sell it to someone else.

When you raise money, particularly as a young company, you have to give up more equity. You have to sell a bigger percentage of your company because you're young.

Raising money should be your last resort. When you raise money, that's not an accomplishment. That's an obligation.

The only reason I have billions of dollars is because I did not immediately go out and raise money.

Granted, not raising money makes the startup journey harder. As Cuban says, you won't be able to afford to hire employees who possess skills you don't have. Resources will be limited. Your runway will be shorter. Mistakes won't just be costly; they may put you out of business.

On the flip side, not raising money forces you to learn new skills.

As Cuban says:

One of the most important things that's allowed me to be successful is... I can read a balance or income sheet. I can look at a marketing plan, and put together a marketing plan. I can understand statistics, and the impact they have on decision-making. Those are all things I can do for myself. Could you hire people to do those things? Yes. But when you're starting a business, it's a whole lot more efficient and you can move a whole lot faster when you do it yourself.

I think that's where I'm different than a lot of entrepreneurs. I don't have the approach of, "Let's take the money, go hire a bunch of people, get an office, all that."

It's, "I'm going to figure it out."

Choose not to raise money, and you may not be able to hire salespeople. You'll need to learn to sell. If you're selling products online, you won't hire a marketing firm. You'll need to learn digital marketing. You'll need to learn to basic accounting. You'll need to learn not just how to manage, but also to lead.

And here's the thing. Putting in sweat to retain equity doesn't just help you retain full (or as full as possible) ownership of your business as it grows. The process of building sweat equity ensures you will develop new skills.

Skills you can then leverage for the rest of your life, if only because doing it yourself also ensures you'll make plenty of mistakes.

Mistakes you are sure to learn from.

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The Daily Digest for Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders