In this episode of the My First Million podcast, guest entrepreneur Noah Kagan shares a concise, three‑step framework for marketing any business and expands on the habits that have driven his own success. He argues that marketers should (1) pick a single, primary goal and concentrate all effort on it for a set period, (2) clearly define a narrow target audience and use language that resonates with them, and (3) craft three core brand messages that become the business’s signature. Kagan illustrates how he applies this framework to his own ventures, focusing on YouTube as his current primary channel. He also describes a low‑risk, high‑volume content testing approach: produce a flood of fast, inexpensive pieces (tweets, Instagram posts, LinkedIn updates) and double‑down on the formats that align with the core messages and show traction. Beyond marketing tactics, Kagan emphasizes aggressive networking—hosting lunches, conferences, and meet‑ups—to meet smart people and create value‑exchange relationships. He advises early‑stage founders to launch many low‑cost side projects (e.g., a daily newsletter via SendFox or a 30‑day YouTube challenge) to discover what works, leveraging their day‑job as a runway. Throughout, he stresses the importance of personal brand building through consistent writing and content creation, noting that his multimillion‑dollar success stems largely from connecting people and iterating on ideas. The conversation also touches on mentorship, the value of offering free help to attract collaborators, and the mindset of treating early‑life low cost of living as an opportunity to take abundant risks.
Chapters
What is my unique strategy or what is my strategy of doing that? I think where I've been very successful is I just do a lot of stuff and eventually something works. So I think the two things, there's a few things in marketing. I'll say three things that I think are simplest, simplest, you know, that's not a real word, but number one, have a just singular goal. Facebook did it. AppSumo.com has done it. And I think with even recently with my Dork World and helping people overcome fear and start businesses, I'm kind of like having a bunch of goals. I'm like, here's our TikTok goal, here's our Instagram goal, here's our email list goal, here's our organic traffic goal, here's this. I'm like, what is our most important goal? And I was like, just even pick one for some period of time. And so I think I've come into that realization, like, let's just pick YouTube and just be okay with that. And guess what? That'll rise all other ships. So don't be ignorant of those other ones, but just focus on one. Second thing is that as I was doing a lot of this content recently, which has gotten me really fulfilled, and it feels good, feels great.
On YouTube or OKDork.com?
Mostly YouTube, mostly in YouTube world. The second thing that's been most critical, and this is really hard because everyone says they do this or wants to do this but doesn't, who is my audience? Who is the audience that I really want to be helping? And communicate with. Because on one hand, I want to, I want to connect with like 9-figure CEOs and 10-figure CEOs. And I, you know, I actually don't think there's a lot of content of how do you go from 7 to 8 or 8 to 9, and I can share how we do it, but that audience is really small and they don't really need as much help. And so we've realized like our audience is dudes 25 to 40 that have tried to start a business that haven't been successful, that are afraid of failing and need a little bit of help. And so I think the second part of marketing that I've gotten revisiting is who am I really trying to talk to and what are the words? So like, here's some words that we've even identified that our audience resonates with: rat race, freedom. So I'm like, really? All right. Self-doubt. So those are some of the things that I'm thinking about. And then the third part that we're, we're thinking, I think it's applicable for every business is what is your unique strategy of success? Like, so with that, we have two parts. One, what's our core messages that we're This is our unique, like, bread and butter that you will know. I was talking with Ramit about this and he's like, what did the— you have so many messages, just pick 3. So I was like, all right, challenges to overcome fear, million-dollar weekend, and behind the scenes of an 8-figure company. That's the 3 that we're going to do. And that's it. Uh, and then the second part of it, say that again. So those 3 are the 3, what the 3, basically let's take a step back. So 1, what's your goal? Pick 1 goal. Number 2, who is your customer? Number 3, what is your core messages? That people know you for. So for me, those are the 3 that I'm going to be known for. Challenges, which I always tell people to do the coffee challenge, which is take, get asked for 10% off when you buy coffee. You're going to be afraid. You're going to learn about yourself and you're going to grow. Secondly is behind the scenes of an 8-figure company. So like, how do you like that? There's not a lot of people that have that experience and I can do that. And the third part is how do you actually get a million-dollar business or $100,000, you know, a million-dollar business started in a weekend. Which I've done many, many times and I can share, which is unique. And then the last part of this marketing equation that I think I'm exploring and revisiting around all these things is what is my unique strategy or what is my strategy of doing that? I think where I've been very successful is I just do a lot of stuff and eventually something works, but I think I will be even more successful slowing down, being a little more thoughtful with these things. And so our unique strategy lately has been Do the fast stuff, but on lower risk items. So basically tweet and Instagram and LinkedIn posts, fucking everything, like throw it all out there unlimitedly. Uh, and then based on what works aligning to our core messages, that's what we'll go deeper in. That's what we'll write a blog post about. That's what we'll do an interview about. That's what we will do a YouTube video about. And so it's just having a higher likelihood of home runs. That's the word.
And how would you, um, Hi, Sean.
I'm gonna hold the mic like you. You look like a therapist. Yeah. Tell me how you really feel. So how old are you guys?
You're almost 40?
I'm 30. I look and feel 32, but I'd say I'm about in physicality in our society, 38, not physicality in our whatever traditions of 38.
Okay, cool. Um, I am 32 and I look and feel 38.
So you do look 38, bro.
I'm trying to go the other way. Um, so I would love— so, so if you were 21 again, um, 21, no network, no name brand, um, you're starting up from scratch, and you don't have to go the same pathway you went, um, I'm curious, you know, if you had the luxury of picking any path now that you know of so many more paths than you probably knew about when you were 21, what path would you go down?
Honestly, I think I'd copy my path.
Which would be what? So you're 21, what do you do?
I'll tell you exactly what I did. I didn't know what the fuck to do. So I went and tried a bunch of stuff out to figure out what to do. I think the only, I think one question is what delta would I have chosen? And I'll tell you exactly what that was. So at 21, I didn't know, I didn't even know what a BS was. I got it from Berkeley. I was like, oh, Bachelor of Science, that's cool. Everyone kind of follows a stream, right? Like when you graduate from college, which I think less and less is becoming important. Everyone's like, oh, get a job, go to Intel, go to wherever. And I was like, Okay, I guess that's what everyone's doing. But I've always wanted to start my own company, I just didn't know what to do. And so, I think the two things that I did really well when I had that day job at Intel was I used that as my investor, and the two things I'd recommend is that I started a lot of businesses. So if you're like, "I don't have any idea," two things you can do. One, go to SendFox.com and start a newsletter and send an email once a week for 365 days, or for 52 weeks. That's number one. Or number two, go on YouTube, take the Ryan Holiday challenge, and post a video on YouTube for 30 days. Start there. The second thing that I did is that I connected with people very aggressively, and I asked anyone I knew for anyone that they knew that was really smart. That's how I met Tim Ferriss. That's how I met Oren Hoffman, Dave McClure, James Hong, Max Levchin, Ramit Sethi. I basically put on events. I hosted lunches. I organized conferences. I didn't know anyone, but I wanted to bring smart people together. So if you don't know any smart people, Find one smart person, say, "Hey, you should meet this smart person," and then just go and hang out with both of them, guy and girl. And guess what you could do on Zoom if you're in remote country, or if you don't have any connections, I think one of the ones I've really observed lately, every person I've hired that's been the most impressive has done two things. They've offered something for free, a value that I've wanted, and they did it without asking. And those people have been the most impressive. And guess what? Now, they're like, "Hey, I want to meet this person. I want to do this thing. I want to grow here." that most of them are now working with me. And so I think I would have— that was something very early on I was very aggressive on meeting people and just trying to build my brand. In terms of career, I think the two things— one thing I did very well is I was really great about following my curiosity and things I was really excited about. So I really loved Facebook and I really loved Mint. And I was like, I'll do whatever it takes to work there. I think the only difference I would have chosen is find someone 10 to 20 years ahead of me that I think is doing the things I would like to do in 10 to 20 years and be obsessed or aggressive in figuring out how to make them excited to want to be a part of my life. So I had one guy, Doug Hirsch, who was my boss at Facebook, and it didn't really work out as well for as a mentorship, but it's nice because like you can say, oh, that's how you do a relationship. Oh, that's how you do a career. Uh, and it'll shortcut it. You just have to figure out the real most important thing is how do you get them to give a fuck about you? And the best way to do that is help them with whatever things they're working on.
So you want to hear something crazy, Sean? I don't know if you know this, but I don't know if Noah knows it, but I launched my— I created my— so my company, which is a— it's an okay company. It's been good for me. It started because Noah had a blog post about organizing conferences and I was like, I— what was it called? It was called like, how I made $90K hosting a conference or something. Was that it, Noah?
Mm-hmm. I made a quarter million dollars in conferences because I didn't know I was gonna make money doing them.
Yeah, so I saw that and I was like, well, I had a book club at the time and I was like, well, I've been hosting these meetups, but I don't make any money from it. I should like make money off this thing. And so I started my company and I've made millions of dollars personally off conferences because of that blog post. And more importantly, or maybe not more importantly, I've met, I met actually all 3 people on this call and most of my friends and coworkers doing that blog post because of that blog post. I met Neville because of that blog post. Neville, the best man at my wedding, I met because of that.
Good for you.
Um, so, so what you're describing of what you would do and how basically you described like hosting events and which is similar in the same vein as posting content, I did the same thing and it made me millions of dollars and it I met all my best friends that way.
Awesome. I mean, I think the only other thing that I was doing at the time that I think everyone should do— so number one, build your brand in some way, even if you're not trying to be a personal brand. I think practicing writing is a skill you can use in sales, you can use in development, you can use in design, you can use it almost literally forever. Uh, I think the connections, very valuable. Literally probably the reason I'm a multimillionaire is because I've been able to meet and help people and connect people, connecting and meeting. But the third thing was that I was starting a lot of businesses. And I think what's beautiful is if, especially earlier in your life, you're, Cost of living is so damn low, and my cost of living is still damn low because I haven't grown up in some ways, and I'm maturing in certain ways, that it's so low that you should take a lot of risk very early on in trying a lot of things out. So, like, when I was working at Intel, I was doing this college consulting. I did a thing called Ninjacard.com. I was putting on these conferences that I charged for. And then I was working at Mint. I started doing the Facebook apps. Like, I did all these games, and I started making a lot of money, and I was working at morning. I was working on weekends. I was working at lunch. Nights. I was working. I kept going and I kept trying a lot of different— and eventually, after probably 2.5, 3 years, got into '04, and 3 years later, my side hustle finally became my main hustle.
