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

28:47I 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, 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 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.

29:27Recently, 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 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.

29:56Jake 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 want 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 of my success. And it's a lot of, you know, I just got off a call, uh, 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 met this year. Wow. And so, yeah, we, we all need people around us to help us succeed.

30:30So whether it's making your first dollar or whether it's making a million dollars, I want to talk about something a little controversial and something that you brought up a few times on your YouTube channel, which I absolutely love. Um, thank you. And the concept of you're a legitimate entrepreneur that made your money building legitimate businesses from all self-funded, all kind of 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.

31:17A lot of people that are. I recently went to this event here in Sydney. Richard Branson was speaking. He was a headliner. He was brilliant. He was great. Loved him. Excellent. But everybody before him was doing the pitch from stage. People rushing to the back of 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 their probably maxing out their credit card because they want to get out of their dead end job.

31:55And 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. This 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 you're a billionaire and no one even notices. They're like, oh, well, he must be a billionaire then.

32:25Yeah. 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 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.

33:05If you've gotten rich, that's it. If you've gotten rich 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 preference, right? I like going and listening to Musk and Bezos and Evan Williams and 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.

33:39It's trash. And it's actually declining pretty dramatically. So, again, 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 a concern with like one by one. People get the book. They impact themselves.

34:12And 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 will know about. And I'm still, I'm running day to day an$80 million business at AppSumo.com. so I feel qualified I feel pretty qualified to share my story and sometimes you know people like different restaurants some people like Indian actually I love Indian food but sometimes you know you want you know Mexican and other nights you want something different and that just depends on people I think the other thing I would call out that I don't like about a lot of these gurus 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.

35:00And the answer to the secret is the course of their book. And I don't like that level of power imbalance or the reality that most people, 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 to 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 2015 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 is 2001 side hustling when I was in teaching, I bought those courses back then.

35:58They 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.

36:31I want to talk a little bit about, cause I'm, 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, TidyCal, SendFox, all these little products and businesses and Sumo Jerky, all this crazy stuff. 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 as a vault. 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 to go keep doing more of the thing that works.

37:35It'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 approach business. So specifically with AppSumo, 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 kingsumo.com, which is a Gleam alternative. That is our number one acquisition channel for AppSumo. So the number one way, and shout out to David and Garrett, Enrique, Marnie, Serba, Luca, Gary, Natasha.

38:09That is the number one marketing channel for Epsuna. So how can other people copy that? Great question. Thanks for asking. Sorry, was that douchey? That was a little douchey. No, I love that. So how can other people copy that is what is a free tool or low price tool that will bring in your ideal customer? So many people are like, I need to make content. It's like, oh man like we were just looking at making content it's like a million dollars for this thing that's content really 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 absolute ecosystem maybe we should consider the alternative yeah so again the core is app sumo 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 I think a lot of people can think about that, whether you're a software business, is there a free tool or a paid tool that brings people in?

39:02If 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 deals and and by the way this works and i in a lot of different uh industries we used to sell uh 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 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 um so we started just started giving out templates so and that's because we would create the templates for ourselves uh like opt-in templates guides we'd create them in canva and then we're like oh why don't 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.

40:17I don't know how to design. I don't know how to do this. I can just create this template off this opt-in. 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 acquisition tools or acquisition freebies. And I think software is where it's all headed. People are going to want a way to do something rather than how to do it. Yeah. And then you figure out, okay, what is it about this that people really like? And then you look at, okay, how do I replicate that? So with TidyCal, TidyCal is growing extremely well because people don't want to pay 20 bucks a month for Calendly.

40:52So then you start looking, what are the elements of this free products or low price products I'm offering to bring people into my ecosystem? And so Calendly has a monthly pay. Two, it's something people share. 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 gonna launch new products next year, but it's like this tiny cow 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.

41:19The other thing I would call out, and 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's interested in these kinds of things wants. 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. You've been a pioneer with this. I recently saw on Twitter or X that the guys from 37 Signals, those guys are great, Jason and David, they are starting a new thing called Once. They're creating products that you can host yourself or blah, blah, blah, and you pay once.

41:59People are coming, this is brilliant, it's amazing. We're talking about nobody's been doing this for years. It's a decade. We've been around 14 years, and that's okay. You know, it's great. And more. Yeah. It's just 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 as well as you're growing your business. Like I work in Barcelona in the summers and now half the year and I go in the co-working spot and I'm wearing an app sumo shirt.

42:29No 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 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 amen 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?

43:09Which 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 %-er. But be a 5 %-er for 10 years. Like all the billionaires I interviewed on YouTube, took them 20 years. 20 years was the fastest that any of those guys got to become a billionaire. The founder of Kinko, that interview is amazing. Guys go on YouTube, watch that. that's great. Paul is 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.

43:41And also we can sustain this growth for a very long, ideally for a very long period of time. And by having less ambitious goals, it gives us more freedom to experiment 10 X opportunities for the future versus like, Oh, we got a 10 X. That means we're 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 uh one of my favorite stories is uh nicole and we're 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 mcdonald's arches on his ring i was like what's up with that ring i had to ask him and he was 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 plus McDonald's.

44:30I was like, really? That's amazing. And I asked him like, what do you think about all these like hipster, you know, craft to 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 that 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've eaten a mcdonald's probably like 12 years dude I ate there a few months ago.

45:15It's pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, I haven't seen it in a while. 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 five figures or six figures or seven figures. One of the things with AppSumo is that we evolved trying to do so many new things. Like, oh, we're going to have this marketplace of 10 ,000 products and we're going to do all this other stuff. MRR, all these things. And I do think I give McDonald's credit because of the longevity. And really, if you go back to their restaurant today, they're really focused on the basics.

45:49Like 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 4-1-1, 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.

46:18And that's something for people at the five, six, seven. 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 the core of what you're at. And, you know, the offering of the agency or whatever it is for each different business. I think McDonald's crushed that. There's so much about 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.

46:49I'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 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.

47:22Just like go and just do it 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 where there's a lot of action items in the book, get some results for themselves. They'll be excited to leave these honest reviews.

48:00And 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. It was focusing on, if the book can get people to actually help them get going, then other people will end up reading it. 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. I emailed people and I messaged everyone I talked to and is following, again, the growth machine marketing 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.

48:34And then 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. 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 actually solve the problem of why have people started if there's so many recipes already.

49:09And 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 it'd make a dent 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.

49:39And I do believe me and Tal were able to pull that together in this book. 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. 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 a better book, dude. Like I like one of the things I was reading, I was just like, if 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.

50:18So 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 and 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. OK, 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 it's in a very empathetic way, which I find incredibly, incredibly strong.

50:52Because what I found working with the people on the Hunter L.M. BA 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 somebody who's just getting started, it's just hard for them to even talk about their business idea with somebody else, you know? So your approach has been really, I would say, empathetic, kind, and really missing in the business book world because most people, it's either very mindset driven, like Rich Dad Poor Dad, or it's very like, you know, just get out and do it.

51:35Goggin style. What's wrong with you? You wimp. 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 were 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 work week 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.

52:02I 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.

52:31Like, do I want to do a million pushups to prove I'm not a wimp? Like, yeah, that'd be kind of cool, but it's not something I can do regularly. I'd rather do a few pushups 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 DeMono. She's like James Clear's agent and Seth Godin and Ramit. And then she laughed at me. I was like, Lisa, come on. I'm like, I'm Sumo. My YouTube channel's got like 50 ,000 subscribers at this point.

53:04I've got a mailing list at noahkagan.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 really like this concept of every rejection is a test if you really want something. Like 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.

53:36It'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 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.

54:04A 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 our 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. Yeah. 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.

54:34And 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 Muldewar. He wrote James Clear's Atomic Habits, pretty much bestselling 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. 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 people want to copy it, of why he's booked it so well. And so we had David do that. Then after the book sold, I was like, okay, maybe let me find the best business right in the world.

55:06Because I'm a great marketer. I've done a lot of business, but I don't know how to write stories. So then I cold emailed Tal Ross. I was like, Tal, 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 read 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 spheres? And so I at least can keep going.

55:34And I wanted it. I wanted it. And I think most of us want these things. And we're the dreams not strong enough or not clear enough. And we'll give up a little bit too soon. And we've worked 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 Tal Ross 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 bald and Jewish like me. You think there's any chance we could work together?

56:04He'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 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 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 and be like holy I see how he tested the titles.

56:37The chapter titles are tested. The cover color is tested. Green is actually if you go to a business section there's no green business books. Check it next time. I tested 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, 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 one of my biggest cheerleaders.

57:15I'm blessed to have her on my side. I got to say that just that last story you gave us about 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 one of the most successful people I know. He's made it for all intents and purposes. He's got a successful track record. He's got a successful business. He's a multimillionaire. 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.

57:56Right. 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 going to figure this out. I'm going to get better. I'm going to learn. I'm going to, I'm going to nag this person until they submit, which is in the book, by the way, you got to follow up and you got to be consistent, which is huge because most people just their initial answers always know. And this because their time is valuable, but 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.

58:35You're comfortable being, okay, I got to learn something new. I got to 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 going to take two, three, four years. Uh, 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 it and they think they're good at everything.

59:14Like, no, you're just good at that, buddy. You know? And I love that. Well, dude, one, you're awesome. I love you. You're being 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 there's no shade on him but why not find someone who's an expert to support you all right so i think that's one thing and still in app sumo just got off with moody who's a marketing my marketing coach i've had aeman al-adul who's a marketing coach at pam reboot.io is marketing uh business coach ceo coach rajatish mukherji 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 as a second language in college and even to this day i don't know how some of these words work.

1:00:10It'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. Like I'm still willing to get laughed at by Lisa. I was still willing that, you know, 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.

1:00:47Like 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 a wild stories about how people to live, how I think people can live their lives. And this guy was like, yeah, the story is 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 a thing.

1:01:16And that's an opportunity for me to improve. And 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 can separate the work from the experience. Like that story's real. It's you, whatever that happened. But you're able to take the objectiveness of the comment and be like, okay, I got to just absorb it. How do you enjoy it? Enjoy the rejection. I'm not in a sick way like, oh, let me go get rejected. But like, you know, part of like, all right, when I'm doing a YouTube video, I say I'm going to get rejected 10 times.

1:01:51And 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 a full circle like we no one does this alone I started out by talking about the story of how I reached out to you.

1:02:36Webinar Ninja, 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 if I'm going to build something great, I need help. I hired Dan Martell, who's the best SaaS 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 brave systems with the podcast. You know, I intentionally was like, I have to become friends with some of the best podcasters because I'm going to pick up something. Like you said, success leaves clues.

1:03:11So I became friends with Jordan Harbinger. He'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 um so i love the fact that you've surrounded yourself with great people you've surrounded yourself with a great team with this book.

1:03:53And before we wrap up, I just want to talk a little bit about, you know, you talk 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, and 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 well one thing i want damn you're so nice you're so very kind you're very kind and there's a book uh by dalai lama i think the art of kindness something to that title and it's about receding compliments and i just really appreciated how i don't know how sweet you are uh in this chat i mean i'm not i'm not trying to be sweet it's just that no i appreciate it you gotta call a spade a spade dude this is good stuff thank you man thank you well two come two comments i'd make 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 no more 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.

1:05:09I noticed on Twitter and Jeremy on our team, this kid, literally kid, doing a lot of really great tweets and just connected with them. 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 that hunger. I was like, yeah. I was like, do I have to give you a chaperone letter? Does your mom come with us on team trips? How does this work do I have to talk to her? Anyways, his name's Jay Yang. Shout out to him. He's amazing. But the point there is that that's not someone who's a celebrity yet.

1:05:51But I would say a lot of my success 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, Escher Fincoff. And I was looking at his, his message, his email or DM just like, yo man, I love your pinball stuff.

1:06:22Cause one day maybe I'll ask him, I might hire him as a pinball coach. That's that's, 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 I literally I don't 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'm gonna 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 um take a picture when you go and take one to 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.

1:07:32Maybe it worked out. Maybe it didn't, but it doesn't matter. You went for it. You put yourself out there. Um, that to me would be gold for, for Noah and for everybody else who's going to learn and get encouraged by you sharing, by you sharing it. 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. I'm, uh, yeah, maybe I could just go and get my coffee and not ask for that discount, but I went for it and it's encourage other people to do that um one other assignment i'm also gave other than buying the book and sharing it on social is you gotta subscribe to youtube noah's youtube channel noah's youtube channel is brilliant dude um 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 millionaires and billionaires uh interviewing people on private jets interviewing people and 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 um no 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 on that so youtube channel app sumo all these things all started with one customer it all started with one video and the first app sumo sale was twelve dollars We all started zero.

1:08:55We all, 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 didn't 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 took time. And 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 immigrant mentality of getting going with your effort and having a good attitude while you're doing it.

1:09:29What is the wrap up? I love it. 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've got to surround myself with good people. I've got to be around people that I want to be like. How? What do I do? How much is this 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 um 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 hundred dollar 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 scrapped 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 um nathan barry there and we had waffles from with him in breakfast we met cobert bar and chase reeves and those guys over at fizzle and they were doing like crazy amazing stuff they're great guys we met you know Mike Vardy, we met Justin Jackson, we met Amy Porterfield, we met so many interesting people.

1:11:15John Lee Dumas had a party there and we went to his party in his hotel room. It was incredible because everybody was not 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, um, 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.

1:11:49That's how it gets. No one does this alone. It 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, hey, we got to get serious. We got to really do this. No more sleeping in. Let's make this happen. But I wanted to share that story with people who are hearing this. This is just a practical example. Find 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.

1:12:26I didn't have a ticket. I just went to the after parties. I just went to where people are meeting up afterwards. So I want to just 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 going your stuff and then you hit me up in future stuff. And it's been it's available for everyone worldwide.

1:13:01And I think that's a great message from you. Yeah. And I think what I've learned is that we all want each other to win. Like 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 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 just 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 Noah's YouTube channel, but also just how important it is, guys, to take action.

1:13:48And what Noah asks you to do in the book is not hard. It's actually not. He's not asking a lot, but actually 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 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. 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's always helped me. He's been a great friend.

1:14:21And 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.

1:14:59Businesses will serve challenges to you that you're gonna 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 at milliondollarweekend.com.

1:15:35You 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.

1:16:11So 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. 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.

1:16:49What'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 &A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.