Ep.454 ~ 8-Figure Founder of AppSumo, Noah Kagan - Q&A w/ Freddy Lansky, & Itamar Marani

Noah Kagan~ Founder of AppSumo & SendFox

~ Current Series ~

100 Major Influencers 

 

Noah Kagan was #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint.com is the founder of AppSumo, OkDork, KingSumo, and SendFox. AppSumo is an 8-figure business and is #1 site online for software deals. He is the founder and host of one of the top podcasts on entrepreneurship, Noah Kagan Presents.

 

 

Website:

https://www.thebusinessmethod.com/noah-kagan

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-business-method-podcast/id1069958541?mt=2

Google Podcasts:

https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVidXNpbmVzc21ldGhvZC5wb2RiZWFuLmNvbS9mZWVkLnhtbA%3D%3D

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2q8Q9t78sCL6kNkWlnV1Po

 

 

Noah

How do I sell people I'm like, you find that people who have the money and you do something valuable for them, and then they will give you that money. I think what's even more powerful as you say, you can be a millionaire in 10 years. And so pick some fucking idea. Most importantly, pick an idea that you'll work on for 10 years, and just commit 10 years and finding the thing to commit to is almost the more hard part about it. Especially right now I think the one thing to think about in business is what are you certain of not what are you uncertain of, and make a list of all the certainties and then execute against that?

 

 

Chris

Hey guys, we get the fortunate opportunity to hop on the mic and do a Q and A session with Noah Kagan. Noah is the founder of AppSumo, a $30 million a year business. also the founder and owner of Noah Kagan Presents, a very popular podcast on entrepreneurship as well as the founder of Ok Dork, KingSumo and Send Fox. Noah was the 30th employee at Facebook and number four at Mint.com. He has quite an amazing resume. And just a genius when it comes to spouting out business ideas. You guys will notice this on the podcast. Noah is very creative, but he's also very thoughtful on not only how he can be a better entrepreneur, but how he can engage with other people and be a better person himself. So what we do on this show you guys we have two other friends Freddy Lansky, who organized this podcast and Itamar Marini, my partner and friend as well. And we go through some chat back and forth about asking Noah different types of questions around entrepreneurship, what's going on in the world today with the crisis that we're going through, and then we bring in one guest entrepreneur to ask some questions and then we have a q&a going. And Noah answered some q&a from the Facebook Live that we did with this podcast as well. So it's a fun session, more informal, a lot of back and forth banter, a lot of rabbit holes and tangents we go often but really enjoyable and I think it's an episode you guys will get a lot out of. First before we hop into the episode we want to tell you about our sponsors NomadX. NomadX is shaping the way remote workers live, work and learn online at nomadic calm remote workers can find apartments, bedrooms or co living spaces to rent on a monthly basis. 50% more affordable than Airbnb. True story you guys. Plus that's not all. No is a comprehensive educational platform providing easy to learn courses to start or to skill, your successful location independent online business. They have built An incredible community with more than 7000 remote workers and online entrepreneurs and they have over 21,000 followers on Instagram to show you how to position yourself as an authority and how to combine different social media channels to gain maximum visibility during these remote working times, NomadX is the trusted community for location independent entrepreneurs to live work and learn online. Check them out at NomadX.com, that's nomadx.com and now let's hop in to today's podcast.

 

Noah

Give them what they want, Chris give what they want.

 

Chris

going live Is this thing on?

 

Noah

Oh, there it is. All right. We're about to get it on. Yeah, man. I'm stoked. All right. I'm grabbing my brisket. Once I get my brisket, it's Game on.

 

 

Chris

Are you eating pork again? No shame on you

 

Noah

No. Well there's two things. I was just gonna say one you got to eat otherwise you can be hungry but two, we don't in our lives include enough recharge time. Yeah. And so I've been really working on not this moment, but I was gonna have more things after this and I'm like, Fuck that. Yeah, I think we think our phones need to recharge, but we don't need to recharge.

 

Chris

I hear you man. I always like to make it equivalent to a bow and an arrow. You know, like you've got to have that recharge that pullback time in order to shoot the arrow so it can go fast. And we don't do that. We don't pull our bows back enough.

 

Noah

Dude, I've literally one thing that happened to me recently with this whole Coronavirus thing which I love. It's my favorite holiday.

 

Noah

I really do. Yeah, well  regarding the recharging. I fucking forgot where the fuck I was going with it. But it was a really good point. You know, come back to me about this reach. Oh, I the number one thing I've noticed. This is one thing, the number one thing I notice about everyone who fucking hates Corona There's two things. Number one, though, they're not getting enough sleep. Seriously, every day that I wake up and I'm like, fuck today, like that happened to me on Friday and Saturday, I was just just lonely and angry. And then I was like, Did you sleep a lot? I was like, No. Okay, that's probably why

 

Freddy

Do you have an aura ring? Or like a sleep tracker?

 

Noah

So there's two other things I was going to say though. Number one is, it's interesting to think about our morning routines. And I think everyone's got weird as shit, but I was just really zoning in and like honing in on a fucking badass morning where like, today, I did it perfectly. And I was like, okay, when I do it this way, my day starts great. And when I do it other ways, My days are a little more fucked. Yeah. And then the last thing that is interesting is that when you're rich, it's really hard to know what it's like to be poor. And I know that that's a fucking that's a dick thing to say. But I really had this universe of rich bullshit. I hired a guy to come over and massage me last night. And so he came over to my house, and it was really sad. Okay, it was just sad. Because he was like Yeah, I've lost my job and no one wants to have me come over the house. And you know, it was good to understand and try to see where I can help that kind of person right like and so I talked to him I was like well you're a sous Have you thought about teaching people how to give themself massages or couples massages and maybe putting that online or helping people locally? And you know, it's just interesting to kind of learn from that versus just I think as you get as you rise levels you just forget so I think it's good to go back to the frontline.

 

Chris

Do you ever do anything to like, keep you humble? You know, they talk about like, I like to do things that make me survive on very little like this past weekend, we just went out in the woods, and we took a knife and took a pot to boil on a fishing hook. And then you really kind of get in touch with you know, you don't need a lot like it doesn't matter how much money you have. You know, you can understand, like humility or living on bear means or interacting with people that don't have a lot on a regular basis.

 

Noah

Yeah, like, yesterday I had to call my assistant to go do something and I was pretty low for me. Like, you know, I was like, this thing to call her. No, I like that. I like that approach. I think we've done that is I like doing that in the small things like the dishes is the stupidest one, right what is just something small that you know, doing the bitch work and eating it. There's something great Oh, shoot me.

 

Chris

No, no, sorry. Sorry. I was just gonna say like Mike Tyson used to go big on streets further for money, even after he was rich and famous. And he would go and he put a hoodie on and he would go out just just to kind of, I mean, it may not be the best example because Mike, you know, had his own word for No.

 

 

 

 

Noah

Well, I think what I've been doing recently, especially with the YouTube channel, and some of these other things is starting businesses again from scratch. Yeah. And really doing it live like we did with Freddie a few days ago and I did it myself. The past I've done like I started a gym business two weeks ago. started selling Oculus a few weeks ago and so really experimenting with like, Alright, can I actually do this stuff? And I don't know I guess it does keep me humble. It also reminds me sometimes how hard or and also how easy some of this stuff is.

 

Chris

Yeah, that's a good point.

 

Chris

So before we get started we wanted to reconnect you with Itamar here. I know you both, I don't know you know very well, but I know Itamar pretty well. And we thought you guys would kind of hash it out and have good chats and good fun together. He's really special forces for 10 years and counterterrorism, good friend of mine and partner of mine now. And and so if you ever want to learn Hebrew, this is the guy to learn from.

 

Itamar

You need to try Jiu Jitsu, man. There's no better equalizer in the world. Nobody cares how much money you have. What's your background on the mats? Kelly?

 

Noah

yeah, I love watching two dudes grow like groping each other on the ground. That's like I'm really into that. I did watch it. Yeah. Boxing I think one thing I've been thinking about in life is like ratios. And so I do boxing and I found that like the calorie to time ratio for me was more effective. And also enjoyment plus skill, but I felt that I got more out of that with boxing than I did with jujitsu and I've done it, it's not just me. Yeah, it's interesting to stay humble, man. I like that. I think you know a lot of it about Chris checking your ego. 

 

Yeah, no matter what size you get, and you know, happened to me two weeks ago, like I put out this YouTube video youtube.com slash Okay, dork, by the way, but I put out this video and I didn't get a lot of views. And then I was like, Am I not worthy? I was like, Am I not smart? Are my ideas sucky? And it was interesting. I was like, Well, what am I doing this for? And what, what's, what's the treadmill that I'm on? Right? And is there ever enough? So we were talking even when we could in that moment, I talked to a friend. He's like, Well, why did you do it? And I was like, I really have so much confidence in the world and people these days that I want to go help. I want to help these underdogs. I want to help the people willing to work. And he's like, Well, did you do it? I was like, yeah. And I was like, Alright, well then don't fucking care if you get one person's help or 1000. 

 

And it's a kind of shifted how I'm even goal setting lately. Because it's like, people have these goals. And once you get to a million dollars I want you just get a million bucks and then set whatever fucking cool goal you want. And then you know, you can do but I think frankly, you'll get a million dollars if you do the thing that you're not trying to make the million dollars on. Yeah. You know, and that's bullshit advice if you're not rich, because you're like, Well, I'm not rich yet. So that advice doesn't work for me. But I've generally made the most money, not trying to make the money just doing the thing that I'm most interested in. But with the goal thing, we were talking about our YouTube goal, and we're actually looking at the goal that's interesting for the dork brand, my stuff that I share basically the voice of our company. For app Sumo and Sumo group. We said we want to get our active audience number up. And I don't think this is a metric that anyone talks about if you're in content. So your active audience is not just your email list, but it's the active audience on your email list and the active audience on your YouTube. That active audience on the platforms that matter to you, and what is that actual reach? And so my reach is like penis size, micro, okay? But it was like 173,000. And then we're like, Alright, this month in May, we're gonna get to 200,000. And I was like, I don't give a fuck if I get to 200,000 people, I really don't. I really care more than like, I get to hang out with you guys and do a talk like this to 10,15, 500 I don't care. And so I'm more interested in sharing the things I'm learning and also getting learned and meeting people that I'm learning a lot from. And so it's maybe setting my goals a little bit more differently that are aligned to things that really fulfill me. I love that man.

 

Chris

I love that. Okay, so let's do a quick introduction. I think most people know who knows Noah Kagan is but I'm going to introduce him anyway. Noah Kagan was number 30 on Facebook. Number four is the founder of AppSumo. Ok Dork, KingSumo and Send Fox and probably a bunch of others. AppSumo is an eight figure business and the number one site online For software deals, Noah is the founder and a host of one of the top podcasts on entrepreneurship. Noah Kagan Presents.

 

Noah

Dude, that guy sounds awesome.

 

 

He sounds cool.

 

 

Yeah, I was like, Is that me? I think sometimes I'm just surprised.

 

 

I'm like, wow.

But you know, I think some of it is. I was talking with my therapist. He calls himself a coach, but I say you're a therapist. I guess it just depends how much they charge.

 

 

And who's cheaper? Well, tell us first. I know well. I think a coach can charge more. A therapist charges 120, a coach can have a program. That's what he wants to talk to me about next week, which I'm interested in. But I think what's really interesting about successes, how we label it to each other, but not ourselves. Because I never think of the word success. I don't, it's not that I don't believe in it. I guess I don't believe it. I just don't give a fuck about success. I've really explored and I think where I've explored my interests and my explore things I really want. I thrive and when I explore money making opportunities, I fucking flame out and That's been interesting in my own journey, and I hope for everyone's journey is just really, you know, Facebook. I didn't know anyone there. I didn't have any advantages I just built, I looked it up recently. I built probably like four to five different online college businesses. So when I applied I said, hey, I've just been doing this stuff because it sucked for me, and I wanted to build it. And then I got the job there. And I think a lot of the most of the stuff I started or worked at, I was just really like, I was excited to work at MIT. So I did whatever it took to work there. And appsumo I was like, I want deals on these products. These products are fucking dope. There's this whole Groupon makeit thing. That's a cool way to do it. And let me just go get deals on the software I don't want to pay full price for and I'm like, now I get fucking paid for that. Like, how cool is that? Like, everyone should do that.

 

Chris

 

You're right, you're right. What do you think gets in the way of people from doing that?

 

Noah

 

Well tell you there's two separate things that I've observed for myself. So I think there's two separate places, there's the starting place and then there's the success place. People are afraid of getting success as much as they're afraid of starting. Yeah, that's been really fascinating for me, and So on both sides of that, I would say for myself, what I can only speak for myself in my recipes. So in myself, I noticed that my superpower is starting and experimenting, and I'm not as strong. It's consistency. Just don't get really bored. I'm like, Alright, next. Next, I was telling the coach this morning I said, My motto is kill comma, next. Kill next, what's next, kill it. Next thing. And so I'm actually thinking my and I've been learning this one of my books that I've really enjoyed is the powerful engagement by Tony Schwartz. And I got to chat with him recently. And he said that life doesn't have to be zero and one, there's a spectrum and you go back and forth on it. And so I think the spectrum I'm working on is how I slow down a bit more and enjoy the kill, and slow down more and recharge more. And so in terms of the the, the thing I hope you will back into success for me what I've observed is embracing your strength. So I'm a starter so I should be fucking starting and amens a closer so he's running appsumo The other side of that the other part of that that I'm really working through right now is of what's working for you or what's fulfilling you really fulfilling like fucking calling like, Hello, it's Jesus. It's your turn. How do you remove the distractions from that? So I'll give you an example of what that means. I love this. This with you, not just hearing my fucking voice, like I can listen to you guys talk if I have questions for you. I do this all fucking day. But when I'm spending the day doing meetings, I've been setting the date like I spent like two hours trying to figure out some tech shit earlier. And when spending my day like a planet doing other stuff, it honestly discourages me from it. And so it's like, Alright, well how do I hire the people or figure out you know how to reduce it. So I'm not spending my day in that and I color code my calendar, and I call it my purple productivity priority. And my purple productivity party is that how much fucking purple is on my calendar and you can color code your calendar is really cool. And so I'm like, Well, if my color isn't fucking purple, something's wrong. And so I've just noticed for myself in terms of once you've gotten some level of Your own measurement of success? How do you remove the things that are hindering you from sustaining? So that's it once you've gotten inside and honestly, the purple productivity priority, I'm still working on the branding is what's working for me? Because then I look at my calendar right now. And I can say like, do I have something everyday that fulfills me? Do I have something that's towards my main priority every day? On the starter site for the beginners out there? The number one thing for starters is fear. They're all fucking afraid. They're so fucking afraid, and I'm afraid of relationships. And I'm afraid of sustaining. But I'm not afraid of fucking starting. And so that's why I've done so well, business wise around the start. These people, it's been amazing. We had that monthly one k.com we reopened this course. About 10,000 people have gone through it, maybe 1000 have gotten businesses like really good businesses, and maybe like 100 have made like six figure businesses. And that's probably true for how like the statistics work publicly, but it's been amazing to observe how they avoid that part's been so fucking wild. Like the psychology You have people who put this out, and they're afraid of it so I do a lot of things to get them out of their fucking fear. Like we know, we do a push up challenge, try to do 100 push ups. That's it. You can do it at home. You don't need anyone. Okay? You fucking failed. Alright, good your life next coffee challenge, which you guys probably have heard of, or maybe if not coffee challenges go for 10% off your next purchase, preferably in person and get rejected. And then you're like, well, that's fucking fine. And then the last one I like is like the stranger challenge. Now it's even scarier because no one wants to talk to fucking anyone. But next time you go out, talk to a stranger. It's fucking scary. I'm scared of that. It's just a little scary. But I pushed myself. I still do that to this day one because I love deals. So I'd like to do a 10% Coffee challenge, but I like the idea of practicing and making strength in my fear muscle. I think the fear muscle is something that you can actually work on. And with starting a business ideas are fucking a joke. I talked to the masseuse last night. He's like, Man, I'm struggling. I got no money. I was like, Well, I didn't want to be a business coach. But I said, I was like, Did you try to teach people how to do couples' massages?'' Have you you post it anywhere Have you applied for an Amazon delivery job, like I applied for an Amazon delivery job took me like five fucking minutes. It's actually shockingly easy. And not everyone should be an employee. But I think in terms of starting a side hustle. Number one, if you have no fucking money, go get a day job and get just get your foundation set up. But in terms of the fear, it's just practicing the fear, noticing the traps, like there's traps. So I actually made a list of the traps yesterday, things that were entrepreneurs say 10 ways to know your entrepreneur, or 10 things that they say they say, Ah, it's the economy, the economy's bad. I'm like, the economy is always gonna be fucking weird. So it's just that you're not valuable, and you're doing things that are not valuable. It's a good point.