How This +$80M Founder Launches A Startup In A Weekend

22:38And he was like, hey, can you guys leave the room so we could discuss this? And Peter Thiel's in there. And the executives leave the room and everyone's looking at Zuck like, all right, so let's take this. And he goes, so I just wanted to like sit in here and pretend like we're talking about this because obviously we're not going to take this deal. By the way, you're totally making this up. That's not what happened. That's what I heard. I read a blog post on it. The story is they got the offer. Then there was the next board meeting. At the next board meeting, he was like, which is like where Peter Thiel and others were.

23:06He was like, okay, bit of housekeeping. We got to discuss, you know, we're supposed to talk about this. Got this offer. Obviously not going to take it. And they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Maybe we should, Mark, that's a lot of money. We should talk about this. That's what they said. But even that I think is - Sean, don't let facts get in the way of a good story. Well, I think there's even more revisionist history, which is interesting here, because then later there's another story that Zuck actually accepted an offer from, I think it was Yahoo. And it was Yahoo or Microsoft, I don't remember.

23:35And then they reneged. They came back and tried to negotiate down. So he took 1.2, and then they came back and said, no, it's going to be like 900 or something. There's another story like that. And so none of these are congruent because Peter Thiel tells the story. that was the source of that story where he was just trying to say how Zuck is this visionary balls of steel turned down the billion dollar offer but then there's this other story where he kind of took it and I'm like well and they're like did he want revenge because they negotiated him down I was like but wait he said yes so I don't really know what the truth is but I know there's a lot of this BS in startup lore where people make up stories that make somebody sound more brave or greater than they are someone asked me a few days ago is Zuck good or bad and I think he's good.

24:20I think people might have negative impression, but he's ambitious, but I think he always, at least when I was there, had good intentions of being ambitious. It wasn't like, I need to manipulate the media. He's probably like, what are you talking about? It's just an algorithm. I don't know, like change it up again. We'll fix it. No, can I ask about the environment? Because I remember once when I lived in San Francisco, I was doing a startup. I thought I was doing a, I thought this is it. We're just like every other startup. We're in the race. We're in the hunt. We're going to make the next big thing.

24:45And then I went to a friend's office who was doing a startup and they actually had product market fit. And like the market was pulling their product. They were growing faster than they could handle. And I walked into that office, which was smaller, way less nice. You know, didn't have like, didn't have, it wasn't super organized. They had like, you know, people were sitting on the floor and like, there was just like people everywhere. There's cables everywhere. It was like a different vibe. Is the company still around? Yeah, yeah. It actually sold for a few hundred million dollars. And so I walked home and I remember thinking on my way home, oh, fuck, we're just playing house.

25:19Like, that's what it's supposed to feel like when it's working. I didn't even actually realize it till I stepped foot in there, but that's a totally different energy. They have it and we don't. And did you feel that when you went into the Facebook office? A hundred percent. I felt it. I've been lucky to feel it a few times. At Mint, I felt it. AppSumo feels it. And I think inside at Facebook, one, my boss got fired the day I started. So I walked in and my boss was walking out, which was a really strange, you know, I just left Intel, which you know i had you know eight meetings a day and i had all this training it was horrible and i you know i go into a room and zuck's like your your boss doug who ended up founding good rx you guys know good rx yep oh wow pretty pretty pretty impressive um i just fired him because he he wanted he's a lot of guys from facebook came from yahoo and he's like he tried to sell the company so it's my company i fired him welcome to facebook and then i just grabbed literally a corner of a desk and it was like all right well what should i work on right and it's literally like a stark contrast from Intel where like everything is regimented.

26:18And it was amazing. I think the thing that was interesting that others didn't know is that we saw the internal metrics about the growth. So we knew there was something happening that others didn't see. In terms of like, I think we were at 10 million the day I started. By the day I got fired, it was about 50 million. So we just saw that like, wow, this growth, but the threats were serious. Like Google was a threat, which people kind of forget today. MySpace was a huge threat. And obviously now those things aren't even really talked about. what were you doing the math when you were thinking about how much your stock's eventually going to be worth?

26:47Were you like, man, this might make$10 million? My whole thing was that I just thought the equity is going to be insanely valuable. I didn't know. At Mint, I had a very specific number I thought it would sell for, which I was accurate there. Facebook, I was like, I don't know the limit because Zuck's vision was to connect the entire world. And his whole, his quote was like, we want to be a toll booth for the internet. I remember that. And that was inspiring. It was nice. You know, even at AppSumo now, I'm now like, okay, what are we excited about? about and we're excited to promote software like we love promoting software it's like his was like i want to connect the entire world can you imagine showing up to work and he's connecting the entire world and what he did a lot of really clever things which was how do we reduce all distractions so like he paid for all of our parking tickets he paid for all of our cleaning he paid for us to live close he paid for like everything so all we had to do is focus on work and that wasn't it was normal back then right like uh no it was super abnormal to like pay your parking tickets and be like, Hey, there's going to just bring your laundry here.

27:41Like shut up about your life and just bring your laundry here and just work. Because when we were hanging out with Mr. Beast, Jack Smith said this the other day, we were hanging out and he goes, I like how he just has no disregard for social norms. Because we were like, how'd you hire this guy? They are like, how do you train people? And he's like, they move in with me basically. Like they just, I attach them to my hip. They follow me everywhere. We work seven days a week. And then after six months, like now you could start to give your ideas because you now you have now fully absorbed me. And they're like, all right, well, I don't think I could, isn't there like California labor laws?

28:15Like, how does this work? And I think it was right. The absolute disregard for social norms I've now learned is like a very, very positive attribute or signal in highly, highly successful people. Sounds like Zen was kind of like that too. I don't know if that, I think asking and doing things that you believe, I think you guys are very good at that. But there's also, I think negatives. Like I remember this guy, Dan, died and a tree fell on him during one of the work days he was biking and a treat killed him. And I'm like, okay, are we going to put a bike rack outside? Are we going to have a moment?

28:45And there was not even any acknowledgement. It was like, let's just work. And I just thought that was insane. Yeah, I mean, there's a price to pay for being crazy like that, right? Like there's pros and cons. Yeah, I mean, it's special to be a part. And you have to think like we had Harvard PhDs in customer support. Like imagine that. Like people that wanted to be there so badly, it doesn't matter your degree, you just can work there. And so being in that environment was really special. and just like seeing all this amazing talent that was there and that has left to go do really cool things. And so why did they fire you?

29:15It's funny. I was actually looking at the pictures. I was fired basically because of Coachella. Like you dipped out? I was like, I was drunk and high at Coachella. And then for me, I was blogging about Facebook because I was so excited about it. I think go find things you're excited about it and tell the world about it if you think it's a good thing. That's how I've always felt with the stuff I do. And I let Arrington at TechCrunch know like, hey, Facebook's opening up to at Microsoft and at corporate emails in the morning. I think you should write about it and talk about it because Facebook wasn't going to do any press.

29:43And he wrote about it that night. And then I emailed Zuck and some of the other E-team. And I let him know what I did. So I think it was that. And then I think for me, I also felt frustrated. You guys have seen these people where for me at 30 people when it was like, no, just figure things out. So I was like, all right, I'm going to help build mobile with Slee. Or I'm going to help build ads. Or I'm going to help do the status update thing, which they didn't even want to do. It was just fun. It was very like, there's a lot to do there. and I was also probably more immature. And then as I got older and it grew, I didn't want to be in meetings.

30:11I didn't want to do Excel project management. I didn't want to have long discussions with 30 people about basic ideas. When did it become corporate? I mean, at that point, it was 150 people. It felt very corporate to me. It felt very, you know, and if you look at Facebook, what's the last great thing Zuck has done since 2005? Besides acquiring other people, what has he come up with, Portal? That was a floppage. Like, name one thing he's actually done. besides make he's acquired he's made good decisions acquiring people i'd say that yeah just gotten bigger i mean that's why facebook's great it's just it's because everyone uses it i mean it's so big i remember when sarah my wife worked there they were like we're doing this thing in india where we put blimps or drones up in the sky and i was like why are they doing that they're like well because the only people who aren't on facebook are the people in india who don't have internet so we're just going to go give them free internet so they can use facebook I mean, his relentless drive towards growing to everyone is what he's done.

31:08Yeah, and stuff like, you know, the part of the thing is the bigger you get, the harder it is to move the needle. So it's like marketplace, super successful, but kind of like who cares? It's like, yeah, you built Craigslist inside Facebook. It's fine. They need to do something so big, right? That's why it's like the metaverse or AI. Like they have to go on these huge waves just to kind of like move the needle for how big Facebook is. I think what was really interesting, what people can think about in their own businesses, is the core really great? Because like Facebook Marketplace or Facebook Events, I was really excited to grow and improve and monetize early on.

31:42And he was just against it completely. And I've noticed that with AppSumo, our core businesses go find cool products, get a deal on them, promote them. That's it, right? But it gets very exciting to think, all right, can we do MRR? Can we do all these other options? But really, it's like, can you do the core excellent and then start adding new things at a later point? Some of the cool stuff. So you've had this video where you went on this plane with this guy who I think was a commodities trader. I think that's what he said. And I assume he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I know that you have a bunch of friends who are billionaires.

32:13You told me ahead of time, you said most billionaires that you know are unhappy. Tell me more about what you've noticed about hanging out with some of these uber, uber successful people. Most of them didn't set out to be billionaires. You hear people online like, I want to be a billionaire. It's like almost every billionaire I know, and I've worked for them, or multi-multi-millionaire was just like, here's something I'm curious about or excited about. And yes, maybe in private equity or finance, but a lot of the entrepreneur ones. It was just like stuff they're curious about. All of them got rich as well in one way.

32:43Like I was just at FedEx this morning, because I interviewed the guy from Kinko's. He just focused on copiers. That's it. But a lot of newer entrepreneurs I've seen are ones that haven't had as much success where I'm going to do five different solopreneur startups this weekend. It's like, okay, you can test five, but which one's working? Let's just do one. These billionaires just did one. But they tell us to diversify. And so I think that's always fascinating for me because they do one thing. And this is, again, we're kind of coming back to the AppSumo story is they stuck with it for a very long period of time.

33:13Like think about any billionaires you know. How long did it take? Yeah, I mean, 20 years, 30 years, a lifetime, a career. A lifetime, a lifetime. And we're trying to get rich in a weekend. or which, you know, crypto rich in a month. And I think the slow compounded growth over long periods of time is what doesn't get recognized. Sean, didn't you say that was like your major takeaway from your Camp MFM? Yeah, I wouldn't say it exactly like that. But when I was talking to Jimmy and I was like, yeah, I think the thing I'm, you know, most, the thing that's standing out to me the most as I get out of my bubble, I reassess, I reflect, it's the start of the new year, is I think I'm spending so much energy, but I'm spreading it out.

34:00I'm spreading it too thin. And that's a mistake. Like I'm doing more and getting less. And I put it differently. I said, I think you have a thousand times more opportunity, you know, opportunities coming to you every day. And you've said yes to half the things I have. So something's wrong here. I think in general, the more successful you get, the more opportunities you get, but the more things you should and you should be saying no to. I think Hormozzi said a nice thing about this that I thought resonated. He goes, let's say you're making$10 ,000 a month. And now somebody comes and offers you something that's going to make you$1 ,000.

34:33Pretty easy to say no. You have a going rate. If you're making$100 ,000 a month and somebody comes to you and says, here's something that'll make you$10 ,000, easy to say no. The hard thing is when you're making$100 ,000 and somebody comes to you and says, here's the thing that can make$100 ,000. And you're like, that's my rate. But what happens is you've now split your focus and you're basically losing life balance, but you're also doubling down on the amount of work that you have to do only to get one more unit compared to where you were. It's like the best people, the smartest people, they basically, when they're at the hundred, they don't say yes to the next thing that can get them a hundred or 200.

35:07They will only say yes to something that might get them 10x more than that. And so the right way to do it is to basically say, all right, this gave me the right to say no to certain things. And the hardest one to say no to is the one that's at the current level where you're currently at. And the people who really break out and get to the next level, they're the ones who are able to say no, stay focused until they see something that is truly 10x better opportunity than what they have. So how are you changing this year? Well, I said no to a bunch of things. I shut down two of the things that I was working on that were working, but they were more in that 1X type of category.

35:45And then every day, I basically start my day with the first three hours. Because the main thing I want to focus on is making great content. It's the thing I love doing the most. It's the thing I think I'm best at. But the hard part is a deal comes on the table. And now I'm spending the first eight hours that day working on that deal or that investment or that opportunity or that new idea. And so I just carved out where the first three hours of the day I'm only doing content. And I was like, cool, I want this to eventually be eight hours, ten hours a day, but the thing I can control is that the first three hours, I'm not going to say yes to anything else.

36:17I'm only going to say yes to this. And the cool part is as soon as you do the first three hours, you have so much momentum. The natural thing to do is just to keep going. And so that's been very effective so far. Where are you, Sean, where are you going to start making content? Like when you keep saying content creation, are you talking specifically text? Are you talking about text? Are you blogging? is coming back. Sean, blogger.com? All ideas are on the table. So right now I'm just prototyping. So I'm basically trying to figure out which one do I enjoy the most. I knew I would enjoy podcasting.

36:42I listened to a ton of podcasts. I had prototyped it. So before this podcast, I had recorded two other podcasts, one with my roommate and brother-in-law at home where we talked about sports and never released it. There's only been three listeners ever. It's me and the two guys I did it with. Then I did another podcast at my office when I was doing a startup. It was me, Furkan, and a couple other guys. Three episodes. I think they're up on YouTube somewhere. Nobody ever watched them. But doing that, even though those podcasts went nowhere, it did do one thing, which it showed me, oh man, I really like doing this.

37:14And how cool would it be if I actually could do this all the time or if people actually listened to it, man, that would be amazing. And so I had prototyped it. I had felt it out in order to know that that's actually something I wanted to do. So when I say new content, I'll dabble with, let's say, short form or I'll write a brief to a book, like an outline to a book in the first two chapters. Because I'm trying to understand, do I want to write a book or not? I don't need to commit to that because I can prototype it and feel it out first. You definitely should go the book route. The problem with the book route, Noah, that you've seen, it seems so fucking hard.

37:50It seems so hard. Everyone I know who writes a book, they describe it exactly how my friends who run marathons do. where they complain constantly while they're in training. They say the race is miserable. And then about two weeks after the race happens or the book goes live, they go, all right, I think I'm going to do this next book on this topic. And I'm like, man, I just heard you complain for two years. No, you've been talking about this freaking book for years. I think it's been way longer than four years, actually. I remember you talking about how you wanted to write a book forever. And it took four freaking years to do this thing.

38:22Do you think it's going to be worth it? What's the ROI going to be? I like it. I'm proud of it. I think it's first off. And you know, coming back to the ROI on that, I think it's going to impact people. I think one person at a time. I've already seen it, right? I've seen people read it. And I'm like, holy shit, really? You know, even I think these things, like what you guys have done with your show and Sean's like what you're exploring when yours, well, your content is like, what's something you're excited to do? And that's kind of hard. Or like, no one's ever proud of themselves. Like, yeah, I wrote, I walked five feet.

38:55like but if you run a mile or if you run a marathon you're like damn that was hard but i can actually do this and i think that that that to me was really the ultimate ri in this book thinking can i actually face myself and work on a book and help other people and then can people do it for themselves dude why did you become so political what do you mean where i like i'm it's called you're like a politic you're like a politician my friend like so old noah i gotta tell a story about old noah i remember uh sean one time there's a co-worker who i work with who Sean, you are friends with. And we go into this meeting and Noah shows up shirtless.

39:31He's got no shirt on. He's in his house. I think he's on his couch. And I'm like, Noah, what the fuck are you doing, dude? He was this crazy madman. And that's actually what made him brilliant. He would do all this crazy stuff. And he executed crazy stuff really, really, really well. But now when I ask what the ROI is of this, you're showing so much evolution. You're talking about changing people's lives. It's so funny to see you say this stuff. One, thank you. I think we should all evolve. We were trying to change people's lives back then too, just in a different way. One nip at a time. Yeah.

40:06One nip at a time.

40:10I was going to talk about my inverted nipples, which I'm very self-conscious about. No, I mean, look I'm maturing do I want to show up shirtless maybe if we're hanging out in our sauna like come over but I think as you get older you also realize like what kind of behavior do you want to do and I think that's fine uh do the book I think people have these these like bullshit ROI things like I want to help a million people I don't give a shit about that I don't but I am happy if like one or two or five or a thousand or ten thousand then read the book and do something for themselves um no we appreciate you doing this man i i forgot to i should have plugged this earlier on but i'm doing i'm buying how many how many books am i buying 30 50 books something like that so i bought a bunch of books i'm trying to do my part to help you rank up in in the list so if you go to the anti-mba.com between now and february 15th to anyone who gives me their email i'll just like pick i'll randomly pick 50 of you guys and i'll send you a link to buy the book for free or to enter your address in and we'll send you the book.

41:10I'm excited to see you do this. Hopefully you impact some people, which I know you will. But also, the ego side of me is like, hopefully you rank on some type of bestseller list, which I know is also pretty cool. We appreciate you doing this. What do you want to... It's called Million Dollar Weekend. You're Noah Kagan on Twitter. AppSumo.com. Noah Kagan on YouTube. Am I missing any other plug? No, man. By the way, Noah, I had an experience like this that shifted my life. I'm a testimonial for this even before your book came out. I was working on a startup, my very first startup. We were working on it for like nine months, trying to get everything right.

41:47We literally had a 300-page business plan. It was embarrassing now that I look back. But we thought that meant we were doing everything. We were dotting T's and crossing I's out here. And so I was like, all right, well, at a certain point, I looked at my co-founder and I was like, my co-founder, he's my roommate, my friend. And I was like, dude, I feel like we just keep telling everyone we're doing a business, but we don't actually do any business. He's like, what? And I was like, how long have we been sitting here with this whiteboard and this plan? And we have no revenue. We've never made a dollar.

42:22I can't believe this. And we just keep tricking ourselves into thinking that this is legit. I just read the four-hour workweek, and I was like, all right, this weekend, we are going to make money. I don't care how – and we set a goal for$1 ,000. I said, we're going to try to make$1 ,000 in the next, you know, basically it was Friday. It was like, we're going to make it by Sunday night. And I don't care how, let's go. And instantly, just by having that intention, things started to fall together. We made this website. We found a product on Alibaba. We got it drop shipped. We made our first sale.

42:52We sold basically, I don't know, a few hundred of these like wristbands, like kind of customized wristbands, like those fat, like Livestrong bands. Yeah. to somebody whose, their parents were having an anniversary and they needed like 200 of these. We charged them like, you know, four or five bucks per. We made a thousand dollars in one weekend. And I felt like the champion of the universe. And I was like, this is what business is supposed to feel like. Taking action, actually going out there, trying to sell a product, moving fast. Don't try to perfect everything. You don't need a 300 page plan.

43:22And after that, like literally my whole game shifted just from that one experience. And so I haven't read your book yet. You sent it to me, I'm going to read it. But I already, in my soul, am on board with what you're all about. Dude, I did that wristband business too. That's so crazy. They were hot at the time, right? Every kid was wearing them. Every college kid was wearing them. But I think the thing you called out, which is interesting and that's awesome, is because you said, hey, I'm going to do something and I have this limited time. And you have 52 of them, right? So especially if you guys got kids and all this stuff, you don't have a lot of time.

43:54But you can make an hour or two on a weekend to do something. And then look at what you did on a weekend, which you didn't do in months. right yeah exactly that look what you did in the weekend that you didn't do in months that's that's how it's exactly how it felt and then i was like i either can go back to the old way or i can go this new way this action way and the action way became the way and that you know basically that became i don't know like sam it's so funny you have that tatted on your feet like that's it's been tatted in my brain that's like the only thing you know i remember literally looking around i was at duke and there's a bunch of smart kids at duke i thought when i was in high school i was the smart kid, then you go to a college with all the smart kids from those high schools and you realize, oh, you ain't shit.

44:32And I was like, all right, am I just going to be like forgettably average? Because that's where this is going. And I was like, am I really going to get smarter than these people? I don't have any special talents that nobody else has. But I realized that a lot of smart people are overthinkers. They hesitate. They doubt. They overanalyze. And I was like, that's my thing. I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to immediately take action. and that will be the difference and that will be my thing and I could just that'll be the bedrock that I can build any kind of success on rather than trying to have been like a special snowflake that was you know pre-destined to do great things and that just became my my motto I've still got the needle bro we can change that we can let's tat it let's tat it well Sean but most people who listen to your show want to make a million they don't ever make a buck they never make that one dollar and that's where they have to get you know get off their ass what's the heck that was bars dude that was that was great like like good lyrics nice nice words thank you like bro you're a 40 year old youtuber how do you not know these things i'm learning the the vocab but dude i read this good book last night sam you made me inspired by it's called the art thief and uh this guy who steals art but one of the things he said that stuck with me is like what's the first thing you look at when you wake up in the morning and i do respect that i love that you're like well this is the area i want to prove which is you know you You saw it on your feet.

45:55I don't see my feet first thing in the morning, but it's like put something on your bedside. Put something out where you're like, first thing you see in the morning. Maybe it's Sean's face. Maybe it's a million dollar weekend. Maybe it's something, but I love that idea. I'm getting my whole legs done. You know, I've got a kid now, so maybe I'll do her name. But I've got Bold, Fast, Fun tattooed on my thighs because BFF, that's kind of what I live for when it comes to business. I've got a pirate ship. Is that true? Bro, Live, Laugh, Love is bold.

46:28yeah i mean that's true i moved to austin and i found myself yeah i did the work sean it's self-love you did the work dude well you know the reason i like homemade tattoos is you do what you want what i found out when you go to tattoo shops basically find an artist that you like and you're like here's kind of what i want and they're like yeah i'm just gonna do whatever i want and you're like too embarrassed to tell them exactly what you want because this guy, you want to impress him. And so I basically have a whole bunch of tattoos on my legs and throughout my body that I was just trying to impress Hector, my tattoo artist.

47:04So that's pretty much how it works when it comes to tattoos. Noah, we appreciate you coming. We'll wrap here. That's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I can be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. on the road, let's travel, never looking back.

47:28Hey, let's take a quick break because there's a quote that I love I want to read you. It's that we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us. And as an entrepreneur, if you're using a bank that was built in the 90s, you're operating like you're in the 90s. And trust me, I've been there, clunky portals, random holds on your money,$50 wire fees, and then being told, please visit your local branch. Well, that's why I switched to a different type of banking solution, Mercury. It turns your financial chores into a smooth workflow. You can do wires, invoices, cards, reimbursements, two clicks, and I'm done.

47:58If you're already using Mercury, respect. If you're still using one of the old big banks, I got questions for you. So go visit mercury.com and give it a test drive. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column 8, and Evolve Bank & Trust members FDIC.