MBA2425 Extended Interview: Noah Kagan – How to Launch a Million Dollar Business This Weekend

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Hey oh, welcome to the $100 MBA show, helping you build a better business with our practical business. Less I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm, and today's episode is a special extended interview episode. We have my friend Noah Kagan from AppSumo.com and he'll be teaching you how to launch a million dollar business this weekend. If you're having a hard time getting started getting your business out there making your first dollar, or even if you're stuck in your current business and can't get past this current level and onto the next level, then you're going to love today's episode. Noah's going to break down all the excuses we tell ourselves, all the reasons why we're not achieving our success, and he's going to share what has worked for him for years. Noah was one of the first early employees over at Facebook, worked directly with Mark Zuckerberg, was number two@min.com and started AppSumo.com that does nine figures in revenue a year. He's now the author of Million Dollar Weekend, a book that I am positive will be a bestseller. And lucky for you, he's here today to show you how to get started, how to have that million dollar business, and how you can achieve your own success. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Before we jump into today's extended interview and conversation with Noah Kagan, let me tell you right off the bat you're going to want to buy this book. You want to go to milliondollarweekend.com and buy this book immediately. I have the book. I've read it and you're going to see in the conversation how much I love it, but more importantly, why I think it's such an important book for entrepreneurship. What makes it unique, what makes it special, and what actually allows you to get results that are in the book. I've known Owen Kega for about a decade now, and he's definitely a special kind of person. He thinks differently. He's got great problem solving skills. He's great with helping people get past themselves and get over their own internal obstacles and external obstacles. And you're gonna see this firsthand in today's episode. So we're gonna jump into the conversation with Noah Kagan. But I'll be back to wrap up today's episode and give you my own insights on what we discussed. Let's get into it. Let's jump into the conversation with Noah Kagan, the author of Million Dollar Weekend. Noah, it's awesome to have you, man. How's everything going?

Life is blessed, man. I'm happier than I've ever been. So good.

I love it, man. I'm so happy to call you a friend. We've known each other for about a decade now, and I want to start with a story because a lot of people don't know this. I've shared with this with some of my friends, but not on the podcast. But when I started my software company, Webinar Ninja, back in 2014, about a year in, I was kind of struggling trying to make it happen. A friend of mine, John Corcoran, was like, you should know this guy named Noah Kagan. And Noah Kagan, I was like, yeah, I know Noah Kagan is from AppSumo and Sumo.com. they have this like, they basically rule pop ups in the Internet. And he told me, yeah, let me make an introduction. You know, John is like, so generous with his network. So he introduced us. We're on a Skype call. This is back in 2015. The first time I met you was on a Skype call. And I told you I started a software company and I'd love your advice. And, you know, you've been there, you're where I want to be in a few years, all that kind of stuff. And this is awesome advice, by the way, for anybody who's listening. If you ever want to know what your future looks like, just go to someone who's a few steps ahead and talk to them. And you told me a piece of advice I never forgot. And for the nine years I was building and running Webinar Ninja, I really remembered that in the back of my head. And you told me, omar, with software, there is no finish line. I was like, oh, man. Because I come from the content world courses, you know, things like that. You put something out there like a book, a million dollar weekend. And I was just like, yes, I needed to hear that so bad because I realized, okay, as soon as I push out a new feature, a new update, they're like, oh, yeah, that's great, but can you do this? Can you do that? Blah, blah, blah. So I want to start by. Thank you. Thank you for that piece of advice and having my back, you know, almost nine years ago. Thank you.

Dude, it's been. I was telling you before the show, just getting emotional myself, thinking, you know, thinking about all the nice people that I've been able to connect with doing business and I don't know, I don't even. Business. It seems so adult formal. Just like doing cool things and meeting cool people and like we were on a yacht together.

I know. That was so much fun. Michael Moore. Shout out to Michael Port.

Shout out Michael Port. Shout out Jordan Harbinger. And just all the cool things that get to happen through helping others out, how they're available to help you. And yeah, it's special. Also, I think you were on AppSumo. Didn't webinar ninja go on AppSumo? I think you guys crossed.

Yeah, man. I worked with, I worked with Iman and, and we were the best selling go deal of all time. It was great working with him. He. He's fantastic. That dude is brilliant. And, and you're, you're a brilliant entrepreneur in terms of building your team. You find gems, man. Every, every time I've worked with you guys, worked with the different members of your team, I was like, how does Noah find these people? And you're really good at that. And we're going to, we're going to dive deep into scaling a business and all that kind of stuff and talk about your new book, Million Dollar Weekend. But I want to scale back. I want to go back, something I like to do on this type of episode. And I want to learn a little bit about Noah growing up. You know, both. One of the things we talked about earlier is both of our parents, both of our, we come from immigrant backgrounds. Your dad immigrated from Israel, sold photocopiers, hustled his way in America. You know, growing up in that environment with parents that told you, you know, like, I didn't sacrifice all my life for you to, like, you know, mess around in school. What was your life like growing up? Like, what was your home like? Like, life like, school life. Were you popular? Were you a jock? What was it?

Yeah, you know, the immigrant mentality. I've been thinking about this a lot, and all of the most successful people@appSumo.com and really all the most successful CEOs today are immigrants. And everyone can copy the immigrant mentality. And the immigrant mentality is two things. It's attitude and effort. And there's no limit amount about how good your attitude can be. And there's no limit how much. How hard you can work besides 24 hours. And immigrants just work so hard. And we were chatting before, like, you know, a lot of immigrant mentality. My family was about surviving and not thriving, which we can. We can get in later in the show if it's. If we want to chat about it. But my. My house, my growing up was a little chaotic, but also I felt very blessed and lucky. Not in retrospect. I had this father who didn't speak English, sold copiers door to door. He was a slob. He was just crazy. He had no fear in these things. You know, he would smoke bowls of weed while driving with us in the car. We're like 10 years old, no seat belts, you know, just kind of like you would go to and you made it, you're fine. Where. It depends who you ask, you know. And then he'd take us to Costco for lunch. He's like, go eat the free samples. That's. That was lunch. And, you know, I had a. I. Yeah. So I grew up with this entrepreneurship, like, wow, it's kind of cool. He has his own schedule. We go jet skiing, takes us to Costco, gets us cool shoes. And I. It really was inspiring to be like, wow, I'd love to have my own business, but I knew I didn't want to carry heavy copiers. And I also, I really admired that by asking, he was able to get things. He would always ask. Oh my God, he would just go for it. And a lot of times we're so scared of asking for a date or a customer or an interview or whatever that is. And you realize the ask upside is unlimited. And the downside is a moment, it's just a blink, but you can have these upsides that are for life. He was really good about that. And then my mom and my stepfather were the opposite. I couldn't have friends over because they're too messy. We couldn't use the kitchen because it makes a mess. We had to have good grades, and it was much more of a strict environment. And that was great too. I really. I was very lucky to be around that. The things I was able to take away that others can copy was that my mom complained. She still complains less now, though. But she was complaining about her job, she was a nurse and she hated helping people and that. And every day she'd come home and I was like, man, I don't ever want to hate my job like that. And then my, my stepfather was an engineer and he was just always giving me computers and letting me break them. And I think that was very lucky for me. To be born in Silicon Valley. Being born around these different, three different people and then outputting a person who was. I liked asking. I got excited how asking can really open up doors. Technology and then finding a job or creating a work that I can do for life. And just born around a lot of elite people in my school as well. You know, best friend Boris, number 20 at Lyft, he's super rich. Marty early at Stripe, he's rich. And so I, I think part of it, yes, I think I'm a probably like above average intelligence, but I'm elite in being around the elite. And I think that's, and that's available for everyone. That's not exclusive. You know, go figuring out, okay, is it a geographical thing or is it a virtual thing online, or is it a learning thing, is it a conference thing, is it a first class ticket thing that's available for, for everyone? And so, yeah, it created a, a good foundation for me to then be able to start businesses or figure out how to get to that point.

There's a few things I want to pull out here. First thing is you talked about your mom, you know, hating her job, you know, going to, you know, a job that maybe she just felt she had to add obligation to put, you know, food on the table. And I always say that one of the best ways to know, know what you want to do is to just be exposed to things you don't want to do. You know, go bust some tables, go, you know, do I. My first job was I washed cars in a wash bay at a car dealership, you know, like, and I realized that, like, good money, but I don't want to do this. My hands feel horrible at the end of the day, you know, for the rest of my life. So I love that takeaway. You're observing your parents, you're looking at things. The second thing I love is in your book, Million Dollar Weekend, you talk about the power of asking. And, you know, business is really just about asking people for the sale, asking people for their opinion, their advice or investment, whatever it is. Right. And I do think that immigrants, when they come to a new country, they have to learn how to ask. They, they can't Just sit there and just not do anything. They have to ask how to get their driver's license, how to find an apartment, where to get my haircut, you know, how to get groceries. They don't know anything, so they have to ask. So I feel like I've inherited that too from my parents. Where, like, you just, like, you don't know something. You don't just live with it. You have to ask somebody for, for help. And I think in today's day and age with, you know, technology and Google Maps and Uber and all this stuff, like, people don't ask for directions anymore, ask anything. They just like, Google it up. But that is a form of asking is research. And the last thing I want to take away. There you were talking about, you know, growing up around people that. In going to, you know, great universities and being around people that are just like superstars. One of my favorite hacks to do, and I want to share this with you and, and we did this with Michael Port Michael. We were saying, shout out to Michael Poor. Michael Poor has a yacht. And we went on holiday with. Went on vacation with Michael and Jordan Harbinger and Noah. And we. And we had our significant others with us, and it was a lot of fun. One of the best hacks to do is to go on holiday, go on vacation with somebody who's just a few levels ahead of you because you start to realize, oh, this is possible. Like, I'm not that far removed from this reality. And it just starts opening up the idea of, how do I get here? You start asking yourself some questions like, how do I. How do Michael do this? How do I do this? How do I get myself a yacht? How do I, if that's something you want or whatever. The point is, is that, like, I like going on holidays, a skiing holiday, you know, going to Europe like you do in Barcelona, and just like go to a fancy restaurant. Maybe a little bit out of your budget, but, like, it hurts a little bit, but that's fine. Just for one time so you can feel like, okay, how can I make this comfortable? Do you agree with that?

I always thought that when you get bored into a class, I was born middle class and very lucky. Let me just repeat again. Very lucky. Two parents, or guess three. Healthy Bay Area, all these things. But I think most of us think we're stuck where we are. And so I love your. Your recommendation. Like, how do you even find out what the next levels even look like if you have no idea? You know, a lot of people don't realize, like, Han, I can actually work in two countries like this. For me, like, it took time to get to that where I was like, can work in two countries, actually find a partner I really like and be able to do the things I really want to do for a living and make a lot of money, really, that's possible. And I, I just think most people don't realize that they can do it, and the biggest way that's holding them back is just getting going on it. You know, I, I think a lot of people, you know, like, I'd like to be rich, or I. I kind of want these things that I'm not really sure. And it's understanding that, that if you can create a dream or a belief bigger than a fear that is really motivating to get going when you're like, man, maybe not happen today, but I'm going today. But I could get at a place where I'm. I have a crazy house and I have cool things that. That matter to me. But, yeah, I love your. I love that hack for, for doing that. You can also rent it. So for me, I started renting things. I rented a big house during COVID I rented fancy cars. I tried living in foreign countries, and I was like, oh, wow, this is awesome. I'm never going back. And then some things like cars don't. I don't give a. I don't care about at all. But having a nice house, I was just like, I'm going to spend a lot on the house. And then realizing that, that, that level is available to everyone.

That leads me to something you mentioned earlier. You talked about growing up, Our parents kind of have this survive, not thrive mentality. How do you shake that? How do you. How do you realize, wait a minute, I don't just have to get by. I don't have to just make sure that I can pay my bills. How do you break through and say, it's okay for me to enjoy life, it's okay for me to want better things or to go beyond, you know, the needs.

Yeah. My friend, tiny.com, i like seeing his website. He calls it the 99 one. And so if you zoom out to 99 and you zoom out very, very far, you zoom out, you look at the 99 of our lives. It's really great. It really is so great. And that's how I was feeling frustrated. Like, he's. I was frustrated about different things going on with work in my relationship. He's like, let's just zoom out, man. Like, you have pinball machines at home. I have two pinball machines. I was just playing it before this, like, an hour ago, and it was awesome. You have, like, you're healthy, you know, you have a company you seem to like. It's like, dude, even though something's frustrating, like, 99% great. And just recognizing that, you know, I think where a lot of people can approach it is that I was suffering and creating money, trying to just create money for, like, 20 years.

Right.

Like, that's kind of what we're taught to do. And no one's really saying enjoy it. And so for me, with Million Dollar Weekend, it was also, how do I. What's the number that actually matters to me where I don't have to worry about money so much? And then I can quit this job that I really hate? Because that seemed risky, having a job. And for me, my freedom number was 3,000 bucks. And that led me at least to get going so I could do work I wanted to do. But in terms of enjoying the money, I'll say, I'll give a few examples, and then tactics will come through that lately, it's how do I enjoy the money for myself? So I have a goal every year. How do I spend the money on myself to others or donate at least 1% of all of all that I make, and that's a yearly goal. So this year, I took my parents on a yacht. I actually took them on a yacht. It was $30,000, which is crazy. And they would never do that in their whole lifetime. And that was so cool. So I do think for others out there, it doesn't have to be 30,000. It could be $3. But make a goal, not just donate, but it could be to spend it on your friends and as well be generous with yourself. And I noticed through that how much more I actually really enjoyed life. So I buy Rolexes now. And I used to never even wear watches.

Yeah.

But I'll tell you, I bought one when I got engaged, and then I bought one when I got my pilot's license, and then I bought one when I got this. This house, and I buy one with meat for me and someone else. So when me and my buddy both got houses, I bought it. Bought two. Me and my buddies also, we're actually. We're all having kids soon, which is crazy. We can talk about that later. Which is crazy. But I bought us three Rolexes. So each of the three guys who have kids now, two other guys ever looks at it, I'm like, wow, I'm really proud of that. I'm proud of myself.

Yeah.

And a lot of that happened when Covid happened, where it was like, let's just at least try spending the money and realizing how much better it made life. And I think sometimes, especially immigrants, it's like, all right, just, you know, just hoard it, save it, create it. Don't enjoy it. And so for everyone out there, just spend a little bit more on yourself. Spend a little bit more on someone else. Do a little donation. One other thing that I noticed, you almost never notice the money you give to someone else or you. You donate to someone else. So recently, I have a house cleaner, and I was gonna, like, should I give her x or 2x this number?

Yeah.

I was like, just give her the 2x. So it really is.

And I've.

You guys, we've heard this for years, right? The more you donate, the more you feel good, the more you realize there's abundance. And I always felt the abundance stuff was kind of silly, because most people who say there's abundance, they're rich. Like, you don't hear a lot of homeless people saying, I'm so abundant, you know? Yeah. And so it's like, how do you have abundance when you're not having a lot? Right. How do you have optimism that there'll be more to come? And it is by sharing it with other people. And so giving a little bit more than you normally would on a tip even, is a good practice of that.

Huge. I always say picking up the tap at dinner is one of the best feelings in the world. Just doing that simple act of like, I got this one, guys. Don't worry about it. It just makes you feel like there's something about buying somebody a meal that is just very, very.

So easy.

Nice. Yeah, exactly.

I'm eating out with you next time.

Oh, yeah, why not? You're a cheap date. Tacos, dude.

I. I'm still. I am. I am. I like ordering what I would order whether I'm paying or not. I always. That's my approach. I find that to be a pretty good habit. Like, just order what you're gonna get, no matter who's paying. I love it.

I love it.

You've made it on time for the McDonald's breakfast menu. You think to yourself, finally, I could start my day with my perfect breakfast. But what if breakfast could be even more perfect with the hot honey sausage, egg biscuit? It finally is. This won't last forever, so go to McDonald's and get it while you can. Ba da ba ba ba.

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One of the things I was saying to myself when I read your book Million Dollar Weekend was one, I am actually quite impressed. I think it's the most practical book that anybody can pick up when it comes to starting their first business as well as rethinking their current one. It's really well done. Really well done. There's a couple of things I want to pull out from the book and discuss, but one of them is you haven't been on the other side of entrepreneurship in a long time. You've been an entrepreneur for most of your adult life. You know, you had your small time and you know, Mint and Facebook and things like that. But you're, you're in the founding team. How are you able to relate to non entrepreneurs so well and be able to give practical, relatable, empathetic advice even though you've been out of that situation for so long?

Yeah, well, I think a few things are funny. One, my mom had two kids and my brother went the normal route. And what's. What's normal? Even he went the safe route. And I'd say this, and he became a doctor. 10 years doctor, 300000 in debt and he's very. This sounds weird but he's jealous of me. I was like, why are you jealous, dude? He's like, because you didn't have to go get a certificate to do what you do. I was like, ah, I don't. No one needs permission to get started. It's available to anyone worldwide for free. And I think again coming back to what you're saying, I thought that was so interesting. Just like if you can believe that you could be an entre, you don't have to be a multi million dollar whatever. It could be even grocery money, it could be $100 money and everyone could do that in a weekend. And so in terms of relating, let me share a few things around that I've worked for. Zuckerberg helped start Mint.com sold 200 million. I've started 20 different businesses. Some worked like kick flick and Gambit. Some were total flops. So free calls two.com flopped. Masturbation sock.com flopped. Everspeed do reward level.com software taco.com so many have not worked right. But I kept swinging and that, that's definitely a key thing about it. And then finally you know app Sumo worked. So a few things around that in relating is that you don't need a lot. You need to be swinging, but you only need one hit to do well in business. It's the only sport where one hit wins. Zuckerberg hasn't had a great hit in 15 years. That guy built one thing barely. He copied another person frankly. And now he's one of the rich people on earth. You only need one hit. And most of these businesses are started very quickly with not a lot of money and time. We can, we'll dive into that now in terms of relatability, I've definitely proven it myself. But now can I prove and teach it to others? So we launched a course monthly 1k. 10,000 plus people have gone through that. So I definitely understood more the psychology of what was holding a lot of people back. And then with this book specifically, this is a common thing. Whether you've done a lot of businesses like I have is that we all wonder like are we imposters? And I don't know why that even comes in our, in our psyche.

Right.

Like what, how does that serve us? Like holding ourselves back? That's a whole nother. You know, maybe you get my therapist.

Self preservation.

Yeah, maybe like, oh, if I can't. But if I, if I'm an imposter and I don't do it, then I never have to face myself is really what's happening. That's what really we're saying. And I felt that way a little bit with Million Dollar Weekend. Like even though, yes, I've done it seven, eight times now and I've worked for the best people in the world for not best people, best entrepreneurs. Can I actually do it? And so what was fascinating with this book was really running it like a tech company. And so we have right now 1300 beta testers of the book. I had one of them live at my house last month and with every single chapter we had around 20 to 30 people go through the book per chapter. Every single chapter. And every weekend I have five people for free. These are all, it's all free. They're doing weekend cohorts where I'm coaching them through them having their own million dollar weekend and using the framework to get their business going. So through one by one, which is for anyone out there, if you're starting a business, just go and help someone individually or go sell to one person individually. And through doing that again and again and again and again and again and again, I feel very confident that I can understand where they're at and what's really holding them back and how to make it fun so that they can move forward to get where they want and to get to their dreams.

I love it. You're a very no nonsense person. I think the listeners of the show resonate with that. That's kind of the some one of the ingredients of this podcast. One of my favorite things about this book is how you start it. It's amazing how you start with all the excuses and people say to themselves about why they can't start a business. Tell me why. You start with the book with those top excuses, the top things that people say to themselves, why they can't start.

Most people who want to have a business and I do believe everyone should be an entrepreneur because risky is when your boss fires you and you have no backup plan. So create your own with entrepreneurship. Now, when we were writing the book and putting it together, there's so many business books out there. There's a lot. And there's so much YouTube and so much courses. Yet it doesn't seem that anyone who wants to start it has like a clear thing that you could actually give them. Now why is that? There's enough recipes now. The problem is, is that most people have the right mindsets because there's something holding them back. And so as we were working on the book, we were trying to figure out what are the real problems holding people back. And so they have common reasons that hold them back. And we put it in the initial book and people went like crazy over it. They're like, yeah, this is exactly me. You know me. And it was at the end of the book and through the beta testing of the content of how to help them get to their own business and get beyond that, we moved it to the front. And so it helps them feel understood. You know, it was, I don't have enough ideas. Actually, you have a lot of ideas. You just don't want to get started. I have too many ideas. Well, you're afraid of getting started. I don't have enough money. Well, that that's solvable. We don't need any money to get a business started. I don't know anything about marketing. I do. And I'm going to show you exactly a plan I used on mint.com@appsumo.com, tidycal.com, kingsuma.com, all these businesses that you exactly copy. Same thing I did with this book, same thing I've done with my YouTube channel, which got to a million subs. Now it Just helps them feel like, oh yeah, I've been kind of holding off for a while. And then the exact place where we're going to be able to solve that problem of theirs. Like, if you think about all business, it's way simpler than people make it out to be. It's generally certain people called customers and they generally have a certain thing w called what, which is problems. What problem do they have? And the more that you can just ask them and listen to them and understand their problem and then say, yes, I can solve that problem. That's a business. Whether you're creating content you're getting them to put in their ears or visually, or whether it's an e commerce store like appsumo.com or whether it's a service business, whatever that is, it's. Are you understanding these people to see if you can actually help them with these problems. And so that, yeah, that was where we understood that. Just identifying the problems they have and not a frequently asked questions or even a table of contents. How do we get rid of all that stuff and just get them action and results as quickly as possible?

I felt like it was a great sales exercise. Like, when I read it, I was just like, I felt like this is a great way to dismiss any rebuttals anybody's having about possibly doing what you're going to ask them to do in this book. Because there's a lot of activities in this book. There's a lot of challenges in this book. So you had to get them to buy in. And by having these kind of, you know, commonly said excuses, you kind of go, the reader goes through it and they're like, okay, that's true. I made that up. No, that's not really true. Actually, I can solve that problem. So you kind of like dismiss all the, you know, blockers from getting them to buy into your philosophy, which I really love. And we talk. I mentioned. Yeah, and I love the activities you have in this book. The challenges. You know, I've. I've personally done these challenges, you know, because I've known you and you told me about these challenges. The $1 challenge, you know, the, the discount challenge. I love these challenges and I'm gonna let people dive into those challenges in the book. But one of my favorite activ this book is you start out by getting them to sign a contract. Tell me about the contract.

Success leaves clues. Success leaves clue. That's a Tony Robbins quote. He's my boy. Actually, me and him aren't on speaking terms right now, but I really like that concept is, how do we work backwards from success? How do we work backwards from what works? Too many times we're trying to be innovative when we just need to. We need to be, like, action oriented. You don't need to be innovative. And so what I did with Tal Ross, I hired, literally, the best business writer of the decade. He's written Never Eat Alone and Never Split the Difference, which have sold millions of copies. And what we recognize is then we went through every single top business book of the decade, and we documented them, and then we pulled out every part, from sales to fear to social media, to asking all these different. And then we try to say, okay, what's the best parts of all these books and how do we learn from them and replicate it in our book? So if you think about this, if you're doing YouTube content, go look at others who do it really great and say, all right, let me at least replicate it, and then I'll innovate it. And the same thing goes for, literally for all businesses. You don't have to be that creative. And with our book, we looked at every single book in these different categories, documented them, and then, you know, put our own twist on these things and evolved it. And one of them was from. Actually, one of my favorite books all time is the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I love that book. And it's about how to be creative. And she has variants of this. And I think the two things with our book was, how do I get people to commit to themselves, not to me? Because how many times you've seen a book where it's like, fill this section out. I'm like, get out of my way. Give me rich. You know, like, I don't give a. And she had a variation of a contract. And actually, in our first version of the book, Felipe, we had a journal prompt instead, which was like, write a journal about how you feel. And he was like, I'm not doing it. I was like, how come tell me more? That's a great question, a great line to say, how come tell me more? It's like, I don't know. I just like, what do you want me to write about? I was like, I just want. What's the goal? What's the goal? I want you to commit to following through with the book for yourself. So how do we have a contract about what's the outcome and that you'll commit to yourself through that? And that's how we evolve to that version of it. And then you don't really see a lot of books with that, most people end up doing the middle, the vanilla. They go just like, okay, I gotta push to the middle. And I did think, okay, for this book to succeed and stand out for 10 years and be around and impact people and results, there needs to be some things that make it a little bit more unique. Think a contract with yourself. Action oriented challenges that are fun. They're not like, okay, let me do an ad lib or let me go do really heavy exercises. Let me do kind of fun things that also have a lot of diagrams and walkthroughs that we provide so that people can have outcomes. Yeah, the contract was definitely inspired straight up from the artist way.

I love it. That's great. I want to talk a little bit about what you just mentioned. When it comes to getting people to commit. How helpful it is. Is it helpful for that for. Or would you recommend this for people to get the people in their house, their loved ones, their significant other involved in this million dollar weekend exercise? How much support does somebody need in order for them to just get that ball rolling so they can finish this project and, you know, start their business?

We all need help. We all need help. And even if you live in a remote area and don't have a lot of people, there's someone around that can help you with. Recently we had a guy named Jake go through the million dollar weekend process and he was living in my backyard because I wanted to test the book out. So he lived with me for 48 hours. And as part of the book, you get your own board of advisors and we walk you through how to do that and we make it a special experience that you can do really instantly and you get actual money and you get people to want to serious see you succeed. And I think most people don't realize that more people want to see you succeed than you expect. So Jake was calling his wife a lot and she was getting him excited and saying like, wow, I'm really proud of you. Jake wanted to lead by example for his kids. He didn't want to say, I don't know if I didn't left, if I didn't live the life I wanted to live and what am I showing my kids if I don't give it a shot? And so his wife was there for him and yeah, I think we all need people. I've had a lot of guardian angels and people support me around my success and it's a lot of, you know, I just got off a call literally right before this with Moody Glasgow. He's my Marketing advisor, CMO of Zapier and Glassdoor, and definitely probably the most impactful person I've, I've met this year.

Wow.

And so, yeah, we, we all need people around us to help us succeed. So whether it's making your first dollar or whether it's making a million dollars.

I want to talk about something a little controversial, something that you brought up a few times on your YouTube channel, which I absolutely love. Thank you. The concept of you're a legitimate entrepreneur that made your money building legitimate businesses from all self funded, all kind of off, off your own kind of volition. And you are putting out this information, you're putting out this book and you've put out courses. This is not how you make your money. Okay? One of the things that is a problem in my opinion when it comes to business education is a lot of false gurus. A lot of people that are. I recently went to this event here in Sydney. Richard Branson was speaking, he was the headliner. He was brilliant, who was great. Loved him, excellent. But everybody before him was doing the pitch from stage. People rushing to the back of this, you know, the, the room so they can sign up for the $4,000 course and all these claims. I know Oprah, I know all these things. And I just felt so bad because I've been in this game for 20 years. I've seen this so many times. I know exactly what's behind this veneer. I feel so bad for these people rushing to the back of the room, spending. They're probably maxing out their credit card because they want to get out of their dead end job. And then comes somebody like you who's like, hey, you could do this and you can get started in a weekend with these practical exercises is what you got to do. How do you, how do you break through from this noise and at the same time, you know, advise people, hey, these guys are charlatans.

Yeah, yeah. It's been a frustration and I've been jealous sometimes. You know, they can put, you can put what's crazy about YouTube and social media, you can make whatever title up you want, you can put your ability there and no one even notices. They're like, oh, well, he must be a billionaire then.

Yeah.

So a few things I've reflected on with that where I can only really focus on myself, right? I can't, I can't focus on them. And a lot as I've gotten older is really about internal validation, not external.

Next.

These books, ultimately books are, are sold, really are bought, maybe more importantly bought. By impact. So if my book gives individuals results and they believe it, they will tell other people. And that's what it is at the end of the day. Now with these other people online, my philosophy is this. I never trust a business person who's gotten rich from courses or books, period.

That's what they sell.

If you've gotten rich, that's it. If you've gotten rich from businesses, from books or courses, I don't trust you. The other comment that I would make is that I don't trust people who, I can't see their businesses. So when people are claiming, and this is just my, my preference, right, I like going and listening to Musk and Bezos and Evan Williams and, and Mark Goins, Mark ganey who runs strava.com I like going to people who I can see their business. So when people are claiming $100 million, I have $200 million portfolios. I'm like, oh cool, tell me just one business. Cool, just tell me one of them. And I've seen one of their businesses, it's trash and it's actually declining pretty dramatically. So again, I've, as I've gotten older, I'm caring less about those people because I've been doing this 20 years and I'm pretty sure I'll be around for 20 years. Not necessarily, maybe more famous or less famous. I'm not sure about that. But I know I'll be around. And I do think there's something about staying around through integrity where as you're claiming things, people eventually will question that. But ultimately I can't be super concerned about it. It's just more concerned with like one by one people get the book, they impact themselves. And yeah, I know I've, you know, for myself, I do feel confident. I worked for Zuckerberg, I worked, you know, I worked at Microsoft. I helped start Mint.com I've done a ton of businesses people know about and I'm still, I'm running day to day an 80 million dollar your business@appsumo.com so I feel qualified, I feel pretty qualified to share my story. And, and sometimes, you know, people like different restaurants. Yeah, some people like Indian. Actually I love Indian food. But sometimes you, you know, you want, you know, Mexican and other nights you want something different. And, and that just depends people. But yeah, I, I think the other thing I would call out that I don't like about a lot of these gurus. The one, they're not even gurus, they're fiction writers, is that they create a Gap. And this is what I really don't like. They create this gap that where they are and where people want to be is a secret that only they have. And there's a. The answer to the secret is their course of their book. And I don't like that level of power imbalance or the reality that most people that where they are and where they want to be is actually closer than they think. You want to be a millionaire? You're probably closer than you realize to be able to do that. And this one person doesn't have some magical secret that's going to cost $4,995. And that's not to say you shouldn't hire coaches. Yeah, I like hiring the coaches that have good bodies. So when I go to the gym, I. I look for the most fit person. I'm like, I want to copy you. I like your body. And I think the same goes for business. Look at the bodies and see which one resonates with you, and then go copy that.

I love that. I love that. And that's why I was happy to talk to you back in July's 15, because, you know, you were where I wanted to be. You're doing your part, by the way. Like, thanks for fighting the good fight. Your book is more impactful than any of these ridiculous courses. And by the way, you know, I've been doing this since 2000. One side hustling. When I was in teaching, I bought those courses. Back then, they were like 2,000, $3,000. That's all that was available. Like, there wasn't any masterclass or there wasn't any of that stuff. There was a WordPress, for crying out loud. You know, I learned how not to do it. I learned a lot by wasting my money in that way. But this is great value. There's so much value in your book in terms of just telling people what they need to worry about and not having to think about. Don't worry about what's ahead. Just get your first dollar, get your business going, you know, then we'll start talking about how to grow, how to scale, how to hire, all that kind of stuff.

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I want to talk a little bit about because I've been curious about this for a very long time. I want to talk about, you talked about, you know, AppSumo, $80 million business. You've started so many businesses, so many projects, so many products. Tidy Cal, you know, send fox all these little products and, and businesses and you know, Sumo jerky, all this crazy stuff. Right. Why do you continue to do this when you have this beast of a company? Appsumo. Why not all in on appsumo?

Yeah, now I am. Now I am. So I would say in my 20s and 30s I was chasing a lot and also how I've approached business has evolved. The best business is the one that works. And as I've gotten older, especially if people out there have a six figure business, here's the easiest way to get to seven figures. Just go back and do what you did before that you stopped doing. That's it. And notice what you were doing before, can you do a lot more of it? People are too many times looking for the new thing and I would say yeah, there's a, a lot of stuff. I'm like I'm trying a new thing. I'm trying a new thing. It's like I'm just gonna go keep doing more of the thing that works. It's like if you have a great wife, you don't go get a new one. You keep improving the relationship and that's, that's how I've approached business. So specifically with appsumo I, I have focused on appsumo and we've reduced, we used to have like Briefcase and we used to have a lot of products that we've actually shut down now specifically with these new products you're, you're mentioning sendfox,.com which is a mailchimp alternative. Tidycal.com which is a calendly alternative. Or kingsuma.com which is a gleam alternative. That is our number one acquisition channel for appsuma. So the number one way and shout out to David and Garrett, Enrique, Marnie, Serba, Luca, Gary, Natasha. That is the number one marketing channel for appsuno. So how can other people copy that? Great question, thanks for asking. Sorry, was that douchey? That was a little douchey.

No, I love it.

So how can other people copy that? Is what is a free tool or low price tool that will bring in your ideal customer? Right. So many people are like I need to make content. It's like oh man. Like we were just looking at making content. It was like a million dollars for this thing that's content related. We're exploring. I was like, well we could build a tool in a month with two engineers and that's 20 to $25,000. We could build a lot more tools in a year that could potentially drive new buyers into the appsumo ecosystem. Maybe we should consider the alternative.

Yeah.

So again, the core is appsumo. That's what's working. And you, these free tools are away. It's the number one way that's been working. So we're going to keep doubling down on that and I think a lot of people can think about that. Whether you're a software business, is there a free, free tool or a paid tool that brings people in? If you're a lawn care business, you can do the same thing. Hey, see how much money you're wasting on water. If you're a pool business, same thing if you're any type of business. What's a free thing or low price thing that can actually get people the right type of customer into your business?

This is brilliant because you know, you sell these products on appsumo, that's how they get exposed to the marketplace. These products are actually very good and highly competitive because most of these products they're, they're reoccurring fees and yours is one time lifetime. So it really gets people hooked on this concept of oh, this place actually has great deal and, and by the way, this works in I, I in a lot of different industries. We used to sell or used to give away a course, like a mini course as our opt in and that was okay for a few years and it was fine and blah blah. But we learned that most people don't even watch it or they don't want to know how to do something they want it Done. So we started, just started giving out templates. So and that's because we would create the templates for ourselves. Like opt in templates, guides. We'd create them in Canva. And then we were like, oh, why don' we just like give away this Canva template? We already did all the work and that is gangbusters because people are just like, oh great. I, I don't know how to design. I don't know how to do this. I can just create this template off this optin. And I think more and more, because we've been in this game for a while on the Internet, you just got to get better with your, with your acquisition, you know, tools or acquisition freebies. And I think software is where it's all headed. You know, people are going to want a way to do something rather than how to do it.

Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, and you figure out, okay, what is it about this that people really like? Right. And then you look at, okay, how do I replicate that? So with Tidy Cal, Ty Cow is growing extremely well because people don't want to pay 20 bucks a month for Calendly. So then you start looking, what are the elements of this? Free products or low price products. I'm, I'm offering to bring people into my ecosystem. And so Calendly has a monthly pay. Two, it's something people share. Right. And three, there's no real cost to maintain it. So people are like, well, why am I paying that much anyways? And so those are now elements that we're actually not even really, we're going to launch new products next year. But it's like the society Cal is growing so fast. We're just going to keep investing in that as it's our number one, that is literally our number one tool to bring people into appsumo. The other thing I would call out and I feel, I feel so lucky about this and happy with this. Most of the tools, not even most. Every tool we build is something we want. Every single tool we build is something we, me, David, the rest of the team that, that's interested in these kind of things. Once.

Yep.

And so I do think it's thinking about what would be exciting for yourself and too many times, it's so far removed from that.

Yeah. And you've been a pioneer with this. I recently saw on Twitter or X that the guys from 37signals, those guys are great. You know, Jason and David, they, they are starting a new thing called Once and they're creating products that you can host yourself or Blah, blah. And you pay once and, and people are like, comment, this is brilliant. It's amazing. Like, we're talking about. Nobody's been doing.

It's a decade.

It's been.

Well, we've been around 14 years and that's okay, you know.

Yeah, no, it's great. Yeah.

It's more opportunity, frankly. Like when you, when you're starting a business and you're like, I've never heard of that product before, it's like, great, that's an opportunity. The fact that you've never heard about it means it's an opportunity. And as well as you're growing your business, like I, I work in Barcelona in the summers and now half the year and I go in the co working spot and, and I'm wearing an app sumo shirt. No one says anything. And our customers are solopreneurs, freelancers, agencies, small business owners. They don't say anything. I'm like, well, that's an opportunity. And so you know it. Most people don't realize there's a lot more meat on the bone. There's a lot more customers available than chasing and trying to get a new thing. Like, that's again, why I don't say like new things. I say just do the. Keep things that keep. Keep doing the things that are working. Like, that's the thing that's way under, under leveraged. And I would say Eamon definitely inspired me a lot, a lot of that. Like, I was always chasing like, all right, let's do another thing. What's our new thing? Let's blow up everything we've done and take more risks. And one of the crazier things for people trying to scale and my mentor and I were just talking about this is how to have less ambitious goals. Right. Which is a little counterintuitive. I've always been like a 10x kind of 2x person and that's what they have on book titles. But my book is going to be like 5 percenter, but be a 5 percenter for 10 years. Like all the billionaires I interview on YouTube took them 20 years. Yeah, 20 years was the, the fastest that any of those guys got to become a billionaire.

The founder, Kinko. That interview is amazing. Guys go on YouTube. Watch that. That's great.

Paul's amazing. He, you know, it took him 34 years.

Yeah.

So and so humble. It really is about how do we have less ambitious goals which create more freedom and also we can sustain this growth for a very long, ideally for a very long period of time. And by having Less ambitious goals gives us more freedom to experiment. 10x opportunities of the future versus, like, oh, we got a 10x. That means we're all going to be stressed out all year, which I would say there's definitely a lot of years where we did that.

Speaking of opportunities and just like other players in the market, one of my favorite stories is Nicole and I were on holiday and we're on vacation. We, we were at this hotel. It was like happy hour. And there was this guy that was standing at the bar. He had a McDonald's ring. It was like diamond encrusted. I asked him, hey, what's up with that? He had a McDonald's arches on his ring. I was like, what's up with that ring? I had to ask him and he's just like, oh, this is like a ring that McDonald's gives to those who have, like, X amount of McDonald's franchises, like 10 PL McDonald's. I was like, really? That's amazing. And I asked him, like, what do you think about all these, like, hipster, you know, craft burger places popping up, you know, like three times as much as as McDonald's, like, what are your thoughts on that? And his answer was just amazing. He was just like, I love it. I love it. Because that just means more people eating burgers. More people eating burgers is good for me. I was like, oh, wow, Great perspective. That's why you got the diamond ring one.

Good on you for asking. That's part of Million Dollar Weekend is how do you get better at asking? Because it's the. The upside's unlimited. One of the things that I would say about appsumo.com that's helped us grow, and I think it's actually true for McDonald's. When's the last time you eat at McDonald's?

Probably like 12 years, dude.

I ate there a few months ago. It's pretty good.

Pretty good. Yeah. I haven't seen it.

Give it a go. Give it a go. Get the chicken nuggets. Get a little cheeseburger, extra pickles. So this is the point I was going to say for a lot of you said a lot of half your audience is people at, you know, five figures or six figures or seven figures. One of the things with AppSumo is that we, we evolved trying to do so many new things like, oh, we're gonna have this marketplace of 10,000 products and we're do all this other stuff. Mrr, all these things. And I do think I give McDonald's credit because the longevity and really what if, you know, if you go back to their, their restaurant today, they're really focused on the basics, like good cheeseburger, good fries, good chicken sandwich and then a special every quarter like McRibs or whatever. And you go there and there's consistency, right? So every time you go there you're like, pretty okay, good cheeseburger. And I would say the same has happened at AppSumo is how is your core of your business doing? Right, this core function, you know, I was thinking back in the day, our core function was like four, one, one, which is like four deals a month, one free and one internal promotion of a product. And that was our core. And it was just like, let's do that. Excellent. And I think McDonald's has done that and that's something for people at the 5, 6, 7 and like, how's your core and how much are you repeating that? Like you're an agency? Like, are you hitting up four customers a week to get new customers? Are you making sure one check in a week? Are you doing one follow through? Like there's, yeah, the core of what you're. And you know, the offering of, of the agency or whatever it is for each different business. I think McDonald's crushed that there's so.

Much about the, the, the basics and just being consistent. You know, everything I have built has just been based on consistency. It's not my, I'm not brilliant, I'm not smart, I don't have great ideas, none of that. It's all the fact that I just like to be consistent. I have, I have this sense of obligation. I feel like if, you know, I'm one of those people that somebody sends me a message, I reply right away because I feel like it's a burden if I don't reply. So I think that that's really underrated. I think that. And I love the idea that in your book you get people to commit, you get people to do these consistent activities and have that momentum. And I love the fact that you talk about speaking of chicken, you say, you know why a weekend? You say, because that way you won't chicken out. Just like go and just do it for, for a weekend and get the ball rolling. Now, it took you more than a weekend to write this book, obviously. What was your goal with this book? Were you like, for you, do you have a metric? Do you have like, okay, this is success? Or like, what are you looking to achieve with this book?

The goal I have right now was to get a thousand Amazon reviews within 30 days of launch. And My belief there was that if I could find a thousand people to read the book, take action for themselves. That's why there's a lot of action items in the book, get some results for themselves. They'll be excited to leave these honest reviews. And I felt like that was a good the score will take care of itself approach. That's one of my favorite business books of all time, Bill Walsh. And it was focusing on, like, all right, if the book can get people to actually help them get going, then other people will end up reading it. And so I built out a spreadsheet and I started posting on Twitter like, I'm looking to grow a launch team, a beta launch team. And I emailed people and I messaged everyone I talked to. And it's following again the. The growth machine marketing in. In Million Dollar Weekend and what we use appsumo and mint.com and so, yeah, I felt if I could get a thousand people to have results, I'd feel really satisfied and the book will take care of itself from that secondary goal. And again, this is something I've learned at Zuckerberg is have a singular goal. And we hit our first goal. We have 1290 people.

Wow.

Secondary goal now is 25, 000 book sales within 30 days of launch. And working backwards from that, I'm pretty confident we're going to get it. And I would say, like, on a more subjective level, I wanted to work on something that I was proud of because I didn't see anything out there that could actually help people start a business in a very short time without money. Like, there's a lot of books out there that give recipes, but they don't. But they don't actually solve the problem of why haven't people started if there's so many recipes already?

Right.

And that's why you need to work on your starting and work on your asking. And I wanted to put one thing out there. I think you make a dentist specifically for entrepreneurship. So when I was 10 years old and I wanted to get rich, be an entrepreneur, but I had no clue. Like, I read Rich dad, poor dad, and it's like, I was like, I want to be a rich dad, but it doesn't tell you what to do next. It's just like, well, just be the rich dad. I was like, tell me how. And I do believe that, you know, you have 52 weekends a year to change your life. And so, okay, at least you can follow a framework of being able to get there over time. And I do believe me and Tal were able to pull that together in this book. And I'm very proud of what we've been able to do. So why did I write it? I wanted to test to see if I could actually do it for other people. What's been able to do for myself and change my life?

Yeah, I mean, as someone who's read the book and I've known you for so long, and as an entrepreneur myself, honestly, I was just like, I don't know if I can write about a book, dude. Like, I, I like one of the things I was reading, I was just like, if I, I never wrote a book. So if I ever wrote a book, I'd be like, this is like a great example of a very. Not only practical, but you're, you're very good at building momentum. So important in business. Momentum is huge. I always say you try to build a business that allows you to push the boulder down the hill, not up the hill. And you are building all these great momentum pieces as they're going through, whether they're just getting started, they get their first ass, they get the investment of the dollar, they get, you know, they make their sale. Okay, now let's, let's start to scale this. And it's in a. Very. Gentle is not the word for it because it sounds like you're being soft on people, but it's in a very empathetic way, which I find incredibly, incredibly strong. Because what I found working with the people on the Hunter all NBA show, with the people I've met throughout the years is there is a distance between me and somebody else because I've been through a lot of pain and a lot of hardship and a lot of things that to me just seem easy now it's easy for me to go through that. And for someone who's just getting started, it's just hard for them to even talk about their business idea with somebody else. So your approach has been really, I would say, empathetic, kind and really missing in the, in the business book world. Because most people, it's either very mindset driven, like Richard Poor dad, or it's very like, you know, just get out and do it goggin style. What's wrong with you, you wimp? We're not. And I don't think either work, you know, I don't think either work. So I think you struck a really good balance. Were you conscious of this when you're writing it?

You know, for everyone out there, what's your unfair advantage? What are you making that's uniquely different and So I went and read all the business books that are out there, and I admire them. You know, four Hour Workweek is still a classic, and it's changed the most lives I've pretty much ever seen from a business book. And I thought it was great. I loved him. I'm actually talking to him tomorrow. I thought there's some concepts that we could expand upon, like the starting concept, the asking concept, and then sharing it through my story and my experiences. I didn't see anything else that could do it. I saw impact in these different books, like, you know, subtle art or atomic habits. And, you know, there's people like Goggins. I think that's fine. I just don't think that's sustainable, nor is it realistic. And it's very. It's a temporary hit, not actually something that could create substance for specifically your business.

And not everybody has your circumstances.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, like, do I want to do a million push ups to prove I'm not a wimp? Like, that'd be kind of cool, but it's not something I can do regularly. I'd rather do a few push ups every day for a long period of time. And with the book, I would say it was an ongoing process. This is something that everyone can copy, which is, I had a dream to write a book, and so I put together a proposal, and then I brought it to Lisa Demona. She's like James Clear's agent and Seth Godin and Ramit. And then she laughed at me. I was like, Lisa, like, come on. I'm like, AppSumo. My YouTube channel's got like 50,000 subscribers at this point. I've got a mailing list@noah kagan.com. she's like, no, dude, your proposal is a joke. The original book was called the Challenge, and it was all the challenges. And she's like, if you're serious about it, write a real proposal. And I. I really like this concept of Every rejection is a test if you really want something. Like, there's. There's a guy who promised me to help with the book, and he rejected me yesterday. He's like, actually, I don't want to do it. And I really like my maturity where I paused and then I respond. I don't get emotional and react. That's one of the things I've worked on in therapy. It's like, how do you pause and then respond to something versus be emotional? I was like, thanks, man. I'd love to understand how come you don't want to Help now and let's go for a walk. He's like, yeah, let's do that. And the rejection, though was also a test where like, I believe so much in what I'm doing. I'm like, no worries. There's somewhere else I can help another person a different way. And I, I really appreciate that. And same thing. When the book started, I was like, I really want to have a book. Like, it's been 20 years. I never thought I was ready. Like people have memoirs at 20. I was like, maybe if you're Britney Spears, fine.

Done.

A lot of people, I don't think they've done enough stuff to actually make an excellent book. And the reality of books is most people don't buy them. Some people buy them, and the ones that get bought don't get read. So to actually get past all that is nearly impossible. Most books, Most of my YouTube videos get a million views, which is unbelievable. They all started with a few hundred, by the way. That's a big thing people are missing. It all started with a few hundred books. If you sell a million books, you're basically elite.

Elite.

Almost no one ever sells a million books.

Yeah.

And so it was going to take a lot of work to get to that point. And I was like, yeah, I want to at least do this. I want to see if I can do it. So I hired the best proposal writer in the world, David Maldewar. He wrote James's. James Clear's Atomic Habits. Pretty much best selling book of the decade. He wrote that proposal.

That thing doesn't lose, man. That thing's on top of the charts all the time.

That's. And there's reasons for that. If you study James success, you can understand the elements and I can break some of them down if you want to copy it. Of why his book did so well. Right. And so we had David do that. Then after the book sold, I was like, okay, maybe, maybe let me find the best business right in the world. Because I'm a great marketer, I'm a great. I've done a lot of business, but I don't know how to write stories. So then I cold emailed Tall Ross. I was like, tall, you want to help me? Well, let me finish that, David Mulder. So then I spent a year with David writing a proposal. And David took my proposal and was like, this is dog. He deleted all of it and we redid it from scratch. And that took a year to write. And then Lisa finally was like, sure, I'll do it. So again, coming back to the original point, when you get rejected, just think, is my dream big enough, greater than the sphere, so I at least can keep going? And I wanted it. I wanted it. And I think most of us want these things. And we're. The dream's not strong enough or not clear enough. And we'll give up a little bit too soon. And we work through in the book, like, how to not give up too soon. That's why we teach the law of 100. And yeah, with the book. Finally, Lisa accepted it. We sold it to the best publisher, Penguin number one publisher for business. Then I cold emailed Tall Roz, and I was like, I love your books. They're back there literally on my shelf. I was like, dude, you're my idol.

You're.

You're bald and Jewish like me. You think there's any chance we could work together? He's like, no. And I was like, you sure? And I bugged him. And he's like, sure. Seriously? And then we spent two years writing it and I think treating it more like a product launch.

Yeah.

And ongoing. And this is a takeaway for any business owner out there. How do you involve your customers in your business? I think that's definitely one of our. Our non secrets of success. Which is. As we were doing Million Dollar Weekend, I'm building a launch team. As I'm doing Million Dollar Weekend, I'm tweeting a lot, every concept in the book. Not all of them, but a lot of them to see. You'll read the book. You're like, holy. He's actually. I see how he tested the titles. The chapter titles are tested, the COVID color is tested. The green is actually. If you go to a business section, there's no green business books. Check it next time. I tested the. The subtitles. We tested with the audience, with the customers to see how we can make sure it made an impact. And that led eventually, finally to be able to have a book today that, you know, three, four years later that I'm very proud that I know gets results where. Yeah. In the beginning, it was a book called the Challenge.

Yeah.

That Lisa laughed at. And by the way, I love Lisa. She's like my second mom. She's my big. One of my biggest cheerleaders. So I'm blessed to have her on my side.

I gotta say that just that last story you gave us about make. You know, the backstory of creating this book has been so valuable. And I just wanted to pull out some nuggets for those who are listening, for those who don't really know Noah. Noah's probably the. One of the most successful people I know. Like, he's, he's, he's made it for all intensive purposes. He's got successful track record, he's got a successful business, he's a multi millionaire. He lives his best life. He's got great friends, he's got a great network, right? He, he's got it going on for him. He doesn't need somebody telling him he sucks, right? But he's willing, he's willing for somebody to say, this is trash. I don't want to work with you. And he still goes back and says, I, okay, I am trash. I'm gonna figure this out. I don't get better. I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna nag this person until they submit, which is in the book, by the way. You gotta follow up and you gotta be consistent, which is huge, because most people just, their initial answer is always no. And this because their time is valuable, but they, they admire somebody who's, who's consistent, right? So you, you don't need this, you don't need to be a beginner again, you know, but you are comfortable being uncomfortable. You're comfortable being, okay, I gotta learn something new. I gotta learn how to write a better title. Test it, you know, test the color of the book. Figure out, you know, a better proposal, you know, and you have the patience to say, okay, this is gonna take this two, three, four years. I've done other things that took longer, but for me, that, that was very, very powerful because, you know, you could be a lot of successful people I've met in dinners, masterminds, VIP speaker dinners, all these things. They, they are good at something. They get successful at something. They have a huge business and they're making, and they think they're good at everything. Like, no, you're just good at that, buddy. You know, And I, I love, love that.

Well, dude, one, you're awesome. I love you. You're being, you're so complimentary. I'd say a few parts that people can replicate is how do you find experts in areas that you're not. I had a best friend, I won't call him out, but he wrote a book. And I was like, I clearly can tell. And he was so proud. He wrote it himself. And I was like, I can tell you wrote it yourself. It's not that great of a book. I mean, this is a published mainstream book, and it didn't do that well. And, and there's no shade on him. But why not find someone who's an expert to support you? So I think that's one thing. And still in appsumo just got off with Moody who's a marketing my marketing coach I've got aiming Al Abdul who's a marketing coach at Pam reboot IO is marketing business coach CEO coach Rajati Shmukherji advisor on operations for a business he runs indeed.com so how are you getting supported in air? I'm not a great writer. I was an ESL straight up. English is a second language in college and even to this day I don't know how some of these words work. It's very complicated. But I found someone who's the best at writing and I can work with them. The second thing that you know, we literally we have sections in the book around getting going. You know, the book started from 10 years ago when I wrote a blog post on Tim's site. I got started that blog post. People went and went viral. People loved it and that led me here. So I got going. But I think even the bigger concept to take away is that I'm still willing to swing and fail. No, I love it. I'm still willing to get laughed at by Lisa. I was still willing that, you know, I, I put out these different things and I, I'm open to feedback that the customer and I didn't agree with all of it. Read the chapters like I did this last chapter and I believe his name was John. He was like, I told the story and the book ends with my father dying and me, you know, running off to India and it's wild stories about how people to live, how I think people can live their lives. And this guy's like, yeah, this story's bull and I don't care about it. And I was like. And my first reply is thank you. And so the more we can be comfortable swinging, the more we can be comfortable being like, it's not them rejecting me. That's why we have challenges about working on rejection. It's not them rejecting me. They're just rejecting the thing. And that's an opportunity for me to improve. And that, that can apply whether you're starting a business or whether you're growing a six, seven, eight figure business nine and beyond.

I love the fact that you could separate the work from the experience. Like that story's real, that's you. Whatever that happened. But that he. You're able to take the objectiveness of the comment and be like, okay, I gotta, I gotta just Absorb it.

How do you enjoy it? Enjoy the rejection? Like, I'm not in a sick way, like, oh, let me go get rejected. But, like, you know, part of it, like, all right, when I'm doing a YouTube video, I'm. I say I'm gonna get rejected 10 times. And I go to video. Now my videos are like me asking first class passengers or me knocking on doors or doing some of these things. And what's amazing about it is that people like seeing the rejection. They like seeing, wow, this person's at least trying. And that inspires them to think about, what can I try for myself? And by doing the trying and failing, yes, some people have said no, but others have let me go in their private jet. Others have let me be on their yacht. Others have taken me out on sailboats. And that's all because I just asked them, like, hey, what do you do for a living? And that's not an exclusive thing that only I can do. It's just a practice that everyone can do, whether they're getting started or whether they're, you know, established.

I feel like we're kind of going for full circle. Like, we. No one does this alone. I started out by talking about the story of how I reached out to you. Like, Webinar Ninja is a. It was a highly. It's a highly complicated software. It's highly complicated. When I got started, I reached out to you. I was very innocent. You gave me some good advice. But I realized, you know, if I'm going to build something great, I need help. I hired Dan Martel, who's the best SAS coach in the world, and he helped Nicole and I get through some rough times in the business, and we really were able to build some race systems with the podcast. You know, I intentionally was like, I have to become friends with some of the best podcasters because I'm gonna pick up something. Like you said, success leaves clues. So I became friends with Jordan Harbinger, who's like, one of my closest friends. Amazing guy, amazing podcast. You know, I moved like 10 blocks away from John Lee Dumas in San Diego, and we were over his house all the time. I was like, how the hell did you build this incredible empire? Blah, blah, blah. And the thing I love about this concept of being around winners is things don't seem that hard when it's the normal thing, when. When everybody's winning, when everybody is doing something spectacular, doing something great is not. That doesn't seem so out of reach. So I love the fact that you've surrounded yourself with great people. You've surrounded yourself with a great team with this book. And before we wrap up, I just want to talk a little bit about, you know, you talked about the goal of the book, you know, and this kind of being like your, you know, thing you want to leave behind and make sure that people can. Can take and make use of it. For those who are going to pick up the book and read it, I'm sure everybody listening is going to be dying to pick this up. And we'll talk about where to get it in a moment. But for those who do take this book on, read it, implement it, right? How can they thank you for what is a way for them to give back to you?

One thing. I won. Damn, you're so nice. Kind. You're very kind. And there's a book by Dalai Lama, I think the Art of Kindness, something to that title. And it's about receiving compliments. And I just really have appreciated how. I don't know how sweet you are in this chat.

I mean, I'm not trying to be sweet, it's just that.

No, I appreciate it.

Dude, this is good.

No, thank you, man. Thank you. Well, two. 2 comments I'd about what you said, because I think it's so critical what you said. I think it was actually almost understated, is that you don't have to have a lot of money to be around winners, right? People think, oh, well, no. And Omar have money, so they can hire these people. A lot of the people as well, I find really early. And we go over in the book called Prefluencers. So let me give you a great example. Today I noticed on Twitter and Jeremy on our team noticed on Twitter this kid, really, literally kid doing a lot of really great tweets, treats, and just connected with them. And he put together a presentation about working together. And now he's making good money doing all my social media, doing Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Turns out he's 17 and lives with his parents.

I love it. I love it.

I was just like, yeah. And I, you know, can't buy that. Yeah. I was like, do I have to give you a chaperone letter? Like, does your mom come with us on team trips? Like, how does this. We're about to talk to her anyways, you know, his name's Jay Yang. Shout out to him. He's amazing. But the point there is that not. That's not, you know, someone who's a celebrity yet. But I would say a lot of my successes is looking and not like oh, transactionally. I've got to go do this sneaky thing. But it's just being around. As you were saying with you, you went on early to a lot of these people that you're like, they're doing something interesting. I like it. I'm going to connect with them. And the easiest way you can do that right now on your phone is just send someone a thank you who you consume their material.

Yeah.

So just go and say, jay, I like your material. Or there's. I. I'm really into pinball. So there's a pinball guy like Escher Fincoff, and I was looking at his, his message, his email or dm, just like, yo, man, I love your pinball stuff because one day maybe I'll ask him. I might hire him as a pinball coach.

That's that.

That's also what I was thinking. Now, for. For your question about people thanking me, I'll tell you the one thing I really want. I want people to get the book and take action for themselves. Straight up. Like, get the book, do some and tell me what you did for yourself. Like, I don't need more money. The book doesn't. Literally, I don't even think I'll get paid from the book. I spent all of it making and promoting the book. But do something for yourself and then send me a picture. Probably posted online on your social media or anywhere online where you're reading the book. And I cannot wait. Straight up. I'm like, so excited about that. I'm like, I can't believe it. I want to see people on the toilet. I want to see them on the, on the desk, on the bed, on a beach, having, like their highlighter or pen or digital on Kindle or whatever it is and be like, holy. And then doing things for themselves with that.

That.

That's what I'm always inspired by, the people that take action for themselves.

Yeah, guys, that's your assignment. That's your assignment. Grab the book, take a picture at Noah Kagan on Twitter or Instagram, wherever you want to do. Take a picture when you go and take one. Do one of these challenges when you ask for the discount, when you go to, you know, get your coffee and maybe in the comments talk about the experience. Maybe it worked out, maybe it didn't, but it doesn't matter. You went for it. You put yourself out there. That. That to me would be gold for Noah and for everybody else who's going to learn and get encouraged by you sharing, by you sharing. Like, look, I'm picking up a book in my free time. Yeah, whatever. You know, I could be just enjoying the beach, but I'm actually reading the book. Yeah. Maybe I could just go and get my coffee and I asked for that discount, but I went for it. And it's going to encourage other people to do that. One other assignment I'm also gave, other than buying the book and sharing it on social, is you got to subscribe to YouTube, Noah's YouTube channel. Noah's YouTube channel is brilliant, dude. I have it like, I watch YouTube on my TV at home when I'm having breakfast. And some of the stuff he's been putting out recently with the interviews of, of millionaires and billionaires, interviewing people on private jets, interviewing people. Who are these people that go first class and business class and all that stuff like that internationally? Some of them will surprise you, dude. Some of the people are not like, you know, Daddy Warbucks, right. So check out his YouTube channel. It's one of my favorites. It's. It's definitely in my rotation. Noah, thank you so much. I love it. But I want to wrap up with one story, dude, because can I add.

One thing for everyone out there?

Yeah.

Just one quick comment that. So YouTube channel, AppSumo, all these things all started with one customer. It all started with one video. And the first appsumo sale was $12.

We all started zero.

We haul everyone. Facebook, Airbnb, Microsoft, Dell. It was a few people in a very short amount of time. And getting one first customer and not worrying about the million necessarily, which you do need to be mindful of, but just getting going and then that leads to these amazing destinations, whether it's, you know, my first video was shirtless on YouTube. And now, yes, it's a $30,000 video, you know, highly produced, but that, that, that took time. And the, the way to get there is you start today. So I do want to encourage people to think about that. It's not some unique advantage. It's just the, the immigrant mentality of getting going with your effort and having good attitude while you're doing it. What is the. The wrap up?

I love, I love it. And I want to share a story and I think you'd appreciate this. And this is a story for everybody listening who's thinking like, all right, I gotta surround myself with good people. I gotta be around people that I want to be like, how, what do I do? How much is going to cost me? I don't have much money. I just spend all my money on the holidays, whatever it is, right? 2014. January 2014. This is a pivotal moment for Nicole and I. We're living in New York. We're barely making rent. It's like, I don't really share the story a lot because it's so painful even for me to think about, but we're barely making rent. We have started the 100 MBA, but it's just moving slowly. We're still off traction. I'm still kind of figuring things out. Nicole's doing video gigs. She's new film academy graduate. She's doing video gigs that, you know, make ends meet. There's an event called New Media Expo in. In Vegas. And I was like, I know a few people that are going to that I think we should go to this event. And we're like, we don't have any money. We scrap. We scrap together. Some early, early bird, poor man's ticket. We get the cheapest spirit airline ticket to get to. We go in some fleabag hotel on Fremont street called the golden nugget. That's like 34 a night. We find our way to this event, right? At this event, we. We meet people that now are like the rock stars of business. Like, at the time, they were just getting started. We met Nathan Barry there, and we had waffles from. With him in breakfast. We met Covert Barr and Chase Reeves and those guys over at Fizzle when they were doing, like, crazy amazing stuff. The gray guys, we met, you know, Mike Vardy. We met Justin Jackson. We met. What's Amy Porterfield. We met so many interesting people. John Lee Dumas had a party there, and we went to his party in his hotel room. It was incredible because everybody was not, you know, who they are today. They were still kind of getting started, but we all kind of got to know each other. And since that event, first of all, it gave me a chance to see what's possible. But also, we became friends and we supported each other throughout the way. And when Noah was doing something or when, you know, Nathan was doing something, or when, you know, Justin Jackson was launching, you know, transistor fm, you know, I had his back, he had my back. And that's how it gets done. That's how it gets. No one does this alone does. And I did it with, like, I literally. We didn't have any money, dude. We. But we went. We came back inspired. We came back with a plan of action. We came back with, okay, we gotta get serious. We gotta really do this. No more sleeping in. Let's make this happen. But I wanted to share that story with people who were hearing this. This is just a practical example, buying the next event that is in your space. Maybe you're in E Commerce, maybe you're in nutrition, maybe you're in whatever. And go in there and just meet people, make friends, go to the like. I've literally before this event, I went to events locally in New York. I didn't have a ticket. I just went to the after parties. I just went to where people are meeting up afterwards. So I wanted to share that with you because I don't normally share that story, but I think that it's so important to just put your money where your mouth is.

Yeah. I also think being around interesting people is inspiring, as you were saying. And like the amount of people that have come back full circle around. Jordan's getting going on his show now. It's a popular show, but we're able to help each other. You are getting on your stuff and then you hit me up in future stuff. And it's been, it's available for everyone worldwide. And I think that's a great message from you.

Yeah. And I think what, what I've learned is that we all want each other to win. Like, we, we understand it's not a zero sum game. We all can win. I want to see you succeed. I want to see you happy. I want to see your work proliferate and, and, and people to consume it and use it because it's good stuff. It's great stuff, dude. So I want to thank you, man, for your time, for sharing the amazing advice, the stories, but also sharing yourself and putting yourself out there. Our audience, I'm sure, is going to love it. I'm going to talk a little bit more after we wrap up here about where to get the book, how to subscribe to YouTube, Noah's YouTube channel, but also just how important it is, guys, to take action. And what Noah asks you to do in the book is not hard. It's actually not. He's not asking a lot, but it actually, it's. He. He chooses things for you to do that actually make the most impact. This is actually what matters. This is what actually makes you money. This is what actually gets your business going. So. And thank you so much, man, for sharing your time and sharing your knowledge. It's been amazing catching up, man.

Thank you for having me, man.

It's always great to chat with Noah. He's a fantastic mind and he's just a good person, too. He's always had my back over the years. He always helped me. He's been a great friend. And this is rare to find somebody so smart and so giving at the same time. I'm so glad that I got to know him over the years because not only did I learn a ton from him through his own experiences and through his own struggles in his own businesses, but he also challenged me to think differently about things, to question my own bs, and to just take action and learn after you take action. This is something that Noah's great at. There's tons of great exercises in this book, Million Dollar Weekend to get out of yourself, to challenge yourself, to build your entrepreneurial skills so that you are ready to take on the challenges it will inevitably serve to you. You know, businesses will serve challenges to you that you're going to have to take on. Like I mentioned, Noah's channel on YouTube is amazing. I love his YouTube channel. It just hit a million subscribers. An amazing milestone, but it's definitely one of those channels I frequent a lot. I subscribe to. I watch the videos regularly when I'm having breakfast. It's inspirational, it's educational, but at the same time, it's a lot of fun. So if you haven't started a business or haven't grown your business to your liking, you have no excuse. Now go ahead and pick up Million Dollar weekend over@milliondollarweekend.com. you will not regret it. I love the website design, by the way, over there. Check it out. They have this cool feature where you just click the letter B and you can buy the book. Super slick, super awesome. Go ahead and check it out. Milliondollarweekend.com that's it for me today, guys. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did drop us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or rate us over on Spotify, it means a ton for us when we get reviews because I read every single one. I look at every single rating. It helps tell other people to check out the show, helps the show grow and get to reach new audiences and new listeners. So thank you for taking one minute and doing that for us. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. If I had to describe Noah Kagan in a word or two, it would have to be action taker. This guy just does stuff. He makes things happen. He kicks up dust. He basically creates his own luck because he's always doing things and making these happen and trying things and launching things and he keeps things interesting and fun. And in that process, he learns a lot. He learns what works, what doesn't. He learns about himself and he creates incredible products and services along the way. So if you're ever in doubt and you're overthinking something or you're wondering if you should do something or not, give it a try. What's the minimum viable version of what you're thinking about? Make it happen. Put it out there. Put one foot in front of the other. One of the first actions you can take is picking up a book. And I'm telling you this because it's a great book. I don't get a kickback. I don't get any commission. I just love what he put together and think that it should be read by anybody who needs to take action. Thanks so much for listening guys, and I'll check you in Wednesday's Episode Q and A Wednesday I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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