How This +$80M Founder Launches A Startup In A Weekend | ft. Noah Kagain (#546)

Noah Kagan 0:00 I w- I was in the sauna this morning thinking about you guys

Sam Parr 0:03 That's how we like it

Noah Kagan 0:03 ... and I was just, I was just thinking of how grateful I am. Just there's so many cool people that have, uh, I don't know, just crossing our paths across our whole life. Just made me kinda a little emotional, but also just happy.

Shaan Puri 0:14 We're supposed to get touchy feely at the end, not at, not at the beginning.

Noah Kagan 0:17 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:18 YouTube stats show that touchy feely at the end works, but at the beginning people just bounce.

Noah Kagan 0:21 [laughs]

Sam Parr 0:24 [upbeat music] All right, Noah, we're live. We've got Noah Kagan, one of my dearest friends, one of the OGs of internet marketing, of entrepreneurship on, on, on the, uh, on the internet. One of my, uh, inspirations. You run this company called, uh, AppSumo. It does, like, 80 million in revenue. Now you're a YouTuber. You have, what, one-point-something million subscribers. And you're here to promote a book, which you've clearly placed right in front of you.

Noah Kagan 0:55 [laughs] I didn't even see that there. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 0:59 Well, give me some of the, the

Shaan Puri 1:00 sort of wisdom bombs or insight bombs from the book. So give me, uh, give us some of the, the, the key ideas or highlights that you think are, uh, you know, you want people to take away when they read the book.

Noah Kagan 1:11 All right, Shaan, I have a quote of you in the book. I don't know if you actually said this, though.

Shaan Puri 1:14 [laughs] Oh, should be credited.

Sam Parr 1:16 That's great. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 1:17 Coulda asked me a while back, right?

Noah Kagan 1:18 [laughs] But, uh, so we, we kinda read this book like a tech startup where we did, like, surveys and beta testing and all this stuff. And so one of Shaan's quotes... Shaan, I hope you said this. It's too late.

Shaan Puri 1:28 Yeah, I'm saying yes either way.

Noah Kagan 1:29 Uh-

Shaan Puri 1:29 Don't worry, I got your back

Noah Kagan 1:29 ... "Show me an experimenter, and over the long run I'll show you a future winner."

Shaan Puri 1:34 That's true. I did say that, yes.

Noah Kagan 1:36 Oh, thank God.

Shaan Puri 1:36 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 1:37 I was gonna have to, like, have to reprint the entire tens of thousands of books. Uh, from the... You know what I will say, from the surveys that we've done and what people said the results that they got, uh, number one thing is this now not how idea. And it just means just fucking start right away. But people get so... Especially with... You guys see so many people listening to your show, and they're like, "I don't know. I wanna listen to more shows. I need to go listen to these, like, fake YouTube gurus that are out there that don't even run real businesses." Uh, but realizing they can actually do things, like, right now. Like, how do I get a buck right now? Just go get a dollar. Venmo Noah at Noah Kagan. Go get it from a friend. Go get it from your uncle. And I think people are waiting to be ready, and they're just never ready. And people like yourselves, me, who ultimately have gotten to somewhere of wealth, we're just doing shit.

Sam Parr 2:21 You used to have this course called The Monthly 1K. I, I tell people there's two courses that I paid for that changed my life, and it was, uh, Neville's copywriting course and then it was your Monthly 1K course. I remember I bought this-

Noah Kagan 2:31 Thank you

Sam Parr 2:31 ... when I was 20, 23 years old. I think it was $300, and it was, like, a really big deal for me to buy that. And I started a, a business based off of it that was, like, making thousands of dollars a month, and then I shut it down. And one of the first lessons in the book was to go to a coffee shop and ask for a discount.

Noah Kagan 2:50 Yeah.

Sam Parr 2:50 And I was petrified to do that. I remember I was so afraid to do that. But I did do it. And then you talked about, uh, emailing people or calling people and getting customers before you even build the thing, which at the time... Now everyone talks about that. But at the time I was like, that wa- It kinda blew my mind. And during that period of my life, it was all about action. And so I don't know if I can show my feet here-

Noah Kagan 3:12 Yes

Sam Parr 3:12 ... 'cause I don't, I don't know if I can move. Uh, I won't even try it. But I got, I, I [laughs] I went and bought, I, uh, basically a sewing needle. Do you guys know what stick and poke is? Do you know what a stick and poke is, Shaan?

Shaan Puri 3:23 Sounds like a jail cell tattoo. [laughs]

Sam Parr 3:25 It is. Listen, you get a sewing needle, and you get the thread, and you wrap it around the edge of a pencil so just the needle is sticking out. And then you go and buy India ink for five bucks, and you dip it in the, the, the, the needle, and you just put all these little dots. And I've got the word act on my left foot and the word now on my right foot. And this was when I was still partying and drinking a lot, so I was a little... I was inebriated when I did this. But I, and I was like, every day, this c- I was like, "This course is so good. Every day when I wake up in bed and my, and I can see my feet, and I put my feet down at, you know, at the end of the bed, at the edge of the bed when I get up in the morning, I'm gonna see act now." And that's my whole, like, life, you know, for business at least, my mantra for business. And I remember it, like, taking your course, and I was like, "It's all about action. Fuck planning. Business plans are stupid. Business cards are stupid. LLCs are stupid. It's all about action."

Noah Kagan 4:13 Domain and social media. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 4:14 Dude, that's the ROI, Sam. That's the ROI right there. He made you get tatted up. That's the ROI.

Noah Kagan 4:19 Dude, I thought he was gonna say his tattoo is Act Noah. I thought it was gonna say Noah, not now. Dude, those are some feet.

Sam Parr 4:26 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 4:26 Dude, some people, some people would, would look at it, and they're like, "What's

Shaan Puri 4:30 A-C-T?" And I was like, "Yeah, I got S-A-T on the other foot. I just love testing." [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:34 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 4:34 GMAT on his ass. [laughs]

Sam Parr 4:36 Yeah.

Noah Kagan 4:36 No, I mean, the, so number one for the book Now Not How, just what can you do today? And I don't think people realize how much more shit they can do in a day. The second thing is what you just said, which is the power of asking. Like, the upside of asking is, like, I got on a private jet. The upside of asking... And we teach it through the coffee challenge and other examples. Coffee challenge is what you did, which is you asked for a discount. So I did it, I did the coffee challenge last week. I did a, a YouTube video where I tried to do the coffee challenge. I got rejected a ton. And it, you know what? You get rejected and you're like, "Oh, shit. Guess what? That's okay. Let's go forward."

Sam Parr 5:04 Dude, this is such an immigrant mentality, and this is why I love... Or children of immigrants. Uh, Noah, you're, you're, you've got immigrants, uh, your, your father, and then Shaan has, uh, an immigrant family. Most of my best friends do. They all have this energy where they ask for shit that I was so embarrassed to do. And then I hang out with Shaan for a little while, and I see how he negotiates. I hang out with Neville for a little while. It's just, like, this, this shameless ability to go and ask for stuff, and it totally changed my perspective was I w- I used to be so embarrassed. Like, I would go out to eat, and if you, if I ordered a pizza and you brought me, like, chicken Parmesan, I'd be like, "Eh, fuck it. Whatever. Just give it to me. I'm, I'm not gonna say shit to this person. I'm, I'm not gonna complain at all." And then I started hanging out with these guys, and, uh, it totally changed my perspective on just being, like, ruthless about asking for things, and it, and it 100% worked.

Noah Kagan 5:48 I mean, that's all business is, right? Business is like, "Hey, will you be my sponsor for your guy's show?" necessarily. Or, "Will you be my customer? Will you be my partner? Will you be my employee?" It's an ask.

Shaan Puri 5:56 Uh, so at Camp MFM, um, so this is a slide. I don't know if you can see

Shaan Puri 6:00 it. So this, this is Joe Gebbia, the founder of Airbnb, and he's, he gave us a, a impromptu presentation off his phone. So he had a, he basically had, like, some old presentation he had given that he kinda, like, found slides on his phone, and he started s- he basically started screen sharing from his phone onto the TV And he goes, um, he was, he was like, "Oh, this was our sales formula. So this is the Airbnb founder's sales formula, and it's SW squared plus WC equals MO." So I don't know if you can... If you've ever heard that. He's like, "Anybody heard this before?" We're like, "No." He goes-

Noah Kagan 6:32 No

Shaan Puri 6:32 ... "So here's what it stands for. Some will, some won't. Who cares, move on." [laughs]

Noah Kagan 6:38 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 6:39 And he's like, "This is the sales formula. Once you realize that some will say yes, some won't, who cares, move on," he's like-

Noah Kagan 6:47 Beautiful

Shaan Puri 6:47 ... "Now you have the entrepreneurial sales formula, the ultimate formula that will serve you throughout your life."

Noah Kagan 6:51 Yeah, but did he tattoo that on his ass?

Shaan Puri 6:53 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 6:53 No. Do you know that Airbn- Airbnb is, like, l- it's, it's featured in the book. It's also a great example of how to get started super fucking quickly. You guys know how they started? Cr- on, uh, Craigslist, right? They, they, they, they, they had, like, a designer's conference was in town. So they had a designer's conference, and they sent an email to the designer's conference saying, "Hey, does anyone wanna stay on our couch?" That was how they tested the business that's now worth $100 billion. And I think that when you start realizing, like, there's other ways of doing this, you don't have to do, like, some Silicon Valley funded way, you start realizing, like, "Oh, and Facebook started that way in a weekend. Airbnb did." A l- lot of other companies can too.

Sam Parr 7:25 All right, everyone, a quick break to tell you about HubSpot, and this one's really easy for me to talk about because I'm gonna show you a real-life example. So I've got this company called Hampton, joinhampton.com. It's a community for founders doing between 2 million all the way up to, like, $250 million a year in revenue. And one of the ways that we've grown is we've created these cool surveys. And so we have a lot of founders who have high net worths, and we'll ask them all types of questions that people typically are embarrassed to ask, but provide a lot of value. So things like how much the founders pay themselves each month, how much money they're spending each month, what their payroll looks like, if they're optimistic about the next year in their business. All these questions that people are afraid to ask, but, well, we ask them anyway, and they tell us in this anonymous survey. And so what we do is we've created a landing page using HubSpot's landing page tool, and it basically has a landing page that says, "Here's all the questions we asked. Give us your email if you wanna access it." And then I shared this page on Twitter, and we were able to get thousands of people who gave us their email and told us they want this survey. And I could see, did they come from social media? I can see, did they come from Twitter, from LinkedIn? Basically everywhere else that they could possibly come from. I'm able to track all of that. And then I'm able to see over the next handful of weeks how many of those people actually signed up and became a member of Hampton. In other words, I can see how much revenue came from this survey, how much revenue came from each traffic source, things like that. But the best part is I can see how much revenue came from it. And a lot of times it, it takes a ton of work to make that happen. HubSpot made that super, super easy. If you're interested in doing this, you can check it out, hubspot.com. The link's in the description. And I'll also put the link to the survey that I did so you can actually see the landing page and how it works and everything like that. I'm just gonna do that call to action then. And it's free. Check it out in the description. All right, now back to MFM. So Shaan and I lived in San Francisco for a long time. He's still there. We've had, uh, I probably have had 10 Silicon Valley friends, and I imagine Shaan has had more. And they message us, and they're like, "Hey, uh, you know, I used to in- invest in VC stuff. You know, I, I invest in startups." And they'll see what Shaan's doing a little bit about investing in cash flowing businesses, and they're like, "Can you teach me how to do that? That is so much better." Or, like, they, they wanna just make profits now as opposed to w- you know, waiting 12 years to sell a business. And it, there, there is definitely this shift, it seems like, that's happening. Have you had that, Shaan, where a bunch of your friends are hollering at you about that?

Shaan Puri 9:35 Uh, no, they're not, like, asking me how to do it. It's pretty straightforward how to do it. I don't think that's the question. I think, uh, but you are right [laughs] that a bunch of... Basically, it's the losers of the Silicon Valley lottery, right? The winners are like-

Noah Kagan 9:45 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 9:46 You know, you t- you hang out with Joe Gebbia, he's not asking me about how to invest in cash flowing businesses, right? He's n- [laughs] He's not, he's not trying to find, you know, the next, uh, 10% compounding or whatever. Uh, it's, but it's the rest of us. It's the 99% of the population who played the Silicon Valley lottery for 10, 12, 15 years and then were like, "All right, I am smart, but, God, can I play a game with h- a little bit higher odds of success? 'Cause guess what?-

Noah Kagan 10:09 Mm

Shaan Puri 10:09 ... I don't actually need $3 trillion to be happy. Um, you know, I- I'd actually just like to be financially free, and I'd like to use all this business knowledge I have, but in a way that's not 95% based on luck and variance," which is what I would call most Silicon Valley startups. And so, yeah, there's definitely a shift to doing things that just work. Uh, maybe buying companies that already work and making them work better. And also, uh, people realizing that it's a lot more funny to ha- it's a lot more fun to have money now than it is to maybe have money at an IPO 10 years from now. And so, sure, the, all, all those are definitely on trend as far as I can tell.

Noah Kagan 10:43 You say most of these companies succeed by luck and variance?

Shaan Puri 10:46 Yeah, I think if you put, if I put 100, uh, of my friends from Silicon Valley in a room, and I said, uh, you know... And what ended up happening is that, let's say, five to seven of them ended up doing the thing we were all trying to do. We're all trying to build a billion-dollar company, and maybe five to seven of them did it. I don't think it's because those five to seven were smarter or more talented or harder working than the other 100. Um, what, the two things that I think they did do is project selection, market selection. So I think they picked the right idea and the right market. Um, but it's not that they're better at doing that necessarily. It's not that they, those guys had a different insight or a, a, a, a higher skill at picking. Um, you know, they, they happened to pick, or the thing that they were curious about happened to be on trend or happened to be the thing that, where the bigger opportunity was. So I think that's one. Um, and the second is, you know, the, the, there are s- you know, still, like, 12, you know, Plinko bounces of the, of the puck as they go, right? Like, when talking to the Airbnb guy, my biggest takeaway was this company should have died, like, seven times. And I actually give them credit 'cause th- I think they are in the top .001% of, like, grit and resilience that they actually did have a different thing that pushed them through. But most of the people I know that made it, it, they didn't have the same l- uh, number of times it could have failed once they, once they got going, uh, if that makes sense. So anyways, I, I guess, I don't think out of the batch of 100 people that the difference between the winners and losers was intelligence or talent or hard work. I don't believe that that's what was the difference.

Noah Kagan 12:13 I would agree with that. I think these people figured things out. But it is interesting 'cause right now we glorify this person that, like, it's not working for 100 years, and then finally, like, the light bulb works. [laughs] You know, it's, it's interesting we glorify that. But a lot of it is, like, for you guys and myself, how many things have you guys done that did not work?

Shaan Puri 12:29 I mean, at least 15, 20 projects that I've tried that did not work.

Noah Kagan 12:33 Right.

Shaan Puri 12:33 Some are a day project, and some were two years projects to three years.

Sam Parr 12:37 Yeah, I mean, I, I've, I've done many, many, many things and, uh, like three have taken off. This podcast being one of them. [laughs] Yeah, so like 30 per- 10% have worked.

Noah Kagan 12:51 I think we think that the people are smarter though, Shaan. We're like, "Oh, these people must know something I don't know." And like I, I talked to a bunch of CEOs when I came back to AppSumo,

Noah Kagan 13:00 'cause I left for a few years, and I remember s- I interviewed, like, the founder, the CEO of Udemy at the time, and all these other, like, famous kinda CEO people. I was like, "These people aren't that much better than us." And I think we, that takes some time to recognize, though. And then you, it does, maybe they have more experience, which is stuff we can learn over time.

Sam Parr 13:15 You're fascinating right now, I think, because you've, you run one of these companies that was talked about a ton when you first launched it. Because you were one of the early guys in ... You, you were kinda in this world with Tim Ferriss and Ramit, and so you were part of the, kind of the zeitgeist in 2008 to 2014 maybe. And then you started this company, AppSumo, which is like Groupon for software discounts. And you've kind of been quiet, or at least the company has been quiet, AppSumo. But it's one of those stories where you're like, "What's going on with AppSumo?" And then you find out that they're just quietly crushing it, uh, wherever you ... You know, I don't know what you did in the year one, but it's probably 10 years old. You're at $80 million in revenue. And what I admire about AppSumo and what you've built there is that you've just done the same thing for about a decade or even more, and it's just been-

Noah Kagan 14:03 I don't know

Sam Parr 14:03 ... quietly crushing it. How long, how, how old is it?

Noah Kagan 14:06 So it's 14 year, almost 14 years old. It's going through puberty, so we've got some growing pains here.

Sam Parr 14:11 But it, but it's been, it's been cool though to see that you're just like ... I think that there's a few companies like this. I, uh, like one example, and I have no idea if this is true, is like, you know, are you guys know Hey.com and Superhuman, the email software companies?

Noah Kagan 14:24 Yeah. No, they don't.

Sam Parr 14:25 I think there's a bunch of companies that, like, they get a lot of hype and then they just get quiet for five, 10, however long years, and they just are quietly killing it and building the business.

Shaan Puri 14:34 I'll give you an example of one. Carrd.

Noah Kagan 14:36 Oh, yeah.

Shaan Puri 14:37 About seven to 10 years ago, it was really popular to create, like, your, your personal website, right? Your about.me, and then there was, like, Wix and Weebly and those were, like, hot YC startups that were, you know, that were doing the thing. Squarespace was, like, on every podcast, advertising everywhere. Um, and then Carrd came out, and it was just simple single-page websites. I still use Carrd today. I, I love this, love this app.

Sam Parr 15:01 For what?

Shaan Puri 15:02 Anytime I need to make a site. It's, it is for me still the fastest way to make a website. Like, I think Webflow is more popular probably. Carrd's easier to use.

Sam Parr 15:10 So what ... It's really hard though.

Shaan Puri 15:11 Yeah, like I need to find ... There, there should just be a blog for low IQ people. It's like, hey, if you're just, you know [laughs] let's be honest about where you're at capability and talent wise, this is the software you should be using. [laughs] It's like Carrd is, is in that, that bucket of really, really, like, stupidly easy to use. And they came out, they were, like, kind of hot on Product Hunt and stuff like that, like in the kind of when indie hacking was, like, had a little moment. Then they kinda disappeared. Nobody really was talking about them for a while. And I met the founder one time, and he's told me the numbers, and they were just crushing it. And I was like, "What?" And he goes, "Yeah, I know." He goes, "Actually, uh, a really random thing happened." He's like, "Every, like, political movement, uh, started using Carrd." So, like, during the campaign, like 2016, 2020, thousands of websites got created using Carrd to promote, like, election stuff or any cause. It was, it became, like, a thing for causes. Um, he's like, "Yeah, that drove a ton of growth during that period." And now ... Yeah, and I think they just raised, like, a venture round 10 years later. Like, they bootstrapped for 10 years and then raised, like, a single round from investors 'cause they kinda couldn't deny, like, hey, this is now much bigger than a two-person project. We should probably, like-

Noah Kagan 16:19 Yeah

Shaan Puri 16:19 ... I don't know, hire an employee and, and see what we can do with this.

Sam Parr 16:21 Yeah, they had two people for 10 years, right?

Shaan Puri 16:23 Yeah, it was this guy AJ, and I think, uh, one other guy, then that was it. And then now they raise a little money, now they're trying to go for it. But it was this company that you heard about, then you just didn't hear about it for seven years. But that didn't mean it went away. It just meant, like, it's out of, you know, TechCrunch or whatever.

Noah Kagan 16:37 I think there's something not talked about, about longevity, right? Like, just doing it over, over and over and over and over and over for a very long time. I think the second thing is really market selection, right? Like, we've stuck with it 15 years almost, but really it's also we chose a good market, right? Like, software went from 10 deals our first year, give or take, to now, like, how many software products out there? 100,000 plus and more coming. Uh, and so something when people are starting businesses, it's like, okay, well, is this something that's gonna be bigger maybe in the future? And then how do you at least be mindful of that as you start?

Shaan Puri 17:06 Did you bootstrap it or did you raise money?

Noah Kagan 17:08 I bootstrapped.

Shaan Puri 17:09 So you've bootstrapped it. 14 years in, $80 million. So it's profitable. I don't know how wildly profitable or just sort of profitable.

Noah Kagan 17:16 I can share the numbers. I'm happy to, to talk about it.

Shaan Puri 17:18 Okay, great. Let's do it.

Noah Kagan 17:19 In terms of net revenue, I think we ended, it was 76 something was the actual final at the end of the year. Net revenue-

Sam Parr 17:26 And that's, like, gross revenue, meaning you give a-

Noah Kagan 17:28 That's gross everything

Sam Parr 17:28 ... you give a percentage to the software companies at that point.

Shaan Puri 17:32 Oh, no, but you said net.

Noah Kagan 17:32 Oh.

Shaan Puri 17:32 So that's after you paid out the software company, right?

Noah Kagan 17:34 So gross sales is 76.7. Net revenue was 56.

Sam Parr 17:41 Wow.

Noah Kagan 17:41 Pretty good. And then profit was 7.5.

Shaan Puri 17:45 And what do you do with that profit? That's, like, Noah's piggy bank or where, where does it go?

Noah Kagan 17:49 Yeah. No, no, it, it doesn't go there. [laughs] So what we do is it's been the same approach we've had. So we copy Amazon for ... If you actually look at our net profit over the past literally 14 years, it's like .5% net income margin. Uh, and so what we do is in Q4, we try to spend all the profit we have so that, that every year it gets bigger and bigger. So take everyone on the team to Mexico, ads, servers, sponsorships if we can, hiring investors, prepaying for things, whatever we can within tax rules, uh, and pay the team distribution. And then whatever's left after that, then me and my partner get some distribution.

Shaan Puri 18:22 [laughs] Wait, what? So-

Sam Parr 18:25 What, what's, what's confusing about that?

Shaan Puri 18:27 Uh, what's confusing about that is, um, what's the point? Wait, so you're, but you're including you're paying yourself out of it, right?

Sam Parr 18:34 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 18:34 Like, what's the point of running this business for 14 years without the profits is my, my question.

Sam Parr 18:38 He, he included, he included, he just, dist- distribution, and then he prepay ads for the next year.

Noah Kagan 18:44 Yeah. You, you try to invest everything as much as you can, theoretically, if it's a w- if you think it's a positive investment so that the next year is bigger.

Shaan Puri 18:50 Yeah, but it's pretty hard to do that. I, we do that for our e-com business. It's pretty hard to pay $7 million ahead of time. So what's the big chunk there?

Noah Kagan 18:57 No, no, it doesn't go all... No. We spend, like, I think almost $2 million distributed back to the team just so that they have bonuses. Um, and for the first fi- just for... What was interesting, the first five years, I didn't pay myself anything, right? It was like, how do I put everything back in? Even though we were doing pretty good in terms of the business. Like, the business hit right away, which most businesses don't. You guys know that. Like, you try a lot of things, and not all of them work. Uh, but after I think year six, I was like, "I got nothing to show. I don't think I'm gonna go public. No one's trying to buy us." [laughs] Like, "I'd like to have some money in the bank." So I think-

Sam Parr 19:26 Well, were you broke? I mean, because, like, before this, you'd ran, um, what was it called? Game Kick, uh, or KickClip?

Noah Kagan 19:32 Uh, KickClip was one of them, and then Gambit.

Sam Parr 19:34 And then you were with Mint, and then you were famously with Facebook. Um, were you cash poor for a long time?

Noah Kagan 19:42 No. I, I've never been broke. [laughs] I had a million dollars at 30 from day jobs. I think that's kind of, like, not recognized by most people, meaning, one, I was super cheap, right? So I lived on floors for a year. That's a good way to save money. [laughs] Lived at my mom's house, lived at my aunt's house.

Noah Kagan 20:00 So just as, as cheap as possible. I did get two paydays. One payday was from the Gambit Payments company. So I think I made around 350,000. That was payments for FarmVille and all those annoying games. Uh, and then the conferences. So those plus just being really conservative with the cash. Like, it was about a million dollar liquid, uh, around 30.

Shaan Puri 20:18 Can you tell the Facebook story? I know you've told this before, but like I said, I think a lot of this is buried in your blog that people... Nobody's reading blogs anymore, and so I don't want this-

Noah Kagan 20:26 I don't read blogs

Shaan Puri 20:26 ... t- I don't want the story to go untold.

Noah Kagan 20:28 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 20:28 What, what happened with Facebook? How did you kinda blow, like, $100 million payday?

Noah Kagan 20:34 It was more a few hundred million dollar payday.

Shaan Puri 20:36 [laughs] Every year it gets worse.

Noah Kagan 20:38 I think it's also a g- it was a good... It was... Thanks for rubbing it. Do you know this word schadenfreude?

Shaan Puri 20:42 Yes. Yeah. Pleasure in other people's pain, right?

Noah Kagan 20:44 [laughs] It's, like, one of my favorite words. It's like they have a word for that.

Shaan Puri 20:48 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 20:49 I think it's just kind of the wild thing about it. I mean, you know, it's funny. I posted on Twitter some of these, like, old Facebook memories of, like, me and Zuck and Dot Moskovitz and Bosworth, who's now the CTO, or Chris Cox, uh, Charlie Cheever, Adam D'Angelo. It was, it was, you know, Arrington from TechCrunch. It was in a, it was a special time, man. It was a really special time.

Shaan Puri 21:08 Okay. Tell the story. S- so how did you get there? What were you doing? What was it like, and what happened?

Noah Kagan 21:13 Uh, I worked at Intel. I had a day job, but I was always building stuff on the side, so I was always kinda just doing things, like built collegeup.org, Craigslist for college students. No one used that.

Shaan Puri 21:21 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 21:22 ninjacard.com, discount cards for college students. That did really well. Uh, and then I was putting on conferences, so Entrepreneur 27. I was basically just really wanting to get the hell out of a day job and, and having own, uh, my own business. So I sent in my resume cold, but the differentiator was that I sent in mock-ups. So I, I took Facebook, and I was like, "Here's Facebook Maps if we were to have a Facebook Maps feature. So if you wanna go see your friend, here's how it would look." And they were like, "Wow, you have a bunch of businesses for college students, and you're doing, you're showing us what you would do here."

Shaan Puri 21:50 And y- you're not a designer, right? So you're, you're scrapping these mock-ups together, or you paid somebody? What'd you do?

Noah Kagan 21:55 No. That was myself. So I think I was either using Google Slides. I don't even know if that was around. Probably m- Microsoft Paint.

Shaan Puri 22:00 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 22:01 Like, I'm talking super basic. It doesn't have to be fancy. Google Slides is probably w- that and Canva are probably the best free things you could use today.

Shaan Puri 22:08 Did you just cold email Zuck, or how, how, who'd you send it to?

Noah Kagan 22:10 No, no, no. I, so I was gonna quit Intel in December 'cause I was waiting for my health insurance to kick in. I wanted to get my HSA payment. [laughs] And then I just saw the job listing there. I didn't know anyone there.

Shaan Puri 22:21 And so you, uh, you send that in. They're like, "Cool." You go... What was your first impression walking into the office, I g- I guess? What, what was it like back then? 'Cause what... And what year was this for Facebook?

Noah Kagan 22:30 This was 2005. I think one of the things for people out there, if you wanna get a job, which I think could be cool, is just go look at what you're using all the time. You know, if you listen to a podcast, if you're wor- working on a product... To be clear though, it is work. People think that at AppSumo. They're like, "I'm gonna come party with you guys." Like, you realize, like, 90% of our day is sitting on a computer working. 10%, yeah, we do a lot of cool stuff. But, um, when I came in there, it was chaotic. I mean, I posted one of these photos, it was a good memory, where, like, there's cables everywhere. The desks were kind of all over the place. Um, but it felt like there was something special happening. It felt like there's like, "Holy shit, we're, we're on a mission that no one else is a part of, and we know where this is going." And then we have this, this truly fearless leader that, that seemed like a savant. That was... He's definitely awkward as hell, but, uh, I was really impressed about, you know, what he was able to do and how big he was thinking about this company would, could be.

Sam Parr 23:19 What numbers were, was he throwing around?

Noah Kagan 23:21 Yeah. So a few crazy things. Crazy things that people f- forget, though. He copied ConnectU. I don't know if everyone remembers this. In a weekend, he copied someone else and then emailed out his, uh, emailed out to his, uh, dorm, and that's how it got going. So I think people think these big companies start very complicated. No. He copied someone else, launched it, it worked, then he kept going, and then he changed his vision. So some of the crazier things that I recall was at a very early time, he rejected a billion dollar sale, which now maybe sounds a lot or little, but imagine, like, Shaan, you're what? 30-something? 31?

Shaan Puri 23:52 I'm 35. Yeah.

Noah Kagan 23:53 35. You're 24 years old, and there's like, "Hey, I'm gonna give you a billion dollars." This was Yahoo. I think all of us would take that in a heartbeat.

Shaan Puri 24:00 Dude, I, I took $100,000 job, so I think I was gonna take the billion dollar to offer, too. [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:06 I heard this crazy story where they're like, I think it was Yahoo that was offering to buy him, where, uh, you know, Zuck's sitting there and all the Yahoo gray hairs are talking to him, and they make the offer. And he was like, "Hey, can you guys leave the room so we can discuss this?" And Peter Thiel's in there, and the executives leave the room, and everyone's looking at Zuck like, "All right, so let, let, let's take this." And he goes, "So I just wanted to, like, sit in here and pretend like we're talking about this 'cause obviously we're not gonna take this deal." [laughs]

Shaan Puri 24:30 By the way, you're totally making this up. That's not what happened. [laughs]

Sam Parr 24:34 I, that's what I heard. I, I read a blog post on it.

Shaan Puri 24:36 The story, the story is- They got the offer, then there was the next board meeting. At the next board meeting, he was like, uh, which is like where Peter Thiel and others were, he was like, "Okay, bit of housekeeping. We gotta discuss, you know, we're supposed to talk about this. Got this offer, obviously not gonna take it." And they were like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Maybe we should... Mark, that's a lot of money. We should talk about this." That's what they said. But even that, I think is a-

Noah Kagan 24:55 Shaan, don't let facts get in the way of a good story

Shaan Puri 24:57 ... Well, I think there's even more revisionist history, which, which is interesting here.

Noah Kagan 25:01 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 25:01 Because then later there's another story that Zuck actually accepted an offer from, I think it was, I think it was Yahoo. And, um, it was either Yahoo or Microsoft, I don't remember. And then they reneged. They came back and tried to negotiate down. Uh, so like, you know, he took 1.2 and then they came back and said, "No, it's gonna be like 900 or something." There's another story like that. And so none of these are congruent 'cause Peter Thiel tells the story, right? That's where... That was the source of that story, where he was just trying to say how Zuck-

Noah Kagan 25:29 Yeah

Shaan Puri 25:29 ... is this, you know, he was this like visionary, um, you know, balls of steel, turned down the billion-dollar offer. But then there's this other story where he kinda took it, and I'm like, well... And they're like-

Noah Kagan 25:39 I think he had balls of steel, dude

Shaan Puri 25:39 ... maybe he wanted revenge 'cause they, they negotiated him down. I was like, but wait, he said yes? So I don't really know what the truth is-

Noah Kagan 25:44 Okay

Shaan Puri 25:44 ... but I know there's a lot of this BS in startup lore where people make up-

Noah Kagan 25:48 Yeah

Shaan Puri 25:48 ... stories that make somebody sound more, more, uh, brave or-

Noah Kagan 25:51 100%

Shaan Puri 25:51 ... great than they are.

Noah Kagan 25:52 I, I would... You know, someone asked me a few days ago, they're like, "Is Zuck good or bad?" And I think he's good. I think people might have a negative approach. But he was, he, he's, he's ambitious, but I think he always, at least when I was there, had good intentions of being ambitious. It wasn't like, "I need to manipulate the media." He's probably like, "What are you talking about? It's just an algorithm. I don't know. Like, change it up again. We'll fix it." Uh-

Shaan Puri 26:10 No, can I ask you about the environment? 'Cause I remember once in, when I lived in San Francisco, we were, I was doing a startup. I thought I was doing a... I thought, "This is it. We're, we're all, we're just like every other startup. We're in the race. We're in the hunt. We're gonna make the next big thing." And then I went to a friend's office who was doing a startup, and they actually had product market fit. And like the market was pulling their product. They were growing faster than they could handle.

Noah Kagan 26:30 Yes.

Shaan Puri 26:31 And I walked into that office, which was smaller-

Noah Kagan 26:33 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 26:34 ... way less nice. You know, didn't have like, didn't have... It wasn't super organized.

Noah Kagan 26:39 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 26:39 They had like, you know, people were sitting on the floor, and like there was just like people everywhere. There was cables everywhere. It was like a different vibe.

Noah Kagan 26:45 Is the company still around?

Shaan Puri 26:46 Yeah, yeah. It w- it's, it actually sold, uh, for, you know, a few hundred million dollars. And so I walked home, and I remember thinking on my way home, "Oh, fuck. We're just playing house." Like, that's what it's supposed to feel like when it's working. I didn't even actually realize it till I s- stepped foot in there, but that's a totally different energy.

Noah Kagan 27:02 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 27:03 They have it, and we don't. And, um, did you feel that when you went into the Facebook office?

Noah Kagan 27:08 100%. I felt it... I've been lucky to feel it a few times. At Mint, I felt it. AppSumo feels it. And I think at, inside at Facebook, one, my boss got fired the day I, I, I started. So I walked in, and my boss is walking out.

Shaan Puri 27:20 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 27:20 Which is a really strange... You know, I just left Intel, which, you know, I had, you know, eight meetings a day, and I had all this training. It was horrible. And then, you know, I go into a room, and Zuck's like, "Your, your boss, Doug," who e- ended up founding GoodRx. You guys know GoodRx?

Shaan Puri 27:33 Yep. Oh, wow.

Noah Kagan 27:34 It's pretty, pretty, pretty impressive. Um, "I just fired him 'cause he, he wanted... He's..." A lot of the guys from Facebook came from Yahoo. And he's like, "He tried to sell the company, so it's my company. I fired him. Welcome to Facebook."

Shaan Puri 27:45 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 27:46 And then I just grabbed literally a corner of a desk, and it was like, all right, well, what should I work on, right? And it, it's literally like a stark contrast from Intel where, like, everything is regimented, and, uh, it was amazing. I think the thing that was interesting that others didn't know is that we saw the internal metrics about the growth, so we knew there was something happening that others didn't see. In terms of like, I think we were at 10 million the day I started. By the day I got fired, it was about 50 million. Uh, so we just saw that, like, wow, this growth. But the threats were serious. Like, Google was a threat, which people d- you know, kind of forget today. Myspace was a huge threat. Uh, and obviously now those things aren't even really talked about.

Shaan Puri 28:19 What were you doing the, the math when you were thinking about how much your stock's eventually gonna be worth? Were you like, "Man, this might make $10 million"?

Noah Kagan 28:27 My whole thing was that I just thought the equity's gonna be insanely valuable. I didn't know... At Mint, I had a very specific number I thought it would sell for, which I was accurate there. Facebook, I was like, I don't know the limit. 'Cause Zuck's vision was to connect the entire world, and his whole, his quote was like, "We wanna be a toll booth for the internet." I remember that. And that was inspiring. It was nice. You know, even at AppSumo now, I, I'm now like, okay, what are we excited about? Um, and, uh, we're excited to promote software. Like, we love promoting software, and it's like his was like, "I wanna connect the entire world." Can you imagine showing up to work and he's connecting the entire world? And, and what he did, a lot of really clever things, which was how do I reduce all distractions? So, like, he paid for all of our parking tickets, uh, he paid for all of our cleaning, he paid for us to live close. He paid for, like, everything. So all we had to do was focus on work.

Shaan Puri 29:08 And that wasn't-

Noah Kagan 29:09 So it was-

Shaan Puri 29:09 ... normal back then, right? Like, uh-

Noah Kagan 29:11 No, it was super abnormal

Shaan Puri 29:12 ... for your boss to, like, pay your parking tickets and be like, "Hey, there's gonna... Just bring your laundry here. Sh- like, shut up about your life and just bring your laundry here and just work." Because, uh-

Noah Kagan 29:19 Yeah

Shaan Puri 29:19 ... w- when we were hanging out with MrBeast, Jack Smith said this the other day. He go- We, we were hanging out, and he goes, "I like how he just has no disregard for social norms." 'Cause we were like, "How'd you hire this guy?" Or they were like, "How do you train people?" And he's like, "They move in with me, basically. Like, they just... I attach them to my hip. They follow me everywhere."

Noah Kagan 29:37 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:37 "We work seven days a week, and then after six months, like, now you can start to give your ideas because you now n- you have now fully absorbed me." And they're like, "All right, well, I don't think I could... Isn't there, like, California labor laws? Like, how does this work?"

Noah Kagan 29:50 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 29:51 And, um, and, and I, I think it was right.

Noah Kagan 29:52 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 29:53 The, the absolute disregard for social norms I've now learned is, like, a very, very positive-

Noah Kagan 29:58 But I, I don't-

Shaan Puri 29:58 ... attribute or signal in highly, highly successful people. Sounds like Zuck was-

Noah Kagan 30:02 Hm

Shaan Puri 30:02 ... kinda like that, too.

Noah Kagan 30:03 I don't know if that... I think asking and doing things that you believe, I think you guys are very good at that, but there's also, I think, negatives. Like, I remember this guy Dan died in a bi- a tree fell on him, this, during one of the work days. He was biking, and a tree killed him.

Shaan Puri 30:16 Oh my God.

Noah Kagan 30:16 And I'm like, "Okay, are we gonna put a bike rack outside? Are we gonna have a moment?" And there was not even any acknowledgement. It was like, "Let's just work." And I just thought, well, that was, that was insane.

Shaan Puri 30:25 Yeah, I mean, there's a price to pay for being crazy like that, right? Like, there's pros and cons.

Noah Kagan 30:30 Yeah, I mean, it's special to be a part... And you have to think, like, we had Harvard PhDs in customer support. Like, imagine that.

Shaan Puri 30:36 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 30:36 Like, people that wanted to be there so badly, doesn't matter your degree. You just come work there. And so being in that environment was really special. And just, like, learn, seeing all this amazing talent that, that was there and that has left to go do really cool things.

Shaan Puri 30:47 And so why did they fire you?

Noah Kagan 30:50 It's funny, I was actually looking at the pictures. I was fired at, basically 'cause of Coachella.

Shaan Puri 30:53 [laughs] Like, you, you dipped out?

Noah Kagan 30:55 I was like, uh, I was drunk and high at Coachella, and then... For me, I, I was blogging about Facebook 'cause I was so excited about it. I think go find things you're excited about it and tell the world about it if you think it's a good thing. That, that's how I've always felt with the stuff I do. And I let, uh, Arrington at TechCrunch know, like, "Hey, Facebook's opening up to at Microsoft and at corporate emails in the morning. I think you should write about it and get, and, and talk about it," 'cause Facebook wasn't gonna do any press. And he wrote about it that night, and then I emailed Zuck and some of the other E team, and I let them know what I did. So I think it was that, and then I, I think, uh, for me I also felt frustrated. You gu- you guys have seen these people where for me at 30 people when it was like, no, just figure things out. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna help build mobile with Slee, or I'm gonna help build ads, or I'm gonna help do the status update thing, which they didn't even wanna do. It was just fun. It was very, like, there's a lot to do there and, and I was also probably more immature. And then as it got older and it grew, I, I didn't wanna be in meetings. I didn't wanna do Excel project management. I didn't wanna have long discussions with 30 people about basic ideas.

Sam Parr 31:52 When did it become corporate?

Noah Kagan 31:54 I mean, at that point it was 150 people. It felt very corporate to me. It felt very... You know, and if you look at Facebook, what's the last great thing Zuck has done since 2005? Besides acquiring other people, what has he come up with? Portal? That was a floppage. [laughs] Like, name one thing he's actually done. Besides make... He's acquired. He's made good decisions acquiring people, I'd say that.

Sam Parr 32:15 Yeah, just gotten bigger. I mean, he, it, tha- that's why Facebook's great. It's just, it's because everyone uses it. I mean, it's so big, I remember when Sarah, my wife, worked there, they were like, "We're doing this thing in India where we put blimps or drones up in the sky." And I was like, "Why are they doing that?" And they're like, "Well, because the only people who aren't on Facebook are the people in India who don't have internet. So we're just gonna go give them free internet so they can use Facebook." I mean, his relentless drive towards growing to everyone is, is what he's done.

Shaan Puri 32:43 Yeah, and stuff like, you know, the hard thing is the bigger you get, the harder it is to move the needle. So it's like marketplace, super successful, but, eh, kinda like who cares? It's like, yeah, you built Craigslist inside Facebook, it's fine. Uh, you know, it, it, they need a, they need to do something so big, right? That's why it's like the metaverse or AI, like, they have to go on these huge waves just to kind of, like, move the needle for-

Noah Kagan 33:06 Yeah

Shaan Puri 33:06 ... how big Facebook is.

Noah Kagan 33:07 I think what, what was really interesting, what people can re- think about in their own businesses, is the core really great? 'Cause, like, Facebook Marketplace or Facebook Events, I was really excited to, to grow and improve and monetize early on, and he was just against it completely. And I've noticed that with AppSumo where it's our core business is go find cool products, get a deal on them, promote them. That's it, right? But it gets very exciting to think, all right, could we do MRR? Could we do all these other options?

Noah Kagan 33:30 But really it's like can you do the core excellent and then start adding new things at a later point.

Sam Parr 33:34 So you've had this video where you went on this plane with this guy who I think was a commodities trader, or I, I think that's what he said.

Noah Kagan 33:41 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 33:41 You know, and I assume he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I know that you have a bunch of friends who are billionaires. You told me ahead of time, you said, uh, most billionaires that you know are unhappy. T- what, what, tell me more about, like, what you've noticed about hanging out with some of these, like, uber, uber successful people.

Noah Kagan 33:57 Most of them didn't set out to be billionaires. Like, you hear people online like, "I wanna be a billionaire." It's like almost every billionaire I know, and I've worked for them, or multi, multi-millionaire, was just like, "Here's something I'm curious about or excited about." And yes, maybe in private equity or finance, but a lot of the entrepreneur ones. It was just, like, stuff they're curious about. All of them got rich as well in one way. Like, I was just at FedEx this morning 'cause I interviewed the guy from k- uh, Kinko's. He just focused on copiers. That's it. But a lot of newer entrepreneurs I've seen or ones that haven't had as much success are like, "I'm gonna do five different solopreneur startups this weekend." It's like, okay, you can test five, but which one's working? Let's just do one. These billionaires just did one. But they tell us to diversify. [laughs]

Sam Parr 34:38 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 34:40 And so I, I think that's always fascinating for me is they do one thing and, and this is, again, we're kinda coming back to the AppSumo story, is they stuck with it for a very long period of time. Like, think about any billionaires you know. How long did it take?

Sam Parr 34:50 Yeah, I mean, 20 years, 30 years, a lifetime. A life- a, a career.

Noah Kagan 34:54 A lifetime. A lifetime, and we're trying to get rich in a weekend. Or which, you know, crypto rich in a month. And I think the, the slow compounded growth over long periods of time is what doesn't get recognized.

Sam Parr 35:05 Shaan, didn't you say that was, like, your major takeaway from your Camp MFM?

Shaan Puri 35:09 Yeah. I wouldn't say it exactly like that, but, um, when, uh, I was talking to Jimmy and I was like, yeah, I think the thing I'm, you know, most, uh, i- the thing that's standing out to me the most as I, I get out of my bubble, I reassess, I reflect, it's the start of the new year, is I think I'm spending, um, so much energy, but I'm spreading it out. I'm spreading it too thin, and that's a mistake. Like, I'm doing more and getting less, and I put it differently. I said, "I think you have 1,000 times more opportunity hitting, you know, opportunities coming to you every day, and you've said l- yes to half the things I have. So something's wrong here." I think in general, the more successful you get, uh, the more opportunities you get, but the more things you should and, and you should be saying no to. I think Hormozi said a nice thing about this that I, uh, I thought resonated. He goes, "Let's say you get, let's say you're making 10,000 a month, and now somebody comes and offers you something that's gonna make you $1,000." Pretty easy to say no, like, you have a going rate. Y- if you're making 100,000 a month and somebody comes to you and says, "Here's something that'll make you 10 grand," easy to say no. The hard thing is when you're making 100 grand and somebody comes to you and says, "Here's a thing that can make 100 grand," and you're like, "That's my rate." But what happens is you now have, you, you've now split your focus and you're basically, you're, you're losing life balance, but you're also doubling down on the amount of work that you have to do only to get, you know, one more unit compared to where you were. And he's like, "The best people, the smartest people, they basically, when they're at the hundred, they don't say yes to the next thing that can get them 100 or 200. They will only say yes to something that might get them You know, 10x more than that. And so the right way to do it is to basically say, "All right, this gave me the right to say no to certain things." And the hardest one to say no to is the one that's at the current level where you're currently at. And the people who really break out and get to the next level, they're the ones who are able to, to, to say no, stay focused until they see something that is truly 10x better opportunity than what they have.

Noah Kagan 37:06 So how are, how are you changing this year?

Shaan Puri 37:09 Well, I said no to a bunch of things. I shut down two of the things that I was working on that were working, but they were more in that, like, 1x, um, 1x type of category. And then every day I basically start my day with the first three hours. 'Cause I was like, you know, the, the main thing I wanna focus on is, is making great content. It's the thing I love doing the most, and it's the thing I think I, I'm, I'm best at. But the hard part is a deal comes on the table and now I'm spending, you know, the first eight hours that day working on that deal or that investment or that opportunity or that new, new idea. And so I just carved out where the first three hours of the day I'm only doing content. And I was like, "Cool, I want this to eventually be eight hours, 10 hours a day, but the thing I can control is that the first three hours I'm not gonna say yes to anything else. I'm only gonna say yes to this." And the cool part is as soon as you do the first three hours, you have so much momentum, the natural thing to do is just to keep going. And so that's been, uh, very effective so far.

Sam Parr 37:59 Where are you... Shaan, where are you gonna start making content? Like, what... When you keep saying content creation, are you talking specifically te- text?

Shaan Puri 38:04 [laughs]

Sam Parr 38:05 Are you talking about text-based?

Noah Kagan 38:05 Are you blogging? Is it coming back, Shaan? Blogger.com?

Shaan Puri 38:08 Blogging might come back. Now, all, all ideas are on the table. So right now I'm just prototyping. So I'm basically trying to figure out which one do I enjoy the most. I knew I would enjoy podcasting. Um, I listen to a ton of podcasts. I had prototyped it. So before this podcast, I had recorded two other podcasts, one with my roommate and brother-in-law at home, where we talked about sports, and never released it. There's only been three listeners ever. It's me and the two guys I did it with. Then I did another podcast at my office when I was doing a startup. It was me, Furqan, and a couple o- couple other guys. Three episodes. I think they're up on YouTube somewhere. Nobody ever watched them. But doing that, even though those podcasts went nowhere, it did do one thing, which is showed me, oh man, I really like doing this, and how cool would it be if I actually, like, could do this all the time, or it was actually... You know, if people actually listened to it. Man, that would be amazing. And so I had prototyped it. I had felt it out before I... In order to know that that's actually something I wanted to do. So when I say new content, I'll dabble with, let's say, short form or, or write a... You know, I'll write a, a br- a brief to a book, like, you know, an outline to a book of the first two chapters, 'cause I'm trying to understand, where do... Do I wanna write a book or not? I don't need to commit to that because I can prototype it and feel it out first.

Sam Parr 39:17 You definitely should go the book route. The problem with the book route, Noah, uh, you've seen, it seems so fucking hard. It seems so hard. Everyone I know who, who writes a book, they describe it exactly how my friends who run marathons do, where they complain constantly while they're in training.

Noah Kagan 39:32 [laughs]

Sam Parr 39:32 They say the race is miserable. And then about two weeks after the race happens or the book goes live, they go, "All right. I think I'm gonna do this next book on this topic." And I'm like, "Man, I just heard you complain for two years." Noah, you've been talking about this freaking book for years. I think it's been-

Noah Kagan 39:48 Yes

Sam Parr 39:48 ... way longer than four years, actually. I remember you talking about how you've wanted to write a book forever, and it took four freaking years to do this thing. Is it... Do you think it's gonna be worth it? What's the ROI gonna be?

Noah Kagan 39:58 I like it. I'm proud of it, I think is first off. A- and, you know, coming back to... Well, and the, the ROI on that, I think it's gonna impact people. I think one person at a time. I've already seen it, right? I've seen people read it, and I'm like, "Holy shit, really?" You know, even... I think with these things, like what, what you guys have done with your show and Shaan's, like, what you're exploring on yours, uh, your content, is, like, what's something you're excited to do and that's kinda hard? Right? Like, no one's ever proud of themselves, like, "Yeah, I wrote... I walked five feet." [laughs] Like... But if you run a mile or if you run a marathon, you're like, "Damn, that was hard, but I can actually do this." And I think that, that, that to me was really the ultimate ROI in this book. Thinking, can I actually face myself and, and work on a book and help other people, and then can people do it for themselves?

Sam Parr 40:41 Dude, when did you become so political?

Noah Kagan 40:44 What do you mean where I, like, I'm... It's called political.

Sam Parr 40:45 You're, you're like a polit- you're like a politician, my friend. Like, so old Noah, I gotta tell a story about old Noah. I remember, uh, Shaan, one time there was a coworker who I work with who, Shaan, you are friends with, and she, uh... We go into this meeting and Noah shows up shirtless. He's got no shirt on.

Noah Kagan 41:04 [laughs]

Sam Parr 41:04 He's in his house. I think he's, like, on his couch, and I'm like, "Noah, what the fuck are you doing, dude?" Like, he, he was this, like, crazy madman, and that's actually what made him brilliant, was, like, he would do all this crazy stuff and he executed crazy stuff really, really, really well. But now when I ask what the ROI is of this, you're, you're showing so much evolution. You're talking about changing-

Noah Kagan 41:27 Yeah

Sam Parr 41:27 ... people's lives. It's so funny to see you say this, this stuff.

Noah Kagan 41:30 Well, one, thank you. I think we should all evolve.

Shaan Puri 41:33 He was trying to change people's lives back then too, just in a different way, one nip at a time.

Noah Kagan 41:36 [laughs] Yeah.

Sam Parr 41:37 One nipple at a time. [laughs]

Noah Kagan 41:40 [laughs] I've also... I, uh, I, I, [laughs] I was gonna talk about inverted, my inverted nipples-

Sam Parr 41:44 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 41:44 ... which I'm very self-conscious about, okay?

Sam Parr 41:45 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 41:46 No, I mean, look, I'm maturing. Do I wanna show up shirtless? Maybe if we're hanging out in our sauna. Like, come over.

Sam Parr 41:51 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 41:51 But I, I think as you, you get older, you also realize, like, what kind of behavior do you wanna do? And I think that's fine. Uh, do... The book... I think people have these,

Noah Kagan 42:00 these, like, bullshit ROI things like, "I wanna help a million people." I don't give a shit about that. I don't. But I am happy if, like, one or two or five or 1,000 or 10,000 then read the book and do something for themselves.

Sam Parr 42:11 Um, Noah, we appreciate you doing this, man. I, I forgot to... I should've plugged this earlier on, but I'm doing... I, I'm buying... How many, how many books am I buying? 30? 50 books?

Noah Kagan 42:22 Something like that.

Sam Parr 42:23 Uh, so I bought a bunch of books. I'm trying to do my part to help you rank up in, in the list. So if you go to theantimba.com between now and February 15th, d- uh, to anyone who gives me their email, I'll just, like, pick... I'll randomly pick 50 of you guys, and I'll send you a link to buy the book for free or to enter your, uh, address in and then, and we'll send you the book. Um, I'm excited to see you do this. I hopeful- hopefully you, uh, impact some people, which I know you will, but also ... eh, the, the ego side of me is, like, hopefully you rank on some type of bestseller list, which I know is also pretty cool.

Noah Kagan 42:53 [laughs]

Sam Parr 42:55 Um, we appreciate you doing this. Uh, what do you wanna... W- it's called Million Dollar Weekend. You're Noah Kagan on Twitter, appsumo.com, Noah Kagan on YouTube. Am I missing any other plug?

Noah Kagan 43:06 No, man. It's, uh-

Shaan Puri 43:07 By the book. By the way, Noah, I had an experience like this that shifted my life. I'm a testimonial for this even before your book came out. Uh, I was working on a startup, my very first startup. We were working on it for, like, nine months, trying to get everything right. We literally had a 300-page business plan. It was embarrassing now that I look back, but we thought that meant we were, you know, doing everything. We were dotting every... You know, we're dotting T's and crossing I's out here. And so, uh, w- I was like, all right, well, at, at a certain point, I looked at my, my co-founder and I was like... My co-founder, he's my roommate, my friend.

Noah Kagan 43:38 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 43:38 And I was like, um, I was like, "Dude, I feel like we just keep telling everyone we're doing a business, but we don't actually do any business." And he's like, "What?" And I was like, "Like, how long have we been sitting here with this whiteboard and this plan, and like, how much... We have no revenue. We've never made a dollar. Like, who... I can't believe this. And we just keep tricking ourselves into thinking that this is legit." I just read The 4-Hour Workweek, and I was like, "All right. This weekend, we are gonna make money. I don't care how..." I was like, "We're..." And our s- we set a goal for $1,000. I said, "We're gonna try to make $1,000 in the next..." You know, basically it was, it was Friday. I was like, "We're gonna make it by Sunday night, and, uh, I don't care how. Let's go." And in- instantly, just by having that intention, things started to fall together. We made this website. We found a product on Alibaba. We got it drop-shipped. We s- made our first sale. We sold basically, I don't know, a few hundred of these, like, wristbands. Like, kind of customized wristbands, like those fat, like, Livestrong bands. Um-

Noah Kagan 44:30 Yeah

Shaan Puri 44:30 ... to somebody whose, uh, their parents were having an anniversary, and they needed, like, 200 of these. We charged them, like, you know, four or five bucks per. We made $1,000 in one weekend, and I felt like the champion of the, of the universe. And I was like, this is what business is supposed to feel like. Taking action-

Noah Kagan 44:46 Yeah

Shaan Puri 44:46 ... actually going out there, trying to sell a product, um, moving fast. Don't try to perfect everything. You don't need a 300-page plan. And after that, like, literally my, you know, my whole game shifted just from that one experience. And so I haven't read your book yet. You, you sent it to me. I'm gonna read it, but I already f- like, in my soul am on board with what you're all about.

Noah Kagan 45:05 [laughs] Dude, I did that wristband business, too. That's so crazy.

Shaan Puri 45:09 They, they were hot at the time, right? Like, every kid was wearing them. Every college kid was wearing them.

Noah Kagan 45:13 But I, I think the, the thing you called out, which is interesting and, and, um, it's awesome, is like, because you said, "Hey, I'm gonna do something and I have this limited time," and you have 52 of them, right? So especially if you guys got kids and all this stuff, you, you don't have a lot of time. But you can make an hour or two on a weekend to, to do something, and then look at what you did in a weekend what you didn't do in months.

Shaan Puri 45:30 Right. Yeah, exactly that. Look what you did in the weekend that you didn't do in months. So that's, that's how... It's exactly how it felt. And then I was like, I either can go back to the old way, or I can go this new way, this action way. And the action way became the way, and that, you know, basically that became, I don't know, like Sam, you... It's so funny you have that tatted on your feet. Like, that's, it's been tatted in my brain. That's like the only thing. Uh-

Noah Kagan 45:51 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 45:51 You know, I, I remember l- literally looking around. I was at Duke, and there's a bunch of smart kids at Duke. I thought when I was in high school I was the smart kid, then you go to a college with all the smart kids from those high schools and you realize, oh, you ain't shit. And I was like, all right.

Noah Kagan 46:04 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 46:04 Am I just gonna be, like, forgettably average? 'Cause that's where this is going. And I was like, am I really gonna get smarter than these people? Am I gonna... I don't have any tal- like, special talents that they ha- that, that nobody else has. But I realized that a lot of smart people are overthinkers. They hesitate, they doubt, they overanalyze. And I was like, that's my thing. I'm not gonna do that. I'm just gonna immediately take action, and that will be the difference, and that will be my thing, and I can just... That'll be the bedrock that I can build any kind of success on, rather than trying to ha- have been, like, a special snowflake that was, uh, you know, uh, pre- predestined to do great things. And that just became my, uh, my, my motto.

Sam Parr 46:42 I've still got the needle, bro. We can change that. We can h- we can- [laughs]

Noah Kagan 46:44 Dude, let's tat it. Let's tat it. [laughs] Well, Shaan, but most people who listen to your show wanna make a million, they don't ever make a buck. They never make, make that one dollar.

Shaan Puri 46:51 Bars.

Noah Kagan 46:52 And that's where they have to get, you know, get off their ass and take some action.

Sam Parr 46:54 [laughs]

Noah Kagan 46:56 What's that?

Shaan Puri 46:57 That was bars, dude. That was, that was great. Like, like, good lyrics. Nice, nice words. Thank you. Like, good-

Sam Parr 47:02 Bro, you're a 40-year-old YouTuber. How do you not know these things? [laughs]

Noah Kagan 47:07 [laughs] I'm learning the, the vocab. But Sh- dude, I read this good book last night, Sam, you made me inspired by. It's called The Art Thief, and, uh, it's this guy who steals art. But one of the things he said that stuck with me is like, what's the first thing you look at when you wake up in the morning? And I, and I do respect that. I love that you're like, well, this is the area I wanna improve, which is, you know, you show it on your feet. I d- I don't see my feet first thing in the morning, but I d- it's like put something on your bedside. Put something out where you're like, first thing you see in the morning. Maybe it's Shaan's face.

Shaan Puri 47:31 [laughs] Yeah.

Noah Kagan 47:32 Maybe it's Million Dollar Weekend. Maybe it's something, but I, I love that idea.

Shaan Puri 47:35 [laughs]

Sam Parr 47:36 I'm getting my whole legs done. You know, not... You know, I've got a kid now, so maybe I'll do her name. But, uh-

Shaan Puri 47:41 Oh

Sam Parr 47:41 ... I've got a, I've got a, I've got bold, fast, fun tattooed on my thighs, 'cause BFF, that's kinda what I live for when it comes to business.

Shaan Puri 47:48 [laughs]

Sam Parr 47:49 Um, I've got a pirate ship. Is, is that, is that-

Shaan Puri 47:51 That is... Bro, live, laugh, love is bull. [laughs]

Sam Parr 47:54 [laughs] Yeah, I mean, it, that's true.

Shaan Puri 48:00 I, I moved to Austin and I found myself. [laughs]

Sam Parr 48:03 Yeah. [laughs]

Noah Kagan 48:05 I did the work, Shaan. It's self-love.

Shaan Puri 48:06 Yeah, yeah.

Noah Kagan 48:07 I did the work.

Shaan Puri 48:07 You, you did the work, dude. [laughs] Congratulations.

Sam Parr 48:10 Dude, well, well, you know, the reason I like homemade tattoos is you do what you want. What I found out when you go to tattoo shops, you basically find an artist that you like, and you're like, "Here's kinda what I want," and they're like, "Yeah, I'm just gonna do whatever I want." And you're like, too embarrassed to, like, tell them exactly what the, what you want because this guy, you wanna impress him. And so I basically have a whole bunch of tattoos on my legs and all throughout my body that I was just trying to, trying to impress Hector, my tattoo artist.

Shaan Puri 48:31 [laughs]

Sam Parr 48:31 But, [laughs] so, [laughs] so that's pretty much how it works when it comes to tattoos. Um, Noah, we appreciate you coming. Uh, we'll wrap here. Uh, that's the pod. [outro music]