Noah Kagan - All you need is a weekend to launch a million-dollar business!

And if you can experiment with doing something right now, don't worry about the how. Like, do I have to build it? Do I need to get a lawyer? Do I need to get an LLC? Just see what you can do right now to actually solve the core thing your problem says it's gonna solve and see what you can do in this moment. Then you start realizing the power of the now. And I used to think that sounds kind of woo-woo, like power of now. Like, what are you talking about? But reality, there's never gonna be a day where you're finally prepared.

Welcome to the Undefeated Underdogs Podcast, where I unpack and narrate stories of ambitious people who turn obstacles into opportunities. My goal for this podcast is to create a platform to narrate underdog stories and maybe play a small, teeny tiny role in inspiring you. I intend to highlight the underdog mentality and make authentic conversations with people who play the long game, take action with a chip on their shoulder, and convert obstacles into opportunities. Buckle up as I'll be bringing some authentic founders, VCs, community builders, and content creators who got underestimated their whole lives, and yet they beat all the odds to become insanely successful. Now today I want to tell you a little bit about our awesome sponsor acquire.com. Selling a business is as tough as building a business. As someone who went through this process once, selling my own startup, I know the pain it takes to get to the end zone. This is where our sponsor shines. Imagine this, you're a founder who's built a solid SaaS product, acquired customers, and generating consistent monthly revenue. The problem is you're not growing forever for whatever reason— lack of focus, lack of skill, or just plain lack of interest— and you feel stuck. What should you do? The story I'd like to hear is You buckle down, somehow reignited the fire, get past yourself and the clichés and start working on your business rather than just in the business. You start building an audience, move out of your comfort zone to do sales and marketing. And in 6 months you triple your revenue. The reality isn't as simple. Situations may be different from every founder facing these crossroads. But too many times the story ends up being one of inaction and stagnation until the become business— the business becomes less valuable or worse, worthless. If you find yourself here or your story is likely headed down a similar road, I offer you a third option. Consider selling your business on acquire.com. Capitalizing on the value of your time is a smart move. Acquire.com is free to list and they've helped hundreds of founders already. Go to try.acquire.com/shirath and see for yourself if this is the right option for you. Now let's get into today's episode. Ever wondered how to create a million-dollar business in 48 hours? Well, my next guest created million-dollar businesses 8 times, not just 1, 8 times. So he's freaking awesome. In his words, he's ass-kicking. I love this guy. Amazing entrepreneur, founder, marketer, content creator, author, you name it, like he's there. He's done this 8 times, like I said. Now he's giving away the blueprint in his book, Million Dollar Weekend. Without further ado, Noah Kagan, welcome to the show. How are you feeling today?

Sharath, that was an intro, my man. Thank you so much. I am doing excellent. I'm feeling a little sick. So if I'm nasally or a little slower in my answers, it's either I'm slow or I'm sick, maybe a little bit of both.

But overall doing great. I appreciate you. So I'll go easy on the questions then. Let's not do mind-boggling questions here. But I want to also really mention about Noah to the audience. He got like a million-plus subscribers on YouTube, over half a million followers on both Instagram and Twitter. He's done 100+ subscribers on his newsletter, free marketing newsletter. And I can go on and on about the numbers. It's all about the numbers game with this guy. But the first question, I have this very curious question. What's your obsession with tacos?

Oh, the obsession. I just eat a lot of them. It's not as much of an obsession. It's just really good food.

Okay.

You know, there's a lot of great food in the world. I just, I think part of it, I know it's kind of crazy. I grew up, my father's an entrepreneur. He sold copiers. Do you remember copy machines?

I don't know.

And after he worked hard, he worked hard all day and he sweated his ass off carrying these heavy machines, super dirty. And he would take me out for burritos. And I think at a young age, I was just like, I love this Mexican food. I truly can eat it every day. Uh, but I have a, I have a girlfriend now and she's like, We got to chill out here. So not everything.

Have you ever considered becoming Chipotle's ambassador? They have amazing tacos.

They also have a secret Chipotle card where you get Chipotle for life. Have you heard of this?

Yes, I know. I think David Burke or some YouTube celebrities, I saw someone having the unlimited tacos or unlimited Chipotle.

Yeah. I would love to get— I'm a huge Chipotle fan. I actually bought their stock, but then I sold it too early. That's one of my only regrets in life. But yeah, I like Chipotle and I like, you know, almost all food is good. I'm glad we have food on this planet. You ever think about how complicated it is?

Yeah.

To have all these food options and then like all these people who started businesses, I always appreciate them. Like I go to a restaurant, I'm like, Thank you for taking a chance. Thank you for opening whatever kind of restaurant people did open.

Yeah. Speaking about choices, why did you choose to write this book? Let's get into the elephant in the room. I'm excited actually to dive in. I got a preorder. I ordered preorder like last year around June when you announced the book went live. So I have the book. I'm ready. Jan 31st. I think by the episode— this, uh, by the time this episode airs, people will get a chance to like get into the book. So

yeah,

Million Dollar Weekend. Talk to me about the book. The title is so catchy and you worked your ass off, I know, for 4 years if I'm not wrong on this project.

Yeah.

So talk to me about it.

Yeah, I mean, we all have dreams. One of my dreams 20 years ago was to write a book. But then I never felt ready and I never felt I had the experience or that I could really help people. And a few years ago, I felt like I had the time and the capacity and I wanted something that was really a long project. Most of our projects in this world are very short, like 6 months or 3 months or 12 months. And I knew a book would take a long time and it also, it forced me to face myself. Like, can I put something together that actually helps someone? And The book is funny. It's, it's really a, it's a self-help book wrapped in business. And the business can also make you a lot of money that you can live a, a great life. And what I would say this book did for me and, and what I've seen it do for people who've been reading it is just realizing how much more they can do.

Mm-hmm.

And realizing what we're capable of. You know, I, I didn't think I could do it and I was afraid of the book and sounds kind of silly, right? As you say it out loud.

Mm-hmm.

But then I worked on the book and I helped people on the book and I hired people to help me on the book. And I've done this time and time and time and time again. And so for me at this point, you know, in terms of what I'm looking forward to in the book is I wanna see people take photos and then take action. And I, I think it's gonna be a great thing for people out there. I think it'll also bring a lot of attention selfishly to AppSumo.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm looking forward to seeing some green, green photos out in the wild. And then more importantly, you know, when I was a kid, my mom hated her job. She just hated every day. She's a nurse, complained every day. I hate these patients. I hate— I'm a maid, I'm a nurse, I'm like a waitress for these people. And that really inspired me to, for myself and for others, like find a job you like or create the job you like. And entrepreneurship, I think, is one of the coolest jobs that anyone in the world can do.

Yeah. And it's a 10-year game. Like in one of your videos, I think a couple years ago, I saw 4 years ago, if I'm not wrong, you made this video on YouTube. that it took 20 years on your net worth, about $10 million or something like that. I can't remember the number. And you were sharing about the first rule, which is it's a 10-year game. I think entrepreneurship, and even Naval Ravikant said this many times, many people believe this, all the 10-year journeys happen overnight, right? It takes 10 years, but it all takes one night to just shift gears to become what you want to become in life. So 4 years writing this book, and you're talking about, I wanted to have a sign of being ready. Talk to me about what is the sign of being ready in your experience of being an entrepreneur?

What I've noticed from people who want to be entrepreneurs That want to make money or want to scale. I always ask them, have you made a dollar? And they're like, not yet. I'm like, well, let's just fix that right now. Most of the changes that happen in our lives is because something happens to us, right? So you're in a day job. And for me, I was in a day job, 2 of them, Facebook and Mint, and I got fired. And then I thought, well, I don't want someone else ever choosing my, you know, controlling my livelihood ever again. I didn't wanna wake up and they said, hey, you're not gonna be able to pay your bills or you're gonna lose your career because we decided. And so for other people out there, generally there comes a moment that happens that you wanna take control and power over your own destiny. And most people feel like they're never ready to start a business. Like they need a plan, they need another book, they need another course, they need another guru, they need to go to college. Mentor. And in reality, They're ready. They just need to start. And then by starting, we'll lead them to some destination that will be better than them sitting on the sidelines. I promise that.

I think your first chapter itself is just start something somewhere, right? I downloaded it, of course, obviously. Starting. Let's talk about starting for a second. And I just want to also piggyback on what you said. 1,000% agree on what you just expressed. It really sucks to know that someone who do you— who you don't know controls your destination, your destiny, your destination, your, your life. Basically, like, you're basically giving your keyboard controls to them. So I'm kind of in that path right now. I just literally got laid off last month. Oh, yeah, I'm in the process of—

Sorry, and congratulations to you.

Yes, I'm excited. That's why I think one of the things I really want to dive into the book when it comes out is how do I choose not to go back to that path? And how do I— I've built a SaaS business before, I sold it while I work full-time. I'm an entrepreneur who's also an immigrant and who works on full-time jobs. So I'm on a work visa. Hustle my ass off mornings, evenings, you know, when my two-year-old gives me some time. So it's all like in the process. I'm in. I signed up for the ten-year journey. So already started is what I want to say.

Good for you.

Absolutely, absolutely right about you know controlling your own thing. Even it takes ten, twenty, thirty years doesn't matter. It's so much rewarding when you have when you do things. for yourself under your control, you know, with your freedom. So just wanna piggyback on that. But talking about like starting, what advice do you give for people, for founders who are like clogged into this trap of, hey, I'm not ready. I have this, so many boundaries I've set myself, so many self-doubts. How do they break and just start?

I tell 'em to keep doing what they're doing. Here's why. Because people, it's hard to change someone's mind, right? Like if you want to, if you're at the gym, I can help you at the gym, but to convince someone to go to the gym to be healthy is much harder. And so what I've observed from doing businesses so many times and, you know, working at Facebook and working at Mint, and then what I, you know, tens of thousands of people I've helped, most people have a plan and they think it could work. And I say, great, go for your plan. Do it, do it. I want it to work and maybe experiment. And experiments can fail, right? So what can you experiment with that might be quicker, like right now quick? And what, what everyone will say then, Sharmoth, is they'll say, well, my stuff is unique. And I say, I know we're all unique. Mm-hmm. And that's why I say, do your plan and If you can experiment with doing something right now, don't worry about the how, like, do I have to build it? Do I need to get a lawyer? Do I need to get an LLC?

Mm-hmm.

Just see what you can do right now to actually solve the core thing your problem says it's gonna solve and see what you can do in this moment. Then you start realizing the power of the now. Mm-hmm. And I used to think that sounds kind of woo-woo, like power of now. I'm like, what are you talking about? But reality is there's never gonna be a day where you're finally prepared enough. Like there's no exam in business. The exam is, does the customer want to give you money for what you're doing? And you could actually find that out right now for every single business. And so for most people, again, do what you're already gonna do no matter what, but at least if you could experiment with something right now, even in the smallest form, you know, one of the things I've seen people change their lives over is the dollar challenge.

Hmm.

Which is, can you just get a dollar right now?

Mm-hmm.

From me, from someone, anyone. Because most people never make a million because they never make a dollar. And by experimenting and realizing experiments fail, but also experiments are okay to fail, I think people realize, oh, I did something now. Wow. I've been avoiding the hard part, which also then ends up being ultimately the easy part.

So in a way you're saying the most underappreciated ways to start macro, sorry, micro, it's It's always everybody thinks about micro, big ambitions, bigger dreams, bigger goals, and they tend to lose grip on the little things that they focus on. I think with your advice, I think just start writing an article, start shooting a 1-minute video if you want to become a YouTuber reader, right? Like Atomic Habits, like simple little micro habits. That's exactly how I started. Building side projects, simple things that takes like, you know, like in your book's words, like how can I ship a landing page in 24 hours? Like, or 48 hours, how can I set this up? So the power of now exists in, I think, in the power of micro, like very small, very simple, very tiny. And How do you navigate or how do you balance out the 2 personas who actually are ambitious, but at the same time, in with your advice, like how do you start small, but also like equally think big? Like the struggle exists now and then. It's not something that you take it away, right? For every entrepreneur, every founder. How do you, how do you balance it out?

Most people never make a million because they never make a dollar. And you mentioned when we started the show, a million subscribers on YouTube, I started with a few hundred. And I started with the phone. So my YouTube channel that now, you know, it costs $25,000 to make a video. So it was just this, hey, what's up?

I

want to talk to you about COVID and what we're doing at AppSumo. That's it. And I posted it and 300 people watched it. And I was shirtless at my old house and then I liked it and people seem to like it. Now, the 2 things that are important, and I break it down in Million Dollar Weekend, is the size of the market opportunity, a $1,000 opportunity, a million-dollar opportunity, a billion-dollar opportunity and beyond, because you're going to work hard either way. But do you want to run really fast in the wrong direction? So let's make sure that you're running fast in a direction where even if you fail, you're still going to do well.

Hmm.

Like I, I think AppSumo, we went from when we first started, there was 10 software products. Today there's 100,000 software products.

Hmm.

So we chose the right market. Now, in terms of the now, when you realize that if you wanna start a YouTube channel, you post a video today. If you wanna start an agency, you message one person to get a customer today. If you wanna start a podcast, you post one podcast today. And you start thinking about this now, not how mindset, that which is the number one takeaway from the book based on, uh, all these surveys we've done. From readers, which is, wow, I was avoiding the hard part much and it seemed much scarier than it was, but then I just did it right now. Like this woman, um, Mackenzie, she just was like, hey, I wanna do greeting cards. So she sent an email to her friends and colleagues and said, I'm gonna start a greeting card business. Does anyone wanna buy some? Just right away. Just right away.

Hmm.

One year later, she sold $50,000 worth of greeting cards.

Wow.

But most people And the misconception is you need to get a Shopify site.

You

probably need to start social media. Maybe you need to do some fancy spreadsheet math. Maybe you need to talk to a bunch of your friends to avoid the whole thing, which, hey, is there people excited to gimme money to help them have cool grading cards? And the answer was yes. I, I'm curious for you, Sharath, what are you gonna do next? What are you gonna do? Don't even worry about next. What are you gonna do now? So you got laid off last week?

I'm actually working on a side— yeah, I'm working on a side project as we speak. Uh, I launched a thing, uh, it's like an experiment. So I have to find a job because of my work visa. There is no, you know, alternative to that or option to that. So while I'm figuring that out, I thought of like, you know, building this, uh, project called GuessLab, which is more of like a, like an AI-driven tool. That accelerates guest research. I'm a podcaster. We do research. I actually used the tool itself to do research on you as my guest. So all it takes is LinkedIn URL and it feeds the information from LinkedIn and it gives 10 topics to discuss, 20 questions to ask, and one great intro. The intro I literally gave to you is generated by AI using the tool I've built. So I built this for myself and I want to find podcast hosts like myself who does research for their guests. So I have like $30 MRR as we speak. Great. 2 paying customers. Yes, 2 paying customers who are using the tool. And I think thousands of people on the waitlist who are about to get invited and all that jazz. So goal is to like find a job, do my podcast and build on that SaaS product. So see how things run. So, and I kind of like, you know, want to ask about this. There is, so in my world, the way I came from, I always think about like building SaaS products, building simple things for myself. And eventually my goal is like in 10 years, build a life-changing business, right? Or build a startup. And I'm not chasing that. I'm chasing the now, in your words. Like, what can I do now? The simple things that I solve for myself. And in that process, I might hit the gold rush. But one of the things you've talked in your videos a lot is an interesting thing about talking to billionaires, right? Like, let's talk about— we kind of covered the now part. Let's talk about the ambition dream part, right? You've interviewed incredibly successful people like Manny Kochban, Bob Metcalfe, Gary Vee, so on and so forth. And how are you getting access to these billionaires? What is something that you've done? At least I know it's a long game, But let's talk about the content side, the side of you. What are you doing like to get these people coming onto the show of yours?

So a few things. One, it's not pretty. You know, you could have an AI, I'm sure we could build out an AI system that like finds some contact of something, but it's never that pretty with the ones we've gotten so far. I think one thing I would say, which has been fascinating, and it's again, something we talk about from the book and it's very underutilized and undervalued. I would say is the power of asking, asking someone who's got a fancy car. Hey, how'd you get that car? Asking someone for an introduction, which is how we've gotten some of our guests. You know, we've gotten the founder of Kinko's. I was in FedEx Kinko's this morning, and that happened because I went on a date 3 years ago with this girl who's like, oh, I know this guy that does Kinko's. He sold it for a few billion. Maybe you should ask him. And so I then asked for a year. His assistant to see if I could come on the show or if he would come, we could come film it. And then he said yes one day. And so there wasn't necessarily one way that we've gotten it. I, I think what I would recommend for people is I got started with the show and I built up to that. I think a lot of people wanna interview like the most famous people, which aren't always the most interesting. Like if you notice, a lot of my guests are not like the ones you normally hear about.

Hmm.

But I also started, you know, I don't know, 20 years ago putting out content and doing smaller people that built up to that. But you have to get started. And I think pre-fluencers, like finding people before they're big, is, is the easier way to approach it. Then you have to ask, right? You have to practice asking. That's why I talk about the coffee challenge where you're asking for a discount and you just practice it. It's a muscle. It's a skill that anyone can develop. And guess what? You don't have to be tall or physically fit or anything to be successful in business. That's just, that's one of the things that people don't think about. Like, you don't even have to be good looking. You could be ugly, you could be gorgeous. Doesn't matter. And you can still be successful. I think that's so cool. It's universal.

Mm-hmm.

So then you ask people, and then the other thing that no one does, literally no one, is they don't follow up.

Mm-hmm.

They don't follow up at all. With all the tools and ways we can follow up, it's easy. So John Paul DeJoria, uh, I can go through some of the people and how we got them. Where John Paul DeJoria, he sold Patron Tequila for three and a half billion. I saw him on the street.

Wow.

So you know one thing I would say that helped for people out there is you know have a dream, have a fantasy of things you want to do. I do it every year, and I do it as well for the show. It's like who is who is my dream people, right? And I think a lot of times people put these ones that they think they want, but it's like who do you actually want? And then write it down. And a lot of times when you write it down, it actually can come true because at least you have somewhere you're going towards. Even for yourself, it sounds like you have a dream where in 10 years you have a podcast that's successful. You have a family that's successful. You have, uh, your job, maybe you don't, you keep it or you don't keep it. And then you have a, this SaaS business or some SaaS business that's paying you a crap ton of money and you can live this amazing life wherever you want.

Hmm.

And that, that's a cool dream to write down. I think I found that helpful for me in times of, I don't want to say frustration, but times where it's not there yet. But having somewhere to go and also getting started today is the best way to get there. Yeah. And so with John Paul DeJoria, I saw him on the street, asked him if I could interview him. He said, sure. Gave me his assistant's number. And then I had to call her every week for a year.

Hmm.

Called again and she said no. And then I called again and she said no. And then after 50 weeks on one Friday, she said, you can come Monday, 8:00 AM. Wow. But you have to want the thing, right? So it wasn't a lot of work for me to follow up. I wanted to,

I

thought it would be super interesting to meet him. He's one of the, my idols. And then you have to follow up nicely. Most people send these automated AI bullshit emails that are total crap, or they don't send like mail. Like I sent him snail mail. I found his address cuz he, that's where I met him. I was just, I was outside and I saw him. I was like, oh, here's an address. I'll send him a snail mail. Send gifts to the assistants, and then I actually asked his assistant when I met her in person. I said, "Hey, was I annoying?" She's like, "No, I really I admired you because you you were polite, and it seemed like you really wanted it, so I wanted to help you." I thought that was actually kind of counterintuitive. A lot of times, even with this book launch, Million Dollar Weekend, I ask people. I'm like, "Hey, can you promote the book, or can da da da whatever?" And they don't reply. And what do we all do? We say, "Oh, that person sucks." That person's da da da. You know, that person could just be busy. That person could have their own family. That person could have a lot of other things. And I will tell you, I follow up. I use—you don't even have to use software. Just do it on a piece of paper or use a Google spreadsheet. Date contacted, date followed up. Easy. Or put it in your calendar. Whatever. I use followup.cc, but I can't tell you how many people I've sent a message to, and every time they're like, "Oh, sorry, I was busy." I'm like, "I know." We're all busy, but we have to follow up. And that's how you can get things coming to the top. There's not been a, for these billionaires, they're, you know, they're not selling a life mastery course for $297 or some fake, you know, book. They're already super rich. They're busy. And so,

yeah,

you have to think about what's in it for them and you have to be persistent. And for them, a lot of times it's like sharing and inspiring, helping others, or maybe they have a charity. So a lot of them, Being clear who you want, going for it, asking, and then following up.

I'm not even joking. You were the— again, not even joking, not even kidding. You were the first person that came to my mind when I launched the show one year ago, one and a half years ago. And it took me some time to get that courage to ask you and some of the others who I really admire on the internet. And I remember I just checked the date. I texted, DM'd you on Twitter, cold DM, sent you around June 2023, and I followed up a couple of times and then emailed you around November, September. That's where you got me in touch with your assistant. And then we figured out some date in November. Then I asked again. So it's a process, right? Like it's, it's shoot your shot. And if someone says no, in your words, I think there's nothing personal. It's not about you. It's about them, right? They have shit happening in their life. Never know what's going on. You're sick right now.

I'm sick. I have no idea. Do you have a 2-year-old?

I have a 2 and a half year old.

You have a 2 and a half year old. You have, that means you probably have a wife or husband. That means you just moved. That means you just lost your job. That means you have, you're trying to get your work visa word out. Like, yeah, maybe I don't reply to your random ass email about, you know, coming on your, you know, this, I'm saying, I'm speaking for you. Like, yeah, we all got stuff going on. And so, you know, being patient of that, being mindful of that, and then trying to recognize what, for what's going on with the other person. Like what I could do that helped you the most is probably help you get a job somewhere. 'Cause I'm guessing with the work visa, that's probably pretty stressful.

Mm-hmm.

And so same thing with others, like noticing that and seeing where we can assist, where It's probably most important for them.

Right, right. I love that.

How are you looking for a job, by the way?

I have— I'm fortunate enough to like build a network on Twitter in the last 3 years, you know, with the content I put out. So I posted like a, like a bat signal and I got like 100+ DMs from founders asking like, hey, we would love to work with you. So I'm in the process of, you know, talking to these founders. I'm talking to YC founders, like, you know, early stage startups. So I'm in the process of like interviewing, like going back and forth. You know how the drill works, right? It's never easy. It takes the time, takes its own time. So—

Good for you.

Yeah.

It's not easy, but I think you also recognize the power of now where 3 years ago or however many years ago you started building relationships, you started putting yourself out there and you planted the garden, you watered the garden. And then today it sounds like recently you said, hey, on Twitter, I'd like to see if someone would help me. I definitely, that's beautiful that you got started and then right through Twitter right now, you just ask for help and by putting yourself out there for a long period of time, it's available. I think that's such a good lesson for a lot of us where, you know, we never get started.

Right.

And then we never get these things. But if you just get started and you put yourself out there and you're trying, doing, right, then it comes to a point where I would say magic happens.

Yeah.

But it's hard sometimes when the You know, you have to have faith.

Yeah, you have to believe in that, right? I think, uh, 3 years I've shipped 15+ projects. I have like no clue what they, they will do to me in the future, right? I just shipped it for the sake of shipping. Uh, and yeah, like you said, serendipity. I think we all, we should rely on serendipity more than anything else to create opportunities for ourselves by doing things randomly, you know. intention. So talking about these billionaires, if you were to boil down to 3 lessons that you want to pass along after talking to so many people, so many successful people, I've seen you knocking doors, asking people like, hey, what do you do for a living? Yeah. From those people to like, you got a chance to interview in person. So Boiled down to 3 lessons, uh, or 3 things, 3 most important things, what would you say?

First, all billionaires worked in billion-dollar opportunities, right? Let's take research, and I don't mean this as a criticism, but like podcast— and look, by the way, just getting started will lead you on a path,

right?

So podcast research notes, I would not say that that's a billion-dollar industry. It could probably sound like a $100,000 industry. Based on how many podcasters there are, based on will they pay for research. And again, great that you got it started.

Right.

Now podcast hosting is probably like an 8 or 9 figure industry. Right. Then podcast sponsorships is now an 8 or 9 figure industry. And ideally you wanna find one that's growing so it's easier for you to get in. So I would say the billionaires found early on an industry that they could get at least a billion of for themselves. So Patron Tequila, there was no other tequila that was high-end. Like $30 a bottle was crazy. Now tequila's $100 a bottle and that's like normal. And same thing with Kinko's, right? There was not a lot of copier stores in the uni— in the universe, but really in America. So being early or getting some slice of a billion-dollar opportunity.

Hmm.

And a lot of times the opportunity is not obvious in that moment. I think that's, I don't know if that's number 2, but that's like 1A. Meaning that when you get started in, in some of this stuff that's earlier, potentially people can say, oh, I don't think that's possible. I don't think that makes sense. Even AppSumo, AppSumo does really well, almost $80 million last year. When I started it, my mentor was like, this is not gonna work. And the only person you should ever listen to is your customer. Right. Absolutely. That's who you should listen to, your customer. One, I, I love that you're solving your own problem. So I think you should always be your first customer. But your second customer is the person that's gonna be your investor and tell you whether this is gonna work or not.

Mm-hmm.

Um, second thing I would say for billionaires, which doesn't get recognized enough, is that it, they stuck with it for a very, very long period of time. Very, very long period of time. Most of us stick with things for one day and we quit. That's why in the book and in general, I think of the law of 100, which is if you're doing a podcast, do 100 episodes. If you're doing a YouTube channel, 100 videos. If you're doing a business, do 100 days.

Right.

Do 100 emails, 100 sales. And I've noticed that it helps you not quit too soon. And these billionaires, it's, if you look at the data, how long do you think it takes someone to become a billionaire? And I'm not talking about a, a fake crypto billionaire. I'm talking about like real billionaires

who wouldn't work for a long time.

It takes a long time, at least from the ones, all the ones I've met, it takes around 20 years. Wow. And I'd say the last thing I've learned from billionaires Is that I don't really care to be a billionaire. You know, you hear these people on the interwebs, I want to make a billion-dollar company and I would like to be a billionaire. Why? Being a millionaire is pretty great. I get all the upside without any of the downside. You know, being a billionaire, your life is going to be threatened all the time. Most times being a billionaire means you're working your ass all the time. You're not with your family. You have a lot of regrets from that.

Right.

Being a billionaire, it means that you, you're sacrificing at some point. And I'd like to, The idea that I could make enough money or a lot of money, frankly, to live a great life and work, right? So I'm not only working, I can work and live. And that's why I left Silicon Valley. And I would say that these billionaires over-indexed on the work is what they, it sounds like from a lot of the ones I met. And I met one even recently. I won't, I won't say publicly who he is, but man, his life is a fucking shit show. It is a shit show. And so not to say that's all billionaires, I definitely think there's some I really admire, but there's, they, it definitely comes at a cost.

High risk, high reward, right?

Yeah. I mean, I think entrepreneurship is low risk, high reward. I think that's counterintuitive as well, where your job got removed. I think you're a great example where unfortunately, fortunately, now you can control your own destiny. minus the visa thing, which will work out. That, you know, to start a business, you can do it in a weekend, can cost you almost nothing.

Right.

And you can make millions and if not billions of dollars a year. Now tell me another opportunity that's as good as that. Real estate? Definitely not. That shit sucks. You have to find capital, you have to find a deal. Everyone's competitive against you. Stock market? Good luck there making a billion unless you're very unique and very focused. But entrepreneurship, there's a lot of ordinary basic people getting rich. Look, let's just take sparkling water. Sparkling water. That's not even, you don't even have to be unique, but you have to get started and you have to find something people want. And then you have these low investment, high upside.

Yeah, that's, I think that's one of the things a lot of people are underestimating. And I want to talk about that. I have a question about that. In your opinion, what is an underrated way Or underrated business ideas you are watching right now in your arena that makes people millionaires or billionaires or be basically successful?

An underrated opportunity?

Opportunities. Yeah.

Yeah. So yesterday I was at the dinner table hanging out with my parents, just talking about problems that I'm having in life. And you need to make sure they're all at least million-dollar opportunities so you can make a million bucks. Right. But recognizing how many different problems I have was kind of shocking.

Right.

For instance, I'm having a baby soon. And so one of the problems with that's having the baby's amazing, but one of the opportunities, every problem is an opportunity in disguise.

Mm-hmm.

One of the opportunities from that is Airbnb for housing, Airbnb for coworking. So think about this, like Airbnb sucks. Airbnb is such trash. Right? I, you go there, I have Airbnbs, the guests suck. They trash the place. They crap everywhere. They complain about everything. They want full refunds. Okay, so that's not great, but there's still a lot of these houses available and real estate's interesting. I think it sucks in general, but okay, maybe you have a house or maybe you rent a house. Now, one of the opportunities I was like, well, I need an office space because I'm probably going to get kicked out of my house because my, you know, the baby and the wifey and all this stuff. They wouldn't have space. And so I was like, huh, I don't want to go to an office that sucks, but maybe somewhere in my neighborhood I could rent a house and then rent out the rooms as office spaces. Now those people are going to be a lot more professional. They're not going to drink White Claws and ruin the place, and they're going to be cleaner and they might even end up paying more overall without less wear and tear in the house. That's a billion-dollar opportunity. Right. How much is the real estate market for offices? It's gone down, but it's still in the trillions. Now, if you can take Airbnbs, which suck because it's all real residential, then you turn that into commercial. I think that's an interesting opportunity. There's so many different ones of these, like that you just think about your day and what frustrates you, just literally, or shadow someone who's rich. Literally get on someone's back who's rich and just watch them for the day and just be like, hey, can I just be with you all day? And then during the day you ask them, why'd you do that? How come you didn't do that? And that'll literally give me a list of all these different problems, which are opportunities. So that's one. Another one, I hate Stripe. I think the credit card fees that they charge are ridiculous for not doing nothing. No, dude, they add zero value and they take all this money. No, thank you. Again, another opportunity. Does it mean it's gonna be easy? No, but I think it's going through these opportunities that like, man, that, that's frustrating for me. Or even right now, I'm trying to get someone to help organize my house and clean up my house. I'd love to find someone that's, that can come over and just not Uber where I need, I don't need a full-time house nanny, but for like, you know, $50 an hour, come over for a few hours and clean up my house in certain areas. It is so hard to find someone. That's an opportunity. So anything we're avoiding, anything that costs money, anything that frustrates us are all business opportunities. And now making sure it's something that can be a million dollars, you have to do a few checks, but If you can make sure it is, then yeah, you get going on it in a very short amount of time.

What are other ways that you haven't tapped on to become rich?

That I have not tapped on to get rich?

In your experience or in your friends, in your circle, in your network that you observed that people are like the traditional way of getting rich, we all know real estate, Stock and all that. But in your opinion, at least in the next 10 years, what would you say that, okay, we've never imagined that this is a way to become rich?

I think there's going to be a lot of people. I think there's already a lot of rich people out there, but they're not on social media. They're running a pool cleaning company. So I use a pool cleaning company. I won't shout them out. I would not be surprised if they bring in $1 million a year for the owner. That's, and that's ARR, right? Because I subscribe to their pool cleaning. That's an ARR SaaS-ish business. There's no software. Right. Do you know how much competition they have? Very little. I think that's super interesting. I, you know, if you think about podcasts and tech companies, I think they're great, but you're also on a much more competitive market. And so I, I wonder, and what I would explore for people out there is where is there less competitive markets that maybe I can have an opportunity in that's not as competitive? You know, like podcasts are competitive, but maybe books aren't.

Mm-hmm.

Certain software is competitive, so maybe I don't sell software. Maybe I'm an, I'm a software descri— I'm a software, uh, talker abouter, and I'm the leading person that talks about software for solopreneurs. Shit, I didn't even have to create the software.

Mm-hmm.

Right? If you think about AppSumo, we do make software as a way to get people into the AppSumo ecosystem of tidyCal.com and,

mm-hmm,

uh, SendFox.com and, and things like that. But really our value is that we help discover with great deals and we have a platform for it. And the reason I, I did that is cuz with that, when I was at Facebook, uh, building games and shit, they banned me and I was like, oh, when you build on someone else's platform, they control you. They could ban you and, and end your livelihood, which they did. So I think there's offline businesses that are really interesting. I think in software in general, I see a lot of opportunities to, how do you disrupt some of these older companies that aren't innovating? So Google Analytics, they're not innovating. DocuSign, they're not innovating. Zoom, I don't know what the hell they do, right? They, they add all these new features, but it's still glitchy.

Right.

I don't want to, you know, that, that seems like an opportunity. I think Stripe, opportunity. So anything that's— maybe Stripe has a little bit more lock-in effect because you build in all this API stuff, but there are a lot of companies that don't have as much of that that you can disrupt a lot easier. So those are just a few of the areas I would say in the next decade. I, I also think if you look at my YouTube channel, there's just a lot of different ways to get rich and recognizing that it could be from making microphone stands for podcasters.

Mm-hmm.

You know, how many people think about this, Sharath? How many people are creating AI podcast tools?

Tons.

Tons.

Yeah, tons.

Fucking everybody. And you know, we, we promote 'em on AppSumo. I see it.

Right.

And so, okay, if everyone's doing that, what are they not doing? Or how do I differentiate enough that I have my own unique angle in it? Or maybe the pricing is different, right? It's free, but I do something else. Like I still think Libsyn, which I pay $20 a month, is like such an interesting company. Podcasts, they're so crappy. What do podcasters really want? Tell me that. I'll tell you. I'll tell you because I know. But what do podcasters really want? They want one thing. No, they just want one thing. What do you want as a podcaster?

Audience.

Audience. Oh, okay. Now that's interesting. So in business, we're trying to understand what's the thing that the people really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really want. And if we can provide them with that, they're willing to give us money for it. Whereas when we're giving them things that are nice to haves, which people hear this stuff all the time, but they don't feel it. And when you find the thing that, wow, I'm not having to convince anyone to use my podcast notes app. When I'm not having to convince them is when you found something that people want. That's product market fit.

Mm-hmm.

And so with a podcaster, I would be exploring, yes, I can get them show notes, which is cool, like Cast Magic, which has done really well on AppSumo. I love that product. And yes, you can do hosting, but if you can get them an audience,

hmm,

how do you get them an audience? Maybe you just get a few people. Tell me about your show. What kind of audience are you looking for? All right, let me go see how I could find those kind of people. And then from there, bringing those kind of people to a podcast, maybe there's a way you can create a directory, or maybe you create a cross-platform, a cross-podcast, uh, ad platform. Or maybe it's an email list that every week you send people to a new podcast.

Hmm.

It's kind of interesting.

Maybe I shouldn't tap into that.

I, you're already starting, and I think that's the whole point when I talk about Million Dollar Weekend is Most people take 2 years thinking about the idea with that, that they could find out in 48 hours whether it works or not. And if it doesn't work, great. I didn't just spend a lot of time or money building crap that no one wanted, which I've done so many times. I, I've done it a lot.

Mm-hmm.

I can find the thing that they're actually excited about. Maybe it's hosting, maybe it's setting up their podcast stuff at home to make that easier.

Mm-hmm.

Or maybe it's the audience, or maybe it's something else. But then you get to that point that you, you're not convincing people. Mm-hmm. You're delivering for people their actual problem, then you're just a waiter in a business that's exciting. And I'll tell you, I've been at Facebook, it was exciting. At Mint, it was exciting. At AppSumo, it was exciting. You know, TidyCal, our Calendly alternative, we're just taking orders because it's what people want. They don't want to pay $29 a month for something they could pay $29 for life.

I love that. Find things that people want. I think that's the ultimate I'd

be

waiting for that.

Well, you know, it's like Paul Graham says this crap that everyone hears, but no one understands. And I don't mean that rudely to anyone, but he says, do things that don't scale, make things that people want. But to make things that people want, they have to actually want it. You can't, you don't, can't convince them. And do things that don't scale literally means like what you're doing with the podcast app, which is, can I get, you had 2 people, can I get a 3rd customer today? That doesn't scale cuz that would mean you have this waiting list. I mean, literally just talking to those people. Not doing some AI magic thing,

right?

You just talk to them and then you find out if they want it. And then you guess what? Then you talk to another person. Like same thing with this Million Dollar Weekend book launch. I personally messaged 1,300 people. Wow. 'Cause I wanted a 13— I wanted a 1,000+ person launch team. So I just literally did it myself. And it's not that I'm better or worse about it, but it was like I wanted to show as well as realize that this does not scale. And that's the point. But it now is a really intimate relationship with each person because I've messaged them and I feel that at least I've connected with them a little bit more than sending an email or posting a tweet and kind of hoping.

Man, I have so many follow-up questions there.

Do it then. We got 13 minutes. I gotta go.

Yeah, I wanna wrap it up for sure on time, but you've let go from Facebook, Mint. 2 questions. A, How did you feel about rejection? And number 2, how did you convert that into opportunity for yourself? What is the biggest insight there? Let's go back around that time and dive into that, Noah, and talk to me about those 2 questions.

I would say not well. We think of rejection as a bad thing. What if people thought of rejection as a good thing? Just shift. It's literally the same playing field, but just look at it from the other team's side. Okay, this is a rejection, but what does this mean? Did I learn something? Did I improve myself? Can I practice my ask better? Like, what's the upside, the benefit of this rejection? And more, if you think about it that way, you're like, huh, well, it got me closer to where I want to go. I found out that people don't like doing this. I found out that I can actually, there's actually a lot of upside of rejection.

Mm-hmm.

And when you practice it with coffee challenge, when you practice it by asking people and talking to people, you realize it's not as scary as it seems. Now, in terms of me overcoming my own failures and rejection, the Facebook one was traumatic cuz I was public. Everyone knew I worked there. Uh, I lived with Facebook people, my family, everyone knew that. I left Intel. I said, I'm quitting. You guys suck. I'm going, I'm going to this super cool company. And then I got fired and I had to go back and lived at my friend who worked at Intel's couch.

Wow.

Now, how I overcame that was not well. And I used that as a real motivator to prove them wrong and to prove myself right. And that took, that took like a decade. It took a long time to, and even to this day, there's definitely still voices in my head of, Oh well, Zuckerberg's a better CEO than you. Right? Isn't that fucking crazy? It's been 15 years and I'm still like, oh well, you're not good enough. And you know, you kind of come back and you look at yourself and you look at what you're doing and you're— I'm not Zuckerberg. I'm Noah Kagan and you're Sharath and everyone else out there is themselves. And I would say, how do you overcome failure and fear is you embrace it. You accept that it's a little painful. But then you get back up, right? In flying, I'm a, I have a pilot's license. Whenever you have an emergency in flying, the first thing you do is a debrief. Okay, what happened? How do I learn from it? And the second most important thing is to get back up on the plane and face the fear again. And that's how you can then overcome. And I ultimately, what all this, all this is showing in our existence in this planet is realizing what we're capable of. And I think it's a really good lesson for all of us to think If your, your life is literally a story, mine is, Sharath is, everyone's is. But the coolest part is we're the authors. Literally, you're the author of this amazing story.

Hmm.

And it can be as amazing as you want it, or it could be as lame as you want it, and you get to decide. And so I do find it helpful then to also think about, as we talked earlier on, like, write your story for the end of this year. I do that every year, my fantasy. Like, ah, this year did it. And guess what? The fantasies almost always come true. And if not, they come pretty damn close. So I don't think there's one magic fix for failure or rejection, but I think you can look at it positively. You can have an outcome of the future and then you get back up again. And, and I would say the most successful people you asked about, billionaires, have also failed the most. They've had a lot of rejections and I'm still getting rejected. I got rejected last week. This guy who's gonna help me said he's not gonna help. Uh, this one thing this morning, I hired someone this morning. She texted me back, hey, I'm, I'm not working for you anymore. Last week someone quit. I mean, it's still happening, but what I've noticed as I get older is that I, I'm patient with the rejection. I'm patient with the failures. And I realize that like a lot of these things do lead to better opportunities, better experiences. And it's just looking at it from the other side of the table instead of it's such a bad thing, like getting fired like you did. What's the good part about it? And how do I move more towards that?

So glass half full. And I think rejection is not something you can control, but what you can truly control is how fast can you move on from it.

You can control your attitude, which is hard though. It's really hard when you get rejected because you're like, well, I'm still feeling sad. And I like your comment. I think you're right, which is Optimism is a practice. Yep. And I would say I've been pretty cynical because I was so angry about Facebook for 10 years. And then at some point it did let get let go because I got more just focused on myself and less about them because I was using them as a motivator. And now it's just using myself as a motivator. Like, okay, I'm, I don't even need some of these other people I was thinking about this morning. It's great to be influenced. It's great to be You know, ah, this, that. But then you kind of come inside. Knock knock. Who's there? It's you. And then ask what that person wants and then start dialing into that. And, you know, I'd even say with Million Dollar Weekend, as I get rejected, I'm like, I don't care. You know why? Because I love it and I believe in it and I've seen it work. So if you don't like it, that's fine. I'll find someone else. And if other person doesn't want to give me a shot, that's fine. I still believe in it. I've seen it. I know it. And having the optimism around ourselves takes practice. It's not a fixed thing. You can be more positive.

Yeah, I love that. Couple of more questions before we wrap up. One of the things you also mentioned in your bio, and I read somewhere on your website as well, is—

Can you pause one second? I can't hear. Hola. Sorry, they're vacuuming right outside the door. It was very loud.

Awesome. Now we're back. So a couple of more questions. I think one thing you mentioned in your bio is about happiness. What's happiness to you? Define Noah Kagan's definition of happiness.

I think happiness is like this very fluffy, subjective word. I think a lot of times I think about, am I at peace with myself? And so when I think about happiness, I think about last night. My parents flew into town. My girlfriend's here. She's pregnant. We're all sitting at the table, and I kind of want to be somewhere else. And there's football on, which is kind of cool, and I appreciated that. But then I also just took a pause, and I took a breath. I was like, "This is it." Where else would you want to be? Why is it we always want to be on our phones? Be somewhere else. Like, this is it. And that felt very happy. And I think happiness all just starts with, are you— can you be kind? And are you happy with yourself without anybody else, right? Are you happy with yourself on a Saturday morning alone? And if you're not, that's okay. You can practice it. And so yeah, last night I felt happy.

Love that. Good for you. Happy that you're happy. Last question.

I would say, you know, an easy hack for being happy is be around happy people. You know, if you meet a lot of my closest friends, you're like, dude, these guys are fucking— they're always so happy. And I'm like, yeah, I needed it years ago because I don't think I was always so positive. And now I'm like pretty damn positive because life's pretty fucking great. But it definitely is an easy hack is being around more optimistic, positive people.

Yep. That's, I think, the best way. Last question before we wrap up. What's in— I know you've kind of like worked on this project. But what's an ambitious, ambitious, ambitious goal that you're chasing in life?

I don't have any ambitious goals. I— maybe I spoke too soon, but I don't think myself as that ambitious lately. I'm looking more for more sustainable goals. So for the past, I don't know, maybe 5 years, really the past 3, I've been really focusing on Slow and steady progress. And it ultimately compounds. Like people talk about compounding interest, but there's compounding business where it's slow and steady. If it's working, you just keep making it work a little better and a little better and a little better. And somehow over a period of time, that can really turn into something amazing. And I'm looking more to sustain with my goals. So how do I have time to be a good father? So I have as much time for that. How do I do YouTube for 10 years? How do I do AppSumo for, I don't know, till I die? And I've never, I don't, I think it's interesting to think about what do we authentically, meaning genuinely, meaning honestly to ourselves, wake up in the morning and truly are inspired by for ourselves without anybody else, like our parents or friends or society. And I'm never inspired for billions of dollars. I inspired to have money and I wanted it. Right. But I am inspired to help others do it. I think it's super cool seeing people take action for themselves. That's why there's Million Dollar Weekend. I am inspired to learn from billionaires and push myself, which is what I do in the YouTube channel. I'm inspired to promote software, which we do at AppSumo. It's just like, I'm gonna keep doing that and keep getting a little bit better over a long period of time.

I love that. Noah, this has been great. I have so many questions, but I also have to respect your time and appreciate you coming.

Thank you for having me, man.

Appreciate you. You delivered a lot today. I hope listeners, you know, they've learned a thing or two. All this, we do this, all this for you, right? Like to get you better, find ways, you know, like Noah's words, like, you know, that inspires us inspiring you. So on that note, Noah, appreciate you so much. Thank you for, you know, joining us.

Good luck with all your projects, like with your job and the kid and the SaaS.

Yeah, 2024 is going to be interesting, abundant for everybody. That, that's something I believe in.

2024 can be the best year of everyone's life.

Mm-hmm.

And it's up to everyone to choose that, right? And you can do it in a 48-hour period or even a 24-hour period to start making that change. Yes. You know, I think that, that's where I was reflecting. I've been reflecting a lot where I think, I thank myself that I started 10 years ago or 14 years ago. Thank God I just started and I tried and some things didn't work. I tried a bunch of things that didn't work and finally something worked and, and then there's, thanking myself for sticking with it and putting people around, you know, all these amazing people around that I've been able to work with on this.

That's the name of the game. You just have to do. Trying is winning, in my opinion. So you guys do the same. Any closing, uh, any closing thoughts before we wrap up, Noah?

Yeah, I was thinking about it in the shower this morning because I was like coming on the show. What's the, what's the theme for everyone? Put on sunblock. Put on lotion or sunblock every single day. Don't miss a day. And I, this guy named, um, I don't know if it was Ashwaya. I gotta look him up. He was on The Apprentice. Surya, Surya Yalamachi. And, uh, when I was 25, I was having breakfast with him. He said, hey, put on sunblock, Neutrogena. 'Cause he used to work there and he is like, look, when you're 40, you're gonna look better. And I was at 25. So I went home and I bought one of these Neutrogena bars and I started rolling it on. And people always ask me like, why does your face look so good? 42 almost. One, it's genetics, let's just say that. But 2, it's because I started and then I stuck with it. And everyone can put on sunblock today. And so I, you know, sunblock is a silly kind of idea, but then for anything in your business and your relationship, what can you start today that in 15 years you're, uh, you're really thanking yourself and you're probably going to enjoy it even 5 years down the road?

Oh, love. I love that. That's the most unusual closing thought that ever given on my show. So appreciate you for that, Noah. Thanks, folks. Thanks for joining. Thanks for listening. We really appreciate you. We love you. And see you all next week with another guest. Till then, cheers.