#452: SUMMER BEST-OF: Why Wealth Is Within Your Grasp: Create A Million Dollar Weekend Business with Noah Kagan Chief Sumo & CEO at AppSumo.com, Entrepreneur, & Author
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Beauty of entrepreneurship, you could be a guy or girl or binary. You could be tall, you could be short, you could be fat, you could be skinny. You could be anywhere in the world and get rich. And the other crazy thing about all this freedom number and these basics is that you just need one.

You just need one. In every other sport in the world, you need many. You need a few hits to be good in baseball. You need 50% shots to be good at basketball. But in business, one hit that you find some people want, you find the one thing and you stick with that. That's all you need to be successful. That's crazy. Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close-up.

Hi, and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here this week. I can't wait for you to meet our guest this week. He's pretty incredible. Noah Kagan is the founder and CEO at AppSumo.com, an eight-figure company that teaches lessons on how to start a business, grow a business, and improve your marketing. Before AppSumo.com, he was the 30th

employee at Facebook, reporting directly to Mark Zuckerberg, where he helped build the Facebook ads platform. He was the fourth employee at Mint.com. He currently resides in Austin, Texas, and has a brand new book, Million Dollar Weekend, launching now. Noah, thank you so much for being here today. Heather, great to see you. I love your energy. It's nice chatting with you. Well, listen, that's what we're talking about, some really exciting stuff. So wait, give us, for everyone listening, for anyone who hasn't

hasn't heard about you before, which if you haven't heard about Noah before, you may have been living under a rock. But listen, you did some pretty amazing stuff at a very young age. Can you give us your backstory of how this life turned into this freaking incredible success story?

Misery. You know, I was thinking about it. Someone called me a boomer. I was like, wow, 41, I've made it. And I think what's interesting about my story is how everyone else can do their own level of success. I think that's kind of the interesting thing. You see these people, maybe you idolize like, wow, 40, like I'm worth like tens of millions of dollars, which is unbelievable. And it's great. I don't think people realize those people are not that much different than themselves. And it's not exclusive. But I definitely think people give off that impression that

to get to this level, here's my secret thing that you have to watch enough of my YouTube video than you'll get. I think my journey was exactly that. I grew up in the middle class lane, thinking that that was the only gear I was going to be in. Standard job, but always dreamed of being an entrepreneur. Early at Facebook, you know, go work on your own problems or go work for companies that solve things you're excited about. Got fired there. That was annoying for Mark. I love that. I love that you got fired.

Dude, I got fired twice, two for two. Thank you, Aaron. Mark first and then Aaron Patzer. Helpbuildmint.com, that sold for $300 million. And so I was like, man, getting jobs seemed very risky because you can get fired. And people at Intel got fired too. Maybe this entrepreneurship thing has got to be a better way. And I don't want one person ever controlling my livelihood. And so I was like, well, if I can start something today, and this is what everyone can do, you can start literally right now something.

plant the seed. And then years later, you can actually really enjoy whatever amazing life you want to have. And so I just kept trying and it was frustrating. It was living on couches, living on floors, just being cheap, trying over and over and over again. I did so many businesses no one's ever heard of.

And then around 2010, I was like, everything kind of started to come together. I was like, I want to promote. I love promoting. I love marketing. That's my passion and what I'm excited about. I love being public. Like I've been doing content since 2000 before you were born, Heather. You know, like it's crazy software. I'm like, that's kind of getting big. And here's a way to get rich. Find something non-obvious that will potentially ideally get bigger in the future, which was software.

And people need customers. So I put that together, launched AppSumo on a weekend for 60 bucks, which I know is a lot. Sold a ton of these software deals right away off of Reddit and a PayPal button. That was what we spent the money building.

And fast forward 14 years later, AppSumo.com, number one sideline for software deals, did $76 million in gross sales last year. And then I teach people exactly how I did it so that they can do it themselves, a million-dollar weekend. You just made it sound so simple, so sissing, but you were kind of brushing over. And then 14 years later, it fired a couple of

Let's go back to fired. I like this reframe. And I know you talk about reframing in your book. I like this reframe where you share that I was fired twice and I realized having a job and working for someone else really is not safe. And I had that realization at 43 when I was fired. And I'll tell you, I had such a hard time.

shifting my mindset from being a corporate exec to going and building something on my own. How are you able to do that and not have it be so hard? Everybody has moments in their life when you take a step back and think, oh, I got dumped. I got cheated on. I lost my job. I didn't get this thing I wanted. And then it actually turned out to be a great thing. I'm sure you have that moment. Even with you, it sounds like at 43, you got fired. You're like, oh, wow. So I do share that story because one, people like hearing me getting fired. Yes.

But two, most bad moments can turn into great opportunities. Most problems in life are businesses in disguise. I've never been risky and people probably like, really? I'm like, yeah, I'm not a risky person. When I had my day job at Intel, I was starting so many things during weekends, planting the seeds because a lot of it may not work to find something people actually want does take some time and it takes a process.

And so on weekends, I was launching so many different things. And that was planting the seeds where I didn't quit then. But at Mint.com, I did the same exact process. By the time that they fired me, I had this side business that was making my freedom number. It was Facebook games like those annoying Farmville. That was me.

And by the time they fired me, I was like, well, great. I at least have this side hustle that's not making my freedom number. I can don't need you anymore. And I could do my thing. So in terms of the risk, it does have to be some, I got to spend a lot of money. I got to spend a lot of time. I've got to make this complicated thing because especially someone like yourself, you have a kid, you have a day job, you have, you know, maybe things you have to go on the weekends, but to change your life, you can do it in 48 hours, but you have to start with something and then stick with that. Something that finally can work over a long period of time for it to pay off.

And so the risk is really keeping the shitty-ass life you may not like and realizing you can live whatever freaking life you want to live. And I think a lot of people don't recognize that.

That's so true. Well, they definitely don't think it's easy. They think it's too hard or that you've got some special credential or some special anointing that they don't have that's allowed you to do it, but they're definitely not at that same level. You just brought up the freedom number. I know you get into it in the book. Can you tell us a little bit, what is a freedom number and why is that important? You know, a lot of these gurus, you can never see their real businesses, which I always find kind of crazy. Like, why are we losing these people? We can't take their businesses. And what they do though, is they sell you a gap of who's

of who you are and who you can be. And they make you think that they're the only ones that have this special power. Every time people meet me, they're like, I can do what you do. And I'm like, that's the point. That is my belief.

You just have to start. And what happens though, is most people, you know, I go on YouTube, I have a million person YouTube channel where I make content on there. And I go to these office hours. And even with the book, I've had thousands of people go through the beta launch of the book. I say, how many people are here made a dollar and half the audience of more never made $1, but they all want to be millionaires. And that's what I've noticed. And I've seen it for myself. You want to make a lot of money, but you never get started. You never make one fricking dollar, which everyone could do literally right now on your phone, if you realize it.

And so the freedom number is the reality. And this is something I've seen literally time and time and time again, from people who I think live lives that other people are like, man, that seems like a pretty great life. And it's realizing you need a lot less to quit your job and actually do the thing you really want to work on every day. And so the freedom number for me was $3,000. And it's different for each person.

But recognizing the number is actually really achievable. So let me find something I can do that will give me my freedom number, which is generally about your housing, it's your lifestyle, and maybe some savings. And by having a small achievable number, you can do things and be like, okay, let me stick with it. Let me stick with it. Wow, now I can choose whether to keep both or quit my job and finally do the thing I like. And what I've actually found, which is counterintuitive, is even when you make little doing the thing you love, but it's making enough, that can actually go on to make the most money.

Because I've done it the opposite way, where the thing that was supposed to be this easy AI, crypto, blogging, content creator fad thing that might be really easy, quick, rich money, it's easy for people to quit when it doesn't work out or if it's not working out the way they expect. But if you find the thing like AppSumo, where I'm like, I got $3,000, I quit my job, which is what happened with me. I was working at a dating company.

And I was like, well, I'm going to get $3,000 to do what I want. I'm going to go move to Europe. And then I just kind of kept working on it. I stuck with it. And that's another thing where people quit way too soon. 14 years later, bada bing, bada boom, I'm super rich. But obviously, there's gaps in between. So again, and I told you, you never make your million because you never make a buck.

And then people think, no, why are you always talking about coffee challenges and making a buck? I'm like, yeah, that is why I'm worth, literally the company's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm worth over 30 million cash, liquid, that I can prove, not fake guru stuff where they show you screenshots that are adulterated or they never show you nothing. But that's because I did the small stuff.

And people miss out on that. And it's easy. It's accessible for everyone worldwide. Beauty of entrepreneurship, you could be a guy or girl or binary. You could be tall. You could be short. You could be fat. You could be skinny. You could be anywhere in the world and get rich. And the other crazy thing about all this freedom number and these basics is that you just need one. You just need one. In every other sport in the world, you need many. You need a few hits to be good in baseball. You need 50% shots to be good at basketball.

I don't know how soccer works. But a business one hit that you find some people want, restaurant, lawn care, apartment rentals, software businesses, lawyers, courses, coaches, you find the one thing and you stick with that, that's all you need to be successful. That's crazy.

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I'll tell you, I was afraid when I put this book together. Very few people helped build Facebook, which, you know, trillion-dollar business, not bad. Helped build Mint.com, $300 million business, not bad, but everyone knows. Then a bunch of other businesses, tidycal.com, million-dollar business, kingsuma.com million, sendfox.com million, suma.com million. I've done it a lot.

And I was like, can I help people do this? Does it actually work? What this book is, it's a self-help confidence building book taught through business. And business is the best way to learn about yourself. And everyone can be an entrepreneur. Now, the reality is that there's so many business gurus out there. There's so many business books. There's literally a place called Harvard that teaches you. And like, how come everyone at Harvard hasn't created great businesses?

So like what's going on here? There's so much out there that it's not working. And there's so many recipes. Here's how to do your ads. Here's how to make an offer. But then why isn't everyone doing it and having success? And what I've discovered for myself and through tens of thousands of people, there's just two areas that they need to work on. That's a skill that anyone can get better at, just like a language.

You can be fluent in making money. The book is basically broken down and start it, build it and grow it. And so the two first skills that have held people back from getting to the even the starting line of the easy stuff, which is the business is starting and asking. So book basically starts, how do I help build their skill in a fun way? Those areas, which I've seen Pat do it. Pat just quit his job. He was customer support in Poland.

And Mackenzie actually got a $50,000 a year greeting card business at MaryMakery.com because she asked a few of her friends to buy greeting cards, which is bananas, $50,000 first year. Now, part two is around how do I find ideas that I'm excited to work on that other people want to pay me money for and ideally are at least million dollar opportunities? And how do I pre-sell them in a very short amount of time, 48 hours or less? Because people like you, Heather, you're busy. You got shit going on.

And you want to change your life, but you're like, man, I want to change my life. I got a lot of things happening. But isn't it crazy in 40 hours, you can change your life? Come Monday, you can have a different job. And so we do really focus on the build it section is, all right, how do we now find the idea, make sure it's a million dollar opportunity and pre-sell it. And by the way,

Almost everything in our life is pre-sold to us. I don't know if people realize that. So do it with the business. And if no one wants your business, great. Think about it. Your Uber Eats. How did you know it even existed? You don't. You don't even know the restaurant exists anymore. Events, concerts, airplanes, hotels. Really? Yeah. Tesla, a trillion dollar business or closer, half a billion. They're pretty gigantic. 10 years from when they pre-sold to deliver the Model 3. Six years on the Cybertruck.

Why not you? And if they don't want what you're pre-selling, great. You didn't build a website. You didn't buy a domain. You didn't buy an expensive course. You didn't start your Twitter account. You didn't buy ads. You didn't go to some magic mastery thing. And you found out that they didn't want it. Great. What do they want? How do we use this rejection or this thing that didn't work into something that does work? And that's why the most successful people have the most failures because they're starting and starting and starting and starting until they find the thing that worked. And the last part is how do you scale it? So now that you found the thing that works, how do you take it to, you know, AppSumo's 80 million?

But that also started because our first sale was $12, just like I'm teaching everybody else. Those are, I'd say the, you know, start it, build it and grow it sections. I can't believe it's 30 bucks to teach all that. Like Harvard's a hundred thousand plus.

All right. Two things that you brought up that I want to get into that I think are super important. My background's in sales and sales leadership. And this is such a common question. How do you ask? People don't know how to ask. They're so afraid to ask. And I know you just brought that up. And then this product that I love is the rejection and reframing rejection and actually setting rejection goals. Please jump into those two topics. They're huge.

Do you sell something, Heather? Like you have a product you sell? I'd be selling all the time. Always be selling. And then how do you ask your customers to buy it from you? Okay, so the first thing I do is I get them to empty their glass to me. I want to identify what their problems are, their pain points. I want to know what it feels like to be in their shoes. And then I need to make sure that...

or service that can solve that problem. Once I have that connect, it's no longer selling. It's just helping them. I think there's a lot of beauty in what you said. And so there's a few things like it's the three W's. What problem are you solving that people want to pay for? Who is that person? And then where are they? That's it. That's business. Now,

In sales, here's the problem. It's scary to ask. Maybe you're experienced because you've been in sales, but the basis of all life is asking when you realize it. It's how you can get a husband. It's how you get a raise. It's how you get a customer. It's how you get someone on your show. It's how you change your life. Because if you can ask for it, you can get it. But the problem though, is that people think of asking as bad.

But if I ask you like, hey, what's a good restaurant? Isn't that maybe actually helping? And so when I have found a product, let's take Million Dollar Weekend or AppSumo.com or even, you know, let's take the greeting cards business. You start asking because you're like, hey, tell me about your problem. Oh, you want this problem solved? It's my duty. I'm not selling. I'm not doing it. It's my duty. And here's a framework people can copy, L-O-T, which is just you listen to people and don't make it such a big, scary thing. And I'll give you a challenge that everyone could do. It's been life changing. Literally, a guy just texted me about it. I'll read his text.

You listen to someone. You say, hey, can I get feedback on this idea? I want to do house cleaning. You can post right now on your social media. You could post to a WhatsApp group. Hey, anyone, I'm thinking about taking photos. Would anybody want me to take photos? I love to take photos of people. You could do that right now. That's an ask.

And it's a skill that can be developed like any skill. And of course, you're not going to be good in the beginning, but that's the skill you can improve on. And so you listen to someone's problems. You give them an option based on if you can solve that problem. And then you transition to a payment. You transition to action. And if someone is not paying you, they don't want it. And you know this in sales. So many things like John Paul DeGioia, billionaire. We did a video with him. It was millions of views.

I met him on the street and I asked him to come on the show. He said, sure. And then I called his assistant every week for 52 weeks because most people ask once, you have to ask twice.

And then if you want it and you believe it's really good for them. And I asked her 52 weeks afterwards, she finally said, yeah, you can come in the morning tomorrow. I was like, holy shit. I asked her in person and said, didn't I annoy you? Wasn't I bothering you? She's like, no, I really admired your persistence. I admired that you wanted it. Now, what everyone can do to get better at asking today is the coffee challenge. Now, this is a worldwide famous thing and everyone who does it and you just do it right now, go today while you're listening to Heather, go walk outside, go to a coffee shop, ideally Starbucks, and you ask for 10% off.

And I want you to get rejected. So you can stand there awkwardly. If you need it, if they say why, say, hey, I'm doing the Million Dollar Weekend Challenge for Noah Kagan. He said, I'm supposed to ask. They're going to reject you. After they reject you, you get your orange mocha frappuccino and you move forward. That's how you do it. And so what happens, though, is when you realize is that we create fears that are much bigger in our head than they are in reality. And we realize when we face a little discomfort or we face some of the things that are harder in life, there's actually a lot more reward on the other side. And that has been a life-changing breakthrough for people. And it's such a silly thing.

No, I know. But just tell me how to buy crypto and get rich. Or tell me how to do some offers and get rich. And I'll build a web page and put it out there. That's going to take you time and money and prayers. So I'll see you at the synagogue or I'll see you at the mosque or the church. I'm teaching you exactly how to get rich in a weekend. And it's available for everyone worldwide. You don't need more money. There's a guy, literally, I asked him to do it. He's been doing sales for many, many, many years. And he sent me this text. I said, are you committed to doing it? And this was interesting. He said, I felt really guilty and embarrassed.

And I'm shaking. I'm still shaking, but I'm proud of myself. It's beautiful, right? How cool is that? This guy, I won't say his name. I don't know if he wants to share who he is. And he said, you know, because I did that, I actually sent out an offer to my audience.

without hedging, without embarrassment. And I said, "Hey, this is what I think is actually good for them." And I was okay with it. And that's the same thing you do in a business. You find something people are excited about. For me, it's software deals. And we go to a partner that creates software and say, "Hey, can we promote your software? Can I promote it for you?" And you do a deal with us. And I have to ask a customer, "Hey, I got a great deal on software. Are you interested in buying it?" And if you do it, and then when you get rejected, those rejections are cool. Every rejection is a learning opportunity. Like best way you can improve anything in life is feedback.

either with data or qualitatively, meaning that people tell you. The more that we can practice it on kind of a silly thing like coffee, the more you start doing it on things that might actually change your life dramatically. By the way, this will change your life confident. Like you'll feel a lot more confident about doing this. And then when you do that, you're like, damn, what's next?

You know, it's so funny that you bring up the Starbucks example. And I don't know if you've noticed this through the drive-thru recently, but now they have the opportunity for a guest to add on a dollar, $2 or $3 for a tip. When they first started doing it, when you pay by Apple Pay, they would say, you don't need to do this screen that I'm going to show you right now. You can just exit.

out of it. And now I've noticed a couple months later, they're like, and then here's the opportunity to tip me the level of confidence in presentation. And of course, I'm not going to say no, but when they were giving me the out, I'm sure sometimes I just said, oh, X out of this one. Okay, great. No problem. But now that they reframe the way that they're handing me the actual card reader, suddenly I'm tipping everybody at Starbucks.

I think the big thing there is not necessarily about this discount per se. It's just about feeling comfortable asking, realizing rejection is not so scary as we made it feel.

And the way I've lived a lot of my life is noticing where there's discomfort and leaning into it and wondering why, what's this fear holding me back from, from who I can become really. I was thinking about disappointments. And if you think about like getting fired or any of these moments that disappointed us, it really is a great teaching moment. So I would try to get more disappointments. That means you're trying more things that weren't going to already work out. I wouldn't keep them, but I would collect them.

And those are things where you try and try. And the most successful people, the richest people on the planet have tried more things than you and me. There's a few other nuances, but they've also tried more than most people. Most people try one thing and give up and that's okay, but you can keep going. You can do it. And practicing it on small things makes it so you can do it on a little bit more meaty things. Now in terms of fear and rejection and anybody who fakes and like, they're not afraid, I feel insecure.

Everyone feels insecure and everyone still uses the toilet. I have a very nice toilet though, very expensive toilet, which is I would recommend for everyone. It's a $6,000 Toto. If you can afford it, get it. By the way, everyone can get rich. There's no exclusive club. And if you get rich, at least you can choose. Do you want to be rich or you want to go back to small rich? But at least get it and then you make that decision. I'm still getting rejected all the time. Someone said, man, no, everything you're doing is working. Million view videos.

This book, I think it's going to affect a lot of people's lives. AppSumo Company. Do you know how many times I'm still getting rejected or things I've done still that you have no idea? I've had literally someone quit on Monday, another person quit the other Monday, person who promised me they're going to have me on their show for the book rejected it. This book, when I initially pitched it to my agent, rejected it. I've launched Shorty SMS, Sleek Bio, Fall Drop, Sumo Market, Meet Fam, Reward Level, Software Taco, MasturbationSoc.com, FreeCalls2.com.

I've swung a lot. And so finding that thing and being okay that the rejection's maybe not as bad as we thought, and it's an experiment. Think of yourself as a scientist. I find that that's been a transformative moment for people. And everyone has done things where they did the first time, and then they're like, let me try it again. And the second time's better. And third time's easier and easier and easier. And that's the same thing that happens in business.

That's so much easier. All right, I want to get into one of your superpowers, which is marketing. What are the five questions that you use repeatedly to create a marketing plan? Here's the secret to marketing. And I will tell you, you've used a product I've worked on. Every single person here has used a product and multiple, right? Like sumo.com, everyone's been on a site that I powered, our software powered, not me personally, but our software powered. You've been on a site that we built. Now, what most people miss is they're like, no, I have a marketing problem. And I say, you don't have a marketing problem, my friend. You have a business problem.

No one wants what you're doing. I can't market it. And so what you have to understand in the beginning of your business is, is this something people actually want? You know that Paul Graham thing? What's it called? Make things people want? Have you heard that quote? Yes. Everyone's heard it, right? I don't think you should make shit. I think you should find something people actually want and then you make it. I think he's a little backwards. Now, marketing is easy when you have a great product. I just found great products that I liked and I found problems that I was excited to solve for myself and others. So...

If you found something, people are excited. And how do you know they're excited? Because you've gotten three paying customers in a weekend. That's the benchmark. And if you're begging for a customer, then you don't have it. If you're convincing someone for it, you don't have it. If they're excited to give you the dollars, then you have it. Now, a few of the things in marketing, I'll give like a very simplified thing. So let's take your business. Do you have a sales goal for this year? Of course. A revenue goal? What's your goal for the year? Depends what segment of the business that you're talking about. But my goal,

bowl for my books for this year i want to sell a million copies of my books let's do that holy shit balls that's a lot of books okay fine look there's no it's good dream big i love this how many books you saw last year a hundred thousand maybe did you really almost six figures i have two i have two now but it's been since yeah yeah no respect though hell yeah go you

So one, for people out there, selling a million copies of the book is literally impossible. I know, I know. I'm just trying to say like, when I came out with my book, when I was starting to write it four years ago, I called up Tim and I was like, yo, he's like, no one sells a million.

Like very few. So a hundred, I just want to give you props. Like a hundred thousand is in the 0.001% of book sales. That's amazing. Let me give a tip to everyone here. Some of my closest friends have sold millions. Not one of them. I have like five friends that have sold millions. When you surround yourself with people who already are at the level of success you want, I'm like, why them and not me? Come on. Like I'm just as cool as they are. Let's go. I think that's a great point.

And that most of the time when you meet these other people, yes, maybe they're more experienced, but they're not always better. And I think that's a really powerful thing to realize for ourselves that you meet someone and you're like, I'm actually just as good as them. Hell yeah, you are.

So I'm not trying to discourage people with books. I'm just saying it's hard to sell a million. I think 100,000 is so damn impressive. That's amazing. Now, the way I like to approach marketing, so you did 100,000 last year. My marketing, the way I've approached marketing and stuff has changed in the past decade. I've set very unambitious goals for very long periods of time.

So instead of going 100,000 to a million, that's a 10x improvement. I would try to do 10,000. And I know people are like, what do you mean, dude? Come on, bro. Let's go hard. That's how you will go hard. Because you did 100,000 in a year or collectively over the past few years? Collectively. Collectively. So last year, how many did you do, ballpark? Like 10,000, 50,000? Probably 30-something thousand. Not a huge number.

All right. So I'm showing you my marketing strategy by asking questions. I'll break these down for you. So one, and I don't mean this to mean, and I love you already. We're like homies. We're like, you're going to be at my kids' bat mitzvah. It's going to be great. You need to have one singular goal that you're very clear on. And it doesn't sound like maybe you have that, which by the way, there's many ways of working businesses, but this is what's worked for Zuckerberg. It's what's worked for me over and over and over and over again. So what

What I would do is same thing I've done AppSumo or this book or my YouTube channel and all other businesses that have worked with me. One singular goal that's not a high 10x goal for the year because the fact is you don't have a number from last year, which kind of tells me you're not paying attention to it as much as you can if it's important to you. And I don't mean that as an insult. I'm just, that's the way I like to run the businesses.

So what I would do is say, last year we did 30,000. I want to do 10%. So now this year we're going to sell 33,000. Okay. So the number one thing you can do is how did I sell 30,000 last year? Is there any way more, which there always is, that I could increase what I've done last year to get just this year? Because what most people do wrong is they try to do new things. Oh, I saw on Twitter, there's a funnel. I got to add a funnel. No, don't do the funnel. Spend all your time maximizing what's working. That's it.

And then test, because you're not rushing to 10x it, crazy experiments. You can have time for that because you're not so sweating trying to 10x your business. And that's what led for us to have 10x growth opportunities in AppSumo. And I can share examples of that. But again, coming back to full steam, make some people want, have a clear number, have a timeline, a non-ambitious one, and really revisit a lot of what's working. It's like, so Facebook ads do not work for AppSumo. But our affiliate program crushes. So I think all in, there's like 10 people on our affiliate program. It's about a million dollars a month.

that it generates. But that works. So it's like more, more affiliate, more data on the affiliate and advisor for the affiliate recruiting for the affiliate. Let's keep investing. And yes, we're experimenting with some new things, but everything is about the things that work. And I think most people are trying to do too much and not enough of what's worked now or what's worked in the past.

I think it's interesting. And I'll give an example of my podcast, how I had a tipping point with my podcast and it wasn't from many goals, right? And this is just, I do believe, yes, everything you just explained makes very logical sense. And I think it's very smart for people to do, to get in the grind week after week and have reasonable goals. But I also believe in swinging for the fences on everything. And I don't just do it on my books, right? So I have a speaking business. I have my podcast business. I have a consulting business. I have a lot of different businesses on Facebook.

So when I launched my podcast, I said, I want a million downloads. Right. And I wanted my first month. I understand that's very unrealistic for many people. Did I hit it? No, but I, I had a major, I had like a hundred thousand downloads my first month. And the way I did that was I said, who's the biggest guest at the time? It was Gary V. I'm like, if I get Gary V and I get him to post about it and share it, I'll hit my goal.

And I did, but it was through, to your point earlier, Noah, the repetition of not, I was told no so many times by his team. And I took a Google alerts on him and I found a partner and I went back door and like, I went all the relentless ways and was told no time and time and time again until I got a yes. And then once I got a yes, I asked,

again, hey, would you mind anyone on the team sharing this on social? And they're like, yeah, no problem, Heather. And then that one turned into the next opportunity. And that one big thing changed everything for the show. So I think it's important to do both, put the work and grind it out, but also swing for the fences on the other side, too, because you connect one of those big opportunities. It changes everything.

I think swinging for defense is great. I think what you did, which I like is, well, if I had to double my goal, what would I do differently? Then just keep your goal where it is, but at least thinking more leverage or more strategically where there's better returns, meaning, holy crap, if I get one guess, but what I notice is when I'm trying to go really, really big, if I do that, I generally tend to burn out. I think that's pretty common. If you're sprinting very fast for a long time, you get tired.

That's the same in business. And I've seen the billionaires I've all been around and worked for and worked with and interviewed. Their success comes over 20 years. They get rich, you know, in between that. But a lot of the success is compounding that each year is bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. There's definitely different ways to do it. For my own podcast, I had an ambitious goal of 100,000 downloads in a month.

And I got to about 30,000 downloads an episode. And I think it was 30 or 40 episodes, but it wasn't 100,000. And so I quit. Everyone has these kinds of stories. I know that's like a big, it's a pretty sizable podcast. Well, I think what my lesson, and I've done that a few times where I'm like, I got a 10X my email list. I got a 10X these things. I think it's great. One of my favorite questions in the marketing plan is if you had to double your business in 30 days without more money, what would you do? Right. And then you can use that to impact the strategy that you're going to be executing on.

But I've noticed when we set hyper ambitious goals, it does create the sense of like, okay, I'm always rushing. I'm always like striving to this big ass thing, but it's not sustainable. But do it for a little bit. Like my book launch, yes. January, I'm swinging my ass off on all things. But the rest of the year, I'm going to come back to slow and steady. That's such a great point. And a book launch is such a great example of that where you, for a finite window, you go all in, but only for as long as you absolutely have to. And then give yourself a break because for sure, book launch for me is like the most intense thing

intense window and I have such empathy for you right now. I'm so here to support that effort because it

it's something to marvel at. Thank you. I'll tell you two things I think are really important lessons for people out there, wherever they're on their business journey, is that there's business momentum for all business, right? And I will say a lot of times in the beginning, it takes time. I don't have a good brand for it, but it's called compounded business where like, in the beginning, you're like, all right, people want it. And then I do it again. And you notice this. It's like, as it's going, you're like, holy crap, this is easier and bigger. I don't necessarily think it's big swings, but it's big force.

So that you can have it somewhat of a flywheel as the business progresses. Now, the other thing that's fascinating, I'll tell you my singular goal with Million Dollar Weekend is 1,000 reviews.

Right? Like I have a pretty sizable audience. I've been doing this 20 years. I think I've provided a lot of help for people. And that's my one goal. And you know how I'm doing my marketing? I DM to people that, Hey, I've got a book. If you're interested in starting a business, I think I can help you. Please pre-order the book. I'm going to have a Slack group. We'll have all these things. I'll do free workshops and I'll just need you to write an honest review when the book comes out. And I messaged a thousand people and I put them on a Google spreadsheet for free.

And then when the book comes out, I'm going to text these people, myself, Noah Kagan's the virtual assistant, AI bot called Noah Kagan. And that's it. And so that guarantees without surprise, there's nothing complicated there. And people want it to be complicated because then they can avoid the hard part, which is helping people.

And that's actually what ends up being the most rewarding part. And then because I know I'm going to already have that goal, then it's like, okay, what's maybe a sales goal that I can now target to work backwards? So it's 25,000 sales, seven days from when the book comes out on January 30th. You're going to achieve these goals. Well, yeah, I worked backwards. If people are seeing what Million Dollar Weekend is out there, like I'm seeing it a lot. It's the exact same way I teach people how to run a business, the exact same way I run AppSumo.

And 2011, I put out an article for free about how I start businesses called How I Start Million Dollar Weekend Businesses.

And that went viral. And then I created a course about that business. And then that course sold, I don't know, 10,000 copies. And I tweet about it. And then I did a launch team. And I was like, wow, people love this stuff. So I feel very confident. And I've seen that it's something people actually really want. So now the marketing part is fun. And I work backwards from that target. So I ended up breaking it in until I found five strategies for me, you know, to get that target number.

You literally just walked through Amy Morin's success story of writing a viral article that got 50 million views. She got a book deal out of it, wrote her book. Her book didn't get instantaneous success, came out with a TED talk. And now here we are seven years later, she sold hundreds international bestseller, one of the biggest authors in the world. And her TED talk has 50 million views from these

mini validations that she had along the way. And she took that theme from that first blog post and took it to every single thing. And it exploded over, you know, seven years time. So I think you've got the recipe for success. Go and get the book. Go get the book. I mean, there's the law of 100, which I think everyone should do in content, do 100 posts.

and then quit. I love it. If we finish with this, it's like glorify sticking with it, glorify sustainability, glorify longevity. Someone like yourself, you're one sort of found it. People wanted it. And you just keep sticking with it. People want it. Same with Hal Elrod, you know, miracle morning, 3 million copies. He sold his first year, maybe a thousand and people wanted it. And you know, he knew it worked. And then the next year was 10,000 and then it was a hundred thousand. And now I think seven years later, 3 million copies. Like that's very impressive.

I want to glorify people for getting started, realizing they can do it and then sticking with it for some period of time. I love it. And you're proof that it works for sure. How can everyone find you? How can they follow you? And where do they get the book? Go to milliondollarweekend.com. You can get the book there. Wherever books are sold, pretty much amazon.com and I'm Noah Kagan everywhere. Send me DMs. I want to see people reading the book, taking action for themselves and finding out who they can become. So DM me anywhere or post online at Noah Kagan. I'd love to see you with the book.

All right, let's help Noah reach this goal, guys. Get the book. Follow Noah. Send him a DM of you reading the book. Until next week, guys, keep creating confidence. You know I will be. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while.

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