How to Launch a Million-Dollar Business this Weekend w/Noah Kagan

[noahkagan]

Hola FLF amigos

I’m Noah Kagan, the Chief Sumo (aka, CEO) at AppSumo ($80M+/year in revenue) the #1 software deals site online.

I also run a YouTube Channel with 1M+ subscribers helping inspire underdogs on their business journey.

Before AppSumo, I was employee #30 at Facebook (invented status updates, developed the Facebook ads platform and worked on the first version of Facebook's mobile app) & fired by Mark Zuckerberg.

Made my first million dollars at age 29 before I ever started a successful business by sleeping on friend’s couches and putting all my money into savings or the stock market.

My new book Million Dollar Weekend is dropping Jan 30/2024 sharing everything I’ve learned from starting eight $1M+ businesses (most in a single weekend).

Happy to answer any questions on entrepreneurship, launching a biz, marketing or running a company

Ps. Episode on Tim Ferriss just dropped if anyone wants to check it out!

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

AMA and dude is legit!

Also, so is the book, I pre-read it and it echoes a lot of what we try to practice around here... namely, just STOP action-faking and take the shortest path to your first customer.

@Andy Black would approve.

 

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[noahkagan]

Noah, been coding websites for ~20 years now - so cool to see you post here. I am not sure if people here realize how crazy it is to have your ear. Definitely going to check out the book.

In your opinion what is the #1 way to sift through the pile of ideas we all come up with when it comes to SAAS products and identify the one you really should move forward with? On this forum we see time and time again it come up that they can be harder to validate without sinking a ton of time into.

I quit my job and went traditional service company a few years ago and now back in biggish tech myself to get some debt squared away but about to go hard at some SAAS products of my own finally so I'd appreciate your thoughts/perspective. Thank you for doing this!

Bounce - thanks so much ME and you STARTED the internet. Thank you Front Page!!

The first idea is the best one.

I know, I know but but but. That's literally why ALL of my 8 figure companies were started quickly and they are also simply explainable.

And all the ones that took LONG to build and complicated to explain didn't.

The reason - you can find out in 48 hours or less if it's something people want.

Okay now for the how - DONT DO SAAS. Do the service with free or basic tools - validate the problem and build the SaaS later.

Most people sift through ideas or say they have too many or too little as avoidance of doing the "hard" work of talking to customers or validating which through practice I personally find is the fun and easy work that will lead you on a great path.

What is 1 thing you can actively do today?

I thank myself that I started 14 years ago and stuck with it. What will you thank yourself for by the end of this year....

 

[noahkagan]

+1, what advice do you have for someone who has zero desire to create a personal brand and zero desire to be famous, and just wants to do meaningful work?

It seems culture continually rewards the wacky extroverts and extremists... for example, I find the stuff that some of today's role models put forth by culture are incredibly harmful and destructive, with legions of young ppl blindly following.

Culture rewards people who solve problems that people want to get paid for.

The guy I got on his private jet, no one has ever heard of before.

A personal brand I've done for 24 years and love doing. There's TONS of directors / products / writers behind the scenes living amazing lives we have no idea about.

We only SEE the loud ones but the most successful tend to be quiet.

That's why I hate and block most online business gurus. They aren't running a business I admire and focus on extreme advice vs the basics: find something people really want to pay for, start today, ask people in your network, leverage your experience in your side-hustles, try again and again and then stick with it for a long period of time.

It's like being healthy. Everyone KNOWS eat well and exercise but the appeal of fads / bone broth / new tricks appeal to the masses.

Same goes with business

The beauty of business is that it does not discriminate. You can be anyone, anywhere with any physical abilities and STILL succeed.

 

[noahkagan]

I'll get the book too, and likely copies for people who stare at me dumbly when I tell them to just start, today.

My new favourite quote is "Start small, start fast, start now." (Noah Kagan)

Also loved this rapid fire AMA you did Noah:

Google Podcasts

With Google Podcasts, you can find and listen to the world's podcasts for free.

podcasts.google.com

Thank you Andy.

The #1 major takeaway from the book surprisingly is NOW, not how.

Realizing you can do things much quicker, get results, get confidence and get going was holding so many people back from their dreams.

 

[Andy Black]

DONT DO SAAS. Do the service with free or basic tools - validate the problem and build the SaaS later.

Stop building stuff in your batcave guys. Go talk to people, help 'em, and get paid. Divorce your time from your income later.

"Do things that don't scale."
(Paul Graham)

 

[noahkagan]

Love your videos Noah and congrats on the new book!

My question is, what was the biggest "shocker" moment for you when it comes to someone's revenue or income relative to their business? (Larry Janesky's $700M basement repair company was insane to hear about). I'm sure you've met a ton of lesser-known and blue collar CEOs outside of the videos who are absolutely crushing it!

1- There's MANY ways of getting rich
2- Compete in less competitive areas
3- Find a growing market early before others do
4- Someones revenue or whatever $100m number they put in titles is likely a lie and more important is profit.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

How much of your success would you attribute to your high-energy extroverted and sociable nature?

+1, what advice do you have for someone who has zero desire to create a personal brand and zero desire to be famous, and just wants to do meaningful work?

It seems culture continually rewards the wacky extroverts and extremists... for example, I find the stuff that some of today's role models put forth by culture are incredibly harmful and destructive, with legions of young ppl blindly following.

 

[biophase]

+1, what advice do you have for someone who has zero desire to create a personal brand and zero desire to be famous, and just wants to do meaningful work?

It seems culture continually rewards the wacky extroverts and extremists... for example, I find the stuff that some of today's role models put forth by culture are incredibly harmful and destructive, with legions of young ppl blindly following.

I just listened to something about this on the My First Million Podcast. Basically these companies were tired of finding shitty or irresponsible influencers to market their stuff so they made their own influencers using AI.

So their take was to create a personal brand off of an 100% AI person. There are many influencers out there that are not real people that have millions of followers and it is just an account being run by a marketing company.

So I guess what you could do is make a personal brand account off of an AI person that is 100% made up. Then you completely run this person’s social media in the background.

 

[noahkagan]

Hey Noah,

These questions are purely out of curiosity - At what time do you usually wake up? And what does your morning routine look like? How, if at all, has this changed overtime?

Thanks.

Weirdly - once I turned 40 my body wakes up naturally around 7:30am. My morning routine turned from rigid to more fluid over the years.

Main things:

• Leave bottle of water out on the table
• Have physical book out on table
• Drink Cometeer coffee or make Chinese tea
• Journal (only on Mondays) - found daily overwhelming
• Leave phone outside bedroom
• Write out 3x5 note card top things of the day.

Over time I focus on less guilt from following optimal morning routine and more just acknowledging what I want / need in that morning. If I want to check my phone right away (book launch!) that's okay or if I feel for a workout do that. If I keep aimlessly scrolling stupid shit, unfollow more people and or change the book on my kitchen table.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

How did you discover this forum?

He joined in 2015. If I recall correctly, Noah and I had lunch together while he was visiting Phoenix (and I still lived there) many moons ago.

BTW, a lot of these questions being asked here he covers in his book.

 

[noahkagan]

Hey Noah, welcome to the forum and been following your stuff for a long time.

I am curious on what drove you to invest so much in having a strong personal brand?

You have the skills, connections, and know how to build out of the public eye and stack some serious wealth.

What personal branding advantages do you see and how have you felt about your progress so far?

Thank you - and already have that pre-order in...

View attachment 53706

Fox - you legendary guy you

I never really think of myself as a brand and after I turned 40 realized there's never enough brand for some of the egomaniacs out there : )

Ultimately I like it. Getting recognized at an airport, someone saying I read / bought that thing I worked on and it helped them and I like the attention it provides. I am WAY more concerned with my security given my wealth and attention has increased but still feel like I'm more than enough recognized to never get recognized at Taco Bell : )

Personal brand is INSANELY advantageous and you nowadays don't even have to use your real face.

Biggest gains:

• Meet other cool people - guys like Jordan Belfort or famous cyclist like George Hencapie have reached out
• Cool activities - not always but get invited to events
• AppSumo benefits - HUGE brand awareness having me out there
• There are more...

I talk in therapy how much attention is enough. And enough is enough. Lately I'm focusing more if I am proud of the work vs solely how well the work does and how can I sustain it for 10 years.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

4- Someones revenue or whatever $100m number they put in titles is likely a lie and more important is profit.

The revenue razor...

 

[Black_Dragon43]

My new book Million Dollar Weekend is dropping Jan 30/2024 sharing everything I’ve learned from starting eight $1M+ businesses (most in a single weekend).

Happy to answer any questions on entrepreneurship, launching a biz, marketing or running a company

Hey Noah, pleasure to be acquainted with you, and thanks for taking the time to come on the fastlane and chat to people here.

You yourself seem to be quite active in the startup scene and AppSummo itself is (or was) quite a novel idea at the time. Much of your thinking is aligned with the lean startup philosophy — I say this as someone who purchased one of your courses long ago as part of the market research I was doing on products addressed to entrepreneurs at the time.

However, I feel that this kind of thinking often encourages beginners to pursue far-fetched ideas which require large capitalization or have a high chance for failure, or a low chance of making money consistently. Hence why most people who start businesses quit and don’t end up successful.

I’m not a big fan of this problem solving approach. Many problems aren’t worth solving economically speaking. Or they’re not possible, for whatever reason, for you specifically to solve.

There’s a handful of us on this forum who have made great money in basically “boring”, “crowded” market spaces. There’s a guy (talking about @Johnny boy ) in lawncare for example. I’m in the digital agency space. And so on.

And while I know these businesses are unlikely to produce billionaires, I see it as a safer path to wealth. You don’t need to innovate so much as you need to be better than the competition at doing what you do. My philosophy is literarily find a business that makes money, learn how they do what they do, copy what works, then look to improve things. No need to solve problems. No need to reinvent the wheel. Just join the party so to speak.

What’s your opinion on this — basically becoming better in a red/pink ocean, rather than seeking to open a blue ocean? I feel most (successful) pioneers suffer from surviorship bias. Would be curious to hear your thoughts!

 

[noahkagan]

I am at idea to execution stage. Basically I’m figuring out my execution. No product, no customer. I’ve got 4 hours per day to skill up so I thought learning react is a good move. @MJ DeMarco Fastlane book classifies my current status as turning a smelly fart into roses and the only solution is execution. The only thing I can think to do is learn react (skill up) so when the opportunity arises I can build the thing and release into wild.

Is a solo dev a worthless pursuit or you think I need to carve out some time to also build relationships with intent to possibly find a partner or workers?

You don't need anyone else but yourself today.

A few ideas:
1- What have you gotten paid for in the past or what is your day job?
2- Look at your 150 contacts in your phone. Who's the most impressive or richest person in there? Call them today and just listen to their problems. Think you'll be surprised what you will find out.
3- No one wants code or react or javascript, they want their problems solved. Focus on that.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

For those who got the book, is this book mainly for tech guys and coders looking to start their tech-related business idea? Or is it suitable for non-tech folks?

No, a lot of his examples are physical products, like beef jerky was one of his test pilots.

 

[noahkagan]

Hi Noah,

how would you go about scaling a video course business that is in a niche where building an audience doesn't really work.

What would be your favorite paid traffic sources / methods?

Hey amigo

1- How did you get your first customers? Do more of that
2- I don't focus on scaling businesses - especially courses as your best marketing is successful customers. Who are some of the people you've helped?
3- Who in this forum or in your network can you help with today for that business? Today!

Btw - people tend to think I'm talking small ball but these are the same exact process we use to run AppSumo at $80m a year business.

 

[Andy Black]

Who in this forum or in your network can you help with today for that business? Today!

I don't focus on scaling businesses - your best marketing is successful customers.

solve problems that people want to get paid for

find something people really want to pay for, start today, ask people in your network, leverage your experience in your side-hustles, try again and again and then stick with it for a long period of time.

Love it.

My favourite business quote:

"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest to you."
(Mother Theresa)


Help people. Get paid. Help more people.

Get started, today.

 

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[The One]

Hey @MJ DeMarco can I get 90% off goal sumo and FASTLANE forum membership?

 

[noahkagan]

What's a good technology business to get in right now starting with almost $0 money? I want to start one this weekend. What do you see in the future of tech? I've been thinking about a smart home business for senior citizens. Turn their home into smart homes. Also why did Zuck fire you? Did he do it personally?

I LOVE the idea of smart homes for senior citizens. How many grandparents do you have (see what I did there) or friends that have them. See if you can call them and sell at least 3 of them in the next 48 hours. That's the sweet spot. If they say, listen to what other problems they are facing.

Also for technology business - I'm personally interested in big large tech companies without lock-in and monthly subscriptions. Think docusign and google analytics for example are ripe for disruption.

Why I got fired. Zuck did not fire me, Matt Cohler did.

 

[noahkagan]

@noahkagan I remember a while back you had some content up about your personal/business monthly expenses.

I remember thinking it was a pretty high number - like a lot of trainers and coaches and extra costs etc.

Im curious if you are still running things that way and also what you got the most value out of / what was not worth it?

It's likely higher. Latest numbers here:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzoMCWDgZ84


Coaches - personally at least $200k+ / yearly just for myself not including what we spend on rest of the team.

 

[noahkagan]

Hey Noah, pleasure to be acquainted with you, and thanks for taking the time to come on the fastlane and chat to people here.

You yourself seem to be quite active in the startup scene and AppSummo itself is (or was) quite a novel idea at the time. Much of your thinking is aligned with the lean startup philosophy — I say this as someone who purchased one of your courses long ago as part of the market research I was doing on products addressed to entrepreneurs at the time.

However, I feel that this kind of thinking often encourages beginners to pursue far-fetched ideas which require large capitalization or have a high chance for failure, or a low chance of making money consistently. Hence why most people who start businesses quit and don’t end up successful.

I’m not a big fan of this problem solving approach. Many problems aren’t worth solving economically speaking. Or they’re not possible, for whatever reason, for you specifically to solve.

There’s a handful of us on this forum who have made great money in basically “boring”, “crowded” market spaces. There’s a guy (talking about @Johnny boy ) in lawncare for example. I’m in the digital agency space. And so on.

And while I know these businesses are unlikely to produce billionaires, I see it as a safer path to wealth. You don’t need to innovate so much as you need to be better than the competition at doing what you do. My philosophy is literarily find a business that makes money, learn how they do what they do, copy what works, then look to improve things. No need to solve problems. No need to reinvent the wheel. Just join the party so to speak.

What’s your opinion on this — basically becoming better in a red/pink ocean, rather than seeking to open a blue ocean? I feel most (successful) pioneers suffer from surviorship bias. Would be curious to hear your thoughts!

Think there are many paths of success. I'm just sharing my variety.

Most important to me is finding a problem I personally care to be solved and make sure its at least a million dollar opportunity.

Starting in any industry for newer entrepreneurs and getting reps is essential as it will lead them to a great million dollar destination.

 

[Arjun Uphale]

Hola FLF amigos

I’m Noah Kagan, the Chief Sumo (aka, CEO) at AppSumo ($80M+/year in revenue) the #1 software deals site online.

I also run a YouTube Channel with 1M+ subscribers helping inspire underdogs on their business journey.

Before AppSumo, I was employee #30 at Facebook (invented status updates, developed the Facebook ads platform and worked on the first version of Facebook's mobile app) & fired by Mark Zuckerberg.

Made my first million dollars at age 29 before I ever started a successful business by sleeping on friend’s couches and putting all my money into savings or the stock market.

My new book Million Dollar Weekend is dropping Jan 30/2024 sharing everything I’ve learned from starting eight $1M+ businesses (most in a single weekend).

Happy to answer any questions on entrepreneurship, launching a biz, marketing or running a company

Ps. Episode on Tim Ferriss just dropped if anyone wants to check it out!

How did you discover this forum?

 

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[noahkagan]

How much of your success would you attribute to your high-energy extroverted and sociable nature?

Some but not all.

The skill of asking is universal, attainable and underutilized by most people.

Do think it is easy to say we are introverts but sometimes that's an avoidance of what are we afraid of doing which will lead us in the right direction.

I too - like to be alone at home or don't really want to go events. Sometimes I will and many times I don't.

You can be successful without being loud. There's millions of people with $$$ you don't know about.

 

[noahkagan]

@noahkagan Thanks for everything you do and for writing your book...a big fan for years now!

I have a $4-5 million dollar annual revenue business in the food product space that I started 4 years ago, but I am relatively young (30!) and am hungry to find that next level in business.

I am torn between doubling down on this business VS starting something 'better' in terms of leverage, scale, and opportunity.

What are your thoughts on business monogamy vs polygamy? When do you think it is right to move focus from one business to another?

Congrats on your success!!

I am 1000000% monogamous. The RICHEST people in the world DON'T diversify.

Copy success.

Keep doubling down until you can't double down anymore. There's ALWAYS more meat on the bone and the business is the one that works.

 

[noahkagan]

I have been following Noah and appsumo since 3 years now.

Great success and great guy.
Loved all the content he shares online.
Happy to have you here.

Love you back. Thank you so much. It's been a fun journey - a bit surprised reflecting I've been doing it for 24 years

 

[Spenny]

It's fantastic to have such a heavy hitter like you on the forum, Noah.

Did you always want to do entrepreneurship & saw Facebook as the way to do it? Or did you just like working at an innovative startup?

 

[eliquid]

No questions for @noahkagan, but just wanted to say hi.

Bought my first product from AppSumo Nov of 2011 and also was one of the first people to buy some "jerky" from you on LinkedIn when you wanted to validate the product.

I think we both also know Jeff Shaw....

Small world.

 

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[Brass Pockets]

Hola FLF amigos

I’m Noah Kagan, the Chief Sumo (aka, CEO) at AppSumo ($80M+/year in revenue) the #1 software deals site online.

I also run a YouTube Channel with 1M+ subscribers helping inspire underdogs on their business journey.

Before AppSumo, I was employee #30 at Facebook (invented status updates, developed the Facebook ads platform and worked on the first version of Facebook's mobile app) & fired by Mark Zuckerberg.

Made my first million dollars at age 29 before I ever started a successful business by sleeping on friend’s couches and putting all my money into savings or the stock market.

My new book Million Dollar Weekend is dropping Jan 30/2024 sharing everything I’ve learned from starting eight $1M+ businesses (most in a single weekend).

Happy to answer any questions on entrepreneurship, launching a biz, marketing or running a company

Ps. Episode on Tim Ferriss just dropped if anyone wants to check it out!

Been reading this Noah, and page 43 hit me hard:

''...and my company was a commodity. I wanted to move up the value chain to a place where people can't live without my product.''

Now that's an eye opener for a business idea

Loving the book bud

 

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[bambz]

@Andy Black @noahkagan
Wow, the customer first approach is amazing!

Okay, I invested more than 48 hours (few days) to create MVP and sent for free in FB group.

I've gotten some likes, comments and conversations. Some people were interested in my SaaS (b2b).

They gave me some advices and after 2 days I came back with new version.

Currently I have first customer who is very excited and asking about my account number, because he wants to be the first, real customer and my app just started helping him!