0:00
I I was in the sauna this morning thinking about you guys. It's all we like it.
Search this video
0:03
And I was just I was just thinking of how grateful I am.
0:05
Just there's so many cool people that have uh I don't just are crossing our paths across our whole life.
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Just made me kind of a little emotional, but also just happy.
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We're supposed to get touchy-feely at the end.
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Not not at the beginning.
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YouTube stats show that touchy-feely at the end works, but at the beginning people just bounce. All right. Noah, we're live.
0:32
We've got Noah Kagan, one of my dearest friends, one of the OGs of internet marketing, of entrepreneurship on on on the on the internet.
0:41
One of my uh inspirations.
0:41
You run this company called AppSumo.
0:44
It does like 80 million in revenue. Now you're a YouTuber. You have what? 1.
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something million subscribers.
0:51
And you're here to promote a book, which you've clearly placed it right in front of you.
0:56
I didn't even see that there.
0:58
Give me some of the the sort of wisdom bombs or insight bombs from the book.
1:02
So, give me give us some of the the the key ideas or highlights that you think you know, you want people to take away when they read the book. All right, Sean.
1:11
I have a quote of you in the book.
1:12
I don't know if you actually said this though. Oh, should be good.
1:15
I said You got to ask me a while back.
1:20
But so we we kind of ran this book like a tech startup where we did like surveys and beta testing and all this stuff.
1:24
And so one of Sean's quotes, Sean, I hope you said this.
1:27
Yeah, I'm saying yes either way. Don't worry. I got you back.
1:30
Show me an experimenter and over the long run, I'll show you a future winner. That's true. I did say that. Yes. god.
1:36
I was going to have to have to reprint the entire tens of thousands of books.
1:39
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.
1:50
And it just means just [ __ ] start right away.
1:52
But people get so especially with you guys see so many people listening to your show and they're like I don't know.
1:56
I want to listen to more shows.
1:56
I need to go listen to these like fake YouTube gurus that are out there that don't even run real businesses.
2:01
Uh but realizing that they can actually do things like right now.
2:04
Like how do I get a buck right now? Just go get a dollar.
2:06
Venmo Noah at Noah Kagan. Go get it from a friend.
2:10
Go get it from your uncle.
2:12
And I think people are waiting to be ready and they're just never ready.
2:13
And people like yourselves, me, who ultimately have gotten to somewhere of wealth we're just doing [ __ ] You just have this course called the monthly 1K.
2:21
I tell people there's two courses that I paid for that changed my life.
2:24
And it was Neville's copywriting course and then it was your monthly 1K course.
2:28
I remember I bought this when I was 20 23 years old.
2:32
I think it was $300 and it was like a really big deal for me to buy that.
2:35
And I started a business based off of it that was like making thousands of dollars a month and then I shut it down.
2:43
And one of the first lessons in the book was to go to a coffee shop and ask for a discount.
2:48
And I was petrified to do that.
2:52
I remember I was so afraid to do that. But I did do it.
2:54
And then you talked about emailing people or calling people and getting customers before you even build the thing.
3:01
Which at the time now everyone talks about that, but at the time I was like that would it kind of blew my mind.
3:07
And during that period of my life it was all about action.
3:09
And so I don't know if I could show my feet here cuz I don't know if I can move. I won't even try it.
3:14
But I got I I went and bought I got basically a sewing needle.
3:18
Do you guys know what stick and poke is?
3:20
Do you know what a stick and poke is, Sean?
3:23
Sounds like a jail cell tattoo. It is.
3:26
Listen, you get a sewing needle and you get the thread and you wrap it around the edge of a pencil.
3:30
So just the needle is sticking out.
3:32
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.
3:38
And I've got the word act on my left foot and the word now on my right foot.
3:42
And this is when I was still partying and drinking a lot.
3:46
So I was I was inebriated when I did this.
3:48
But and I was like every day this I was like this course is so good.
3:52
Every day when I wake up in the bed and my and I can see my feet and I put my feet down you know, at the end of the bed at the edge of the bed when I get up in the morning, I'm going to see act now.
3:59
And that's my whole like life, you know, for business at least. My mantra for business.
4:03
And I remember it like taking your course and I was like it's all about action. [ __ ] planning.
4:08
Business plans are stupid.
4:08
Business cards are stupid. LLCs are stupid. It's all about action. Yeah. That's the ROI, Sam.
4:14
That's the ROI right there.
4:16
He made you get tatted up. That's the ROI.
4:19
Dude, I thought he was going to say his tattoo was act Noah.
4:23
I thought he was going to say Noah, not now.
4:24
Dude, those are some feet. Yeah.
4:26
Dude, some people some people would would look at it and they're like what's ACT?
4:30
And I was like yeah, I got SAT on the other foot. I just love testing. He mad on his ass. Yeah.
4:36
No, I mean so number one for the book now not how just what can you do today?
4:39
I don't think people realize how much more [ __ ] they can do in a day.
4:41
The second thing is what you just said, which is the power of asking.
4:43
Like the upside of asking is like I got on a private jet.
4:47
The upside of asking and we teach it through the coffee challenge and other examples.
4:50
Coffee challenge is what you did, which is you ask for a discount.
4:53
So I did it I did the coffee challenge last week.
4:55
I did a a YouTube video where I tried to do the coffee challenge. I got rejected a ton. And you know what?
5:00
You get rejected and you're like oh [ __ ] guess what? That's okay. Let's go forward.
5:02
Dude, this is such an immigrant mentality and this is why I love we're children of immigrants.
5:08
Noah, you're you're you've got immigrants your your father and then Sean has an immigrant family.
5:11
Most of my best friends do.
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They all have this energy where they ask for [ __ ] that I was so embarrassed to do.
5:17
And then I hang out with Sean for a little while and I see how he negotiates.
5:20
I hang out with Neville for a little while.
5:21
It's just like this this shameless ability to go and ask for stuff and it totally changed my perspective.
5:27
I used to be so embarrassed.
5:29
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 nah, [ __ ] it. Whatever. Just give it to me.
5:36
I'm not going to say [ __ ] to this person.
5:37
I'm not going to complain at all.
5:39
And then I started hanging out with these guys and it totally changed my perspective on just being like ruthless about asking for things and it and it 100% worked.
5:45
I mean that's all business is, right?
5:49
Business is like hey, will you be my sponsor for your guy's show not necessarily or will you be my customer? Will you be my partner? Will you be my employee? It's an ask.
5:54
Uh so at Camp at my fam, um so this is a slide.
5:57
I don't know if you can see it.
5:59
So so this is Joe Gebbia, the founder of Airbnb.
6:01
And he's he gave us a impromptu presentation off his phone.
6:05
So he had a he basically had like some old presentation he had given that he kind of like found slides on his phone.
6:11
He started he basically started screen sharing from his phone onto the TV.
6:15
And he goes he was he oh, this was our sales formula.
6:18
So this is the Airbnb founder's sales formula and it's SW squared plus WC equals MO.
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So I don't know if you can if you've ever heard that.
6:28
He's like anybody heard this before? We're like no. He goes no.
6:31
So here's what it stands for. Some will, some won't. Who cares? Move on.
6:39
And he's like this is the sales formula.
6:41
Once you realize that some will say yes, some won't. Who cares? Move on.
6:44
He's like now you have the entrepreneurial sales formula.
6:48
The ultimate formula that will serve you throughout your life.
6:51
did he tattoo that on his ass? No.
6:55
Do you know the Airb- Airbnb is like it's it's featured in the book.
6:57
It's also a great example of how to get started super [ __ ] quickly.
6:59
You guys know how they started? On Craigslist, right?
7:04
They they they they they had like a designer's conference was in town.
7:05
So they had a designer's conference.
7:07
They sent an email to the designer's conference saying hey, does anyone want to stay on our couch?
7:12
That was how they tested the business.
7:14
That's now worth a hundred billion dollars.
7:15
And I think that when you start realizing like there's other ways of doing this.
7:18
You don't have to do like some Silicon Valley funded way.
7:19
You start realizing like hold on, Facebook started that way in a weekend. Airbnb did.
7:23
A lot of other companies can too. All right, everyone.
7:25
A quick break to tell you about HubSpot and this one's really easy for me to talk about because I'm going to show you a real life example.
7:31
So I've got this company called Hampton. Joinhampton. com.
7:32
It's a community for founders doing between two million all the way up to like $250 million a year in revenue.
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And one of the ways that we've grown is we've created these cool surveys.
7:39
And so we have a lot of founders who have high net worth and we'll ask them all types of questions that people typically are embarrassed to ask, but provide a lot of value.
7:48
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.
7:55
All these questions that people are afraid to ask, but well we ask them anyway and they tell us in this anonymous survey.
8:00
And so what we do is we 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.
8:07
Give us your email if you want to access it.
8:10
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.
8:15
And I can see did they come from social media?
8:17
I can see did they come from Twitter, from LinkedIn?
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It basically everywhere else that they could possibly come from.
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I'm able to track all of that.
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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.
8:30
In other words, I can see how much revenue came from this survey, how much revenue came from each traffic source, things like that.
8:35
But the best part is I can see how much revenue came from it.
8:39
And a lot of times it takes a ton of work to make that happen.
8:40
HubSpot made that super super easy.
8:42
If you're interested in doing this, you can check it out. hubspot. com.
8:45
The link's in the description.
8:47
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.
8:52
I'm just going to do that call to action then. And it's free.
8:56
Check it out in the description. All right. Now back to EMF.
9:00
So Sean and I lived in San Francisco for a long time. He's still there.
9:02
We've had I probably have had 10 Silicon Valley friends and I imagine Sean has had more.
9:09
And they message us and they're like hey, you know, I used to invest in VC stuff.
9:13
You know, I invest in startups.
9:15
And they'll see what Sean's doing a little bit about investing in cash flowing businesses and they're like can you teach me how to do that?
9:20
That is so much better or like they they want to just make profits now as opposed to you know, waiting 12 years to sell business.
9:28
And it there there is definitely this shift that seems like that's happening.
9:32
Have you had that, Sean, where a bunch of your friends are hollering at you about that?
9:35
Uh no, they're not like asking me how to do it.
9:36
It's pretty straightforward how to do it.
9:37
I don't think that's the question.
9:38
I think but you are right that a bunch of basically it's the losers of the Silicon Valley lottery, right?
9:42
The winners are like you know, you you hang out with Joe Gebbia.
9:47
He's not asking me about how to invest in cash flowing businesses, right?
9:50
He's not he's he's not he's not trying to find, you know, the next uh 10% compounding or whatever.
9:54
Uh it's but it's the rest of us.
9:57
It's the 99% of the population who played the Silicon Valley lottery for 10, 12, 15 years.
10:03
And then we're like, all right, I am smart but God, can I play a game with a little bit higher odds of success? Cuz guess what?
10:09
I don't actually need $3 trillion to be happy.
10:13
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.
10:24
And so, yeah, there's definitely a shift to doing things that just work.
10:28
Maybe buying companies that already work and making them work better.
10:30
And also, people realizing that it's a lot more funny to have It's a lot more fun to have money now than it is to maybe have money at an IPO 10 years from now.
10:38
And so, sure, the all those are definitely on trend as far as I can tell.
10:41
You said most of these companies succeed by luck and variance?
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.
10:57
We're all trying to build a billion-dollar company and maybe five to seven of them did it.
11:02
I don't think it's because those five to seven were smarter or more talented or harder working than the other 100.
11:06
Um what the two things that I think they did do is project selection, market selection.
11:12
So, I think they picked the right idea in the right market.
11:13
Um but it's not that they're better at doing that necessarily.
11:17
It's not that they those guys had a different insight or a a higher skill at picking.
11:21
Um you know, they they happened to pick 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.
11:29
Um and the second is, you know, the there are you know, still like 12 you know, Plinko bounces of the of the puck as they go, right?
11:38
Like I'm talking to the Airbnb guy, my biggest takeaway was this company should have died like seven times.
11:45
And I actually give them credit cuz I think they are in the top 0.
11:47
001% of like grit and resilience that they actually did have a different thing that pushed them through.
11:54
But most of the people I know that made it it they didn't have the same uh number of times it could have failed once they once they got going uh if that makes sense.
12:02
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.
12:10
I don't believe that that's what was the difference. I agree with that.
12:13
I think these people figured things out but it is interesting cuz right now we glorify this person that like it's not working for 100 years and then finally like the light bulb works. You know?
12:22
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?
12:27
I mean, at least 15, 20 projects that I've tried that did not work, right?
12:32
Some were a day project and some were two years projects or three years.
12:35
Yeah, I mean, I I've I've I've done many, many, many things and like three have taken off.
12:44
This podcast being one of them.
12:46
Yeah, so like 30 10% have worked.
12:49
I think we think that the people are smarter though, Sean.
12:54
We're like, oh, these people must know something I don't know.
12:55
And like I I talked to a bunch of CEOs when I came back to AppSumo cuz I left for a few years.
13:00
I remember I interviewed like the founder of the CEO of Udemy at the time and all these other like famous kind of CEO people.
13:07
I was like, these people aren't that much better than us.
13:09
And I think we that takes some time to recognize though.
13:10
And then you it does maybe they have more experience, which is stuff we can learn over time.
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 kind of in this world with Tim Ferriss and Ramit and so, you were part of the kind of the zeitgeist in 2008 to 2014, maybe.
13:32
And then you started this company AppSumo, which is like Groupon for software discounts.
13:40
And you've kind of been quiet or at least the company has been quiet, AppSumo.
13:45
But it's one of those stories where you're like, what's going on with AppSumo?
13:47
And then you find out that they're just quietly crushing it.
13:51
Wherever you I you know, I don't know what you did in year one but it's probably 10 years old.
13:53
You're at million in revenue.
13:55
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 quietly crushing it.
14:02
How long how long how old is it?
14:06
So, it's 14 year almost 14 years old.
14:08
It's going through puberty.
14:08
So, we've got some growing pains here.
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.
14:16
I like one example and I've no idea if this is true is like, you know, you guys know hey.
14:20
com and superhuman, the email software companies. Yeah, they do.
14:24
I think there's a bunch of companies that like they get a lot of hype and then they just get quiet for 5, 10, however long years and they just are quietly killing it and building the business.
14:33
I'll give you an example of one, Card. Oh, yeah.
14:34
About seven to 10 years ago, it was really popular to create like your your personal website, right? Your about.
14:43
me and then there was like Wix and Weebly and those were like hot YC startups that were, you know, that were doing their thing.
14:48
Squarespace was like on every podcast, advertising everywhere.
14:52
Um and then Card came out and it was just simple single-page websites. I still use Card today.
14:59
I I love this love this app. For what?
15:01
Anytime I need to make a site.
15:03
It's it is for me still the fastest way to make a website.
15:05
Like I think Webflow is more popular, probably. Card's easier to use.
15:10
It's what It's really hard though.
15:10
Yeah, like I need to find There there should just be a blog for low IQ people.
15:12
It's like, hey, if you're just, you know, let's be honest about where you're at capabilities and talent-wise, this is the software you should be using.
15:24
It's like Card is is in that that bucket of really, really like stupidly easy to use.
15:28
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.
15:34
And then they kind of disappeared.
15:35
Nobody really talked 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? He goes, yeah, I know.
15:43
He goes, actually a really random thing happened.
15:46
He's like, every like political movement started using Card.
15:51
So, like during the campaign like 2016, 2020, thousands of websites got created using Card to promote like election stuff or any cause.
16:01
It was like became like a thing for causes.
16:04
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.
16:09
Like they bootstrapped for 10 years and then raised like a single round from investors cuz they kind of couldn't deny like, hey, this is now much bigger than a two-person project.
16:17
We should probably like, I don't know, hire an employee and and see what we can do with this.
16:22
people for 10 years, right?
16:22
Yeah, there's this guy AJ and I think one other guy and then that was it.
16:25
And then now they raised a little money.
16:27
Now they're trying to go for it.
16:28
But it was this company that you heard about and then you just didn't hear about it for seven years but that didn't mean it went away.
16:33
It just meant like it's out of the, you know, TechCrunch or whatever.
16:35
I think there's something not talked about about longevity. Right?
16:41
Like just doing it over over and over and over and over and over for very long time.
16:45
I think the second thing is really market selection. Right?
16:48
Like we've stuck with it 15 years almost but really it's also we chose a good market, right?
16:51
Like software went from 10 deals our first year ever take to now like how many software out there?
16:56
100,000 plus and more coming.
16:59
Uh and so sometimes when people are starting businesses it's like, okay, well, is this something that's going to be bigger maybe in the future?
17:03
And then how do you at least be mindful of that as you start?
17:06
bootstrap it or did you raise money? I bootstrapped.
17:09
So, you bootstrapped it 14 years in 80 million. So, it's profitable.
17:10
I don't know how wildly profitable or just sort of profitable. I can share the numbers.
17:16
I'm happy to talk about it. Okay, great. Let's do it.
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.
17:24
And that's like gross revenue meaning you give a You give a percentage to the software companies. But you said net.
17:31
So, that's after you paid out the software company, right? So, gross sales is 76. 7. Net revenue was 56. Wow, pretty good. And then profit was 7. 5.
17:45
And what do you do with that profit?
17:46
That's like Noah's piggy bank or what where does it go? Yeah.
17:49
No, no, it it doesn't go there.
17:52
So, what we do is it's been the same approach we've had.
17:53
So, we copy Amazon for If you actually look at our net profit over the past literally 14 years, it's like 0. 5% net income margin.
18:02
Uh and so, what we do is in Q4, we try to spend all the profit we have so that every year gets bigger and bigger.
18:06
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.
18:17
And pay the team distribution and then whatever's left after that, then me and my partner get some distribution. Wait, what?
18:24
So, what what's what's confusing about that?
18:27
Uh what's confusing about that is um what's the point?
18:30
Wait, so you're but you're including you're paying yourself out of it, right?
18:33
Like what's the point of running this business for 14 years without the profits is my my question.
18:38
He He included He included He just dis- distribution and then he prepay ads for the next year.
18:43
Yeah, you you try to invest everything as much you can theoretically if it's a if you think it's a positive investment so that the next year is bigger.
18:49
Yeah, but it's pretty hard to do that.
18:51
I We do that for our e-com business.
18:53
It's pretty hard to pay $7 million ahead of time.
18:54
So, what's the big 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.
19:04
Um and for the first five Just for What was interesting though, first five years I didn't pay myself anything. Right?
19:09
It was like, how do I put everything back in even though we were doing pretty good in terms of the business.
19:12
Like the business hit right away, which most businesses don't. You guys know that.
19:14
Like you try a lot of things and not all of them work.
19:18
Uh but after I think year six, I was like, I got nothing to show.
19:19
I don't think I'm going to go public.
19:20
No one's trying to buy us.
19:22
Like I'd like to have some money in the bank. Well, were you broke?
19:26
I mean, because like before this, you'd ran um what was it called?
19:28
Game Kick uh or Kickflip?
19:31
Kickflip was one of them and then Gambit.
19:33
And then you were with Mint and then you were famously with Facebook.
19:37
Um were you cash poor for a long time?
19:39
No, I'm I've never been broke.
19:45
I like had a million dollars at 30 from day jobs.
19:48
I think that's kind of like not recognized by most people meaning one, I was super cheap. Right?
19:53
So, I lived on floors for a year.
19:54
That's a good way to save money.
19:57
Lived at my mom's house, lived at my aunt's house.
19:58
So, just as as cheap as possible. I did get two paydays.
20:00
One payday was from the Gambit payments company.
20:05
So, I think I made around 350,000.
20:06
That was payments for FarmVille and all those annoying games.
20:11
Uh and then the conferences.
20:11
So, those plus just being really conservative with the cash.
20:15
Like, it was about a million dollar liquid around 30.
20:18
Can you tell the Facebook story?
20:18
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.
20:24
And so, I don't want this you mean blog?
20:26
I don't want the story to go untold.
20:27
What What happened with Facebook?
20:29
How did you kind of blow like a hundred million dollar payday?
20:33
It was more of a few hundred million dollar payday.
20:37
Every year it gets worse.
20:37
I think it's also It was a good It was Thanks for rubbing it in.
20:40
Do you know this word Schadenfreude? Yes.
20:41
Yeah, pleasure in other people's pain, right?
20:46
It's like one of my favorite words.
20:46
It's like they have a word for that.
20:47
I think it's just kind of a wild thing about it.
20:51
I mean, you know, it's funny.
20:51
I posted on Twitter some of these like old Facebook memories with like me and Zuck and Moskovitz and Bosworth, who's now the CTO, or Chris Cox.
21:00
Uh Charlie Cheever, Adam D'Angelo.
21:01
It was It was, you know, Arrington from TechCrunch.
21:05
It wasn't a It was a special time, man.
21:07
It was a really special time.
21:08
So, how did you get there? What were you doing?
21:10
What was it like and what happened? Uh I worked at Intel.
21:12
Had a day job, but I was always building stuff on the side.
21:16
So, I was always kind of just doing things like built collegeup.
21:19
org, Craigslist for college students, no one used that. ninjacard.
21:22
com, discount cards for college students, that did really well.
21:25
Uh and then I was putting on conferences. So, Entrepreneur 27.
21:26
I was basically just really wanting to get the hell out of a day job and and have an own business.
21:32
So, I sent in my resume cold.
21:35
But the differentiator was that I sent in mock-ups.
21:38
So, I I took Facebook and I was like, here's Facebook Maps if we ever have a Facebook Maps feature.
21:42
So, if you want to go see your friend, here's how it would look.
21:44
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.
21:49
And you're not a designer, right?
21:50
So, you're you're scrapping these mock-ups together? Or you paid somebody? What did you do? No, that was myself.
21:55
So, I think I was either using Google Slides.
21:57
I don't even know if that was around.
21:58
Probably Microsoft Paint.
22:01
Like, I'm talking super basic.
22:01
It doesn't have to be fancy.
22:03
Google Slides is probably that and Canva are probably the best free things you could use to Did Did you just cold email Zuck?
22:08
Or how how Who did you send it to? No, no, no.
22:10
I So, I was going to quit Intel in December cuz I was waiting for my health insurance to kick in.
22:14
I wanted to get my HSA payment.
22:17
And then I just saw the job listing.
22:19
There I didn't know anyone there.
22:19
And so, you you send that in. They're like, cool.
22:23
You go What was your first impression walking into the office?
22:26
Like, I guess what what was it like back then?
22:28
Cuz what what And what year was this for Facebook? This is 2005.
22:29
I think one of the things for people out there, if you want to get a job, which I think could be cool, is just go look at what you're using all the time.
22:36
You know, if you listen to a podcast, you're work working on a product.
22:38
To be clear though, it is work.
22:40
People think that at AppSumo, they're like, I'm going to come party with you guys.
22:42
Like, you realize like 90% of our day is sitting on a computer working.
22:45
10% Yeah, we do a lot of cool stuff, but um when I came in there, it was chaotic.
22:50
I mean, I posted one of these photos.
22:52
It was a good memory where like there's cables everywhere, the desks were kind of all over the place.
22:57
Um but it felt like there's something special happening.
23:01
It felt like there's like, holy [ __ ] we're we're on a mission that no one else is a part of and we know where this is going.
23:05
And then we had this this truly fearless leader that that seemed like a savant.
23:09
That was He's definitely awkward as hell.
23:12
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.
23:19
What numbers was he Was he throwing around?
23:20
Yeah, so a few crazy things.
23:23
Crazy things that people forget though, he copied ConnectU.
23:24
I don't know if everyone remembers this.
23:26
In a weekend, he copied someone else.
23:29
And then emailed out his uh emailed out to his dorm.
23:31
And that's how it got going.
23:33
So, I think people think these big companies start very complicated.
23:36
No, he copied someone else, launched it, it worked, then he kept going, and then he changed his vision.
23:39
So, some of the crazier things that I recall was at a very early time, he rejected a billion dollar sale.
23:46
Which now maybe sounds a lot or little, but imagine like Sean, you're what, 30-something? 31? 35, yeah. 35.
23:53
You're 24 years old and they're like, hey, I'm going to give you a billion dollars. This was Yahoo.
23:59
I think all of us would take that in a heartbeat.
24:01
I took a hundred thousand dollar job.
24:02
So, I think I was going to take the billion dollar to offer, too.
24:06
I heard this crazy story where they're like, I think it was Yahoo that was offering to buy them, where 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?
24:16
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.
24:22
And he goes, so I just wanted to like sit in here and pretend like we're talking about this cuz obviously we're not going to take this deal.
24:28
By the way, you're totally making this up.
24:30
That's not what happened. I That's what I heard.
24:33
I I read a blog post on it.
24:36
story is they got the offer, then there was the next board meeting.
24:38
At the next board meeting, he was like, which is like where Peter Thiel and others were, he was like, okay, but housekeeping, we got to discuss, you know, we're supposed to talk about this.
24:46
Got this offer, obviously not going to take it.
24:48
And they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, who we should Mark, that's a lot of money.
24:51
We should talk about this. That's what they said.
24:54
But even that I think is Sean, don't let facts get in the way of a good story.
24:57
Well, I think there's even more revisionist history, which which is interesting here because then later, there's another story that Zuck actually accepted an offer from I think it was I think it was Yahoo.
25:08
And um is it Yahoo or Microsoft? I don't remember. And then they reneged.
25:12
They came back and tried to negotiate down.
25:14
Uh so, like, you know, he took 1.
25:17
2 and then they came back and said, no, it's it's going to be like 900 or something.
25:21
There's another story like that.
25:21
And so, none of these are congruent cuz Peter Thiel tells the story, right?
25:24
That's where the that was the source of that story, where he was just trying to say how Zuck is this, you know, he was this like visionary, um you know, balls of steel, turned down the billion dollar offer.
25:34
But then there's this other story where he kind of took it.
25:36
And I'm like, well, and they're like, and he wanted revenge cuz they they negotiated him down.
25:41
I was like, but wait, he said yes.
25:43
So, I don't really know what the truth is, but I know there's a lot of this BS in startup lore, where people make up stories that make somebody sound more more uh brave or courageous than they are.
25:51
I would you know, someone asked me a few days ago, like, is Zuck good or bad? And I think he's good.
25:57
I think people might have negative impression, but he was he he's he's ambitious.
25:59
But I think he always, at least when I was there, had good intentions of being ambitious.
26:02
It wasn't like, I need to manipulate the media.
26:05
He's probably like, what are you talking about? It's just an algorithm. I don't know.
26:08
Like, change it up again, we'll fix it.
26:10
No, can I share the environment?
26:10
Cuz I remember once in when I lived in San Francisco, we were I was doing a startup.
26:14
I thought I was doing a I thought this is it.
26:16
We're We're all We're just like every other startup. We're in the race. We're in the hunt.
26:20
We're going to make the next big thing.
26:21
And then I went to a friend's office who was doing a startup and they actually had product market fit.
26:26
And like, the market was pulling their product.
26:28
They were growing faster they could handle. Yes.
26:30
And I walked into that office, which was smaller, way less nice, you know, didn't have like didn't have It wasn't super organized.
26:39
They had like, you know, people were sitting on the floor and like there was just like people everywhere.
26:41
There was cables everywhere.
26:43
It was like a different vibe.
26:45
Is the company still around?
26:45
Yeah, yeah, it it's it actually sold uh for, you know, a few hundred million dollars.
26:48
And so, I walked home and I remember thinking on the way home, oh [ __ ] we're just playing house.
26:54
Like, that's what it's supposed to feel like when it's working.
26:57
I didn't even actually realize it till I stepped foot in there, but that's a totally different energy.
27:01
They have it and we don't.
27:03
And um did you feel that when you went into the Facebook office? 100%.
27:08
I felt it I've been lucky to feel it a few times. At Mint, I felt it. AppSumo feels it.
27:12
And I think it inside at Facebook, one, my boss got fired the day I I I started.
27:16
So, I walked in and my boss is walking out.
27:18
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.
27:25
And I, you know, I go into a room and Zuck's like, your your boss Doug, who ended up founding GoodRx. You guys know GoodRx? Yep. Oh, wow.
27:34
Pretty pretty pretty impressive.
27:34
Um I just fired him cuz he wanted he's A lot of guys from Facebook came from Yahoo.
27:41
And he's like, he tried to sell the company. So, it's my company. I fired him. Welcome to Facebook.
27:44
And then I just grabbed literally a corner of a desk and it was like, all right, well, what should I work on? Right?
27:50
And it it's literally like a stark contrast from Intel, where like everything is regimented. And uh it was amazing.
27:55
I think the thing that was interesting that others didn't know was that we saw the internal metrics about the growth.
27:59
So, we knew there was something happening that others didn't see.
28:02
In terms of like, I think we're at 10 million the day I started.
28:04
By the day I got fired, it was about 50 million.
28:08
Uh so, we just saw that like, wow, this growth.
28:10
But the threats were serious.
28:11
Like, Google was a threat, which people, you know, kind of forget today.
28:13
MySpace was a huge threat.
28:16
Uh and obviously now those things aren't even really talked about.
28:19
What were you doing the the math when you were thinking about how much your stocks eventually going to be worth?
28:23
Were you like, man, this might make 10 million dollars?
28:26
My whole thing was that I just thought the equity is going to be insanely valuable.
28:29
I didn't know At Mint, I had a very specific number I thought it would sell for, which I was accurate there.
28:34
Facebook, I was like, I don't know the limit cuz Zuck's vision was to connect the entire world.
28:37
And his whole his quote was like, we want to be a toll booth for the internet. I remember that. And that was inspiring. It was nice.
28:42
You know, even at AppSumo now, I I'm now like, okay, what are we excited about?
28:47
Um and now we're excited to promote software.
28:48
Like, we love promoting software.
28:50
And it's like, his was like, I want to connect the entire world.
28:51
Can you imagine showing up to work and he's connecting the entire world?
28:56
And And what he did a lot of really clever things, which was how do I reduce all distractions?
28:59
So, like, he paid for all of our parking tickets.
29:02
Uh he paid for all of our cleaning.
29:02
He paid for us to live close.
29:03
He paid for like everything.
29:05
So, all we had to do was focus on work.
29:08
And that wasn't normal back then, right?
29:10
Like uh No, it was super abnormal.
29:12
like pay your parking tickets and be like, hey, there's going to just bring your laundry here.
29:15
[ __ ] like shut up about your life and just bring your laundry here and just work Yeah.
29:19
we we were hanging out with Mr. Beast.
29:21
Jack Smith said this the other day, he we were hanging out and he goes, I like how he just has no disregard for social norms.
29:27
Cuz we were like, how did you hire this guy?
29:28
Or like, how do you train people?
29:30
And he's like, they move in with me, basically.
29:33
Like, they just I attach them to my hip.
29:35
They follow me everywhere.
29:36
We work seven days a week.
29:38
And then after six months, like, now you can start to give your ideas because you now you have now a fully absorbed me.
29:44
And they're like, all right, well, I don't think I could I sent there like California labor laws.
29:49
Like how does this work?"
29:49
And um and and I I think it was right like the absolute disregard for social norms I've now learned is like a very very positive attribute or signal in highly highly successful people.
30:00
Sounds like Zach was kind of like that, too.
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.
30:07
But there's also I think negatives.
30:08
Like I remember this guy Dan died in a a tree fell on him this during one of the work days.
30:14
He was biking and a tree killed him.
30:16
And I'm like, "Okay, are we going to put a bike rack outside?
30:18
Are we going to have a moment?"
30:19
And there was not even any acknowledgement.
30:21
It was like, "Let's just work."
30:22
And I just thought with that was that was insane.
30:24
Yeah, I mean there's a price to pay for being crazy like that, right?
30:27
Like there's pros and cons.
30:29
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.
30:35
Like people that wanted to be there so badly it doesn't matter your degree, you just come work there.
30:40
And so being in that environment was really special.
30:42
And just like learn seeing all this amazing talent that that was there and that has left to go do really cool things.
30:47
And so why did they fire you?
30:50
It's funny I was actually looking at the pictures I was fired at basically cuz of Coachella. Like you you dipped out?
30:55
like I was drunk and high at Coachella and then for me I I was blogging about Facebook cuz I was so excited about it.
31:01
I think go find things you're excited about it and tell the world about it if you think it's a good thing.
31:04
That that's how I've always felt with the stuff I do.
31:07
And I let Arrington at TechCrunch know like, "Hey, Facebook's opening up to at Microsoft and at corporate emails in the morning.
31:14
I think you should write about it and get and talk about it cuz Facebook wasn't going to do any press."
31:18
And he wrote about it that night and then I emailed Zuck and some of the other e-team.
31:21
I let him know what I did.
31:23
So I think it was that and then I I think for me I also felt frustrated.
31:25
You got you guys have seen these people where for me at 30 people when it was like, "No, we'll just figure things out."
31:31
So I was like, "All right, I'm going to help build mobile with Lee or I'm going to help build ads or I'm going to help do the status update thing."
31:36
Which they didn't even want to do. It was just fun.
31:38
It was very like there's a lot to do there and and I was also probably more immature.
31:43
And then as I got older and it grew I I didn't want to be in meetings.
31:45
I didn't want to do Excel project management.
31:46
I didn't want to have long discussions with 30 people about basic ideas.
31:50
When did it become corporate?
31:52
I mean at that point it was 150 people.
31:54
It felt very corporate to me.
31:56
It felt very you know and if you look at Facebook, what's the last great thing that Zuck has done since 2005?
32:04
Besides acquiring other people, what has he come up with Portal? That was a floppage.
32:08
Like name one thing he's actually done.
32:11
Besides make he's acquired he's made good decisions at acquiring people. I'd say that.
32:15
Yeah, it's just gotten bigger.
32:15
I mean that's why Facebook's great.
32:17
It's just it's because everyone uses it. I mean it's so big.
32:21
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."
32:29
And I was like, "Why are they doing that?"
32:29
They're like, "Well, because the only people who aren't on Facebook are the people in India who don't have internet.
32:34
So we're just going to go give them free internet so they can use Facebook."
32:37
I mean his relentless drive towards growing to everyone is is what he's done.
32:42
Yeah, and stuff like you know the part thing is the bigger you get, the harder it is to move the needle.
32:45
So it's like marketplace, super successful but uh kind of like who cares?
32:52
It's like, "Yeah, you built Craigslist inside Facebook. It's fine."
32:54
Uh you know they need us they need to do something so big, right?
32:58
That's why it's like the metaverse or AI.
33:00
Like they have to go on these huge waves just to kind of like move the needle for how big Facebook is.
33:07
I think what what was really interesting what people can think about in their own businesses is the core really great?
33:12
Cuz 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.
33:19
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?
33:25
But it gets very exciting to think, "All right, can we do MRR?
33:28
Can we do all these other options?"
33:29
But really it's like can you do the core excellent and then start adding new things at a later point.
33:34
So you you've had this video where you went on this plane with this guy who I think was a commodities trader I don't I I think that's what he said.
33:40
You know and I assume he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
33:43
I know that you have a bunch of friends who are billionaires.
33:45
You told me ahead of time you said most billionaires that you know are unhappy.
33:50
What what tell me more about like what you've noticed about hanging out with some of these like uber uber successful people.
33:55
Most of them didn't set out to be billionaires.
33:57
Like you hear people online like, "I want to be a billionaire."
33:59
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."
34:07
And yes, maybe in private equity or finance but a lot of the entrepreneurial ones.
34:12
It was just like stuff they're curious about.
34:14
All of them got rich as well in one way.
34:16
Like I was just at FedEx this morning cuz I interviewed the guy from Kinko's.
34:21
He just focused on copiers. That's it.
34:24
But a lot of newer entrepreneurs I've seen are ones that haven't had as much success or like, "I'm going to do five different solopreneur startups this weekend."
34:30
It's like, "Okay, you can test five but which one's working? Let's just do one."
34:34
These billionaires just did one.
34:36
But they tell us to diversify.
34:39
And so I think that's always fascinating for me is they do one thing and and this is again we're kind of coming back to the AppSumo stories they stuck with it for a very long period of time.
34:47
Like think about any billionaires you know, how long did it take?
34:50
Yeah, I mean 20 years, 30 years, a lifetime, a life a career. A lifetime.
34:54
A lifetime and we're trying to get rich in a weekend or which you know crypto rich in a month.
35:00
And I think the the slow compounded growth over long periods of time is what doesn't get recognized.
35:03
Sean, didn't you say that was like your major takeaway from your Camp MFM?
35:09
Yeah, I wouldn't say it exactly like that but um when I was talking to Jimmy and I was like, "Yeah, I think the thing I'm you know most the thing that's standing out to me the most as 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.
35:31
I'm spreading it too thin and that's a mistake.
35:34
Like I'm doing more and getting less.
35:37
And I put it differently.
35:39
I said, "I think you have a thousand times more opportunity hit you know opportunities coming to you every day and you've said yes to half the things I have.
35:47
So something's wrong here.
35:47
I think in general the more successful you get the more opportunities you get but the more things you should and and you should be saying no to."
35:55
I think Hormozi said a nice thing about this that I I thought resonated.
35:59
He goes, "Let's say you get let's say you're making 10,000 a month.
36:03
And now somebody comes and offers you something that's going to make you a thousand dollars. Pretty easy to say no.
36:08
Like you have a going rate.
36:08
If you're making a hundred thousand a month and somebody comes to you and says, "Here's something that can make you ten grand." Easy to say no.
36:15
The hard thing is when you're making a hundred grand and somebody comes to you and says, "Here's a thing that can make a hundred grand."
36:19
And you're like, "That's my rate."
36:21
But what happens is you now have 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.
36:33
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 a hundred or two hundred.
36:40
They will only say yes to something that might get them you know 10x more than that.
36:45
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."
36:51
And the hardest one to say no to is the one that's at the current level where you're currently at.
36:54
And the people who really break out 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.
37:06
So how are you how are you changing this year?
37:09
Well, I said no to a bunch of things.
37:09
I shut down two of the things that I was working on that were working but they were more in that like 1x 1x type of category.
37:17
And then every day I basically start my day with the first three hours cuz I was like, you know the main thing I want to focus on is is making great content.
37:24
It's the thing I love doing the most and it's the thing I think I'm I'm best at.
37:29
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.
37:39
And so I just carved out where the first three hours of the day I'm only doing content.
37:43
And I was like, "Cool, I want this to be eventually be eight hours, ten hours a day."
37:45
But the thing I can control is that the first three hours I'm not going to say yes to anything else.
37:50
I'm only going to say yes to this.
37:51
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.
37:56
And so that's been very effective so far.
37:58
Where you Sean, where are you going to start making content?
38:00
Like when you keep saying content creation are you talking specifically text are you talking about text based? Is it coming back? Sean blogger. com? back.
38:08
All all ideas are on the table.
38:08
So right now I'm just prototyping.
38:10
So I'm basically trying to figure out which one do I enjoy the most.
38:12
I knew I would enjoy podcasting.
38:16
Um I listened to a ton of podcasts. I had prototyped it.
38:18
So before this podcast I had recorded two other podcasts.
38:22
One with my roommate and brother-in-law at home where we talked about sports and never released it.
38:28
There's only been three listeners ever.
38:30
It's me and the two guys I did it with.
38:32
Then I did another podcast at my office when I was doing a startup.
38:34
It was me, Furqan and a couple of a couple of other guys. Three episodes.
38:37
I think they're up on YouTube somewhere.
38:39
Nobody ever watched them.
38:41
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."
38:46
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.
38:54
And so I had prototyped and I felt it out before I in order to know that that's actually something I wanted to do.
39:00
So when I say new content, I'll dabble with let's say short form or or write you know I'll write a a a brief to a book like you know an outline to a book and the first two chapters cuz I'm trying to understand what do I want to write a book or not?
39:12
I don't need to commit to that because I can prototype it and feel it out first.
39:16
You definitely should go the book route.
39:17
The problem with the book route Noah you've seen it seems so [ __ ] hard. It seems so hard.
39:21
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.
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 going to do do next book on this topic."
39:40
And I'm like, "Man, I just heard you complain for 2 years."
39:44
No, you've been talking about this freaking book for years.
39:45
I think it's been way longer than 4 years, actually.
39:49
I remember you talking about how you wanted to write a book forever, and it took four freaking years to do this thing.
39:54
Is it You think it's going to be worth it?
39:55
What's the ROI going to be? I like it. I'm proud of it. I think it's first off.
40:01
And you know, coming back to And the the ROI on that, I think it's going to impact people.
40:07
I think one person at a time.
40:07
I've already seen it, right?
40:08
I've seen people read it.
40:10
And I'm like, "Holy [ __ ] really?"
40:11
You know, even I think with these things like what what you guys have done with your show and Sean, like what you're exploring with yours, uh your content, it's like, "What's something you're excited to do?" And that's kind of hard.
40:22
Or like, no one's ever proud of themselves.
40:23
Like, "Yeah, I wrote I walked 5 ft."
40:26
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."
40:30
And I think that that that to me was really the ultimate ROI in this book.
40:36
Think I can I actually face myself and and work on a book and help other people, and then can people do it for themselves?
40:40
Dude, when did you become so political?
40:43
What do you mean where I like I'm It's called Million You're like a politi- You're like a politician, my friend.
40:47
Like So, old Noah, I got to tell a story about old Noah.
40:50
I remember uh Sean, one time there's a coworker who I work with who Sean, you are friends with.
40:56
And she uh we go into this meeting, and Noah shows up shirtless. He's got no shirt on. He's in his house.
41:05
I think he's like on his couch.
41:05
And I'm like, "Noah, what the [ __ ] are you doing, dude?"
41:09
Like He He was just like crazy madman.
41:11
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.
41:20
But now, when I ask what the ROI is of this, you're you're showing so much evolution.
41:25
You're talking about change people's lives.
41:27
It's so funny to see you say this this stuff. One, thank you.
41:31
I think we should have changed people's lives back then, too, just in a different way. One nip at a time. Yeah. I was I Yeah.
41:40
I I I was going to talk about inverted my inverted nipples, which I'm very self-conscious about, okay?
41:44
No, I mean, look, I'm a trig.
41:46
Do I want to show up shirtless?
41:48
Maybe, if we're hanging out in our sauna. Like, come over.
41:49
But I I I think as you you get older, you also realize like, "What kind of behavior do you want to do?" And I think that's fine.
41:58
Uh do the book I think people have these these like [ __ ] ROI things.
42:00
Like, "I want to help a million people."
42:02
I don't give a [ __ ] about that. I don't.
42:05
But I am happy if like one or two or five or a thousand or ten thousand then read the book and do something for themselves.
42:11
Um Noah, we appreciate you doing this, man.
42:13
I I forgot to I should have plugged this earlier on, but I'm doing I I'm buying how many how many books am I buying? 30? 50 books? Something like that.
42:21
Uh so, I bought a bunch of books.
42:23
I'm trying to do my part to help you rank up in in the list.
42:25
So, if you go to the anti-mba.
42:27
com, between now and February 15th, 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 address in, and then and we'll send you the book.
42:41
Um I'm excited to see you do this.
42:43
I hopefully hopefully you impact some people, which I know you will.
42:45
But also, uh the the ego side of me is like, hopefully you rank on some type of best-seller list, which I know is also pretty cool.
42:54
Um we appreciate you doing this.
42:54
Uh what do you want to It's called Million Dollar Weekend.
42:58
You're Noah Kagan on Twitter. appsumo. com. Noah Kagan on YouTube.
43:02
Am I missing any other plug? No, man. It's Go buy the book.
43:06
By the way, Noah, I had an experience like this that shifted my life.
43:10
I'm a testimonial for this even before your book came out.
43:13
Uh I was working on a startup, my very first startup.
43:15
We were working on it for like 9 months trying to get everything right.
43:18
We literally had a 300-page business plan.
43:20
It was embarrassing now that I look back.
43:21
But we thought that meant we were, you know, doing everything.
43:24
We were dotting every, you know, we're dotting Ts and crossing Is out here.
43:27
And so, uh I was like, "All right, well, at a certain point, I looked at my my cofounder, and I was like, my cofounder, he's my roommate, my friend.
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." He said, "What?"
43:44
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.
43:49
We've never made a dollar.
43:51
Like, I can't believe this.
43:53
And we just keep tricking ourselves into thinking that this is legit."
43:55
I just read The 4-Hour Workweek, and I was like, "All right, this weekend, we are going to make money.
44:01
I don't care how It was like we And our we set a goal for $1,000.
44:04
I said, "We're going to try to make $1,000 in the next, you know, basically it was it was Friday.
44:08
It was like, "We're going to make it by Sunday night, and I don't care how. Let's go."
44:13
And in- instantly, just by having that intention, things started to fall together. We made this website.
44:17
We found a product on Alibaba. We got it drop-shipped. We made our first sale.
44:21
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 Yeah.
44:30
to somebody who's uh their parents were having an anniversary, and they needed like 200 of these.
44:33
We charged them like, you know, four or five bucks per.
44:36
We made $1,000 in one weekend, and I felt like the champion of the of the universe.
44:42
And I was like, "This is what business is supposed to feel like."
44:45
Taking action, actually going out there trying to sell a product, um moving fast.
44:49
Don't try to perfect everything.
44:51
You don't need a 300-page plan.
44:51
And after that, like literally my you know, my whole game shifted just from that one experience.
44:57
And so, I haven't read your book yet. You sent it to me.
44:59
I'm going to read it, but I already like in my soul am on board with what you're all about.
45:06
Dude, I did that wristband business, too. That's so crazy.
45:07
They They were hot at the time, right?
45:09
Like every kid was wearing them.
45:11
Like every college kid was wearing them.
45:12
But I think that the thing you called out, which is interesting and and um that's awesome, is like because you said, "Hey, I'm going to do something, and I have this limited time."
45:19
And you have 52 of them, right?
45:20
So, especially if you guys got kids and all this stuff, you you don't have a lot of time.
45:24
But you can make an hour or two in a weekend to to do something.
45:27
And then look at what you did in a weekend what you didn't do in months. Right. Yeah, exactly that.
45:30
Look what you did in the weekend that you didn't do in months.
45:33
So, that's that's how It's exactly how it felt.
45:34
And then I was like, "I either can go back to the old way, or I can go this new way, this action way."
45:40
And the action way became the way, and that, you know, basically that became I don't know.
45:45
Like Sam, you It's so funny you have that tatted on your feet.
45:46
Like, that's it's been tatted in my brain.
45:48
It's like the only thing.
45:51
You know, I I remember lit- literally looking around.
45:53
I was at Duke, and there's a bunch of smart kids at Duke.
45:54
I thought when I was in high school, I was the smart kid.
45:57
Then you go to a college with all the smart kids from those high schools, and you realize, "Oh, you ain't shit."
46:01
And I was like, "All right, Yeah.
46:04
am I just going to be like forgettably average?
46:05
Cuz that's where this is going."
46:07
And I was like, "Am I really going to get smarter than these people?
46:10
Am I going to I don't have any ta- like special talents that they have that that that nobody else has."
46:14
But I realized that a lot of smart people are overthinkers. They hesitate. They doubt. They overanalyze.
46:20
And I was like, "That's my thing.
46:24
I'm not going to do that.
46:24
I'm just going to immediately take action, and that will be the difference.
46:27
And that will be my thing, and I could just That'll be the bedrock that I can build any kind of success on, rather than trying to have been like a special snowflake that was you know, pre-predestined to do great things."
46:37
And that just became my my my motto.
46:39
I've still got the needle, bro. We can change that. We can We can do that.
46:47
Well, Sean, but most people who listen to your show want to make a million They don't ever make a buck.
46:50
They never make you make that one dollar.
46:51
And that's where they have to get, you know, get off their asses and That was bars, dude. That was bars, dude. That was That was great. Like like good lyrics. Nice nice words. Thank you.
47:02
Like Bro, you're a 40-year-old YouTuber.
47:03
How do you not know these things?
47:08
I'm learning the the vocab.
47:08
But dude, I read this good book last night, Sam.
47:10
You may be inspired by it.
47:12
It's called The Art Thief.
47:13
And uh this guy who steals art.
47:16
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 I do respect that.
47:19
I love that you're like, "Well, this is the area I want to improve," which is, you know, you saw it on your feet.
47:24
I don't see my feet first thing in the morning, but I don't It's like put something on your bedside.
47:27
Put something out where you're like, first thing you see in the morning. Maybe it's Sean's face. Yeah.
47:32
Maybe it's Million Dollar Weekend. Maybe it's something. But I I love that idea.
47:36
I'm getting my whole legs done.
47:36
You know, now You know, I've got a kid now, so maybe I'll do her name, but uh I've got a I've got a I've got bold fast fun tattooed on my thighs, cuz BFF, that's kind of what I live for when it comes to business.
47:48
Um I've got a pirate ship.
47:48
Is that Is that Bro, live laugh LOVE IS BOLD.
47:59
YEAH, I MEAN, THAT'S TRUE.
47:59
I MOVED TO AUSTIN, AND I FOUND MYSELF. YEAH. I did the work, Sean. It's self-love. Yeah, yeah, Sam.
48:06
You You did the work, dude.
48:10
Dude, well, you know, the reason I like homemade tattoos is you do what you want.
48:13
What I found out when you go to tattoo shops, you basically find an artist that you like, and you're like, "Here's kind of what I want."
48:16
And they're like, "Yeah, I'm just going to do whatever I want."
48:18
And you're like, too embarrassed to like tell them exactly what they what you want, because this guy you want to impress him.
48:23
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.
48:34
So, that's pretty much how it works when it comes to tattoos.
48:36
Um Noah, we appreciate you coming.
48:38
We'll wrap it here at uh that's a pop.