My First Million: #84 with Noah Kagan - How the Founder of AppSumo Walked Away From $100m

Hubspot Podcast Network Hubspot Podcast Network 6/19/20 - Episode Page - 1h 1m - PDF Transcript

All right.

Quick break to tell you about another podcast that we're interested in right now, HubSpot

just launched a Shark Tank rewatch podcast called Another Bite.

Every week, the hosts relive the latest and greatest pitches from Shark Tank, from Squatty

Potty to the Mench on a Bench to Ring Doorbell, and they break down why these pitches were

winners or losers.

And each company's go-to-market strategy, branding, pricing, valuation, everything.

Basically all the things you want to know about how to survive the tank and scale your

company on your own.

If you want to give it a listen, you can find another bite on whatever podcast app you listen

to, like Apple or Spotify or whatever you're using right now.

All right.

Back to the show.

No, what's going on?

Sam Parr in meetings all day and then I'm heading out to California in four hours.

So I was just, I haven't been on this podcast in a minute because I was in Austin.

I drove from California to Austin.

I hung out with Noah and Neville and a bunch of people.

And now Noah is coming to Malibu or somewhere.

I'm coming to SF for a month and then I'm going to go to Malibu for a month.

Where are you staying in San Francisco?

Andrew Chen's house.

Oh, that's right.

You told me.

I, uh, I've decided that I'm going to get rid of my apartment in San Francisco and I'm

going to live in different cities for one or two months each.

We're copying each other, Sam.

You went bald, so I went bald.

You're, I'm moving places.

So you're moving places.

I need to get glasses.

A dog.

Well, yeah, you need, you need a few things.

I need a few things.

You're funny.

We, uh, we know each other well, but can you tell the listeners who you are?

What is up you sexy listeners?

Noah Kagan.

Uh, I'm a cyclist, I'm a chess player, uh, lately I'm making a lot of content on YouTube

about everything I'm learning at AppSumo.com.

That's youtube.com slash okay, dork.

I helped start AppSumo.com, which is the number one site online for software deals and

eight figure company been around 10 years.

Uh, I was number 30 at Facebook, number four at mint.com, uh, and then the two other things

that I like working on and playing with business wise is sendfox.com, which is a free email

list for content creators and okay, dork.com, which is my site about overcoming fear, starting

and marketing startups.

And Noah and I have known each other for, um, six or seven years.

Oh, wow.

Um, we're, you're, I think you're five or six years older than me where we're very similar

personalities.

We're a little crazy.

We have a, uh, a, uh, a bunch of different ideas, um, would you say that's accurate?

Yeah, I didn't like you for a long time.

Why?

So sometimes you'll hang out with Sam, if you guys have hung out or had the chance to

hang out with Sam, he's like, how much money are you making doing this one thing?

And it's like, it's like someone asked you like, how big is your penis?

You're like, dude, I don't know you and you're asking a really personal kind of aggressive.

It's almost, it's like to the level of transactional that's just a little too much versus what

you'd expect from a friend.

And I think sometimes it's interesting to observe the people or companies that we're

jealous of or the companies we're reacting negatively, negatively to it and really trying

to understand that.

And our first experience, I think if I recall, you wanted me to come speak at the hustle

conference.

No, I, I wanted to, it was, yeah, I wanted you to speak at an event and I, you asked

me to write a blog post for you and I wrote this blog post.

And then you didn't publish it and I was like, what the fuck?

There was just weird vibes I was getting from you.

And so it didn't make me excited to want to do anything.

And then you sent me like a neutral bullet or some kind of item.

And I was just like, this guy weirds me out.

I don't like how he's behaving.

And so over the years though, I've started to appreciate your quirkiness and it's probably

like me.

I'm sure some people are listening to me like, I don't like the style.

I think the point for everyone is not to just go and accept everyone and love everything,

but to observe our jealousy, observe our negativity, observe our criticism and think about what

we're trying to really say about ourselves or learn about ourselves.

I think one thing I would say about you, Sam, that I've appreciated is that it's interesting

to observe the people in life who give what they want because those people, you don't

see all the things they're not getting.

And I really respect with Sam how persevering you are.

I think there's a lot of times where I'm like, oh yeah, this guy is going to, there's so

many people I'm like, oh, they're going to quit soon.

And I definitely, you know, the hustle wouldn't be anything without effort.

And I think without you just kept going and won't stop.

And I think more people have to, some people are like, well, I don't have that.

I'm not Sam Power.

I'm not okay.

And I'm not, it's like, yeah, you're yourself, which is even better.

And it's just finding the things that you never want to give up on.

So find your hustle, find your app, Sumo, find your okaydork.com and just find something

you'll never quit on and then go for it.

And that's one thing I've definitely appreciated watching your journey from afar.

You said you didn't like me or I rubbed you the wrong way.

Were you saying that, and then you said jealousy, you're saying because you think I was jealous

of you or you jealous of me?

No, I think at that time I just found you kind of, I was uncertain on your motive.

It's been like six years, so I'm not exactly sure.

I think everyone's favorite story is themselves.

So if you ever want to talk to someone and be like, hey, you know what I noticed about

you?

And they're like, what?

But I think feedback is a whole nother thing.

We can talk about that.

I think I just had a weird vibe and I didn't know what your intentions were.

And I think what was interesting is like other friends of ours were like, oh yeah, he's a

good dude.

And he is, but I was like, I guess I'm missing something.

So let's, we're going to talk about business in a second.

And I think this is kind of an interesting conversation because, but I think that what

has brought us to be friends is our mutual friend, Neville Madora, who is both of ours

best friend.

He was the best man in my wedding and you have a, well, you have a brother, but he probably

had it not been for your brother.

He probably would be in that category for you as well.

And so it's interesting how like, like you could, we both see how we're loyal to one

person and that brings like good qualities out of each other.

I think Neville said I'm his number one.

I don't know if you've talked to him recently.

Well, we can fight over that.

Is that what he says in bed to both of us?

He's like, no, I never said he said I was number one, but I, you know, we both are,

we're both loyal to similar people.

So let's talk about, let's talk about different interesting companies and businesses that

we're both looking at because we're, you and I are the same and that we're both like pretty

big schemers and not that we do shit all the time, but we both like, like, like to figure

out how things work.

What are you looking at?

Like you're really interested in the, in the email space with SenFox.

I'm interested in that as well.

What interests you about email?

Like why are you like, because AppSumo is pretty successful.

You don't have to start new shit if you didn't want to.

Why are you choosing SenFox?

I think choosing one of my favorite books around the words that you use is the Dalai Lama's

art of happiness.

And I love that you were chose, right?

Because I don't have to do anything.

I want to do things.

I don't need to do stuff.

I want stuff.

It's interesting for all of us to be aware of that.

Namaste everyone.

I think what, in my life, I think one of the things that drives me is curiosity.

And I think in terms of business, like if people out there, you know, listen to this

and say, Hey, I want to get my business started.

The best business to start is something that solves your own problem.

And so for me, I was using MailChimp.

I've used ConvertKit.

I've checked out a web or I've checked, one, I found them way over expensive.

I found them way over complicated.

It took me like 45 minutes to set up a MailChimp email.

And so I was like, I just want something more affordable and simpler.

And that's why we built Sunfox.

And I think that's something where I'll keep working on it forever with the team.

I think what's interesting is trying to think about what's going to happen in the next six

months to six years.

And then how do I be a little bit ahead of everyone else?

So if you think about it, let me ask you, Sam, do you think there's going to be more

or less content creators in the future?

Absolutely more.

So I think, you know, the one problem that I noticed with all the channels like YouTube

or Instagram or TikTok or any of these, is that ultimately they are incentivized to get

you to pay to talk to your audience.

Why?

Because they have to make money.

And so email is the only channel I've ever found that can scale communicating with an

audience that you can fully control.

And so I think if Sunfox becomes the number one place for people to grow their audiences,

one I want it for myself, number one, and two is just a really big and interesting opportunity

to work on.

So we send, how many emails do I send a year?

Maybe six or 700 million.

I don't even know, to be honest.

AppSumo probably has a similar amount of emails, like hundreds of millions of sends per year.

I think I pay 10 or 15 grand a month to send those.

Does that sound right?

I don't really know.

I think there's two things that are more interesting to me.

One, I've been focusing more on the total audience that you have available because email

is a component of your audience.

So you actually have Hustle Facebook, Hustle Instagram, Hustle YouTube, Hustle Podcast,

your total active audience and there's overlap.

That number I'm actually more fascinated with.

And the second thing with email, I think the metric cost is one thing, but I think the

metric that...

Well, you said Sunfox was trying to make it cheaper because you were surprised that...

More affordable.

I don't like the word cheaper.

More affordable.

Yeah.

More affordable.

How much does that cost to send?

I'll tell you.

If you take.0002 and then times that by how many emails.

So the thing that MailChimp and ConvertKit and all these guys, so.0002 times your number.

So they make money if you don't send emails.

Because they make money off your subscriber.

Of course.

And so...

Yeah.

So Sunfox is free and then we're a one-time payment because most people don't actually

email.

And so we're trying to fix that and work through those kind of challenges with people.

But the other thing I think people need to think about in terms of growing their community

or starting a newsletter, like if you don't have one, start it today, use sunfox.com,

number one.

But the second thing is the number that's the most important is not your email list

size.

It is your active email list size.

So it is the amount of people within three months that have opened and clicked your email.

Because I've had hundreds of thousands.

I think in my total lifetime of OKDork, I've had 175,000 subscribed to the newsletter.

My active audience is only 55.

Think about that.

And that's what we do too.

But we churn people every three months, like we sunset them, like when we send them an

email and be like, hey, we're going to take you off this list.

What percentage is it?

I don't know off the top of my head to be honest with you, but I know that one...

I can tell you this though.

So our open rate's really, really high.

Right now it's like 55%.

And I think the average person stays two years.

So you could somehow figure out what that is.

But if we don't get them on the hook right away, then they're never going to get on the

hook.

How do you get on the hook?

Your welcome email needs to be really good.

Your thank you page after they sign up needs to be really good.

You know this shit.

This is what you did.

No, it's good.

Dude, here's the thing.

I'm still learning.

Even your unsubscribe page needs to be great.

Which you...

Didn't you have a really good unsubscribe page?

Yeah, but I gave up on that one.

I think the thank you page and your welcome thing are like the two of the most neglected

pieces of marketing.

Yeah, I call them like you have to make the forgotten parts really good.

So like your thank you page, your welcome email, your unsubscribe page.

Just like little Easter egg shit like that.

That needs to be good.

What do you recommend for those?

To make them good?

Yeah.

Well, our...

So I get accused of stealing CD Baby's email, welcome email, which I didn't even know what

that was.

But then when I saw it, I realized, oh yeah, I totally understand why people think I

stole that.

But my welcome email was like a really detailed welcome email that it was like really long

and explained what happened when you signed up.

And it was pretty funny.

And like if you Google like the hustle welcome email, a lot of people wrote about it.

People seem to like that.

So just like being creative and writing long form content about what happened after those

types of things when those people signed up, it works pretty well.

But with...

So let's say like ConvertKit.

Let's say ConvertKit is doing $20 million a year in sales, which ConvertKit's awesome

because I like the guy who started it, I like ConvertKit, and they reveal all their revenue

numbers.

If they're doing $20 million in revenue, like you said that you were trying to make

CentFox more affordable.

I have no idea.

How much do they actually charge, think to...

Or how much are they...

What's their cogs in order to send all those emails?

Point zero zero two.

It might be point zero zero zero one five times how many emails they're sending a month.

The profit is all on the people who don't email.

It's basically...

I think of email marketing companies as very expensive hosting.

We're basically paying a lot of money to host zeros and ones digits that don't cost anything.

And so I think more importantly, if people are trying to start businesses, like that's

a really interesting business to start.

It's also interesting business to disrupt.

Like I think Substack has done amazing with it coming at it from like, hey, email's actually

free and we're going to make money on the subscription part so you don't have to pay

for email anymore.

Same with CentFox.

It's like it's mostly free and we're going to be focusing...

We're focusing more on like YouTubers and podcasters.

So it's like who are the audiences that aren't really emailing enough or don't know how to

email for this specific type of audience?

I think a market for that is musicians, bands.

I think there's a huge...

Like if you look at the money where musicians make it, it's in concerts and they're horrible

at notifying you when they're coming into town.

You have to serve a customer that I think you have an understanding of.

I think a lot of these entrepreneurs out there are like, oh yeah, let me go help musicians.

I'm like, one, I don't know shit about musicians.

I'm learning to play piano.

It's right here.

But the point being is I think we...

It's not that you shouldn't go outside of your comfort zone.

I just think that there's easier ways of success and I think too many people make it too hard

on themselves and it's just like go into your own problems or go into problems of people

around you that you have easier access to.

What about...

Have you been looking into AMP for email?

Yeah, some of this stuff.

I mean, there's also talk about, hey, email's dying and all this stuff.

I'm like, people are still using it left and right.

I've seen AMP where it's like a little bit more of dynamic and faster loading emails.

I think the most important thing about email is not necessarily the layouts and all that

stuff.

I think the most important thing is how do you build a relationship where people are

expecting your email?

We're like, if I stopped emailing or the hustle didn't come, they're like, something is wrong

with my day.

And until you get to that point, you're probably worrying about the wrong problems.

Yeah.

I mean, that's the hard part, obviously.

That's like, how do you create...

I mean, that's just about creating good shit.

But I still think the whole AMP thing is actually super interesting.

What I'm working on is a few ways to hack it because I kind of am obsessed with storytelling

in email.

And so what can you...

If you think about what is a GIF, to me, a GIF is a movable image that has no sound.

Well, so is most of the video that you use on Instagram and Facebook.

It's just audio or it's just video with no sound because a lot of times you don't even

click.

And so what I'm interested is how can I use AMP to tell a story in an email in a video

format or like all these other hacks like that.

That's incredibly interesting to me.

I think there's something there with that.

The thing that we've been doing with SenFox that we've been building in is there's kind

of like two major components that I think are lacking in email.

So number one is how do you build in like what the hustle and morning brew have, which

is build in referrals.

So we've basically built that in so anyone can have their own referral engine within

emails.

By the way, that was a huge pain in the ass for us.

No, no, so we built it and it works and I'm doing it on, okay, so if you go to SenFox.com

slash Noah, you can see how it looks or sign up for yourself and it's built in for free.

I think the second thing that we're observing, so what everyone wants is like, how do I grow

my audience and how do I send consistent emails?

Because if you're not sending something weekly, you get forgotten and in this age of attention,

we're all fighting for it.

And so we built this thing called weekly newsletter template or I think they're called branding

it smart campaigns.

And so the idea there is that we suck in all of your social information and we look at

what's most popular and then we basically just like, we recommend like, Hey, here's

the three things that you should email your audience this week.

And so that's what I do every Wednesday.

I just pull my two of my favorite things and one of someone else's to try to spread joy

and love and build relationships with people I don't know yet.

How many people are working on SenFox?

I think there's two developers, one designer, David is the GM, maybe like six.

So you see Hey, obviously you saw that.

So for those who don't know, Hey.com, it's a new email service, it's pretty neat.

I don't know if it's going to be big, but I definitely, I think it's cool that they

are trying that.

I think it actually will be big, but that's irrelevant.

What that company did, it started by 37 signals.

They have a team of like 50 people and they make money through base camp, I think, right?

That's their main thing.

And they've used all those profits to fund Hey, which I don't know how many engineers

they had on that.

Probably a lot actually.

It's pretty robust already.

At my company, what I'm trying to do, we're taking all of our profits and we're launching

more stuff.

How are you figuring out how much of your profit to allocate to these side projects like SenFox

and like these new products?

So the way that we've approached it recently is a little bit more structured.

The question that we ask is basically two things.

One, can we make our money back within 18 months?

Got it, 18 months.

So will we make break even money back to 18 months?

And secondly, is it at least a seven figure decision?

So is it at least, if it's not a seven figure opportunity, we won't do it.

The reality is the majority of the money is best spent into whatever is making the most

money from a capitalist standpoint.

Some of that stuff is short term versus long term.

And so with SenFox right now, the number, we made our money back immediately because

there was only one developer part time and one GM and then as it started becoming more

profitable.

It was like, all right, well, let's keep it, let's make sure it's a seven figure business.

And now we're focusing on, because we know it's seven figure opportunity, we're saying,

how do we get this to be a hundred, a hundred million dollar business, whatever it is.

Whatever, yeah.

But we're more focused right now on building our goal there is active audience.

So I think one thing with company metrics is how do you line your customer success to

your company metric success, your company North Star?

So for SenFox, right now we're at a million active audience, meaning of all of our subscribers.

We reach a million active customers through them.

And so if we can grow that number to three million, that's our goal this year, then all

of our customers are more successful and then we will be subsequently more successful.

So how long have you had people working on it?

SenFox about two years.

I mean, what's fascinating about this just as a quick side note, Sam, is that there's

a debate internally, not debate, but there's discussion internally that if we would have

spent all the money and time that we built on SenFox and King Sumo and Hall Drop and

Meat Fam and all the things we've done just on AppSumo, the main thing, would it have

been a hundred million dollar business today?

And the likelihood is, yeah, I'm going through the same process where I'm like, man, I got

this cash cow and a lot of people listening, they also have the same thing where they have

these companies, but like we're fucking degenerates and we can't not make shit.

It's like, well, our strength, our greatest strengths are generally our greatest weaknesses.

So our greatest strength for, I don't know, I won't speak for you.

My greatest strength is igniting.

Like I go and start something and I'm like really quick and I'm really fast.

My greatest weakness is, is like consistency.

I always think of it as like a, I'm a great igniter, but I'm not a great consistent source

of fuel.

And so you have to find that balance of who is your fuel.

So for me, Amen is fuel, David over at SenFox is fuel.

And then I can go focus on the igniting part.

And I think that's where you can find success in life, which is, what are you fucking amazing

at?

Just do that stuff.

And it's hard because we feel guilty or we feel weak, but it is finding the people that

can compliment you on those other, those other sides.

But take another example, like, like the two might, two of my favorite examples that everyone

knows is Netflix and Amazon.

Netflix is worth $200 billion from one 999 a month subscription.

So Amazon, on the other hand, is worth a trillion.

And they've got, in terms of significant revenue streams, probably like three or four.

And so I don't think that there's many different ways of eating a Reese's peanut butter cup.

I think you have to kind of figure it out for yourself what style of business.

So for me with, with mine, I literally, I thought about this this morning, my, my, my

ambitions and enjoyment and fulfillment come from like promoting dope stuff, which we do

on AppSumo, sharing what I'm learning while doing that, which is happening on YouTube

and my podcast, uh, no cake and presents podcast, uh, and then three making things that I want

for myself, which is SenFox.

And I'm like, can I just do this till I die?

Or maybe I'll do this till if I can live forever.

And I think that's what we're all, we're all striving for.

Can I ask you, uh, I did a pod recently where I talked about delegating and hiring like

a CEO and general managers can, uh, I've learned how to do this through reading a few books.

I learned how to do this from talking to David Hauser, who we're friends with.

I learned how to do it through, uh, talking indirectly, like learning from you on how

to do it.

Like I would talk to Amon.

I would talk to you a little bit about it.

I would talk to Neville.

What was your process like for doing that?

Because you have three or four or how many GMs do you have or whatever you call them?

I think there's three GMs right now.

So there's Hall Drop, there's AppSumo, and then there's, um, SenFox, David does SenFox

and KingSumo.

I think what's actually interesting, taking a step back, how many CEOs do you think there

are in Amazon CEO title or, or, or job just people who were CEOs in their own businesses

that are now running divisions of Amazon?

I don't know.

And you, yeah, exactly.

And so the people that want to start their own businesses, if you can figure out how

to align their incentives and their motivation within your business is how you create a trillion

dollar business.

And so there's a bunch of examples of this, by the way, there's Alibaba, Rocket Internet

has done this wonderfully.

Sounds like you're doing it well.

Who else has done it well?

Amazon has done it well.

Um, there's a way more where they, uh, uh, a, uh, a company I'm obsessed with is Coke,

uh, Coke family, the Coke industries.

They've done this.

I always call it cock, but I get corrected and it's Coke.

It cares.

Let's call them rich.

The old white fucks.

No, I don't know if they're fucks, but, uh, I think in terms of delegation leadership,

I actually think one of my superpowers is just like observations of greatness.

So here's something.

It's like, who fucking cares about no.

I think what I would do as a listener, and this is what I still do this day.

I'm almost 40 and I still do this anytime you notice anything impressive, reach out

to the person.

That's it.

And over your lifetime, figure out how the fuck do I get around that guy or girl?

And I think that will lead you to an easier six chances of greatness, uh, cause it's

a lot harder to like go out and try to like date and find people just from the ground

up.

It's much easier if you're like, man, like, you know, the people I worked at Facebook,

honestly, the best ever, literally the best ever.

And so it's like, Oh shit.

I mean, if you're, I haven't been able to keep around them because we had a falling

out obviously, but it's like, all right, how do I be, have more of that?

So like Garrett Garrett's the lead developer on send Fox.

He built a WordPress plugin that I bought for like $100 like six, seven years ago.

And then I said, Hey, can I pay you like 25, 30 bucks an hour to fix it?

And he was so impressive and he did it for a year.

And I told Chad, my business partner, I was like, dude, this guy is fucking fire.

And I was like, we just need to hire him full time and let him do whatever he wants and

pay him whatever he wants.

And it's pretty much what we've done.

Now he works in send Fox and his output is remarkable.

And so I think with GM's and things like that, I'd say ultimately it's like you want

to find the people that blow you away, but those people basically, you want the people

who want to run their own businesses and then two things you want to give them a challenging

goal and then you want to give them some boundaries and then leave them alone.

And that's the simplest and most complicated thing to do.

Can you elaborate on that more because so I've hired a president of my company and it's

pretty great because like I get just all the shit I don't want to do he likes to do.

So it works out well.

Where I struggle is I still like get into it and I get in his way.

I'm like, Hey, this sucks.

You need to fix it this way, this way, this way, and this way.

Are you doing that with your people?

So let me correct you.

They're not my people.

People who you work with.

Yeah.

I think that's a big difference.

And I know it might sound like, Oh, no, but I think I never say employees.

I never say it's mine.

Is there the technicality of do I own more of the business than others?

Yeah, but I think if you want people to be leaders, they have to lead and they can't

ask for permission to do it.

You know, a lot of times one of my favorite lines that I've been saying in the company

lately is people ask me something.

I'm like, who's in charge?

I say this a lot.

I probably say this at least once a day.

I'm like, who's in charge?

And they're like me.

I'm like, yeah, damn right.

It's you.

Don't fucking look at me.

I don't know.

And so I think the more that you the way I've been looking at myself lately with the team

is where's my excellence and where can I do the best job of coaching?

And I hate when I've heard that because when I've heard that, I'm like, what does that

mean?

What are they coaching?

And so let me be specific.

So with Dork, like I've hired a team of four people to help build out my brand and to help

spread the message of overcoming fear and starting businesses.

And they're these, these people went through the gauntlet to get the job.

I'm clear on where they want to go.

I'm very clear on where they personally want to go.

And so my job is to help them get what they want.

And it's kind of like the Jim Rohn quote.

If I can help them get what they want, I can get what I want.

And so I think I learned this when I got rejected from Microsoft as a job.

I had an internship.

And you know, when you intern, you get the job guaranteed.

You know about that?

Most times when you intern, you get the job guaranteed.

I was like the one of the few that didn't get it.

It's like, damn, I'm an underdog, man.

I'm still fucking fighting.

But I did learn something in the job interview that I never forgotten.

He's like, here's the best way to lead.

I'm like, tell me, and best way to coach.

He's like, you give them a football, you tell them where the end zone is, you say, hey,

here's the boundaries to get to the end zone.

How you want to score is up to you.

And I think what I've learned really well over the past two years is I don't, you don't

want to be a seagull.

You know the seagull theory?

No, we're just, we're just chirping at them.

Yeah.

You come in shit and fly away.

I was doing a lot of seagull theory for a few years.

Wait, did you coin that?

Or is that a thing?

I mean, is that your phrase?

Yeah.

All right.

Cool.

Well, I didn't, I don't want to be shitting on people and flying away.

I think it's like, how do you lean in Sheryl Sandberg style and step into these challenges

and be, cause I think what I always admire is solution thinking, right?

Like, am I coming and complaining and am I bringing more problems or am I bringing more

solutions?

So in turn, anyways, in terms of coaching, like with Aimen who's running AppSumo, especially

lately, I feel like more of an advisor in a very effective way.

And I think it's a really fine line because you don't want resentment.

So Aimen wants to do this one thing recently.

And I'm like, do I just let him do everything and resent it?

Like, oh, fuck you, man.

I totally disagree with you.

Or do I say, no, Aimen, do this thing.

You must do it.

My fucking way.

It's the Noah Kagan way.

My dad used to say this when I was a little kid.

He's like, my way or the highway?

I was like, dude, I am eight years old.

Like I don't know what you want from me.

And I don't think it could be either way of those.

I think it needs to be somewhere in the middle where I don't want to feel resented.

I don't resent me towards Aimen.

I don't want it to be a dictator because then the worst thing I think you could do is hiring

someone is demotivate them.

That is probably like one of the dirtiest things you could ever do to anyone is like

demo.

And I've done that twice to Aimen and Chad and they both said it to me and I felt really

bad about it.

And I felt really like, I don't want them working for me.

I don't want them.

I want them waking up thinking about it and loving it, which is what you want from a lot

of people in the team.

And so I think with Aimen, ultimately it's saying like how can I, like a lot of times

we have goals.

He has boundaries budgets.

And then the question I ask is how can I be most helpful?

And so really kind of coming from that approach because at the end of the day, if he's driving

the results, I don't give a fuck how he plays the game at the end of the day.

As long as the score is looking good, it's within the boundaries.

So Sean is joining us now.

Go ahead, Sean.

I think you have.

I'm a student at the moment.

Yeah.

I think Sean had something to say.

First.

What's up, Noah?

Hey, buddy.

Sorry for joining late.

I've been following your blog for a long time.

I remember you, you wrote a bunch of shit that was like, you know, I walked away from

a hundred million bucks or whatever it was.

I didn't walk away.

I got fired, but yes.

Yeah.

You know, my a hundred million dollar mistake or whatever it was, but I, and I've pointed

to a bunch of your tools and so I just want to pause for a second, say one of the ways

I got good at marketing is by stealing your shit.

And if somebody out there wants to get good at marketing, especially content marketing,

go read the stuff about how you built mint and, you know, just how you built your own

personal brand.

Just go observe the meta of what you were doing.

Look at some of the spreadsheets that you linked out.

That shit's actually pretty useful.

And there's like a fine line usually between like, I always have this like big skepticism

when somebody spends so much of their time telling me how to do something.

I'm like, well, how much of that time, how much of your time are you actually spending

doing that thing?

Are you even, are you one of those people who you get rich teaching other people to

be rich type of thing?

And you know, the thing I liked about you and a few others that we, we vouch for on

this podcast is, no, there's some people who actually have done it.

They've actually grown shit from scratch to scale several times they felt they probably

fallen over and failed a couple of times, but they just like to talk.

They like to share and they like the feedback loop of sharing out that knowledge and those

experiences and they're legit.

And so I would say like, go back, go to the archive.

I don't, I haven't read any of your new stuff, but go read the archive, the OG shit, because

it was really good.

Thanks, bro.

Yeah.

I mean, I think one of the things I'm doing recently in terms of marketing, I think overall,

you know, when I fill out, when I fill out applications, like I was filling out, I'm

excited for relationship therapy start next week.

She's like, what's my occupation?

And I always write engineer because that's what I always dreamed of being, but I'm not,

I don't think I'm smart enough.

So I faced it.

When I was filling it out, I deleted that and I was like, marketer, marketer, always

seems like a therapy starts here.

You wrote engineer.

You're not an engineer.

What?

Okay.

Let's forget your relationship.

So anyways, I think what I've accepted, it's not that I've ever been a marketer.

I'm just, I'm a promoter of greatness and I'm looking for it and I'm sharing it and

I'm exploring it in myself.

I think the thing that I've done recently that it's a, it's marketing 101 is with my

YouTube.

That's, that's been like our big focus.

So I think the two, there's a few things in marketing.

I'll say three things that I think are simplest, simplest, you know, that's not in the world,

but number one, how about just a singular goal?

Facebook did it.

AppSumo.com has done it.

And I think with, even recently with my dork world and helping people overcome fear and

start businesses, I'm kind of like having a bunch of goals.

I'm like, here's our TikTok goal.

Here's our Instagram goal.

Here's our email list goal.

Here's our organic traffic goal.

Here's this.

I'm like, what is our most important goal?

And I was like, just even pick one for some period of time.

And so I think I've come into that realization like, let's just pick YouTube and just be

okay with that.

And guess what?

That'll rise all other ships.

So don't be ignorant of those other ones, but just focus on one.

Second thing is that as I was doing a lot of this content recently, which has gotten

me really fulfilled and it's, it feels good, feels great on YouTube or okay dork.com.

Mostly YouTube, mostly in YouTube world.

The second thing that's been most critical, and this is really hard because everyone does,

as they do this or wants to do this, but doesn't, who, who is my audience?

Who is the audience that I really want to be helping and communicate with?

Cause on one hand I want to, I want to connect with like nine figure CEOs and 10 figure CEOs.

And I, you know, I actually don't think there's a lot of content of how do you go from seven

to eight or eight to nine and I can share how we do it.

But that audience is really small and they don't really need as much help.

And so we've realized like our audience is dudes, 25 to 40 that have tried to start a

business that haven't been successful, that are afraid of failing and need a little bit

of help.

And so I think the second part of marketing that I've gotten revisiting is who am I really

trying to talk to?

And what are the words?

So like here's some words that we've even identified that our audience resonates with.

Rat race, freedom.

So I'm like, really?

All right, self doubt.

So those are some of the things that I'm thinking about.

And then the third part that we're, we're thinking, I think this is applicable for every business

is what is your unique strategy of success?

Like, so with that, we have two parts.

One, what's our core messages that we're, this is our unique like bread and butter that

you will know.

I was talking with the meat about this and he's like, what did you have so many messages?

Just pick three.

So I was like, all right, challenges to overcome fear, million dollar weekend and behind the

scenes of an eight figure company.

That's the three that we're going to do.

And that's it.

And then the second part is, wait, wait, say that again.

So those three are the three, what?

So basically, let's take a step back.

So one, what's your goal?

Pick one goal.

Number two, who is your customer?

Number three, what is your core messages that people know you for?

So for me, those are the three that I'm going to be known for challenges, which I always

tell people to do the coffee challenge, which is take, get asked for 10% off when you buy

coffee.

You're going to be afraid.

You're going to learn about yourself and you're going to grow.

Secondly is behind the scenes of an eight figure company.

So like, how do you like that?

There's not a lot of people that have that experience and I can do that.

And the third part is how do you actually get a million dollar business or a hundred

dollar, a million dollar business starting a weekend, which I've done many, many times

and I can share, which is unique.

And then the last part of this marketing equation that I think I'm exploring and revisiting

around all these things is what is my unique strategy or what is my strategy of doing that?

I think where I've been very successful is I just do a lot of stuff and eventually something

works, but I think I will be even more successful slowing down, being a little more thoughtful

with these things.

My unique strategy lately has been to do the fast stuff, but on lower risk items.

So basically tweet and Instagram and LinkedIn post, fucking everything, like throw it all

out there unlimitedly.

And then based on what works, aligning to our core messages, that's what we'll go deeper

in.

That's what we'll write a blog post about.

That's what we'll do an interview about.

That's what we will do a YouTube video about.

And so it's just having a higher likelihood of home runs.

Interesting.

I'm curious.

So how old are you now, you said you're almost 40?

I look and feel 32, but I'd say I'm about in physicality in our society, 38, not physicality

in our, whatever traditions I'm 38.

Okay, cool.

I'm the opposite.

Human years.

I am 32 and I look and feel 38.

You do look 38, bro.

I'm trying to go the other way.

I would love.

So if you were 21 again, 21, no network, no name brand, you're starting up from scratch

and you don't have to go the same pathway you went.

I'm curious, you know, if you had the luxury of picking any path now that you know of so

many more paths than you probably knew about when you were 21, what path would you go down?

Honestly, I think I'd copy my path, which would be what?

So you're 21.

What do you do?

I'll tell you exactly what I did.

I didn't know what the fuck to do.

So I went and tried a bunch of stuff out to figure out what to do.

I think the only, I think one question is what Delta would I have chosen?

And I'll tell you exactly what that was.

So at 21, I didn't know, I didn't even know what a BS was.

I got it from Berkeley.

I was like, oh, Bachelor of Science is cool.

Everyone kind of follows a stream, right?

Like when you graduate from college, which I think less and less is becoming important.

Everyone's like, oh, get a job.

Go to Intel, go to wherever.

And I was like, okay, I guess that's what everyone's doing, but I've always wanted to

start my own company.

I just didn't know what to do.

And so I think the two things that I did really well when I had that day job at Intel was

I use that as my investor.

And the two things I'd recommend is that I started a lot of businesses.

So if you're like, I don't have any idea.

Two things you can do.

One, go to sinfox.com and start a newsletter and send an email once a week for 562 weeks.

That's number one.

Or number two, go on YouTube, take the Ryan Holiday Challenge and post a video on YouTube

for 30 days.

Start there.

The second thing that I did is that I connected with people very aggressively and I asked

anyone I knew for anyone that they knew that was really smart.

That's how I met Tim Ferriss.

That's how I met Orrin Hoffman, Dave McClure, James Hong, Max Levchin.

And Ramit Sethi.

I basically put on events, I hosted lunches, I organized conferences.

I didn't know anyone, but I wanted to bring smart people together.

So if you don't know any smart people, find one smart person and say, hey, you should

meet this smart person and then just go and hang out with both of them.

Guy and girl.

And guess what?

You can do it on Zoom if you're in remote country or if you don't have any connections.

I think one of the ones I've really observed lately, every person I've hired that's been

the most impressive has done two things.

They've offered something for free to a value that I've wanted and they did it without asking.

And those people have been the most impressive.

And guess what?

Now they're like, hey, I want to meet this person.

I want to do this thing.

I want to grow here.

I'm like, that most of them are now working with me.

And so I think I would have, that was something very early on, I was very aggressive on meeting

people and just trying to build my brand.

In terms of career, I think the two things, one thing I did very well is I was really great

about following my curiosity and things I was really excited about.

So I really loved Facebook and I really loved Mint and I was like, I'll do whatever it takes

to work there.

I think the only difference I would have chosen is find someone 10 to 20 years ahead of me

that I think is doing the things I would like to do in 10 to 20 years and be obsessed or

aggressive in figuring out how to make them excited to want to be a part of my life.

So I had one guy, Doug Hirsch, who was my boss at Facebook and it didn't really work

out as well as a mentorship, but it's nice because like you can say, oh, that's how you

do a relationship.

Oh, that's how you do a career.

And it'll shortcut it.

You just have to figure out the real most important thing is how do you get them to give a fuck

about you?

And the best way to do that is help them with whatever things they're working on.

You want to hear something crazy?

Sean, I don't know if you know this, but I don't know if Noah knows it, but I launched

my, I created my, so my company, which is a, it's an okay company.

It's been good for me.

It started because Noah had a blog post about organizing conferences.

And I was like, what was it called?

It was called like how I made, how I made 90 K hosting a conference or something.

Was that it?

Noah?

I made a quarter million dollars in conferences because I, I didn't know I was going to make

money doing them.

Yeah.

So I saw that and I was like, well, I had a book club at the time.

And I was like, well, I've been mean, I've been hosting these meetups, but I don't make

any money from it.

I should like make money off this thing.

And so I started my company and I've made millions of dollars personally off conferences

because of that blog post, and more importantly, or maybe not more importantly, I've met, I

met actually all three people on this call and most of my friends and coworkers because

of that blog post because of that blog post.

I met Neville because of that blog post Neville, the best man in my wedding.

I met because of that.

Good for you.

Um, so, so what you're describing of what you would do and how basically you described

like hosting events and which is similar in the same vein as posting content.

I did the same thing and it made me millions of dollars and it met all my best friends

that way.

Awesome.

I mean, I think the only other thing that I was doing at the time that I think everyone

should do.

So number one, build your brand in some way.

Even if you're not trying to be a personal brand, I think practicing writing is a skill

you can use in sales.

You can use in development.

You can use in design.

You can use it almost literally forever.

I think the connections very valuable, literally probably the reason I'm a multimillionaire

is because I've been able to meet and help people and connect people connecting and meeting.

But the third thing was that I was starting a lot of businesses and I think what's beautiful

is especially earlier in your life, your cost of living is so damn low and my cost of living

is still damn low because I'm, I haven't grown up in some ways and I'm maturing in

certain ways.

Uh, that it's so low that you should take a lot of risk very early on in trying a lot

of things out.

So like when I was working at Intel, I was doing, uh, this college consulting.

I did a thing called Ninja card.com.

I was putting on these conferences that I charged for and then I was working at Mint.

I started doing the Facebook apps, like I did all these games and I started making a

lot of money and I was working at morning.

I was working on weekends.

I was working at lunch.

I was working at nights.

Uh, I was working, I was, I kept going and I kept trying a lot of different, and eventually

after probably two and a half, three years, got into 04 and three, three years later,

my side hustle finally became my main hustle.

Did any of those like I have, uh, we actually have a good friend on core.

I don't know if you know him, Sean, but, uh, me and Noah do who did the same thing about

the online.

Uh, he did like the Facebook apps and Facebook games.

And when I think of that shit, I'm like, dude, that is just some scammy get rich, quick

shit.

Uh, is that an accurate assessment of what those were?

And cause I was a little bit, I was too young to be doing that shit in 2010 or whenever

it became popular or I wasn't interested in the internet.

Was that, is that an accurate assessment of what those were?

Uh, I think what's interesting is like, how do you become a part?

I think what's more interesting about the Facebook games besides whatever people spam

or not spam is like, how do you be around the title waves?

So I think where I've been very fortunate and lucky is that in my career, either I'm

an ambulance chaser or I'm like a visionary or I'm maybe a little bit of both where like

I was in the Facebook game world.

I was in personal finance world.

I was in social networking world.

I was in SAS world with Sumo.

I was in e-commerce world with, you know, some of a Shopify and lately I'm back in content

world.

And I think what's been the beautiful part about that, you know, in an app Sumo, I've

been in the software world, which has been amazing.

I think the amazing part about that is that it's opened up a world where my life is more

rich, not rich, even monetarily, just like rich, like fulfilling because of all these

really cool people I've gotten to connect with.

Like I got to meet this guy, Nick Nimmin, and I'm going to talk with him on Friday about

videos.

And then I've got to meet this guy, Javier Mercedes, who lives in Austin, who came over

and showed me how lighting like, okay, look, let's switch lighting here.

Let's switch lighting here.

And I think what's amazing is try to figure out which category is going to either be big

or which category you're interested in and then how to interject yourself in that conversation.

So you're like, well, no, I'm not a developer.

I don't have any e-commerce products to start.

Guess what?

Start a fucking YouTube channel reviewing those products or start an Instagram account

where each day you just post, Hey, here's my favorite e-commerce product day.

Here's why.

Or start a newsletter on sunfox.com like, Hey, here's my weekly e-commerce product of

the week and email that company saying, Hey, I just promoted you this week.

One of the easiest things that anyone, especially early on, can do is flatter people legitimately.

Don't just bullshit because it's obvious, but just flatter, Hey, I love your stuff.

That's an easy way to open the door and then do what you can to start helping people.

And so I think I've been lucky and intentional about what am I curious about and what's becoming

more popular and how can I connect with people that are inspiring me?

I would also say like, Sam, I wouldn't call those that Facebook game era because there's

a whole bunch of other friends that we have that started or like kind of caught their

first big wave on when Facebook platform opened up.

Like the very first episode of this podcast, Sully, that's how he caught his big wave was

he made a Facebook app called superlatives and it was about, you know, saying which of

your friends is most likely to end up in jail or stuff, goofy stuff like that.

Or you know, I know some of the low lapse guys listen to this and they were, you know,

they were, you know, the fastest growing company in the world at the time, probably like, you

know, oh my God, you know, you launch a product and get to 10 million users in a day.

And that just breaks your mental model of the world.

And so I think two things, A, you're right, that the people who go there were the type

of people that sniffed out interesting spaces before they're proven out.

So if you're that type of person, you're going to end up in a lot of those types of situations.

The second is you get this crash course on hypergrowth and marketing in a way that's like,

you can't learn like this guy who, um, the guy who sold TBH to Facebook recently, um,

oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he tweeted this thing out yesterday that was like, it was good.

First time social app founder is like, oh, we're going to build a platform for intellectual

conversations.

It's like, you know, I get 23 users and 5% retention.

And then he's like, by the 50 year that same founders like, all right, let's just have

people vote on who's hot.

And it's like result 10 million users, 40% retention that's like, you know, um, it's

very true.

Um, the only way to really ever get good is by putting yourself out there.

So when you're saying, go start a YouTube channel or somebody goes and has to build

a Facebook app and you see that the apps that grow are the ones that tap into people's

core needs.

Like they want to know about their friends.

They want to take quizzes about themselves and learn, you know, goofy personality quizzes.

And it's the person on the sidelines who's like, Oh, all that stuff's dumb.

And what they're missing is that they don't sort of figure out, you know, at the end of

the day, you get rewarded for giving people what they want, not what you want people to

want.

And then the second thing is that if you really want to get good at anything, you got to be

in like the eye of the storm.

And these new platforms are these areas where there's a lot of growth, a lot of action happening.

That's where you sharpen your skills.

So, you know, you might not have ever made money off the Facebook games, right?

Like you got a bunch of users and made money, you might have made money.

I think the question is, if you, I think you need to pick, are you trying to make money

or you're trying to learn?

Cause I think sometimes when you're young, you're like, well, I want to make money off

this person.

It's like, well, maybe there's a lot more long term dividends by just trying to focus

on what you can learn.

But also wouldn't you say like, I've seen this in my life sounds like you were in the

same where it's when you're trying to make money that you end up learning because you're

trying to do something hard and you have, you learn the hard way, like what actually

works and what doesn't versus if you just say, I want to learn a lot of times people

take a very sort of passive or intellectual approach to it.

Now that's different than saying, I want to make money.

So I take this job at Intel that pays me a guaranteed six figures or whatever it is.

You may not learn the most doing that path because you're not actually challenging yourself

in the same way.

But I think the two things I would highlight there is that I think there's passion or interest

or curiosity.

And then I think there's opportunity.

And I think I've, I've chased opportunities to make money, which have been fleeting.

They've been profitable, but fleeting.

And I think when you're in your twenties, you should do those.

Frankly, you should just do the things that are like hot and exciting.

If you think you want to make money.

And then in your thirties, you start reflecting more like, wow, mortality is real.

That's really important.

And I think you'll come back to finding, how do I work on problems and things that I want

created for in my own world?

And for you, that's what that's helping people sort of overcome their fears to start businesses.

Is that the, or is it one step removed from that?

No, it's exactly that.

It's like, I want to be on the ground level helping people overcome fears, start businesses

and marketing in businesses.

I love seeing the underdog succeed.

I love seeing like this guy, Ali Abdullah is a popular YouTuber.

Or I love seeing companies like Meet Fox who got promoted on AppSumo and now they have

a business around it or a phone wagon is a popular one today for doing phone calls and

like, Ali, he's great.

He's a, I think he listens to this podcast, but he's a doctor, right?

He's a doctor YouTuber or is that, yeah, he's so, I mean, he's so impressive.

He's like, you know, people are like, I don't have enough time.

This guy's a full-time professional doctor making three high quality YouTube videos every

week.

Annie engages as an audience and he's put, you know, he's just very genuine.

I really enjoy.

Can you spell his name?

A-L-I-A-B-D-A-A-L.

You know what I think it's interesting is that you have to think about on the reverse

of that.

How do you become someone that people want to meet?

How do you make things or do things that others want to connect with?

And I think we're like, oh, I'll just do stuff and hope it happens.

This guy looks amazing.

I just love the, like I just did a quick Google, uh, bad ass.

Dude is dope.

Dude is just dope.

I love this guy.

He's just like, I found him because he blogged like, Hey, here's some cool shit I found this

week and our podcast was in it.

And so I was like, okay, who's this guy who's giving us a shout?

And then I checked out his YouTube channel and I was like, well, this guy's amazing.

Well, I think that's something that even in my newsletter every week now, we have a section

where we promote other people.

I think the more that you can go in, this is one of the things that's like stupid obvious,

but no one does it.

It's like, go help a bunch of other people and there's a good chance that you'll be able

to connect and get a lot of things you want.

Like the quote that I heard yesterday that was like really powerful to me was, uh, was

like your rewards in life will be exact proportion to your contribution.

That's interesting.

I don't know if it's true though, because I feel like you can definitely make money

by like some bullshit Facebook app, you know what I mean?

But I definitely think it's the way to live by, but can, can I bring something up with

the last three minutes?

So four weeks ago or three weeks ago, Sean told me about a book called happy body.

And I told, I was with Neville Noah last week or two weeks ago and I was like, yeah, I,

Sean told me about this book, I'm going to buy it and Neville was like, Oh, I have it

upstairs.

Let me go grab it for you.

He gave it to me.

Then he gave it.

And then Noah was like, wait, what's this book?

And I think he ended up buying it.

I've been doing those exercises in that book.

I feel great.

Have you guys been doing that?

So basically just got the book yesterday.

So I have no idea what you're talking about.

Oh my God.

My basically I'm, what I'm realizing is, uh, I on this podcast said I had scoliosis and

I had like 30 or 40 people reach out to me say they also have scoliosis.

And so then I started doing this book to help fix it.

It's been awesome.

I, my back feels so much better.

You get, has your back feel better, Sean?

I never had back pain.

So I, what it's not my, I wasn't doing it for that.

I just like, I read the philosophy and I was like, Oh, I vibe with this.

Like this makes sense to me.

I don't feel like I'm being sold to, I think this, this seems like one of those like fundamental

truths about the way your body works and how you should like sort of tune it.

And so I started to like it, uh, but I haven't been like doing all of those extra, I've been

swimming a bunch, but like, I haven't been doing those exercises in there.

But yeah, if you're, if your back hurts, give it a shot.

And you know, like back pain is one of those like, you know, quality of life ruiners if

you have it.

And so, you know, you just got to try fucking everything if you have back pain.

Well Noah was talking about getting older and trying to feel younger.

And before this podcast, he took a shirt off and showed me his body and, uh,

That's what we do.

That's what real friends do.

But golly, this thing has totally made a difference.

Uh, we aren't getting, I'm not getting paid to say this, but that's awesome.

All right.

So Noah, let's ask you then, what has been the, the best either decision, purchase,

change, uh, like that has lifted your quality of life on a day to day basis that you've

done, you know, in the, that comes to mind, recent memory.

Uh, I think there's probably, I'll say three and then I got to jump off.

So number one, buying my Tesla, I think it's not about the Tesla, but I think it's about,

I think we're conditioned that like materialism is evil.

And I think it's more about, is there ways that we could use money to make our lives

better?

So I think that's been really powerful for me to like, wow, really enjoy something versus

getting the cheaper, like, I like Miata's and I have a Miata in the backyard, but it's

like nice to have something amazing.

And I wonder what else in my life can I have that would be amazing and that I can also

be amazing.

Cause I think it's something to say about what does your stuff say about you?

I think the second thing I would think about is journaling, right?

So I've been using bear app.

I think one of the business, you guys asked for three business opportunities.

One of them is technology advisor.

There's so much new tech, new cameras, new everything.

Like I think you can go make a lot of money coaching people and teaching bear, bear app,

bear dot app or bear app notes.

I really enjoyed every, I literally journal five days a week.

Um, and it's been really helpful to understand myself better and learn my interests and motivations

and fears and all this stuff.

And then that, those two have definitely been powerful.

I'm trying to think of the third thing that's really, and I think the third thing that for

me has really changed my life is observing, uh, where I'm living and how much my space

affects my energy.

So I've been renting Airbnb's and I'm going to be moving cause I'm like, uh, you know,

there's something there about your space and how much it can impact you professionally

and personally.

Guys, I gotta go.

I love you guys.

AppSumo.com.

Thank you.

Sean, let's stay on, but Noah, uh, let's come back again and actually talk about

some business stuff because this is awesome.

And I also want to do the other thing.

Thank you.

Have a good day.

Hi guys.

You too.

Thanks Sean.

Bye.

You want to talk about anything Noah said, Sean?

Uh, you know, a lot of it is really relevant to me because I think the things he's talking

about, like the thing he spent, like, I don't know, 15 years doing now is building up this

audience, this, uh, like putting out great content that's going to help people and like

distills down his wisdom, like, okay, if I learn something, the act of me trying to teach

it to somebody else will help me learn it better.

I think that's the vibe I get from him.

That's what I want to do.

That's what I find most enjoyable in my life anyways.

So personally, I thought that stuff was interesting.

If you're not trying to be a content creator, I don't know how useful that part will be

for people, but honestly, these are pretty universal, like, just like tactics to get

shit done and get shit out there, um, and like be an action person.

And so yeah, I like, I like his message around being an action person.

I wish we'd gone into ideas because I think he is a kind of idea starter, like he said.

I'll actually bring up something that he mentioned that is not related to self-help stuff, which

I enjoyed, but, uh, so he talked about his space and buying a nice car.

So I think, uh, I just spent three weeks in living in Austin.

I think I'm going to, uh, give up my place in San Francisco.

I'm going to spend, um, four to eight weeks in different cities and see what happens.

So I'm going to buy a car.

I don't know what type of car I should buy, but I'm going to buy a nice car and I'm going

to drive all over the country.

Yeah.

That's great.

I, uh, I'm all, I'm all for it.

I want to ask your opinion on that, but also to the listeners, if you want to rent my

apartment, I'll give it to you for six months.

It's four K a month.

I live in Glen Park.

It's a lovely neighborhood and it's furnished and I have a gym here, a home gym, a really

nice one.

So, uh, message me on Twitter if you want to rent it.

Otherwise I'm going to give it up and I don't want to, but, dude, you should charge a premium.

This is rent, sleep in Sam Parr's bed for eight K a month, actually, you know, get that

good, good juju.

Yeah.

No, there is no premium.

Maybe I should.

Fuck.

I just blew my.

Yeah.

I paid for it.

He's willing to accept four guys.

He's willing to accept four.

I just blew my.

No, I, I wasn't going to make money on it.

I just, you just covered the expenses.

Um, I, Austin is amazing.

More people should, I don't know what, sometimes I'm like, it's way better there.

So a couple years ago, I made a decision to do something similar, uh, where I was like,

I was sitting in San Francisco and I was like, why am I just here all the time?

Like life is so big.

The world is so big.

And so, um, so I told my girlfriend at the time, I was like, let's go, uh, you know,

now my wife, but at the time we were just dating, I think, and I was like, let's go

live in South America for the next six weeks.

Um, and like, I'll just work from there, but like, let's just go pick a cool city that

we are not going to live in longterm.

I don't want to move, but I want to go live there.

And I was like, wait a minute, I can live there without moving.

And the way that San Francisco works is like an arbitrage where you can Airbnb your house

or your apartment and you could make more, you could literally live for free somewhere

else in the world.

You know, get a free vacation.

So that's what I did.

I went for five or six weeks.

Uh, we lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and, um, and we just lived there like a local,

not like, or not exactly like a local, kind of like a expat, but it was better than trap.

Wasn't a vacation.

It wasn't like go sightsee, take a bunch of photos and leave after five days.

It was like, okay, we're going to live here.

Like what's the coffee shop we should go to?

How do we get groceries?

Uh, and like that was just a way better experience.

I was like, I'm going to do this every year.

Um, but then one year was like, oh, we're getting married and then I had a kid now.

I don't know when I'm going to do it.

So wait, but you did do it.

I did do it for one year and I plan to do it again this year now that, um, my, my child

is a little bit older.

I think we can go do it now because she's almost a year old.

So I'll do it again.

So my logic is I'm only going to go to places I can drive to for two reasons, one Corona

and to my dog, who I consider part of my family, I, he's old and, um, I would not want to leave

him behind and, uh, I don't know if you can bring a dog, you can probably bring a dog

to some European countries, but like in a lot of places they have like a three week

quarantine.

Right.

You could get to Canada.

You could get to Mexico.

That's cool.

Well, so I would move to Mexico city in a heartbeat.

Have you been there?

Uh, I've never been, but everybody who I know says the same thing.

It's like amazing.

It's amazing.

Like I remember I was there when Trump was just getting elected and he was talking about

the wall and I, I was in like a hipster neighborhood and I asked my barber, I go, what do you think

about this?

Trump guy talking about this wall.

He goes, I don't give a fuck about what he says.

Like I want, he goes, yeah, build the wall that will keep you guys are coming in.

This is amazing here.

We don't, we don't try to go to America and I was like, oh man, you've just broken all

these stupid stereotypes of head in my head.

Thank you.

And, and so yeah, they're going to need a wall to keep me out of Mexico city because

that place is lovely.

So I would totally want to live there.

The Mexicans were awesome people.

I love the neighborhoods, but Corona, I'm nervous about Corona at the moment.

Yeah.

Corona.

And before this, it was, uh, what's it called Zika, uh, which like people didn't really

care about, but Zika scary as shit, especially if you're like, we were going to have a kid.

We knew that.

And Zika, like basically you can become a carrier for a year or so and pass it to your

baby.

So that was like a scary thing.

So that's, that killed it one year and now Corona, it's like, I don't know when I'm

going to do it, but I'm going to do it.

I think I'm going to do Canada because I trust the Canadians around Corona.

Where Vancouver, Vancouver, somewhere remote.

Who knows?

Cause like, but like, why would you do remote Canada when it's like the same shit as like

Montana?

Isn't it?

I also don't, I also would go to Montana and Montana is cool too, but, uh, you know,

I don't, I don't mind that.

That's a change of pace.

What car should I buy?

Should I do this in a F one 50 truck?

Should I do this in a Subaru that I like put off road tires on?

What should I buy?

I thought about a Tesla.

Well, that doesn't come out till 2021 and I want to leave in August.

You could do, uh, you could do the Tesla SUV or you could do the F one 50.

I think that would be hilarious, uh, although that's kind of cramped and not the, not the

most ideal.

Why not do it?

F one 50 is four door.

You can get a four door.

A cyber or a Tesla would be fucking horrible, wouldn't it, for a 3000 mile trip?

Why?

Cause like when you have to pull over every, every 300 miles for an hour, uh, the super

chargers are pretty fast and it goes like, I think the, the new ones or whatever go like

600 miles or something crazy.

It's interesting.

Maybe I would do that.

Yeah.

Do it.

Definitely do it in something that is not your usual, well, that's what Noah said

that inspired me.

I was like, I'm not going to penny pitch.

I'm going to buy the nice shit that I want.

Yeah.

You're just waiting for, you're just waiting for somebody to be like, you know what's cool

buying cool shit.

Cause I'm always, that's right.

That resonated with me too.

I'm always doing like penny pitching shit.

Um, so I need to step that up.

Um, you want to go over anything else?

Uh, I have a bunch of ideas that I added to the thing, but I feel like we should just

do, uh, like an episode about it, like a full episode about those ideas.

So I think we should keep this one kind of Noah and then, um, yeah, I have a bunch, but

it would be like an hour.

Okay.

I have a bunch too.

They range from interactive email to, uh, I have a bunch of ideas around privacy stuff

that fascinate me a ton and, uh, Corona stuff.

Someone's got to create the organic label, but for like, is your restaurant Corona clean?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Like the, um, it's like the, you know, the health score, but like this time specifically

branded around Corona hygiene.

Yeah.

So that's what I'm going to bring up.

What are you going to bring up?

Okay.

I'm just going to read you some of my quick, uh, notes that I had here.

Uh, one is called Scott Galloway being super wrong.

Another one is, I know exactly where you're going with that.

And I'm very interested.

Another one is scams that I found interesting, uh, and I have four examples of scams that

I found interesting.

Another one is WikiLeaks for creeps because, uh, Chris Delia turned out to be a creep.

Um, and then another one is how the 37 signals guys are marketing their new thing.

Hey.com.

I think it's pretty interesting how they're going about that.

And then I have a bunch of startup ideas, um, that are around ones around baseball cards,

ones around.

Yeah.

I got a bunch of ideas.

So we have, we got a lot, a lot to come.

Great.

I am interested in all those, particularly the Scott Galloway one and the hay.com thing,

which I think is actually going to be a huge business.

I just downloaded it.

Have you used it?

No.

All right.

I'll tell you, if you didn't like super human, I may not like this either, but, uh, I just

downloaded thumbs up or thumbs down.

I'm like 10 minutes into the onboarding, but I'm also like thumbs down so far, but I really

like those guys.

Um, so I'm like, just let me try it actually.

I wouldn't say I've given it a fair shake yet, but the onboarding so far, I'm not sold.

I'm in the same boat, but I understand why many people will like it.

Right.

Okay.

We should, we should, uh, jet here.

Leave us a review.

Tell us what you think.

Tweet at us, whatever.

We'll talk to you all soon.

Okay.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

Joined our private FB group yet? It's a page where people share each others million dollar ideas or what they're already working on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion. Sam Parr (@theSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) catch up with Noah Kagan (@noahkagan), founder of AppSumo and OkDork.com. Before that, he was employee #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint, and worked at Intel. In today’s episode we hear about Noah’s background (1:05), Noah talks about the different between needing to do things and choosing to do things (5:58), how Noah thinks about finding customers (12:30), Sam asks for Noah’s framework for knowing how and when to build a new product (16:10, Noah talks about how our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses (18:12), Shaan joins the podcast (27:00), Shaan asks Noah how he would build a company now if he was 21 with no name recognition (33:50), Noah leaves the podcast and Sam and Shaan talk through Sam’s upcoming road trip and future ideas (50:30). 
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