#84 with Noah Kagan - How the Founder of AppSumo Walked Away From $100m

Joined our private FB group yet? It's a page where people share each others million dollar ideas or what they're already working on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion. Sam Parr (@theSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) catch up with Noah Kagan (@noahkagan), founder of AppSumo and OkDork.com. Before that, he was employee #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint, and worked at Intel. In today’s episode we hear about Noah’s background (1:05), Noah talks about the different between needing to do things and choosing to do things (5:58), how Noah thinks about finding customers (12:30), Sam asks for Noah’s framework for knowing how and when to build a new product (16:10, Noah talks about how our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses (18:12), Shaan joins the podcast (27:00), Shaan asks Noah how he would build a company now if he was 21 with no name recognition (33:50), Noah leaves the podcast and Sam and Shaan talk through Sam’s upcoming road trip and future ideas (50:30). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:07Sam Parr?

  No, what's going on?

• 0:09Noah Kagan?

  Sam Parr, I'm in meetings all day and then I'm heading out to California in four hours.

• 0:15Sam Parr?

  So I was just, I haven't been on this podcast in a minute because I was in Austin. I drove from California to Austin. I hung out with Noah and Neville and a bunch of people. And now Noah is coming to Malibu or?

• 0:30Noah Kagan?

  I'm coming to SF for a month and then I'm gonna go to Malibu for a month.

• 0:33Sam Parr?

  Where are you staying in San Francisco?

• 0:36Noah Kagan?

  Andrew Chen's house.

• 0:37Sam Parr?

  Oh, that's right. You told me. I, uh, I've decided that I'm gonna get rid of my apartment in San Francisco and I'm gonna live in different cities for one or two months each.

• 0:47Noah Kagan?

  We're copying each other, Sam. You went bald, so I went bald. You're, I'm moving places, so you're moving places. I need to get glasses, a dog.

• 0:56Sam Parr?

  A beer, well, yeah, you need, you need a few things.

• 1:00Noah Kagan?

  I need a few things. You're funny.

• 1:01Sam Parr?

  We, uh, we know each other well, but can you tell the listeners who you are?

• 1:06Noah Kagan?

  What is up, you sexy listeners? Noah Kagan, uh, I'm a cyclist, I'm a chess player. Lately, I'm making a lot of content on YouTube about everything I'm learning at appsumo.com. That's youtube.com/OKdork. I helped start appsumo.com, which is the number one site online for software deals, an eight-figure company, been around 10 years. Uh, I was number 30 at Facebook, number four at Mint.com. Uh, and then the two other things that I like working on and playing with business-wise is sendfox.com, which is a free email list for content creators. And OKdork.com, which is my site about overcoming fear, starting and marketing startups.

• 1:40Sam Parr?

  And Noah and I have known each other for, um, six or seven years, a while now. We're, you're, I think you're five or six years older than me. We're, we're very similar personalities. We're a little crazy. We have a, a, a bunch of different ideas. Would you say that's accurate?

• 1:59Noah Kagan?

  Yeah, I didn't like you for a long time.

• 2:01Sam Parr?

  Why?

• 2:03Noah Kagan?

  So sometimes you'll hang out with Sam, if you guys have hung out or had the chance to, you'll hang out with Sam, he's like, "How much money are you making doing this one thing?" And it's like, it's like someone asks you, like, "How big is your penis?" You're like, "Dude, I don't know you." And you're asking a really personal, kind of aggressive, it's almost, it's like to the level of transactional, that's just a little too much versus what you'd expect from a friend. And I think sometimes it's interesting to observe the people or companies that we're jealous of, or the companies we're reacting negatively, negatively to, and really trying to understand that. And our first experience, I think if I recall, you wanted me to come speak at the Hustle.

• 2:33Sam Parr?

  No, I, I wanted you, it was, yeah, I wanted you to speak at an event. And I, you asked me to write a blog post for you, and I wrote this blog post.

• 2:41Noah Kagan?

  And then?

• 2:42Sam Parr?

  You didn't publish it. And I was like, "What the fuck?"

• 2:45Noah Kagan?

  There was just weird vibes I was getting from you. And so it didn't make me excited to want to do anything. And then you sent me like a Nutribullet or some kind of item. And I was just like, "This guy weirds me out. I don't like how he's behaving." And so over the years, though, I've started to appreciate your quirkiness. And it's probably like me. I'm sure some people are listening to me, but like, "I don't like the style." I think the point for everyone is not to just go and accept everyone and love everything, but to observe our jealousy, observe our negativity, observe our criticism, and think about what we're trying to really say about ourselves or learn about ourselves. I think one thing I would say about you, Sam, that I've appreciated, is that it's interesting to observe the people in life who get what they want. Because those people, you don't see all the things they're not getting. And I really respect with Sam, how persevering you are.

• 3:28Noah Kagan?

  I think there's a lot of times where I'm like, "Oh yeah, this guy's gonna..." There's so many people, I'm like, "Oh, they're gonna quit soon." And I definitely, you know, the hustle wouldn't be anything without effort. And I think without, you just kept going and won't stop. And I think more people have to, some people are like, "Well, I don't have that. I'm not Sam Power. I'm not Noah Kagan. I'm not..." It's like, yeah, you're yourself, which is even better. And it's just finding the things that you'd never want to give up on. So find your hustle, find your app Sumo, find your okdork.com, and just find something you'll never quit on, and then go for it. And that's one thing I've definitely appreciated, watching your journey from afar.

• 4:03Sam Parr?

  You said you didn't like me, or I rubbed you the wrong way. Were you saying that, and then you said jealousy? You're saying because you think I was jealous of you, or you jealous of me?

• 4:12Noah Kagan?

  No, I think at that time, I just found you kind of, I was uncertain of your motive. It's been like six years, so I'm not exactly sure. I don't, I think everyone's favorite story is themselves. So if you ever want to talk to someone, be like, "Hey, you know what I noticed about you?" And they're like, "What?"

• 4:25Noah Kagan?

  But I think feedback is a whole nother thing. We can talk about that. I think I just had a weird vibe and I didn't know what your intentions were. And I think what was interesting is like other friends of ours were like, oh yeah, he is a good dude. And he is, but I was like, I guess I'm missing something.

• 4:39Sam Parr?

  So let's, uh, we're going to talk about business in a second. And I think this is kind of an interesting conversation because, but I think that what has brought us to be friends is our mutual friend Neville Madora, who is both of ours best friend. He was the best man at my wedding and you have a, well, uh, you have a brother, but he probably, had it not been for your brother, he probably would be in that category for you as well.

• 5:02Sam Parr?

  And so it's interesting how like, like you could, we both see how we're loyal to one person and that brings like good qualities out of each other.

• 5:11Noah Kagan?

  I think Neville said I'm his number one. I don't know if you've talked to him recently.

• 5:14Sam Parr?

  Well, we can fight over that.

• 5:16Noah Kagan?

  Is that what he says in bed to both of us? He's like,

• 5:18Sam Parr?

  No, I never said, he said I was number one, but I, you know, we, we both are, we're both loyal to similar people.

• 5:25Sam Parr?

  So let's talk about, let's talk about different interesting companies or businesses that we're both looking at because we're, you and I are the same in that we're both like pretty big schemers. And not that we do shit all the time, but we both like, like, like to figure out how things work.

• 5:40Sam Parr?

  What are you looking at? Like you're really interested in the, in the email space with Sendfox.

• 5:46Sam Parr?

  I'm interested in that as well. What, what interests you about email? Like, why are you like, cause AppSumo is pretty successful. You don't have to start new shit if you didn't want to. Why are you choosing Sendfox?

• 5:59Noah Kagan?

  I think choosing, one of my favorite books around the words that you use is the Dalai Lama's Art of Happiness. And I love that you were chose, right? Because I don't have to do anything. I want to do things. I don't need to do stuff. I want stuff. And I think it's interesting for all of us to be aware of that. Namaste, everyone. Uh, I think what, In my life, I think one of the things that drives me is curiosity.

• 6:20Noah Kagan?

  And I think in terms of business, like if people out there, you know, listen to this and say, hey, I want to get my business started. The best business to start is something that solves your own problem. And so for me, I was using MailChimp, I've used ConvertKit, I've checked out a Weber. One, I found them way over expensive. I found them way over complicated. It took me like 45 minutes to set up a MailChimp email. And so I was like, I just want something more affordable and simpler. And that's why we built SendFox. And I think that's something where I'll keep working on it forever with the team. I think what's interesting is trying to think about what's going to happen in the next six months to six years. And then how do I be a little bit ahead of everyone else? So if you think about it, let me ask you, Sam, do you think there's going to be more or less content creators in the future?

• 6:59Sam Parr?

  Absolutely more.

• 7:01Noah Kagan?

  So I think, you know, the one problem that I noticed with all the channels like YouTube or Instagram or TikTok or any of these is that ultimately they are incentivized to get you to pay to talk to your audience. Why? Because they have to make money. And so email is the only channel I've ever found that can scale communicating with an audience that you can fully control. And so I think if SendFox becomes the number one place for people to grow their audiences, one, I want it for myself, number one, and two, it's just a really big and interesting opportunity to work on.

• 7:30Sam Parr?

  So we send, how many emails do I send a year? Maybe six or 700 million? I don't even know, to be honest. AppSumo probably has a similar amount of emails, like hundreds of millions of sends per year. I pay, I think I pay 10 or 15 grand a month to send those. Does that sound right?

• 7:52Noah Kagan?

  I don't really know. I think there's two things that are more interesting to me. One, I've been focusing more on the total audience that you have available because email is a component of your audience. Right? So you actually have like Hustle on Facebook, Hustle Instagram, Hustle YouTube, Hustle Podcast. Your total active audience and there's overlap, that number I'm actually more fascinated with. And the second thing with email, I think the metric cost is one thing, but I think the metric that

• 8:16Sam Parr?

  You said SendFox was trying to make it cheaper because you're

• 8:19Noah Kagan?

  More affordable. I don't like the word

• 8:21Sam Parr?

  More affordable. Yeah. More affordable. How much does that cost to send?

• 8:24Noah Kagan?

  I'll tell you, if you take point 0002 and then times up by how many emails? So the thing that MailChimp and ConvertKit and all these guys, so point 0002 times your number. So they make money if you don't send emails.

• 8:39Sam Parr?

  Because they make money off your subscriber.

• 8:41Noah Kagan?

  Of course. And so

• 8:42Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 8:43Noah Kagan?

  The way that's so SendFox is free and then we're a one-time payment because most people don't actually email. And so we're trying to fix that and work through those kind of challenges with people. But the other thing I think people need to think about in terms of growing their community or starting a newsletter, like if you don't have one, start it today, use SendFox.com, number one. But the second thing is the number that's the most important is not your email list size. It is your active email list size. So it is the amount of people within three months that have opened and clicked your email. Because, you know, I've had hundreds of thousands, probably, I think in my total lifetime of OK Dork, I've had 175,000 subscribe to the newsletter. My active audience is only 55. Think about that.

• 9:21Sam Parr?

  And that's what we do too, but we churn people every three months. Like we sunset them, like where we send them an email and be like, hey, you're gonna get, we're gonna take you off this list.

• 9:31Noah Kagan?

  What percentage is it?

• 9:33Sam Parr?

  I don't know off the top of my head, to be honest with you, but I know that like one, I could tell you this though. So like our open rate's really, really high. Right now it's like 55%. Um, and I think the average person stays two years. So you could somehow figure out what that is. Yeah, but, but, uh, like, like if we don't get them on the hook right away, then they're never gonna get on the hook.

• 9:55Noah Kagan?

  How do you get on the hook?

• 9:58Sam Parr?

  Your welcome email needs to be really good. Your thank you page after they sign up needs to be really good. You know this shit. This is what you did.

• 10:03Noah Kagan?

  No, it's good. Dude, here's the thing, I'm still learning.

• 10:05Sam Parr?

  Even your unsubscribe page needs to be great, which you, didn't you have a really good unsubscribe page?

• 10:10Noah Kagan?

  Yeah, but I, I gave up on that one. I think the thank you page and your welcome thing are like the two of the most neglected pieces of marketing.

• 10:18Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I call them like, you have to make the, the forgotten parts really good. So like your thank you page, your welcome email, your unsubscribe page.

• 10:29Sam Parr?

  Just like little Easter egg shit like that. That needs to be good.

• 10:31Noah Kagan?

  What do you recommend for those?

• 10:33Sam Parr?

  To make them good?

• 10:34Noah Kagan?

  Yeah.

• 10:35Sam Parr?

  Well, our, so I get accused of stealing CD Baby's email, welcome email, which I didn't even know what that was, but then when I saw it, I realized, oh yeah, I can, I totally understand why people see, think I stole that. But my welcome email was like a really detailed welcome email that it was like really long and explained what happened when you signed up. And it was pretty funny. And like, if you Google like the Hustle welcome email, a lot of people wrote about it. People seemed to like that. So just like being creative and writing long form content about what happened after those types of things, when those people signed up, it, it works pretty well. But with, with, so let's say like ConvertKit, let's say ConvertKit is doing $20 million a year in sales, which ConvertKit's awesome because I like the guy who started it.

• 11:18Sam Parr?

  I like ConvertKit and they reveal all their revenue numbers. If they're doing 20 million in revenue, like you said that you try to make SendFox more affordable, I have no idea, how much do they actually charge, think to, or how much are they, what's their COGS in order to send all those emails?

• 11:33Noah Kagan?

  .002, it might be .00015 times how many subscribe, how many emails they're sending a month. The profit is all on the people who don't email. It's basically, I think of email marketing companies as very expensive hosting. You're basically paying a lot of money to host zeros and ones and digits that don't cost anything. And so I, I think more importantly, if people are trying to start businesses, like that's a really interesting business to start, it's also an interesting business to disrupt. Like I think Substack has done amazing with it, coming at it from like, hey, email's actually free and we're going to make money on the subscription part, so you don't have to pay for email anymore. Same with SendFox, it's like, it's mostly free and we're going to be focusing, we're focusing more on like YouTubers and podcasters. So it's like, who are the audiences that aren't really emailing enough or don't know how to email for this specific type of audience?

• 12:17Sam Parr?

  I think a market for that is musicians, bands. I think there's a huge, like, if you look at the money where musicians make it, it's in concerts and they're horrible at notifying you when they're coming into town.

• 12:31Noah Kagan?

  You have to serve a customer that I think you have an understanding of. I think a lot of these entrepreneurs out there are like, oh yeah, let me go help musicians. I'm like, one, I don't know shit about musicians. I'm learning to play piano, it's right here. But the point being is like, I think we, we, it's not that you shouldn't go outside of your comfort zone. I just think that there's easier ways of success and I think more, too many people make it too hard on themselves. And it's just like go into your own problems or go into problems of people around you that you have easier access to.

• 12:57Sam Parr?

  What about, have you been looking into AMP for email?

• 13:02Noah Kagan?

  Yeah, some of this stuff. I mean, I also, you know, there's also talk about, hey, emails dying and all this stuff. I'm like, I don't know, people are still using it left and right. I've seen AMP where it's like a little bit more of dynamic and faster loading emails. I think the most important thing about email is not necessarily the layouts and all that stuff. I think the most important thing is how do you build a relationship where people are expecting your email? Where like if I stopped emailing or the hustle didn't come, they're like, something is wrong with my day. And until you get to that point, you're, you're probably worrying about the wrong problems.

• 13:31Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I mean, that's the hard part, obviously. That's like, how do you create? I mean, that's just about creating good shit. But I still think the whole AMP thing is actually super interesting. What, what I'm working on is a few ways to hack it because I'm, I kind of am obsessed with like storytelling in email. And so what can you like, if you think about what is a GIF? To me, a GIF is a movable image that has no sound. Well, so is most of the video that you use on Instagram, on Facebook. It's just audio or it's just a video with no sound like, because a lot of times you don't even click. And so what I'm interested is how can I use AMP to tell a story in an email in a video format? Or like all these other hacks like that. That's incredibly interesting to me.

• 14:12Noah Kagan?

  I think there's something there with that. The thing that we've been doing with Sendfox that we've been building in is there's kind of like two major components that I think are lacking in email. So number one is how do you build in like what the hustle and morning brew have, which is build in referrals? So we've basically built that in so anyone can have their own referral engine within emails.

• 14:28Sam Parr?

  By the way, that was a, that was a huge pain in the ass for us.

• 14:30Noah Kagan?

  I know. So we built it and it works and I'm doing it on, okay. So if you go to sendfox.com/ noah, you can see how it looks or sign up for yourself and it's built in for free. I think the second thing that we're, we're observing, so what everyone wants is like, how do I grow my audience and how do I send consistent emails? Because if you're not sending something weekly, you get forgotten. And in this age of attention, we're all fighting for it. And so we built this thing called Weekly Newsletter Template, or I think they're branding it Smart Campaigns. And so the idea there is that we suck in all of your social information and we look at what's most popular. And then we basically just like, we recommend like, hey, here's the three things that you should email your audience this week. And so that's what I do every Wednesday. I just pull my, two of my favorite things and one of someone else's to try to spread joy and love and build relationships with people I don't know yet.

• 15:15Sam Parr?

  How many people are working on Sendfox?

• 15:18Noah Kagan?

  I think there's two developers, one designer, David is the GM, maybe like six?

• 15:25Sam Parr?

  So, uh, Hey, did you see Hey? Obviously, you saw that. So for those who don't know, hey.com, it's a new email service. It's pretty neat. Uh, I don't know if it's going to be big, but I definitely, I think it's cool that they are trying that. I think, I think it actually will be big, but that's irrelevant. What that company did, it started by 37 signals. They have a team of like 50 people and they make money through Basecamp, I think, right? That's their main thing. And they've used all, they've used all those profits to fund Hey, which I don't know how many engineers they had on that. Probably a lot, actually. It's pretty robust already. At my company, what I'm trying to do, we're taking all of our profits and we're launching more stuff. How are you figuring out how much of your profit to allocate to these side projects like Sendfox? And like these new products?

• 16:11Noah Kagan?

  So, the way that we've approached it recently is a little bit more structured. The way, the question that we ask is basically two things. One, can we make our money back within 18 months?

• 16:21Sam Parr?

  Got it, 18 months.

• 16:22Noah Kagan?

  So, will we make break even money back 18 months? And secondly, is it at least a seven-figure decision? So is it at least, if it's not a seven-figure opportunity, we won't do it. The reality is the majority of the money is best spent into whatever's making the most money from a capitalist's standpoint. Some of that stuff is short-term versus long-term. And so with Sendfox, right now, the number, we made our money back immediately because there's only one developer, part-time and one GM. And then as it started becoming more profitable, it was like, all right, well, let's keep, let's make sure it's a seven-figure business. Uh, and now we're focusing on, because we know it's a seven-figure opportunity, we're saying, how do we get this to be a, you know, 100, 100 million dollar business?

• 17:02Sam Parr?

  Whatever, yeah.

• 17:03Noah Kagan?

  But we're more focused right now on building, our, our, our goal there is active audience. So, I think one thing with company metrics is how do you line your customer success to your company metric success, your company North Star? So for Sendfox, right now, we're at a million active audience, meaning of all of our customers, we reach a million active customers through them. And so if we can grow that number to 3 million, that's our goal this year, then all of our customers are more successful and then we will be subsequently more successful.

• 17:30Sam Parr?

  So, how long has it been, or how long have you had people working on it?

• 17:34Noah Kagan?

  Sendfox, about two years. I mean, what's fascinating about this, just as a quick side note, Sam, is that

• 17:40Noah Kagan?

  There's a debate internally, not debate, but there's a discussion internally that if we would have spent all the money and time that we built on Sendfox and King Sumo and Hall Drop and Meat Fam and all the things we've done just on AppSumo, the main thing, would it have been a hundred million dollar business today? And the likelihood is yeah.

• 17:57Sam Parr?

  I'm going through the same process where I'm like, man, I got this cash cow and a lot of people listening, they also have the same thing where they have these companies, but like, we're fucking degenerates and we can't not make shit.

• 18:09Noah Kagan?

  It's like, well, our strength, our greatest strengths are generally our greatest weaknesses. So our greatest strength for, I don't know, I won't speak for you. My greatest strength is igniting. Like I go and start something and I'm like really quick and I'm really fast. My greatest weakness is, is like consistency. I always think of it as like a, I'm a great igniter, but I'm not a great consistent source of fuel. And so you have to find that balance of who is your fuel. So for me, Aiman is fuel. David over at Sendfox is fuel. And then I can go focus on the igniting part. And I think that's where you can find success in life, which is what are you fucking amazing at? Just do that stuff. And it's hard because we feel guilty or we feel weak, but it is finding the people that can compliment you on those other, those other sides. But take another example, like, like the two, my, two, my favorite examples that everyone knows is Netflix and Amazon.

• 18:54Noah Kagan?

  Netflix is worth $200 billion from one 9.99 a month subscription. So Amazon, on the other hand, is worth a trillion. And they've got, in terms of significant revenue streams, probably like three or four. And so I don't think there, there's many different ways of eating a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. I think you have to kind of figure it out for yourself, what style of business. So for me, with, with mine, I literally, I thought about this this morning. My, my, my ambitions and enjoyment and fulfillment come from like promoting dope stuff, which we do on AppSumo, sharing what I'm learning while doing that, which is happening on YouTube and my podcast, No Kicking Presents Podcast. And then three, making things that I want for myself, which is Sendfox. And I'm like, can I just do this till I die?

• 19:36Noah Kagan?

  Or maybe I'll do this till, if I can live forever. And I think that's what we're all, we're all striving for.

• 19:40Sam Parr?

  Can I ask you, I did a pod recently where I talked about delegating and hiring like a CEO and general managers. Can, I've learned how to do this through reading a few books. I learned how to do this from talking to David Hauser, who we're friends with. I learned how to do it through talking. Indirectly, like, learning from you on how to do it. Like, I would talk to Amen, I would talk to you a little bit about it, I would talk to Neville. What was your process like for doing that? Because you have three or four, how many GMs you have, or whatever you call them?

• 20:12Noah Kagan?

  I think there's three GMs right now. So there's Hall Drop, there's AppSumo, and then there's SendFox. David does SendFox and KingSumo. I think what's actually interesting, taking a step back, how many CEOs do you think there are in Amazon?

• 20:28Sam Parr?

  CEO title or, or, or job?

• 20:31Noah Kagan?

  People who were CEOs in their own businesses that are now running divisions of Amazon.

• 20:36Sam Parr?

  I don't know.

• 20:37Noah Kagan?

  Yeah, exactly. And so the people that want to start their own businesses, if you can figure out how to align their incentives and their motivation within your business, is how you create a trillion dollar business. And so-

• 20:50Sam Parr?

  There's a bunch of examples of this, by the way. There's Alibaba, Rocket Internet has done this wonderfully. Sounds like you're doing it well. Who else has done it well? Amazon has done it well. There's way more. Where they, a company I'm obsessed with is Coke, Coke Family, the Coke Industries, they've done this.

• 21:05Noah Kagan?

  Coke?

• 21:07Sam Parr?

  I always call it cock, but I get corrected, it's Coke.

• 21:10Noah Kagan?

  Who cares? Just call them rich.

• 21:12Sam Parr?

  The old white fucks.

• 21:13Noah Kagan?

  No, I don't know if they're fucks, but I, I think in terms of delegation and leadership, I actually think one of my superpowers is just like observations of greatness. So here's something, it's like, who fucking cares about Noah? I think what I would do as a listener, and this is what I still do this day, I'm almost 40 and I still do this, anytime you notice anything impressive, reach out to the person. That's it. And over your lifetime, figure out, how the fuck do I get around that guy or girl? And I think that will lead you to an easier chances of greatness. Because it's a lot harder to like, go out and try to like, date and find people just from the ground up. It's much easier if you're like, man, like, you know, the people I worked at Facebook, honestly, the best ever, literally the best ever. And so it's like, oh shit, I haven't been able to keep around them,

• 21:55Noah Kagan?

  because we had a falling out, obviously. But it's like, all right, how do I be, have more of that? So like Garrett, Garrett's the lead developer on SendFox, he built a WordPress plugin that I bought for like, a hundred dollars, like, six, seven years ago. And then I said, hey, can I pay you like, 25, 30 bucks an hour to fix it? And he was so impressive. And he did it for a year. And I told Chad, my business partner, I was like, dude, this guy is fucking fire. And I was like, we just need to hire him full time and let him do whatever he wants and pay him whatever he wants. And it's pretty much what we've done. Now he works in Sendfox and his output is remarkable. And so I think with GMs and things like that, I'd say ultimately, it's like you want to find the people that blow you away. But those people basically, you want the people who want to run their own businesses.

• 22:38Noah Kagan?

  And then two things, you want to give them a challenging goal and then you want to give them some boundaries and then leave them alone. And that's the simplest and most complicated thing to do.

• 22:49Sam Parr?

  Can you elaborate on that more? Because so I've hired a president of my company and it's pretty great because like I get just all the shit I don't want to do. He likes to do, so it works out well. Where I struggle is I still like get into it and I get in his way. I'm like, hey, this sucks. You need to fix it this way, this way, this way, and this way. Are you doing that with your people?

• 23:11Noah Kagan?

  So let me correct you. They're not my people.

• 23:14Sam Parr?

  The people who you work with?

• 23:16Noah Kagan?

  Yeah, I think that's a big difference.

• 23:19Noah Kagan?

  And I know it might sound like, oh, no, but I think I never say employees. I never say it's mine. Is there the technicality of do I own more of the business than others? Yeah, but I think if you want people to be leaders, they have to lead and they can't ask for permission to do it.

• 23:37Noah Kagan?

  You know, a lot of times, one of my favorite lines that I've been saying in the company lately is people ask me something. I'm like, who's in charge? I say this a lot. I probably say this at least once a day. I'm like, who's in charge? And they're like, me? I'm like, yeah, damn right. It's you. Don't fucking look at me. I don't know.

• 23:52Noah Kagan?

  And so I think the more that you, the way I've been looking at myself lately with the team is where's my excellence? And where can I do the best job of coaching? And I hate when I've heard that because when I've heard that I'm like, what does that mean? What are they coaching? And so let me be specific. So with Dork, like I've hired a team of four people to help build out my brand and to help spread the message of overcoming fear and starting businesses. And they're, these, these people went through the gauntlet to get the job. I'm clear on where they want to go.

• 24:21Noah Kagan?

  I'm very clear on where they personally want to go. And so my job is to help them get what they want. And it's kind of like the Jim Rohn quote, if I can help them get what they want, I can get what I want. And so I think I learned this when I got rejected from Microsoft as a job. I had an internship and you know, when you intern, you get the job guaranteed. You know about that? Most times when you intern, you get the job guaranteed. I was like the one of the few that didn't get it. It's like, damn, I'm an underdog, man. I'm still fucking fighting. And but I did learn something in the job interview that I never forgotten. He's like, here's the best way to lead. I'm like, tell me. And best way to coach. He's like, you give them a football. You tell them where the end zone is. You say, hey, here's the boundaries to get to the end zone. How you want to score is up to you. And I think what I've learned really well over the past two years is I don't, you don't want to be a seagull.

• 25:06Noah Kagan?

  You know, the seagull theory?

• 25:09Sam Parr?

  No, you come in. Were you just, were you just chirping at him?

• 25:11Noah Kagan?

  Yeah, you come in shit and fly away.

• 25:15Noah Kagan?

  I was doing a lot of seagull theory for, for a few years.

• 25:18Sam Parr?

  Did you coin that? Or is that a thing? I mean, is that your, your phrase?

• 25:22Noah Kagan?

  Yeah.

• 25:23Sam Parr?

  Oh, all right, cool.

• 25:25Noah Kagan?

  Well, I didn't, I don't want to be shitting on people and flying away. I think it's like, how do you lean in Sheryl Sandberg style? And step into these challenges and be, because I think what I always admire is solution thinking. Right? Like, am I coming and complaining? And am I bringing more problems? Or am I bringing more solutions? So anyways, in terms of coaching, like with Aiman, who's running app sumo. Especially lately, I feel like more of an advisor in a very effective way. And I think it's a really fine line because you don't want resentment. So Aiman wants to do this one thing recently. And I'm like, do I just let him do everything and resent it? Like, oh, fuck you, man. I totally disagree with you. Or do I say, no, Aiman, do this thing. You must do it my fucking way. It's the Noah Kagan way. My dad used to say this when I was a little kid. He's like, my way or the highway. I was like, dude, I am eight years old. Like, I don't know what you want from me.

• 26:08Noah Kagan?

  And um, I don't think it could be either way of those. I think it needs to be somewhere in the middle. Where I don't want to feel resented. I don't resent me towards Aiman. I don't want it to be a dictator. Because then the, the, the worst thing I think you could do is, is hiring someone is demotivate them. That is probably like one of the dirtiest things you could ever do to anyone is like, demo. And I've done that twice to Aiman and Chad. And they both said it to me and I, I felt really bad about it. And I felt really like, I, I don't want them working for me. I don't want them, I want them waking up, thinking about it and loving it, which is what you want from a lot of people in the team. And so I think with Aiman, ultimately it's saying like, how can I like a lot of times we have goals, he has boundaries, budgets. And then the question I ask is how can I be most helpful?

• 26:54Noah Kagan?

  And so really kind of coming from that approach because at the end of the day, if he's driving the results, I don't give a fuck how he plays the game at the end of the day, as long as the score is looking good and it's within the boundaries.

• 27:04Sam Parr?

  So Sean is joining us now. Go ahead, Sean. I think you have, I'm, I'm a student at the moment. Yeah, Sean had something to say.

• 27:12Shaan Puri?

  First, what's up, Noah?

• 27:13Noah Kagan?

  Hey, buddy.

• 27:14Shaan Puri?

  Sorry for joining late. I've been following your blog for a long time. I remember you, you wrote a bunch of shit that was like, uh, you know, I walked away from a hundred million bucks or whatever it was.

• 27:23Noah Kagan?

  I didn't walk away, I got fired, but yes.

• 27:25Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, you know, my hundred million dollar mistake or whatever it was. Uh, but I, and I've pointed to a bunch of your tools. And so I just want to pause for a second and say, one of the ways I got good at marketing is by stealing your shit. And, uh, if somebody out there wants to get good at marketing, especially content marketing, go read the stuff about how you built Mint and you know, just how you built your own personal brand. Just go observe the meta of what you were doing. Look at some of the spreadsheets that you linked out. Um, that shit's actually pretty useful. And there's like a fine line usually between like, I always have this like big skepticism. When somebody spends so much of their time telling me how to do something, I'm like, well, how much of that time, how much of your time are you actually spending doing that thing? Are you even, are you one of those

• 28:09Shaan Puri?

  people who you get rich teaching other people to be rich type of thing? Um, and you know, the thing I liked about you and a few others that we, we vouch for on this podcast is no, there's some people who actually have done it. They've actually grown shit from scratch to scale several times. They felt they probably fallen over and failed a couple of times. Um, but they just like to talk. They like to share. Um, and they like the feedback loop of sharing out that knowledge and those experiences. And they're legit. And so I would say like, go back, go to the archive. I don't, I haven't read any of your new stuff, but go read the archive, the OG shit, because it was really good.

• 28:43Noah Kagan?

  Thanks, brother. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things I've done recently in terms of marketing, I think overall, you know, when I fill out, um, when I fill out applications, like I was filling out, I'm signed up for relationship therapy, start next week. She's like, what's my occupation? And I always write engineer, because that's what I always dreamed of being. But I'm not, I don't think I'm smart enough. So I faced it this, when I was filling it out, I deleted that. And I was like marketer. Marketers always seems like-

• 29:08Shaan Puri?

  She's like, the therapy starts here. You wrote engineer, you're not an engineer. What? Okay, let's forget your relationship.

• 29:13Noah Kagan?

  No. So anyways, I think what I've accepted, it's not that I've ever been a marketer. I'm just, I'm a promoter of greatness. And I'm looking for it. And I'm sharing it. And I'm exploring it in myself. I think the thing that I've done recently that it's a simple, it's marketing 101, is with my YouTube. That's, that's been like our big focus. So I think the two things, there's a few things in marketing. I'll say three things that I think are simplest, simplest, you know, that's another world, but number one, have a just singular goal. Facebook did it. AppSumo.com has done it. And I think with even recently with my dork world, and helping people overcome fear and start businesses, I'm kind of like having a bunch of goals. I'm like, here's our TikTok goal. Here's our Instagram goal. Here's our email list goal. Here's our organic traffic goal. Here's this. I'm like, what is our most important goal? And I was like, just even pick one for some period of time. And so I

• 29:57Noah Kagan?

  think I've come into that realization, like, let's just pick YouTube and just be okay with that. And guess what? That'll rise all other ships. So don't be ignoring ignorant of those other ones, but just focus on one. Second thing is that as I was doing a lot of this content recently, which has gotten me really fulfilled. And it feels good, feels great.

• 30:16Sam Parr?

  On YouTube or okay dork.com?

• 30:18Noah Kagan?

  Mostly YouTube, mostly in YouTube world. The second thing that's been most critical, and this is really hard, because everyone does says they do this or wants to do this, but doesn't, who, who is my audience? Who is the audience that I really want to be helping and communicate with? Because on one hand, I want to, I want to connect with like nine figure CEOs and 10 figure CEOs. And, you know, I actually don't think there's a lot of content of how do you go from seven to eight, or eight to nine, and I can share how we do it. But that audience is really small, and they don't really need as much help. And so we've realized like, our audience is dudes, 25 to 40, that have tried to start a business that haven't been successful, that are afraid of failing, and need a little bit of help. And so I think the second part of marketing that I've gotten revisiting, is who am I really trying to talk to? And what are the words? So like, here's some words that we've even

• 31:02Noah Kagan?

  identified that our audience resonates with. Rat race, freedom. So I'm like, really? All right. Self doubt.

• 31:12Noah Kagan?

  So those are some of the things that I'm thinking about. And then the third part that we're we're thinking, I think this is applicable for every business is what is your unique strategy of success? Like, so with that, we have two parts. One, what's our core messages that we're, this is our unique like bread and butter that you will know. I was talking with Ramit about this and he's like, what did them, you have so many messages, just pick three. So I was like, all right, challenges to overcome fear, million dollar weekend, and behind the scenes of an eight figure company. That's the three that we're gonna do. And that's it. And then the second part of

• 31:41Sam Parr?

  Wait, wait, say that again. So those three are the three what?

• 31:44Noah Kagan?

  So basically, let's take a step back. So one, what's your goal? Pick one goal. Number two, who is your customer? Number three, what is your core messages that people know you for? So for me, those are the three that I'm going to be known for. Challenges, which I always tell people to do the coffee challenge, which is take, get asked for 10% off when you buy coffee. You're gonna be afraid, you're gonna learn about yourself, and you're gonna grow. Secondly, is behind the scenes of an eight figure company. So like, how do you like that? There's not a lot of people that have that experience, and I can do that. And the third part is how do you actually get a million dollar business or a hundred dollar, you know, a million dollar business started in a weekend, which I've done many, many times, and I can share, which is unique. And then the last part of this marketing equation that I think I'm exploring and revisiting around all these

• 32:25Noah Kagan?

  things is what is my unique strategy? Or what is my strategy of doing that? I think where I've been very successful is I just do a lot of stuff, and eventually something works. But I think I will be even more successful slowing down, being a little more thoughtful with these things. And so our unique strategy lately has been do the fast stuff, but on lower risk items. So basically tweet and Instagram and LinkedIn post fucking everything, like throw it all out there unlimitedly. And then based on what works, aligning to our core messages, that's what we'll go deeper in. That's what we'll write a blog post about. That's what we'll do an interview about. That's what we will do a YouTube video about. And so it's just having a higher likelihood of home runs.

• 33:07Shaan Puri?

  Interesting. I'm curious. So, so how old are you now? You said you're almost 40?

• 33:12Noah Kagan?

  I look and feel 32, but I'd say I'm about in physicality in our society 38, not physicality in our, whatever traditions, I'm 38.

• 33:22Shaan Puri?

  Okay, cool.

• 33:23Noah Kagan?

  Human years.

• 33:24Shaan Puri?

  I am 32 and I look and feel 38.

• 33:27Noah Kagan?

  You do look 38, bro.

• 33:28Shaan Puri?

  I'm trying to go the other way.

• 33:30Noah Kagan?

  So I would love.

• 33:31Shaan Puri?

  So, so if you were 21 again, 21, no network, no name brand, you're starting up from scratch. And you don't have to go the same pathway you went. I'm curious, you know, if you had the luxury of picking any path, now that you know of so many more paths than you probably knew about when you were 21, what path would you go down?

• 33:51Noah Kagan?

  Honestly, I think I'd copy my path.

• 33:54Shaan Puri?

  Which, which would be what? So you're 21, what do you do?

• 33:56Noah Kagan?

  I'll tell you exactly what I did. I didn't know what the fuck to do. So I went and tried a bunch of stuff out to figure out what to do. I think the only, I think one question is what delta would I have chosen? And I'll tell you exactly what that was. So at 21, I didn't know, I didn't even know what a BS was. I got, I got it from Berkeley. I was like, oh, Bachelor of Science is cool. Everyone kind of follows a stream, right? Like when you graduate from college, which I think less and less is becoming important. Everyone's like, oh, get a job, go to Intel, go to wherever. And I was like, okay, I guess that's what everyone's doing. But I've always wanted to start my own company. I just didn't know what to do. And so I think the two things that I did really well, when I had that day job at Intel was I use that as my investor. And the two things I'd recommend is that I started a lot of businesses. So if you're like, I don't have any idea.

• 34:38Noah Kagan?

  Two things you can do. One, go to sendfox.com and start a newsletter and send an email once a week for 365 day, or for 52 weeks. That's number one. Or number two, go on YouTube, take the Ryan Holiday challenge and post a video on YouTube for 30 days. Start there. The second thing that I did is that I connected with people very aggressively and I asked anyone I knew for anyone that they knew that was really smart. That's how I met Tim Ferriss. That's how I met Orin Hoffman, Dave McClure. James Hong, Max Levchin, Ramit Sethi. I basically put on events, I hosted lunches, I organized conferences. I didn't know anyone, but I wanted to bring smart people together. So if you don't know any smart people, find one smart person and say, hey, you should meet this smart person and then just go and hang out with both of them,

• 35:21Noah Kagan?

  guy and girl. And guess what? You can do it on Zoom if you're in a remote country. Or if you don't have any connections, I think one of the ones I've really observed lately, every person I've hired that's been the most impressive has done two things. They've offered something for free, a value that I've wanted.

• 35:37Noah Kagan?

  And they did it without asking. And those people have been the most impressive. And guess what? Now they're like, hey, I want to meet this person. I want to do this thing. I want to grow here. I'm like, that most of them are now working with me. And so I think I would have, that was something very early on. I was very aggressive on meeting people and just trying to build my brand. In terms of career, I think the two things, one thing I did very well is I was really great about following my curiosity and things I was really excited about. So I really loved Facebook and I really loved Mint. And I was like, I'll do whatever it takes to work there. I think the only difference I would have chosen is find someone 10 to 20 years ahead of me that I think is doing the things I would like to do in 10 to 20 years and be obsessed or aggressive in figuring out how to make them excited to want to be a part of my life.

• 36:20Noah Kagan?

  So I had one guy, Doug Hirsch, who was my boss at Facebook. And it didn't really work out as well for as a mentorship. But it's nice because like you can say, oh, that's how you do a relationship. Oh, that's how you do a career. And it'll shortcut it. You just have to figure out the real most important thing is how do you get them to give a fuck about you? And the best way to do that is help them with whatever things they're working on.

• 36:40Sam Parr?

  You want to hear something crazy, Sean? I don't know if you know this, but I don't know if Noah knows it. But I launched my, I created my, so my company, which is, it's an okay company. It's been good for me. It started because Noah had a blog post about organizing conferences. And I was like, what was it called?

• 37:03Sam Parr?

  It was called like how I made how I made 90K hosting a conference or something. Was that it Noah?

• 37:09Noah Kagan?

  I made a quarter million dollars in conferences because I I didn't know I was gonna make money doing them.

• 37:13Sam Parr?

  Yeah, so I saw that and I was like, well, I had a book club at the time and I was like, well, I've been I've been hosting these meetups, but I don't make any money from it. I should like make money off this thing. And so I started my company. And I've made millions of dollars personally off conferences because of that blog post and more importantly, or maybe not more importantly, I've met I met actually all three people on this call and most of my friends and coworkers.

• 37:36Noah Kagan?

  Because of that blog post?

• 37:37Sam Parr?

  Because of that blog post. I met Neville because of that blog post. Neville, the best man in my wedding, I met because of that.

• 37:44Noah Kagan?

  Good for you.

• 37:45Sam Parr?

  So so what you're describing of what you would do and how basically you described like hosting events and which is similar in the same vein as posting content. I did the same thing and it made me millions of dollars and it I met all my best friends that way.

• 37:58Noah Kagan?

  Awesome. I mean, I think the only other thing that I was doing at the time that I think everyone should do. So number one, build your brand in some way. Even if you're not trying to be a personal brand, I think practicing writing is a skill you can use in sales, you can use in development, you can use in design, you can use it almost literally forever. I think the connections very valuable, literally probably the reason I'm a multimillionaire is because I've been I've been able to meet and help people and connect people, connecting and meeting. But the third thing was that I was starting a lot of businesses and I think what's beautiful is if especially earlier in your life, your cost of living is so damn low. And my cost of living is still damn low because I'm I haven't grown up in some ways and I'm maturing in certain ways. That it's so low that you should take a lot of risk very early on in trying a lot of things out. So like when I was working at Intel, I was doing

• 38:45Noah Kagan?

  this college consulting. I did a thing called ninja card.com. I was putting on these conferences that I charged for. And then I was working at Mint. I started doing the Facebook apps, like I did all these games and I started making a lot of money and I was working at morning. I was working on weekends. I was working at lunch. I was working at nights. I was working. I was I kept going and I kept trying a lot of different and eventually after probably two and a half, three years. Go to an O four and three, three years later, my side hustle finally became my main hustle.

• 39:11Sam Parr?

  Did any of those, like I have, uh, we actually have a good friend Encore. I don't know if you know him Sean, but uh, me and Noah do, who did the same thing about the online. He did like the Facebook apps and Facebook games. And when I think of that shit, I'm like, dude, that is just some scammy get rich quick shit. Is that an accurate assessment of what those were? And because I was a little bit, I was too young to be doing that shit in 2010 or whenever it became popular. Or I wasn't interested in the internet. Was that, is that an accurate assessment of what those were?

• 39:43Noah Kagan?

  Uh, I think what's interesting is like, how do you become a part? I think what's more interesting about the Facebook games, besides whatever people spam or not spam, is like, how do you be around the tidal waves? So I think where I've been very fortunate and lucky is that in my career, either I'm an ambulance chaser or I'm like a visionary or I'm maybe a little bit of both. Where like, I was in the Facebook game world, I was in personal finance world, I was in social networking world. I was in SaaS world with Sumo, I was in e-commerce world with, you know, some of Shopify. And lately I'm back in content world. And I think what's been the beautiful part about that, you know, in AppSumo, I've been in the software world, which has been amazing. Uh, I think the amazing part about that is that it's opened up a world where my life is more rich. Not rich even monetarily, just like rich, like fulfilling because of all these really cool people I've gotten to connect with.

• 40:29Noah Kagan?

  Like I gotta meet this guy Nick Nimmin and I'm gonna talk with him on Friday about videos. And then I've got to meet, um, this guy Javier Mercedes who lives in Austin, who came over and showed me how lighting, like, okay, look, let's switch lighting here. Let's switch lighting here. And, uh, I think what's amazing is try to figure out which category is gonna either be big or which category you're interested in, and then how to interject yourself in that conversation. So you're like, well, no, I'm not a developer. I don't have any e-commerce products to start. Guess what? Start a fucking YouTube channel reviewing those products. Or start an Instagram account where each day you just post, hey, here's my favorite e-commerce product today, here's why. Or start a newsletter on sendfox.com, like, hey, here's my weekly e-commerce product of the week. And email that company saying, hey, I just promoted you this week. One of the easiest things that anyone, especially early on, can do is flatter people.

• 41:15Noah Kagan?

  Legitimately, don't just bullshit because it's obvious, but just flatter. Hey, I love your stuff. That's an easy way to open the door and then do what you can to start helping people. And so I think I've been lucky and intentional about what am I curious about and what's becoming more popular? And how can I connect with people that are inspiring me?

• 41:33Shaan Puri?

  I would also say like Sam, I wouldn't call those that that Facebook game era because there's a whole bunch of other friends that we have that started or like kind of caught their first big wave on when Facebook platform opened up like the very first episode of this podcast, Suli, that's how he caught his big wave was he made a Facebook app called superlatives and it was about, you know, saying which of your friends is most likely to end up in jail or, you know, stuff goofy stuff like that. Or, you know, I know some of the lol apps guys listened to this and they were, you know, they were, you know, the fastest growing company in the world at the time, probably like, you know, oh my God, you know, you'd launch a product and get to 10 million users in a day. And that just breaks your mental model of the world. And so I think two things.

• 42:15Shaan Puri?

  A, you're right that the people who go there were the type of people that sniffed out interesting spaces before they're proven out. So if you're that type of person, you're going to end up in a lot of those types of situations. The second is you get this crash course on hypergrowth and marketing in a way that's like, you can't learn like this guy who, the guy who sold TBH to Facebook recently.

• 42:38Noah Kagan?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:39Shaan Puri?

  Tweeted this thing out yesterday. That was like,

• 42:40Noah Kagan?

  It was good.

• 42:41Shaan Puri?

  First time social app founder is like, oh, we're going to build a platform for intellectual conversations. It's like, you know, I get 23 users and 5% retention. And then he's like, by the 50 year, that same founder is like, all right, let's just have people vote on who's hot. And it's like, result 10 million users, 40% retention. It's like, you know, it's very true. It's like, the only way to really ever get good is by putting yourself out there. So when you're saying, go start a YouTube channel or somebody goes and has to build a Facebook app and you see that the apps that grow are the ones that tap into people's core needs. Like they want to know about their friends. They want to take quizzes about themselves and learn, you know, goofy personality quizzes. And it's the person on the sidelines who's like, oh, all that stuff's dumb. And what they're missing is that they don't sort of figure out.

• 43:25Shaan Puri?

  You know, at the end of the day, you get rewarded for giving people what they want, not what you want people to want. And then the second thing is that if you really want to get good at anything, you gotta be in like the eye of the storm. And these new platforms or these areas where there's a lot of growth, a lot of action happening. That's where you sharpen your skills. So you know, you might not have ever made money off the Facebook games, right? Like you got a bunch of users and

• 43:46Noah Kagan?

  I made money.

• 43:48Shaan Puri?

  Well, you might have made money.

• 43:49Noah Kagan?

  I think the question is if you, I think you need to pick, are you trying to make money or are you trying to learn? Cause I think sometimes when you're young, you're like, well, I want to make money off this person. It's like, well, maybe there's a lot more long-term dividends by just trying to focus on what you can learn.

• 44:00Shaan Puri?

  But, but also wouldn't you say like, I've seen this in my life, sounds like you were in the same where it's when you're trying to make money that you end up learning because you're trying to do something hard. And you have, you learn the hard way, like what actually works and what doesn't. Versus if you just say, I want to learn, a lot of times people take a very sort of passive or intellectual approach to it. Now, that's different than saying, I want to make money. So I take this job at Intel that pays me a guaranteed six figures or whatever it is. You may not learn the most doing that path because you're not actually challenging yourself in the same way.

• 44:32Noah Kagan?

  But I think the two things I would highlight there is that I think there's passion or interest or curiosity. And then I think there's opportunity. And I think I've, I've chased opportunities to make money, which have been fleeting. They've been profitable, but fleeting. And I think when you're in your twenties, you should do those. Frankly, you should just do the things that are like hot and exciting. If you think you want to make money. And then in your thirties, you start reflecting more like, wow, mortality is real. What's really important? And I think you'll come back to finding, how do I work on problems and things that I want created for in my own world?

• 45:04Shaan Puri?

  And for you, that's what that's helping people sort of overcome their fears to start businesses? Is that the, or is it one step removed from that?

• 45:10Noah Kagan?

  No, it's exactly that. It's like, I want to be on the ground level, helping people overcome fears, start businesses and, and marketing in businesses. I, I love seeing the underdogs succeed. I love seeing like this guy, Ali Abdaal is a popular YouTuber. Or I love seeing companies like Meatfox who got promoted on AppSumo and now they have a business around it. Uh, or a phone wagon is a popular one today for doing phone calls and

• 45:28Shaan Puri?

  That guy, Ali, he's great. He's a, I think he listens to this podcast, but he's a doctor, right? He's a doctor YouTuber or is that?

• 45:34Noah Kagan?

  Yeah. He's so, I mean, he's so impressive. He's like, you know, people are like, I don't have enough time. This guy's a full-time professional doctor, making three high-quality YouTube videos every week. And he engages as an audience and he's put, you know, he's just very genuine. I really enjoy. Can you spell his name? A L I A B D A A L.

• 45:53Noah Kagan?

  You know, and I think it's interesting is that you have to think about on the reverse of that. How do you become someone that people want to meet? How do you make things or do things that others want to connect with? And I think we're like, oh, I'll just do stuff and hope, hope it happens.

• 46:06Sam Parr?

  This guy looks amazing. I just love the, like, I just did a quick Google.

• 46:11Noah Kagan?

  Dude's dope. Dude is just dope. I love this guy. He's just like,

• 46:14Shaan Puri?

  I found him because he blogged like, hey, here's some cool shit I found this week and our podcast was in it. And so I was like, okay, who's this guy who's giving us a shout? And then I checked out his YouTube channel and I was like, well, this guy's amazing.

• 46:26Noah Kagan?

  Well, I think that's something that even in my newsletter every week now, we have a section where we promote other people. I think the more that you can go and this is one of those things that's like stupid, obvious, but no one does it. It's like, go help a bunch of other people. And there's a good chance that you'll be able to connect and get a lot of things you want. Like the quote that I heard yesterday, that was like really powerful to me was, um, it was like, your rewards in life will be exact proportion to your contribution.

• 46:49Sam Parr?

  That's interesting. I don't know if it's true though, because I feel like I, you can definitely make money by like some bullshit Facebook app. You know what I mean? But I definitely think it's the way to live by, but can, can I bring something up within the last three minutes? So four weeks ago or three weeks ago, Sean told me about a book called Happy Body. And I told, I was with Neville and Noah last week or two weeks ago. And I was like, yeah, I, Sean told me about this book. I'm going to buy it. And Neville was like, oh, I have it upstairs. Let me go grab it for you. He gave it to me, then he gave it and then Noah was like, wait, what's this book? And I think he ended up buying it. I've been doing those exercises in that book. I feel great. Have you guys been doing that?

• 47:30Noah Kagan?

  So basically it's like, I just got the book yesterday, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

• 47:34Sam Parr?

  Oh my God, my, basically I'm, what I'm realizing in, is, uh, I, on this podcast said I had scoliosis and I had like, 30 or 40 people reach out to me, say they also have scoliosis. And so then I started doing this book to help fix it. It's been awesome. My back feels so much better. Has your back feel better, Sean?

• 47:55Shaan Puri?

  I never had back pain, so I wasn't doing it for that. I just like, I read the philosophy and I was like, oh, I vibe with this. Like, this makes sense to me. I don't feel like I'm being sold to, I think this, this seems like one of those like fundamental truths about the way your body works and how you should like sort of tune it. And so I started to like it, but I haven't been like doing all of those exercises. I've been swimming a bunch, but like I haven't been doing those exercises in there. But yeah, if your, if your back hurts, give it a shot. You know, like back pain is one of those like, you know, quality of life ruiners if you have it. And so, you know, you just gotta try fucking everything if you have back pain.

• 48:31Sam Parr?

  Well, Noah was talking about getting older and trying to feel younger. And before this podcast, he took his shirt off and showed me his body and.

• 48:37Noah Kagan?

  That's what we do. That's what real friends do.

• 48:40Sam Parr?

  But golly, this thing has totally made a difference. We aren't getting, I'm not getting paid to say this, but that shit's awesome.

• 48:46Shaan Puri?

  Alright, so Noah, let's ask you then, what has been the, the best either decision, purchase, change, like that has lifted your quality of life on a day to day basis that you've done, you know, in the, that comes to mind, recent memory?

• 48:59Noah Kagan?

  Uh, I think there's probably about, I'll say three and then I gotta jump off. So number one, buying my Tesla. I think it's not about the Tesla, but I think it's about, I think we're conditioned that like materialism is evil. And I think it's more about, is there ways that we could use money to make our lives better? So I think that's been really powerful for me to like, wow, really enjoy something versus getting the cheaper like, I like Miata's and I have a Miata in the backyard. But it's like nice to have something amazing. And I wonder what else in my life can I have that would be amazing? And that I can also be amazing because I think it's something to say about what does your stuff say about you? I think the second thing I would think about is journaling.

• 49:37Noah Kagan?

  Right? So I've been using Bear app. I think one of the, you guys asked for three business opportunities. One of them is technology advisor. There's so much new tech, new cameras, new everything. Like I think you can go make a lot of money coaching people and teaching.

• 49:46Sam Parr?

  How do you spell Bear, Bear app?

• 49:48Noah Kagan?

  Bear.app or Bear app notes. I've really enjoyed every, I literally journal five days a week. Um, and it's been really helpful to understand myself better and learn my interests and motivations and fears and all this stuff. And then.

• 50:03Noah Kagan?

  That, that, those two have definitely been powerful. I'm trying to think of the third thing that's really, and I think the third thing that for me has really changed my life is observing where I'm living and how much my space affects my energy. So I've been renting Airbnbs and I'm going to be moving because I'm like, you know, there's something there about your space and how much it can impact you professionally and personally. Guys, I gotta go. I love you guys. AppSumo.com.

• 50:26Sam Parr?

  Thank you, Sean. Let's stay on, but Noah, let's come back again and actually talk about some business stuff because this is awesome. And I also want to do the other thing. Thank you. Have a good day.

• 50:34Noah Kagan?

  All right, guys. You too. Thanks, Sean. Bye.

• 50:37Sam Parr?

  You want to talk about anything Noah said, Sean?

• 50:41Shaan Puri?

  Uh, you know, a lot of it is really relevant to me because I think the things he's talking about, like the thing he spent like, I don't know, 15 years doing now is building up this audience, this, uh, like putting out great content that's going to help people and like distills down his wisdom. Like, okay, if I learn something, the act of me trying to teach it to somebody else will help me learn it better. I think that's the vibe I get from him. That's what I want to do. That's what I find most enjoyable in my life anyways. So personally, I thought that stuff was interesting. If you're not trying to be a content creator, I don't know how useful that part will be for people, but honestly, these are pretty universal, like, just like tactics to get shit done and get shit out there. Um, and like be an action person. And so, yeah, I like, I like his message around

• 51:24Shaan Puri?

  being an action person. I wish we'd gone into ideas because I think he is a kind of an idea starter, like he said.

• 51:29Sam Parr?

  I'll actually bring up something that he mentioned that is not related to any of this Help Help stuff, which I enjoy. But, uh, so he talked about his space and buying a nice car. So I think, uh, I just spent three weeks in, living in Austin. I think I'm gonna, uh, give up my place in San Francisco. I'm gonna spend, um, four to eight weeks in different cities and see what happens. So I'm gonna buy a car. I don't know what type of car I should buy, but I'm gonna buy a nice car and I'm gonna drive all over the country.

• 51:59Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's great. I uh, I'm all, I'm all for it.

• 52:02Sam Parr?

  I want to ask your opinion on that, but also to the listeners, if you want to rent my apartment, I'll give it to you for six months. It's four K a month. I live in Glen Park. It's a lovely neighborhood. And it's furnished and I have a gym here, a home gym, a really nice one. So uh, message me on Twitter if you want to rent it. Otherwise I'm going to give it up and I don't want to, but.

• 52:21Shaan Puri?

  Dude, you should charge a premium. This is rent, sleep in Sampar's bed for eight K a month. Actually, you know, get that good, good juju.

• 52:28Sam Parr?

  Yeah, no, there is no pre, maybe I should fuck. I just blew my.

• 52:32Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 52:32Sam Parr?

  I pay for it.

• 52:33Shaan Puri?

  He's willing to accept four guys. He's willing to accept four.

• 52:37Sam Parr?

  I just blew my, no, I, I wasn't going to make money on it. I just, you just covered the expenses. Um, I, Austin's amazing. More people should, I don't know what, sometimes I'm like, it's way better there.

• 52:50Shaan Puri?

  So a couple of years ago, I made a decision to do something similar, uh, where I was like, I was sitting in San Francisco and I was like, why am I just here all the time? Like life is so big, the world is so big. And so, um, so I told my girlfriend at the time and I was like, let's go, uh, you know, now my wife, but at the time we were just dating, I think. And I was like, let's go live in South America for the next six weeks. Um, and like, I'll just work from there, but like, let's just go pick a cool city that we are not going to live in long-term. I don't want to move, but I want to go live there. And I was like, wait a minute, I can live there without moving. And the way that San Francisco works is like an arbitrage where you can Airbnb your house or your apartment and you could make more, you could literally live for free somewhere else in the world.

• 53:32Shaan Puri?

  You know, get a free vacation. So that's what I did. I went for five or six weeks. Uh, we lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina and, um, and we just lived there like a local, not like, or not exactly like a local, kind of like a expat, but it was better than trap, wasn't a vacation. It wasn't like go, sightsee, take a bunch of photos and leave after five days. It was like, okay, we're going to live here. Like what's the coffee shop we should go to? How do we get groceries? Uh, and like, that was just a way better experience. I was like, I'm going to do this every year. Um, but then one year was like, oh, we're getting married and then I had a kid and now I don't know when I'm going to do it.

• 54:05Sam Parr?

  So wait, but you did do it.

• 54:07Shaan Puri?

  I did do it for one year and I plan to do it again this year now that uh my my child is a little bit older. I think we can go do it now because she's almost a year old, so I'll do it again.

• 54:19Sam Parr?

  So my logic is I'm only going to go to places I can drive to for two reasons. One Corona and two, my dog, who I I consider part of my family, I he's old and um I would not want to leave him behind. And uh I don't know if you can bring a dog, you could probably bring a dog to some European countries. But like in a lot of places, they have like a three week quarantine.

• 54:41Shaan Puri?

  Right, but you could get to Canada, you could get to Mexico, that's cool.

• 54:44Sam Parr?

  Well, so I would move to Mexico City in a heartbeat. Have you been there?

• 54:49Shaan Puri?

  Uh, I've never been, but everybody who I know says the same thing. It's like amazing.

• 54:53Sam Parr?

  It's amazing. Like I remember I was there when Trump was just getting elected and he was talking about the wall. And I I was in like a hipster neighborhood and I asked my barber, I go, what do you think about this Trump guy talking about this wall? He goes, I don't give a fuck about what he says like I want, he goes, yeah, build the wall. That will keep you guys from coming in. This is amazing here. We're not trying to go to America. And I was like, oh, man, you've just broken all these stupid stereotypes I've had in my head. Thank you. So and and so, yeah, they're going to need a wall to keep me out of Mexico City because that place is lovely. So I would totally want to live there. Um, the Mexicans were awesome people. I love the neighborhoods, but Corona, I'm nervous about Corona at the moment.

• 55:30Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, Corona and before this it was uh, what's it called Zika? Uh, which like people didn't really care about, but Zika scary as shit, especially if you're like, we were gonna have a kid. We knew that and Zika like basically you can become a carrier for a year or so and pass it to your baby. So that was like a scary thing. So that's what that killed it one year. And now Corona, it's like, I don't know when I'm going to do it, but I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to do Canada because I trust the Canadians around Corona.

• 55:54Sam Parr?

  Where Vancouver?

• 55:56Shaan Puri?

  Vancouver, somewhere remote, who knows?

• 55:59Sam Parr?

  Cause like, but like, why would you do remote Canada when it's like the same shit as like Montana, isn't it?

• 56:05Shaan Puri?

  I also don't, I I also would go to Montana, man. Montana's cool too, but uh, you know, I don't, I don't mind that. That's a change of pace.

• 56:12Sam Parr?

  What car should I buy? Should I do this in a F-150 truck? Should I do this in a Subaru that I like put off-road tires on? What should I buy? I thought about a Tesla. Well, that doesn't come out till 2021 and I want to leave in August.

• 56:27Shaan Puri?

  You could do, uh, you could do the S Tesla SUV or you could do the F-150. I think that would be hilarious. Uh, although that's kind of cramped and not the, not the most ideal. Why not?

• 56:36Sam Parr?

  No, an F-150 is four door. You can get a four door, uh, but a cyber or a Tesla would be fucking horrible, wouldn't it? For a 3,000 mile trip?

• 56:44Shaan Puri?

  Why?

• 56:46Sam Parr?

  Cause like, wouldn't you have to pull over every, every 300 miles for an hour?

• 56:53Shaan Puri?

  Uh, the superchargers are pretty fast and it goes like, I think the, the new ones or whatever go like 600 miles or something crazy.

• 57:01Sam Parr?

  It's interesting. Maybe I would do that.

• 57:04Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Do it. Definitely do it in something that is not your usual.

• 57:08Sam Parr?

  Well, that's what Noah said that inspired me. I was like, I'm not gonna penny pitch. I'm gonna buy the nice shit that I want.

• 57:13Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. You're just waiting for, you're just waiting for somebody to be like, you know what's cool? Buying cool shit.

• 57:18Sam Parr?

  Cause I'm always.

• 57:19Shaan Puri?

  That's right. That resonated with me too.

• 57:22Sam Parr?

  I'm always doing like penny pitching shit. Um, so I need to step that up. Um. You want to go over anything else?

• 57:31Shaan Puri?

  Uh, I have a bunch of ideas that I added to the thing, but I feel like we should just do, uh, like an episode about it, like a full episode about those ideas. So I think we should keep this one kind of Noah and then, um. Yeah, I have a bunch, but it would be like an hour.

• 57:45Sam Parr?

  Okay. I have a bunch too. They range from interactive email to, uh, I have a bunch of ideas around privacy stuff that fascinate me a ton and, uh, Corona stuff. Someone's got to create the organic label, but for like, is your restaurant Corona clean?

• 58:01Shaan Puri?

  Oh yeah. Yeah. Like the, um, it's like the, you know, the health score, but it like this time specifically branded around Corona hygiene.

• 58:09Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So that's what I'm going to bring up. What are you going to bring up?

• 58:11Shaan Puri?

  Okay. I'm just going to read you some of my quick, uh, notes that I had here. Uh, one is called Scott Galloway being super wrong. Another one is.

• 58:19Sam Parr?

  I know exactly where you're going with that and I'm very interested.

• 58:22Shaan Puri?

  Another one is scams that I found interesting. Uh, and I have four examples of scams that I found interesting. Another one is WikiLeaks for creeps because, uh, Chris Delia turned out to be a creep. Um, and then another one is how the 37 signals guys are marketing their new thing. Hey.com. I think it's pretty interesting how they're going about that. And then I have a bunch of startup ideas, um, that are around, ones around baseball cards, ones around, yeah, I got a bunch of ideas. So we have, we got a lot, lot to come.

• 58:52Sam Parr?

  Great. I am interested in all those, particularly the Scott Galloway one and the hay.com thing, which I think is actually going to be a hu- huge business.

• 59:01Shaan Puri?

  I just downloaded it. Have you used it?

• 59:04Sam Parr?

  No.

• 59:05Shaan Puri?

  Alright, I'll tell you. If you didn't like Superhuman, you may not like this either, but I just downloaded it.

• 59:09Sam Parr?

  Thumbs up or thumbs down?

• 59:11Shaan Puri?

  I'm like 10 minutes into the onboarding, but I'm also like thumbs down so far, but I really like those guys. Um, so I'm like, just let me try it. Actually, I wouldn't say I've given it a fair shake yet, but the onboarding so far, I'm not sold.

• 59:25Sam Parr?

  I'm in the same boat, but I understand why many people will like it.

• 59:29Shaan Puri?

  Right. Uh, okay. We should, we should, uh, jet here.

• 59:32Sam Parr?

  Leave us a review. Tell us what you think. Tweet at us, whatever. We'll talk to you all soon.