515: How Ordinary People Can Build A 7 Figure Business In 48 Hours With Noah Kagan

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You’re listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and delve deeply into what strategies are working and what strategies are not with their businesses. Now today I have my long time buddy Noah Kagan back on the show. And in this episode, we’re going to discuss the surprisingly simple way to launch a seven figure business in just 48 hours. Sound too good to be true? We’ll listen to the end to find out how. But before we begin, I wanted to let you know that tickets for the 2024 Seller Summit are now on sale over at sellersummit.com.

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The Seller Summit is an e-conference that I hold every year that specifically targets e-commerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online. And unlike other events that focus on inspirational stories and high-level BS, is a curriculum-based conference where you will leave with practical and actionable strategies specifically for an e-commerce business. Every speaker I invite is deep in the trenches of their business, entrepreneurs who are importing large quantities of physical goods, and not some high-level guys who are overseeing their companies at 50,000 feet. Now, I personally hate large events.

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So the seller summit is always small and intimate. Every year, we cut off ticket sales in around 200 people. So tickets sell out fast and we’ve sold out every single year for the past eight years. If you’re an e-commerce entrepreneur making over 250K or $1 million per year, we also offer an exclusive mastermind experience with other top sellers. The seller summit is going to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from May 14th to May 16th. And right now, this is the cheapest the tickets will ever be.

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Also, if you haven’t picked up my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, The Family First Entrepreneur yet, it’s available on Amazon right now at 50 % off. My book will teach you how to achieve financial freedom by starting a business that doesn’t require you to work yourself to death. Plus, you can still grab my free bonus workshop on how to sell print on demand and how to make passive income with blogging, YouTube and podcasting when you grab the book over at mywifequitterjob.com slash book. So go over to mywifequitterjob.com slash book.

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Fill out the form and I’ll send you the bonuses right away. Now onto the show.

02:03
Welcome back to the My Wife Quitter Jaw podcast. Today I’m thrilled to have Noah Kagan back on the show for I believe the third time. He is the chief sumo and founder of AppSumo.com, which I believe is a nine figure company at this point that offers major deals on really cool software. But what he’s probably best known for today is his YouTube channel called Noah Kagan, which has been growing like gangbusters and will probably cross the 1 million subscriber mark any day now.

02:32
Now, if you’ve never watched any of his videos, go check out his channel right now because you will be entertained and you’ll probably learn something as well. And I’ve known this guy for almost 10 years now. And what I like about him is that he tells it like how it is. And he’s always trying and experimenting with new things. He’s got a book coming out called Million Dollar Weekend, which will teach you how to build a seven figure business in a single weekend. Sounds pretty outrageous. Well, he’s done it before. And with that,

03:01
Welcome to show. What’s up? Good to see you, Steve Chu. Good to see you. Now we’ve been we’ve been at this game a long time, my friend. A long time. I still remember I met you in Napa and then out of the blue, you were like, hey, let’s let’s go take a walk. I’m like, what? Yeah, just let’s just go take a walk. And there’s like all these people because you invited a bunch of people and we took this walk. And you told me some really personal things on that walk. And I was like, wow. Right on.

03:33
Remember this, you probably don’t even remember this. I don’t know if I remember that. But the Napa thing was a thousand interesting. We wanted basically to go to Napa and we’re like, if we get customers to come, then we can expense it and hang out with the customers at the same time in this Villa. And then we’re like, we should just probably pay for our own Villas in the future. But it was cool to have people like you, the founder of chess.com and others come through the house and hang out. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Let’s talk about your YouTube channel first, because I know

04:00
that whenever you do something, you go all in. You get the best people to help you and it almost always pays off. So your channel has grown like gangbusters and I’m just curious, what is your process for creating a viral video? Because a lot of your videos, I say that the lowest one gets only like a couple hundred thousand views and you have ones that have like 4 million views. What does it take to succeed? Do you need this team that you have to do it?

04:30
Completely and I I wouldn’t want to do without the team. Okay, what’s really fascinating though? It’s like the opposite side. So for anyone else It’s just starting with your phone So this whole channel that’s now a million subscribers and I don’t know how much money it does. Maybe it’s $25,000 a month it generates it started me shirtless Recording with my phone in my living room in my 800 square foot house that’s falling down You can go the video is still up on the channel. And so I think when people see

04:59
these buildings that are so big or videos that get millions of views, they don’t realize that the most important part is starting. The most important part is getting going. And that momentum and that action leads to getting to a million views or five million views or whatever type of dreams people had. And so for me, I loved it. I was making this video shirtless, which to be clear, if you’re listening to podcasts, my body’s not ripped. It’s not like a bottle. was back when you had the six pack, wasn’t it? It was a little bit after that. I’m just saying, I don’t think it was.

05:27
I didn’t put on oil. It’s not appealing. No one’s seeing this body. But I just started and a few people watched and a few people commented. And that was enough for me because I felt good and I enjoyed it. And I think that’s a part people miss out on. I was like, oh, I’ll keep doing this. And so, again, the most important part is the start. It’s the now, not how. That’s one of the key things we talk about a million dollar weekend. That’s transformative. It’s like get going. And so that led.

05:55
over the next three years to being, to putting out videos where if it doesn’t hit a million views, we made a mistake, which we can learn from. And so it’s been an evolution, man. Like the, and this is how all business and life goes, but we got started. We put out three videos a week. Uh, it was me and one other person, three videos a week for 50 weeks that. Wow. So I did it. started going and I was like, all right, let me just put out videos. And I just kept going. And after all these videos, none of them really got popular.

06:25
Like no one watched them, not one. Like not one of them got super popular, like 100,000 views. And so what’s interesting about that and this is something again, I do talk about a lot of 100 and I talk about in the book and it’s called the law of 100. This is something that like game changer for me because I quit too early in my podcast. So I learned in my YouTube channel, I’m not going to quit too early. And the law of 100 is commit to doing 100 of them. So I was like, I’m going to at least get to 100 videos and then I can quit.

06:53
But the idea is that you’re just most of us quit way too soon. Like the only reason I’m a multimillionaire, the only reason is because AppSumo kept going. That’s it. There’s no difference. Like I don’t have some special ability. The distance between me and most of the listeners is a lot closer than they think. And the distance between where they are and where they want to be is even closer than they expect. And so with the YouTube channel, we did the 50 videos three a week, 50 weeks, and it was just like, fuck, man, these aren’t doing anything.

07:21
And we had a goal to get an extra 70,000 subscribers with about 90 days left. And we’re like, shit, we’re not going to hit it. So we had to try something different. And that’s again, I’m going to keep coming out of the book because the book is what’s teaching. It’s a teacher for me and a teacher for a lot of other people because we only had 90 days to get like almost 100,000 subs. And because we say, hey, can you do something in a weekend, which everyone has? Then we had to try something else and we had to be really creative. And that’s when we did the knocking on doors video.

07:51
where literally I just drove around my neighborhood in Austin and then the richer neighborhoods and just knocked on doors. We put out that video, a million view video, and from there it changed everything. How did you decide to do that knocking on doors video? So we tried what we’ve been doing and it wasn’t helping us hit our goal. Our goal is to get to 250,000 subscribers and we were at about 170,000. And we were doing these videos where I’m sitting on a camera like this.

08:20
Let me tell you about a book. Let me tell you about AppSumo. You know, it wasn’t differentiated and it wasn’t really entertaining for people to want to watch it and stop what they’re doing. And a lot of times for our YouTube content, we look at probably thousands of ideas to do now two videos a month. Does it give you drop the frequency down big time, too? We went from three videos a week to two videos a month. Wow. And each video is highly produced like who we’re going to have as a guest.

08:50
the pre-production, the during production, the amount of editing, the amount of consultants and designers, and I can talk more specifically about it. But what the thing that people can learn from is you don’t want to just copy someone in your industry because you’re not going to be able to beat them if you just copy. You got to look outside of it. And so we saw someone doing these knocking on doors, I think on TikTok, and it was so staged like the person opened the door and they’re like, hello, friend. Good to see you. Yeah. And I’m like, dude, no one ever does that to me.

09:20
But we saw that kind of working over on the TikTok thing and that kind of gave us the idea of, you you drive by these rich ass houses. And ever since I was a kid, I wondered like, who are they? Like, what do they do? And so that kind of inspired this idea of what’s the content people have been wondering about specifically in business that they’ve just loved to know that they haven’t found out and we’ll create that content. And our content’s all around creating content for the underdogs. So.

09:47
We don’t do giving away stupid things. We don’t like, I don’t know, put bouncy balls in our house. That’s not who we’re serving. We’re serving people who are underdogs on their business journey. And I think in content creation for anyone out there, it’s what are your content buckets specifically that you can kind of just repeat that you know, bang, that you know work. And so we found this knocking on doors, basically challenge videos like asking super rich people, challenge videos, super work. And then we said, all right, what’s another bucket? And one of them was asking super

10:16
rich people that are old regrets. Yeah, that’s been another kind of two of our major categories of content that we found like every time we do it, works. So what made you decide to pivot? Because that’s like the hardest thing to do. Was it because you had this goal of 250 subs, 250k subs? You’re really good at this, by the way, you’re really good at just like throwing away everything. And yeah, that’s not working. Starting over. That’s actually a big skill. Thank you. I problems doing yeah.

10:46
Well, I think we have the opportunity cost. We have the emotional investment. I think what I get excited about is doing more of what works. And this is probably one of the most obvious yet least used things in business. When you have started a business, whether it’s car washing, whether it’s selling e-commerce like a lot of your people, whether it’s digital products at AppSumo, the easiest way to grow your business is just do more of what works. Period. And so with our videos, was…

11:14
I could go do these talking head videos and Jeremy, who became the producer, he’s like, Hey, we can do those videos. It’s just not going to, it’s not going to work. We know these work. Why don’t we do more of these? And in business, a lot of times you have a window of opportunity, right? You have something, Hey, I found what works. And so one of the app sumo principles is double down. And we basically try to take it to the point where it’s, there’s no more, we can’t do any more of it. Uh, another example, separate of content, just another business example is at app sumo, we found affiliates.

11:44
are doing super well for our business. So specifically YouTube video affiliates. So we go to people making business content and we pay them money upfront and a percent to make content around our products on AppSumo.com. And we found like the ROI was insane. So we went from basically testing it out in the beginning of the year to now we have a five person team running it. And the same thing goes for the video content that we’re talking about on my channel, which is I can do these talking videos where I sit at this desk, make a nice video.

12:13
and it gets 50,000 views or 10,000 views and that’s cool. But we, our initial interest was making content that we enjoyed and was helping inspire underdogs and those videos work. So we just doubled down more on those types of content. So how do you weigh the cost of the effort versus the reward? So these talking head videos were a lot easier to produce. I would imagine, right? Like hardly any work at all. You sit down, you’re good to go, right? The amount.

12:41
Just to take a step back here, I do these videos where I’ve like I’ve went up to people in yachts. I went up to first class passengers. I stood outside of a private airport. I’ve knocked on houses in Austin, in L.A. I’ve done the streets. And I’m really afraid. Like, I’m really afraid. And the amount of anxiety and I go to therapy and I talk to my girlfriend about it. It’s not that I have some special ability, but that is really the difference between success.

13:09
and where you are today is what are you? What fear are you willing to face? And that’s what it came down to in this content. It was just like, OK, I can do the talking head and it’s going to be fine. These ones are harder to do. I’m to be more proud of them and other people can’t copy it as easily. So that’s what really led us down that path of doing. Hey, we can keep doing this or this is one that’s working. So let’s go do more of that and stop doing these other pieces. We are balancing it out today.

13:38
We’re going to be trying some talking heads so people get to know me because when I’m doing these, these harder ones, people don’t know who I am. They’re just like, oh, it’s a guy interviewing and that’s kind of cool. You know I love is you’re so humble in those videos. Also, the people that you’re interviewing don’t know that you run this super successful business. It cracks me up actually. But you know, I think what I’m trying to show in these videos is that a lot of this is accessible to anyone. Like I’m talking to people in Monaco in Switzerland.

14:08
like on the streets of New York, anyone can do this. And that’s the fear that so many people have. And I do. You we saw that in this book, which is just what’s the fear holding you back from getting going? And no one knows I’m rich, which is exactly the point. I’m just a person with a microphone. I don’t have fancy clothes on. Once in a while I dropped the Rolex. I’ll put the Rolex on, but I don’t even know if people see it. Yeah, I didn’t even notice it. Yeah. Yeah, they don’t see it. It’s like a $50,000 Rolex I’ll be wearing in the videos. They don’t see it.

14:37
And so look, anyone can have the chance to get whatever type of life they want. You just have to go get, you have to go start it. And that’s the part that most people are just watching it or they’re consuming it. And it’s just like, no, how do you get going right now? Anyone can take a camera and go do that on the streets or started e-commerce business, following your material, or do whatever kind of thing they’re excited about. I don’t know if you remember this, but a long time ago you create this course called monthly one case. It’s, don’t know if it still exists and, uh, you just sent me like the first, you sent it to me.

15:06
And I remember the very first lesson was to go ask for a discount at Starbucks. Is this course still exists, by the way? So we’ve evolved. The course still exists. Monthly one kid.com. But everything in the course I’ve improved and simplified and updated within million dollar week in the book. That’s called the coffee challenge, which is probably what I’m most famous for. And I think has the biggest impact on people’s lives of overcoming fear. The biggest impact.

15:35
Yeah, it’s funny because when I first saw that lesson, because you know, I’m a traditional Asian dude, like I like why, why, why am I asking for a discount at Starbucks? mean, something I would do, like regardless of your your course. But yeah, but you’re right, it is all about overcoming that fear. And when I found that I do one on one consults for the students in my class, and it almost never revolves around business. It’s always a mental. It’s almost like a psych session.

16:04
Whenever I do these one-on-ones, I don’t know if you found the same thing. Um, it is fascinating because the amount of business books and YouTube shows and podcasts about how to get rich is unlimited. How many $10 Udemy courses are there? Yeah. A gazillion. So if all the information’s out there, why aren’t, why isn’t everyone who wants to be a successful entrepreneur doing it? What’s the thing? And what I found out through that course,

16:33
And through a lot of other things, there’s basically just two things that are really limiting people before the business stuff. And that’s the fear of starting and then the fear of asking. That’s it. If you can overcome and practice those, it’s never, it’s never perfected, but practice them and you can get more comfortable asking. Like that’s what you have to do in your business. Steve, you ask people, Hey, will you buy handkerchiefs? Hey, we listen to my podcast. Hey, will you sponsor my conference? And the more you can feel a little bit comfortable doing that and get better at it, then all this other business stuff is cake.

17:02
And so that’s the stuff I found that really held people back. so the coffee challenge is really about asking. And then how do you practice just starting and getting going in the right now? And that’s been, it’s been interesting to kind of observe and be surprised that it’s not the business stuff. It’s the fear stuff that really holds most people back. And people are more receptive to helping you than you think. I remember when I first encountered you, I, I didn’t, you were like, Hey, just give me a call. I’m like, what? Cause

17:31
I thought that was just very generous of you to just, you gave me your phone number. I’m like, okay, let’s talk. Right. But I didn’t expect that to happen. And if I didn’t ask, then I never would have had that first conversation. Yeah. Most people hope for things. They wish for things, but the only way to get something is to ask for it. That’s the only way. And it’s something that you, the more you practice it, the more it actually happens. And it’s in a powerful thing.

18:01
I was fortunate that my parents were kind of extreme examples of askers. You my dad asked for discounts all the time and I was so embarrassed. And now it’s kind of like, okay, well, if you want to raise, that’s an ask. If you want a job, that’s an ask. If you want a boyfriend or husband or girlfriend, that’s an ask. If you want to have someone interview for on a show, that’s an ask. And the more that you can get comfortable with it and frankly excited about it, you start realizing all the different things you can do in this plan.

18:30
I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a free resource that I offer on my website that you may not be aware of. If you are interested in starting your own online store, I put together a comprehensive six day mini course on how to get started in ecommerce that you should all check out. It contains both video and text based tutorials that go over the entire process of finding products to sell all the way to getting your first sales online. Now this course is free and can be attained at mywifequitterjob.com slash free.

18:59
just sign up right there on the front page via email and I’ll send you the course right away. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Now back to the show.

19:10
This is something I’ve been doing with my kids. So there was this test that my son did really badly on. And you know how it’s unacceptable to get a B in my household. You and my parents, bro, my parents, I’m like fearful. So I went up to him and I was like, are you going to settle for this grade, which, is like a C minus or something. And he was like, well, what can I do? And I was like, well, you can go talk to your teacher and say, Hey, can I retake this? Is there anything I can do to just make up for it? Cause I really care about this grade.

19:40
And so he did that and the teacher let him retake it and he did better the second time. But if he didn’t ask, it’s not like the teacher offered a makeup exam, but he asked and showed that he really cared about his grade. And that’s really all that a teacher wants to see, right? That you care. And so he let him do it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing. Like one of the most popular YouTube videos we’ve done is with John Paul DeGioria, the Patron Tequila guy. And you have to know where you want to go. And I think everyone should be rich.

20:10
That’s just at least try being rich and then decide if you don’t like it, but at least have it so that you can make the decision. See if you don’t like it. I like this. I didn’t think being rich was cool for a long time. Now I’m like, dude, money buys a lot of happiness. And what happened, what what what I had is that, OK, I wanted to interview certain people and have a dream. That’s what I’m saying. Have a dream of being rich. Have a dream of having some crazy stuff. You don’t realize the levels that you can have in your life. I think we a lot of people, including myself, historically are stuck in the middle and the middle is getting squeezed.

20:41
real bad. And I didn’t know I could be out of the middle class because that’s what my parents taught me. They taught me for the middle class. And that was the best they knew. And so I had a dream that I can interview billionaires and John Paul DeGiorgio was on our list. And it was like, how do we meet John Paul DeGiorgio? I like, I don’t know, man. So I email him. We tried nothing. And so I was biking. I was biking in Westlake Hills, Austin. And I see this guy with gorgeous hair. And I was like, that looks I know that hair. And then.

21:09
I said I biked another two miles and I was like, I would always regret if I never asked. Someone said this to me recently as well. They said, I don’t want to live a what if life. I don’t want to live a what if life. And I was like, that’s a perfect way of living it. You don’t want to live a what if life. So I biked back two and a half miles, try to find him, found him. And I said, hey, John, I love you. Really impressed. You seem like a honorable person, really, really kind person. I love to interview for my show. He doesn’t know who I am. I’m in spandex. Yeah.

21:37
He’s like, sure, follow up with my assistant. And just from asking and then she said, you know, I followed up with her the next literally that day. She said no. And then I followed up for the next year. And after a year, she called me on a Friday and said, you can come at 8 a.m. Monday if you can do it. And that’s how we got the interview. And that’s, know, that interview, we donate all the proceeds to laptops for kids. And I got to meet him, which was honestly super inspiring. And that’s just from an ask, just an ask.

22:08
I’ve seen you go above and beyond to meet people. I think there was this one guy that you want to meet. can’t even remember now, but you ended up sponsoring his bike tour or something like that. Yeah, I think you donated. Yeah, I think I donated a little bit. Yeah. Thank you. That was Bo Jackson. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was my father passed away and his name was Bo. And when I was a little kid, I loved Bo Jackson, too, especially if you grew up in the 80s or 90s, you knew Bo Jackson. And I just I felt a calling to meet him and somehow connect with him.

22:37
as my after my dad passed. And, you know, this is something again, two biggest fears holding people back from success is starting an ass game. I built a community over 20 years, which everyone can do. And that’s why I talk about this this distance. I think people listen to a podcast or they watch a YouTube video and they say, I can never do that or I would never be able to make that happen. It’s like, no, the distance from you and where you want to be is much closer than you realize. Much, much closer. I think people want to sell you that the distance is far, but that’s not true.

23:07
And I put out videos and put out blog posts just like you have, Steve, for a long time. And one day I asked my audience, will you donate to Bose Charity? Because I think that’s a way that I can actually get to know him. And I think he’s doing a good charity. So that’d be a great, great thing. And I just asked and we raised thirty thousand dollars. And then from that, because he said no to meeting me, actually, initially. Yeah, he didn’t want to meet. And so I asked, donated thirty thousand dollars. And he said, yeah.

23:35
And so I was able to meet him. kept donating to his charity, got to interview him for a show. And it was was what was fascinating. Probably one of the most interesting things about that ask. Was that almost everyone who donated, I knew who they were. Wasn’t that like I built up some of this large following of millions of people who I don’t know. It was actually about one hundred and two people and almost every single one. I knew who they were like I emailed with them. I’ve like tweeted with them or some social media DM with them. wasn’t I built up this following and didn’t know who they were.

24:05
I mean, how cool was that? Because I used to play with Bo Jackson in Tecmo ball. I don’t know if you heard. Yeah. Wow. He a guy who was a lightning fast guy on the Raiders back in the day. Oh, man. He was a legend. Yeah, legend. But I think the other thing is that anything we want in life is accessible. Yeah. Whether it’s money, whether it’s a great partner like me and you have, whether it’s great money, whether it’s a company.

24:33
whether it’s a location, whether it’s a house, whatever these things are, and finding the things that also do matter and being able to spend that money on it, it’s accessible. And I think the more that that belief happens, the reality of that happens, the more that it actually can happen. I think for me, when I have these one-on-ones with some students, it’s often a confidence thing. And I always tell them that you’re just going to figure it out. You’re not going to know anything ahead of time, so just do it.

25:01
and just learn along the way. In fact, a lot of times the course is just a guide, right? The course isn’t going to really help you as much as you just figuring stuff out because the information that you need is going to be very specific to what you’re doing. Dude, that is such a great point. The you know, in the book, I do talk about now, now not how, which is this idea of we get so consumed on like, how is it going to do? It’s like just get going, start doing it and you will solve it. And recently I told you

25:30
before the show, was biking across America and we got stuck in the snow and we still had 70 miles left and we were both sore. I was like, there’s no literally wasn’t safe to ride. And I was like, I don’t know how we’re going to get get to Albuquerque where my family lives. And it’s like, OK, we’ve got to do something because we can’t ride the snow. We might get frostbite. We could literally if we get injured, we’re screwed. There’s nothing between. And. You know, I think this is not I think the success of an entrepreneur and someone in life is, are you willing to come up with a solution and be resourceful?

26:01
Period. And so and by the way, you don’t even have to come up with it. You just have to be around the other people or find people who can come up with it. And this idea that there is always a solution, there is always a solution. We found my my buddy Anton came up with the idea. We found a U-Haul truck. We rented it and it was cheap, too. It’s ninety nine dollars. Good price. Rented a U-Haul truck and drove the last 70 miles. You know, there’s there’s always a solution to these different experiences. I think that sometimes.

26:30
That’s really what’s going to separate you. Like, are you willing to think about a solution? Are you willing to keep going when it seems like there’s a challenge that you can’t overcome? And there’s always a way to overcome it. Also, there’s no right way to do things. And I kind of discovered this on the job when I was an electrical engineer. I kept bugging my boss, asking him, hey, can you look at my code? Is this the right way to code things? And then I discovered later on, like, no one knows what the hell they’re doing. They’re just coding however they want in their style. And that’s just something I learned. There’s no right way to do anything.

27:00
Just do it. Yeah, going. think what happens is we sit on the sidelines long enough that we just get more complacent being there and we we look at other people and think they have some answer. I don’t have. They have something I don’t have, and that’s just not true. And it’s like, oh, this person’s figured out like they don’t know what’s going on. We’re on a planet in space. No one knows why we’re here. Not one person. So, you know, we’re all figuring out our own best ways, and it’s good to kind of observe other people and then make your own decisions.

27:30
I think that’s a great lesson that you shared, Steve. It’s like, does it work? Are you satisfied with it? Are you proud of it? And that’s something I think more of us can get better at is like worrying less about the external people and more about the internal people. Like, am I proud of this work? Does this code work for me? Does it work for what I need the outcome I need to be doing? So let’s talk about the total your book Million Dollar Weekend. It sounds pretty sensationalistic.

27:57
Can it be done? What do you mean by seven figure business in a weekend? How long did it take you to become a millionaire? Six years. Until our business started making a million a year. In revenue, right? profit, revenue, yeah. Millionaire wise, mean just like money in the bank? Yeah. It happened pretty soon after that, because I don’t spend that much money. And I used to buy stocks. I bought stocks from a young age too. So all that money just went into stocks and stuff. That is good. That is good. I actually became a millionaire

28:27
through day jobs, mostly, mostly day jobs, not through some inheritance. Yeah, I just had day jobs. didn’t, I didn’t spend a lot of money. I lived on couches. I lived in my aunt’s basement. I lived on floors, lived at my mom’s house and I was just, you know, saving that money. And so by the time I turned around 30, 31, I had a million liquid. That’s what people should always ask when they talk about that. Now regarding the book for your business with the e-commerce business for handkerchiefs and so forth. When I’ve started businesses,

28:58
AppSumo.com, Gambit, Cakeflip, they were all started within 48 hours. And AppSumo today, this year is going to do somewhere between 70 and $80 million in revenue. Crazy. Crazy. It’s, it’s absolutely remember when I was in the newsletter with you and Neville. I, know, playing guitar and just drinking on Fridays. I guess we’re still doing a lot of the same things. But the point is, is that the 80 million started with $1 and that $1 started in 48 hours.

29:24
And so what most people do is they want to be a millionaire, but they never make the one dollar and they just stay becoming a dollar in air. And so it actually become the millionaire or the multimillionaire or the billionaire. It’s about getting going. And so the book specifically is like, hey, this is the appeal. You want to be a millionaire? You can actually get it going in a weekend. Some people, I bet you within the next year, someone will make a million dollars in a weekend. And that is possible. Is it going to be everyone? No, but you can get there by getting going in a weekend and everyone.

29:53
Steve, you have two kids. You’re telling me you got volleyball practice. You got a wife to take care of. You got your own interests. You got friends. You got your, you I don’t know if you’re in a fantasy football. I’m in a fantasy football. The reality with that is that that means you don’t have a lot of time to become a millionaire if you’re not. And if you have a day job that’s busy and you want to do good work, but everyone has a weekend available to change their life. And that to me is the appeal that you can become a millionaire weekend. You can make your own business, which is the best investment you can do. And you can get it going in a weekend. And so.

30:22
All those combined to me. That’s like, yeah, million dollar weekend. You can change your life and make it happen. 48 hours. Actually come to think of it now that you’re mentioning it, I did. We did start Bumblebee linens in a weekend because my buddy showed me the software and I just had it up and running. The blog started in like five minutes when someone just showed me how to do it. Yeah. And I think that the reality for most people is how do you just get started?

30:50
Right. And they’re sitting on the sidelines. And that’s why we talk about the now not how habit like there’s this guy in the book, Pat. He’s in Poland. He’s a customer service day job in Poland. You know, my family, my heritage is from some summer from Poland. And he’s always dreamed of having a million dollars and having his own business. And so he’s always been super into YouTube. And because of the book, he read it, followed things in the book, and now he has a ten thousand dollar a month consulting business for YouTubers. Amazing hiring other people. His Pat Gosek and I’m like,

31:20
Okay, Pat. All right, attaboy. And that’s because he got going, right? He got over the fear of starting. He got over the fear of asking. And then we, you you go through the steps of like, how do I validate that people actually want it without spending money in a weekend? And because you’re limited, you’re like, all right, well, I’m to be creative. And so it’s been special to see people like him or other different types of businesses come out through this book. And so I’m curious to see what other ones do come out. You know, it’s funny, I was just watching.

31:46
your last YouTube video with the guy who sells tankers, right? Billionaire guys start selling tankers. Yeah. And he was just like, Hey, I just wanted to sell into the horizon. Because you asked him like how he got started. And that’s what that’s all it took. And a dream. But it’s just amazing. Because you don’t you don’t see the entire process. You just see the end product, right? Yeah, I mean, I would say it was pretty

32:15
pretty unhappy a lot of my life in the 20s and maybe even some of the 30s. you know, I find that entrepreneurship everyone should do. It’s like you get the most upside and you really get to ultimately control what you want to do in life. Whether it’s maybe making grocery money or it’s making millions, it’s just the idea that you can actually, OK, I have control about how I live and where I live and all these things can come through entrepreneurship. you know, Hudner, Michael Hudner on our YouTube channel, he like he like ships and tankers. I still think the world’s partially flat.

32:44
Prove me wrong. Tell me something. Been to the go to that corner that you’ve been to. Tell me now the I joke. But it’s finding whatever it is that you do get excited to do and realize you can actually make a ton of money doing these things like there’s people getting rich doing gardening on YouTube. You know, Kevin, spirit to epic gardening. No, dude, he’s making millions of dollars in gardening. Yeah, there’s something I think is in San Diego. There’s a guy, Dustin’s fish tanks, fish tanks, fish.

33:13
I just eat sushi. I can’t. doesn’t let me come into his house because I eat his food. You know, so the not just on YouTube, right? E-commerce like you have. What do you guys do? You have like handkerchiefs. We saw. Yeah, there you go. People always make fun of you for that. I don’t think make. Dude, I love when people are doing one of the YouTube people I super want to interview. Not for YouTube. For myself, most of the content and the things I do in business is what I’m interested in. And I you have to find that that that Venn diagram of what you want to do and what people will pay, what people will watch. And that is there is a science and art to that.

33:43
I want to interview the guy who does the toilet, toilet bowl sense. Toilet bowl sense. Yeah. I don’t even know what that product is. Is it just, you you go to your journal and you pee and there’s those little pockets. Yeah. The bricks, the cakes. There’s one called Echos, E-C-K-O-S dot com. And I’m always peeing on his things. And I felt we looked him up and we’re getting ahold of him. But I’m like, dude, how did you get into the pee business and how do you test that? So.

34:11
Point being, there’s a lot of ways, and I think that’s part of my channel. My channel shows you that one, anyone can do it, and two, there’s a lot of ways of living a rich life, like actual rich life. It’s not just tech, which, you know, me and you are Silicon Valley guys. Like that’s where we, that’s how we thought you’d only get rich. And you know, a lot of the people I’ve met, it’s just so interesting to find out a lot of different ways. So you’ve done a lot of things, and I’ve always wondered. So you have content, you have a SaaS company.

34:40
and you have software. what I mean, you have AppSumo, sorry, AppSumo and then a SaaS company. What is your favorite thing to do? What are the pros and cons of each one of those business models? It just seems hard for I find it always hard to believe that you can handle all those things. I used to do software and hardware, ton of time, huge commitment. What is your rationale for doing so many things? Now have this book coming out. Yeah, you just kind of do whatever the hell you feel like.

35:10
You know the way that I believe everyone should approach it is what will you do for free? Okay, and then figure out how you can get paid working for free So I’ve been putting out content you can go back on archive org or whatever Since 2000 I’ve been putting out blogs and putting out YouTube since 2006 I got to meet Steve and Chad when they came to Facebook. I’ve got you know, I put out the podcast now years And so it’s if you have money

35:39
Or if you had all this money in the bank, what would you do? And then go do that. And that’s how you actually end up getting a lot of money. Like one of the things I talk about a million dollar weekend is called the freedom number. And this is a number like Sam par had one. I have one. You probably had one. You did have one. Actually, I know. And it’s just finding how do I make as little money as possible so that I can have freedom? And then when you have freedom, you can do what you really want. And guess what? You end up making a lot of money because you’re doing the things you really enjoy. And it’s very fun to stay with it.

36:06
And most people quit too soon. That is why we also talked about the law of 100. So for me, like I love making content. I got to go interview a urinal guy. I know like how cool is that? Let’s go talk about urinals like it’s interesting. I get to meet a lot of interesting people like Michael Hudner and they took me sailing on his boat or I went on a private jet because I just stood outside an airport. That was a sweet interview. Also, that was like all these things up, by the way. yeah, that was a wild one.

36:31
I was very well and then I’m like he dropped us off at 9 p.m. raining in Boston had to go. Anywho now with AppSumo I love promoting. I just love promoting. That’s what I’m promoting content and now I’m promoting software because I like software and I like deals and so it just comes back to the things I’ve really enjoyed now about how we decide what we’re doing. There’s there’s two different ways I would recommend people approaching it. Number one what’s the number one problem in your business? What’s the number one thing that could screw you over? So you’re kind of looking at from a negative angle.

37:00
And so with AppSumo, our revenue is not recurring whatsoever. We do these amazing deals on software and we can have a month where we do 2 million and then we can have a month where we do 10. And it’s just like that is very hard when you have a payroll that’s one and a half million dollars a month. That’s very hard. And so it’s like, oh, well, one option is to have recurring revenue. And so we built sumo.com. We’ve built the AppSumo originals products like tidycal.com. Also, I hate paying subscriptions.

37:28
So it makes it easy to be like, we just build so David and Garrett and the original scene built software that we want ourselves? I think that’s one of the best things you can do in business is make yourself happy. And now in terms of the other side of business is what are you excited in the future to work on? And how do you make your week look like that? So with AppSumo, we spent six months talking to customers, talking to partners, talking to the entire team. There’s about a hundred people talking to our leadership team, talking to our advisors.

37:56
And we came up with this vision around how do we help SaaS businesses more these creators that create tools for solopreneurs and small businesses? How can we help distribute more of their products? Right now we only help distribute products that are really good deals. And we love good deals in AppSumo.com. love it. Steve, me and you are like deal brothers. Dude, we are. I love a good deal. And the idea is, all right, what else can we do to help them from when they’re starting to after when they finish AppSumo? And now it’s like, oh man, we get to work on that.

38:25
The reality for you, me and everyone is how do you create more excitement so you’re looking forward to what you even get to work on and that that’s accessible to everyone. So that that’s kind of how I think about the different things going on. Like some people ask like, hey, you can sell AppSumo. We could probably sell AppSumo for a few hundred million. Which is a lot of money, like I don’t see percent. So I’d get one hundred, two hundred million dollars. OK, what do I do? I do YouTube. I do my newsletter. No, Kagan dot com. I go promote stuff. I go back and build software and I just.

38:54
have AppSumo again. So why don’t I just keep doing this? And I truly believe I don’t I don’t think retirement’s in the books for me. I think as I have a family and those things happen in the future, I probably reduce the amount of time I do it and I hire people. But yeah, this is it’s amazing. I can’t believe I get to live this life. And I think that everyone can live that and it can get even better than this for me and for everyone else. Where does the book fall into this? I have a couple of questions for you. So why go the traditional publishing route for this book versus self publishing?

39:25
What was your reasons for creating this book? Name five, name five self published books that are best sellers that are like iconoclastic in the business section. Good point. No, can’t think of any actually. Name one, try one. That have been self published. The only one I can think of is Brandon Turner’s book. You know, Brandon, right? The real estate investing book. was self published and it outsells practically every book on the, on the, on the list.

39:55
Yeah, I like this. I’ve done two self published books. I think there’s not. I think there’s something there when you sign up for the major leagues. Like yesterday, I did the audiobook. I was in a professional studio where like rock bands are days and there’s a professional producer with an engineering recorder. This producer’s name, Scott Sherritt. He just did Prince Harry’s book. And I was like. No, OK, I print Harry did. Yeah.

40:24
Yeah, I was like, my mom’s a queen. So, you know, it’s just a different level. And it’s what level are you expecting this book to make an impact of? What level of professionalism are you taking this book? And that’s when it really hit me yesterday where it’s like, this is the difference. A self-published book can do really well. And I think it’s great if you want to start off. But in terms of the books that have in our current civilization, the ones that have lasted are the ones that have gone through a traditional publishing run that can change in the future.

40:53
But for me, I wanted to sign up for something serious that is harder and longer and more impactful. And that to me was a traditional publishing rep. It’s good answer. My answer was I did it for ego. I want to hit the list. I wanted my mom to respect me. I wanted my mom to actually read something that I do. But I like your answer to, know, the ego is dude, no joke. My ego straight. It’s there too. Like I like when, you know, I like the YouTube videos. I like the comments. I replied a lot of the comments. Um, I don’t need.

41:22
The New York Times, that’s something that feels secondary to me. I feel like I wanted to put everything I ever thought of and that people ever asked. I was on a bike ride 10 years ago and I was like, man, there’s no book out there that can that I wish that I had. This is with my buddy, Adam Gilbert, New York. We were biking around. I was like, I wish I knew a book that I could have read that have been like, here’s why you haven’t had success yet. And here’s the steps that once you figure out your fears that you can actually take to create a million dollar company, there’s nothing. And it was like, all right, I’m to put everything in one book. That’s it.

41:52
This is one shot. I’m not doing another one. I’m just go back to work. And then this is the bar I can give to other people, to my kids, to friends. That’s like, hey, go follow this. This is your last book. Is that what you’re saying? Oh, my god. Other books, right? I remember reading another book. I can’t your Facebook book. I can’t remember what it was called. Yeah, I wrote a book about how I got fired and I didn’t get all that money like 200 million. Yes. Now it’s a billion. Now it’s a billion. And then I wrote another book about

42:19
rich people tax secrets called things that millionaires don’t want you to know. It’s really good book. Yeah, they’re just different. It’s just different levels. Right. It’s like playing in the minor leagues versus playing the major leagues. And very few people make it to the major leagues and very few books are written. Very few books are great and very few books actually get read and make an impact. And, you know, for me with this book and I think with when you’re working on something, it’s not cares about me writing a book. It cares about the person listening or watching and the impact for themselves.

42:48
It’s like, how do you stack the deck in your favor? How do you have a goal? And for me, it’s to get a thousand positive reviews on Amazon, because I mean, someone read it and they took action. That’s my goal. How do you stack the deck so as you’re working on your ice cream business or on your e-commerce business for handkerchiefs or if you’re doing car washing that you can stack the deck so that it’s going to be successful, like you ask enough people, you get enough expert help, like whatever it is to make sure it’s successful. And that’s what I’ve done with this book through hiring James Clears.

43:18
proposal writer, getting Ramit Sethi and one of the best agents, Lisa Demona, getting one of the best business writers in the world, Tal Raz, getting literally almost a thousand, no, it’s over a thousand people beta testing, beta testing a book. Who beta tests an actual book? Like no, every weekend, five people go through the actual book and test it. And then we have a thousand in our launch team. It’s been thoroughly tested. And so as I’m doing it, I think this applies for everyone. Like as I’m doing YouTube videos,

43:44
It’s not a big surprise when the video does well, because we’ve put so much into making sure it’s going to do well. And again, that’s because I started, right? It’s because I wasn’t like doing this. It was like I got going. And then it’s led to these points where now as I’m doing these things, I have more confidence it’s going to perform well. can tell you that from my experience launching the book, your advice of just asking, that was hard for me. But I did it. But that was something that was pretty uncomfortable for me.

44:12
Because launching a book is one of the few times when you actually have to go out and ask a lot of people for help. You know what I mean? Dude, it’s been hard. Even for me, it’s hard, dude. Like I know we had a thing where you asked me and I felt like I didn’t feel appreciated, but I felt I was really glad that we could have a conversation about it. That was healthy. And in this book, it’s been I think that’s probably been one of the most shocking things post like now it’s promotion period. And now the book’s coming out is how many people have I helped? Countless.

44:41
Well, and not this is not arrogant. I’m saying for everyone out there, how many people have you helped? How many people can you call that maybe could be a customer that can maybe promote you, that maybe would refer you for advice? And I was a little surprised how many people were were willing. And it made me feel nice. And it was a good reminder for me and for everyone out there that like keep helping whether you need it right now or whether you need 10 years or 100 years or never years. Just get going and help people. And that does come around and does pay off. And people like you.

45:11
Pat Flynn, a lot of other really great people. Omar, I feel lucky to have on my side around this stuff. Yeah, it felt really good how much people are willing to help. if you listen to this, you’re going to be surprised by how willing people are to help. Unbelievable. The other thing that I’ve also just asked for advice for a lot of people I called you, I called you about the book, the boxes. You know, I called Marie Forleo. I’m calling whoever I can. And instead of asking someone for like, help me. That’s for advice. And a lot of people, I’m like,

45:40
Can you me advice? Yeah. And then here’s what I’m going. This whole advice thing is good. Just ask for advice. And guess what? You’ll be surprised. People want to help you there, too. Like I think if you’re if you’re poor or even, you know, if you’re wherever you are in the world, like, don’t know anyone rich. You have a dentist. Dentists make good money. You have a doctor. You have a lawyer. You can ask them how they did it or you can ask them for their friends. And just by asking for advice, you’d be shocked. Like some of my best investments, it’s because I had I had a parking spot landlord. I was paying 200 a month for my parking spot downtown.

46:10
And I was like, how’d you get so rich? He’s like, I sold a software company. Now I do real estate. And I was like, can I treat you to lunch? Took him to true food kitchen and I bought him like, you know, whatever. Nineteen ninety five dollar quinoa overpriced And then, you know, now I’ve invested in deals that have performed well. And that’s just because I asked someone that seemed like they’re doing something well and that’s not exclusive. That’s available worldwide.

46:37
So if you’re listening to this, go to your local Starbucks and ask for a 10 % discount on your next coffee. That will train the muscle for you to ask for stuff. They’re asking, yeah, it’s business, man. That’s business. Noah, when’s this book coming out? Where can people find it? Go to milliondollarweekend.com. We have a lot of templates and resources for people who grab the book. That is where I’m sending everyone milliondollarweekend.com. And you can get a free chapter, right? We have different.

47:05
resources and free things on the on the website. We’re still experimenting about what the final website is going to have. there’s within the book, there’s templates about how to do your one minute business model. There’s video walkthroughs about how do you evaluate market research. There’s a lot of different step by like, we made it foolproof, if people are willing to put in the work that they will get to a million dollar business. Awesome. Well, hey, Noah, thanks a lot for coming on the show. Looking forward to the book.

47:33
Hope you enjoyed that episode. And what I want you to do is head over to Amazon right now and grab Noah’s book, The Million Dollar Weekend. It’s a great read, highly practical, and I can tell Noah put his heart and soul into the project. More information about this episode, go to mywifecoderjob.com slash episode 515. And once again, tickets to the Seller Summit 2024 are now on sale over at sellersummit.com. If you want to hang out in person in a small intimate setting, develop real relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs and learn a ton, then come to my event.

48:03
go over to SellersSummit.com. And if you’re interested in starting your own eCommerce store, head on over to MyWifeQuarterJob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll set up the course right away. Thanks for listening.