In this episode of the My First Million podcast, host Sam Parr and co‑host Shaan Puri interview entrepreneur Noah Kagan. Kagan walks through his eclectic career—starting with Facebook games, moving through personal‑finance apps, SaaS (AppSumo), e‑commerce collaborations, and finally content creation. He emphasizes that the most valuable outcome of his work is a “rich” life defined by meaningful relationships rather than pure monetary gain. Kagan shares concrete tactics for entering emerging markets: start a YouTube channel, Instagram account, or newsletter to showcase products, and use genuine flattery to open doors. He contrasts two mind‑sets—chasing immediate money versus pursuing learning—and advises that in one’s 20s it’s wise to chase hot, high‑growth opportunities for short‑term profit, while in the 30s the focus should shift to purpose, mortality, and building lasting value. Kagan also talks about his passion for helping underdogs succeed, citing examples like YouTuber‑doctor Ali Abdaal, AppSumo‑promoted companies such as Meetfox and PhoneWagon, and his own weekly newsletter that spotlights other creators. The conversation closes with a quote that “your rewards in life will be in exact proportion to your contribution,” underscoring his belief that giving to others fuels personal fulfillment.
Chapters
opened up a world where my life is more rich. Not rich even monetarily, just like rich, like fulfilling, because of all these really cool people I've gotten to connect with. I think what's interesting is like, how do you become a part? I think what's more interesting about the Facebook games besides whatever people spam or not spam is like, how do you be around the tidal waves? So I think where I've been very fortunate and lucky is that in my career, either I'm an ambulance chaser or I'm like a visionary or I'm maybe a little bit of both, where like I was in the Facebook game world, I was in personal finance world, I was in social networking world, I was in SaaS world with Sumo, I was in e-commerce world with, you know, some of Shopify, and lately I'm back in content world. And I think what's been the beautiful part about that, you know, in AppSumo, I've been in the software world, which has been amazing. I think the amazing part about that is that it's opened up a world where my life is more rich, not rich even monetarily, just like rich, like fulfilling, because of all these really cool people I've gotten to connect with. Like, I gotta meet this guy Nick Nimmin, and I'm gonna talk with him on Friday about videos. And then I've gotta meet this guy Javier Mercedes, who lives in Austin, who came over and showed me how lighting, like, okay, look, let's switch lighting here, let's switch lighting here. And I think what's amazing is try to figure out which category is gonna either be big, or which category you're interested in, and then how to interject yourself in that conversation. So you're like, well, no, I'm not a developer. I don't have any e-commerce products to start. Guess what? Start a fucking YouTube channel reviewing those products, or start an Instagram account where each day you just post, hey, here's my favorite e-commerce product today, here's why. Or start a newsletter on SendFox.com, like, hey, here's my weekly e-commerce product of the week, and email that company saying, hey, I just promoted you this week. One of the easiest things that anyone, especially early on, can do is flatter people. Legitimately, don't just bullshit because it's obvious, but just flatter. Hey, I love your stuff. That's an easy way to open the door and then do what you can to start helping people. And so I think I've been lucky and intentional about what am I curious about and what's becoming more popular and how can I connect with people that are inspiring me.
I would also say like, Sam, I wouldn't call those that Facebook game era because there's a whole bunch of other friends that we have that started, or like kind of caught their first big wave on when Facebook platform opened up. Like the very first episode of this podcast, Suli, that's how he caught his big wave, was he made a Facebook app called Superlatives, and it was about, you know, saying which of your friends is most likely to end up in jail, or, you know, stuff, goofy stuff like that. Or, you know, uh, I know some of the LolApps guys listen to this, and they were— oh yeah, they were, you know, the fastest growing company in the world at the time, probably. Like you know, oh my God, you know, you launch a product and get to 10 million users in a day and that just breaks your mental model of the world. And so I think two things. A, you're right that the people who go there were the type of people that sniffed out interesting spaces before they're proven out. So if you're that type of person, you're going to end up in a lot of those types of situations. The second is you get this crash course on hypergrowth and marketing in a way that's like, you can't learn. Like this guy who, um, the guy who sold TBH to Facebook recently, um, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he tweeted this thing out yesterday that was like, it was good. First time social app founder, he's like, oh, we're gonna build a platform for intellectual conversations. It's like, you know, I get 23 users and 5% retention. And then he's like, by the 5th year, that same founder's like, all right, let's just have people vote on who's hot. And it's like, result: 10 million users, 40% retention. It's like You know, um, it's very true. It's like, uh, the only way to really ever get good is by putting yourself out there. So when you're saying go start a YouTube channel, or somebody goes and has to build a Facebook app, and you see that the apps that grow are the ones that tap into people's core needs— like they want to know about their friends, they want to take quizzes about themselves and learn, you know, goofy personality quizzes— and it's the person on the sidelines who's like, oh, all that stuff's dumb. And what they're missing is that they don't sort of figure out You know, at the end of the day, you get rewarded for giving people what they want, not what you want people to want. And then the second thing is that if you really want to get good at anything, you got to be in like the eye of the storm. And these new platforms are these areas where there's a lot of growth, a lot of action happening. That's where you sharpen your skills. So, you know, you might not have ever made money off the Facebook games, right? Like you got a bunch of group users and I made—
I made money.
Well, you might have made money.
I think the question is if you— I think you need to pick, are you trying to make money, you're trying to learn? Because I think sometimes when you're young, you're like, well, I want to make money off this person. It's like, well, maybe there's a lot more long-term dividends by just trying to focus on what you can learn.
But also, wouldn't you say, like, I've seen this in my life, sounds like you were in the same, where it's when you're trying to make money that you end up learning because you're trying to do something hard and you have— you learn the hard way, like, what actually works and what doesn't. That's versus if you just say, I want to learn, a lot of times people take a very sort of passive or intellectual approach to it. Now, That's different than saying, I want to make money, so I take this job at Intel that pays me a guaranteed 6 figures or whatever it is. You may not learn the most doing that path because you're not actually challenging yourself in the same way.
But I think the 2 things I would highlight there is that I think there's passion or interest or curiosity, and then I think there's opportunity. And I think I've chased opportunities to make money which have been fleeting. They've been profitable, but fleeting. And I think when you're in your 20s, you should do those. Frankly, you should just do the things that are like hot and exciting if you think you want to make money. And then in your 30s, you start reflecting more like, wow, mortality is real. What's really important? And I think you'll come back to finding, how do I work on problems and things that I want created for in my own world?
And for you, that's what— that's helping people sort of overcome their fears to start businesses. Is that the— or is it one step removed from that?
No, it's exactly that. It's like, I want to be on the ground level helping people overcome fears, start businesses and marketing. In businesses. I love seeing the underdog succeed. I love seeing like this guy Ali Abdaal, who's a popular YouTuber, or I love seeing companies like Meetfox who got promoted on AppSumo and now they have a business around it. Or PhoneWagon is a popular one today for doing phone calls.
That guy Ali, he's great. I think he listens to this podcast, but he's a doctor, right? He's a doctor YouTuber or is that—
Yeah, dude. I mean, he's so impressive. He's like— People are like, "I don't have enough time." This guy's a full-time professional doctor making 3 high-quality YouTube videos every week, and he engages his audience, and he's put, you know, he's just very genuine. I really enjoy—
Can you spell his name?
A-L-I-A-B-D-A-A-L. You know, and I think it's interesting is that you have to think about, on the reverse of that, how do you become someone that people want to meet? How do you make things or do things that others want to connect with? And I think we're like, oh, well, I'll just do stuff and hope it happens.
This guy looks amazing. I just love the, like, I just did a quick quick Google. Uh, dude's dope.
Dude is just dope. I love this guy.
He's just like, I found him because he blogged like, hey, here's some cool shit I found this week. And our podcast was in it. And so I was like, okay, who's this guy who's giving us a shout? And then I checked out his YouTube channel and I was like, wait, this guy's amazing.
Well, I think that's something that even in my newsletter every week now, we have a section where we promote other people. I think the more that you can go, and this is one of those things that's like stupid obvious, but no one does it. It's like, Go help a bunch of other people and there's a good chance that you'll be able to connect and get a lot of things you want. Like I heard a quote yesterday and I gotta go in 4 minutes, guys. The quote that I heard yesterday that was like really powerful to me was like, your rewards in life will be exact proportion to your contribution.
That's interesting. I don't know if it's true though, because I feel like you can definitely make money by like some bullshit Facebook like a fleeting app, you know what I mean? But I definitely think it's the way to live by.
