Noah Kagan (@noahkagan) was #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint, and has since created seven million-dollar businesses (Kickflip/Gambit, AppSumo, KingSumo, SendFox, Sumo, TidyCal, and Monthly1k).

He is the CEO of AppSumo.com, the #1 software-deals site for entrepreneurs, and has a popular YouTube channel, Noah Kagan. 

His new book is Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 1B+ users; Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating; and Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required.

Go to shopify.com/Tim to sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting shopify.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

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This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.

Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 900 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Want to hear the last time Noah Kagan was on the show? Listen to our conversation here in which we discussed favorite tools, fitness routines, important but undervalued education, business rules, bedding recommendations, the coffee challenge, writing style game changers, and much more.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Official Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook

• Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours by Noah Kagan | Amazon
• Book’s Official Website | MillionDollarWeekend.com
• Browse Software Deals for Your Business | AppSumo.com
• How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (Examples: AppSumo, Mint, Chihuahuas) by Noah Kagan | Tim Ferriss
• How Facebook’s #30 Employee Quickly Built 4 Businesses and Gained 40 Pounds with Weight Training | The Tim Ferriss Show #75
• Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs | Tim Ferriss
• How to Say No When It Matters Most (or “Why I’m Taking a Long ‘Startup Vacation’”) | Tim Ferriss
• Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs by Ryan Holiday | Tim Ferriss
• Austin vs. Barcelona: What is the Difference? | Versus
• Official Podcast for Location Independent Entrepreneurs | Tropical MBA
• Ready Player One | Prime Video
• Block 185, Austin’s New ‘Google Tower,’ Officially Topped Out Downtown | Towers
• How Austin Became The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Capital of the World | Community Impact
• Austin’s Premier Comedy Club | Comedy Mothership
• Feel At Home Wherever You Go | Ukio
• Austin, TX | Uchi Japanese Restaurant
• 13 Best Weekend Trips from Barcelona in 2024 by a Local | Barcelona Uncovered
• Digital Nomad Visa | Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Unión Europea y Cooperación
• What is Pareja de Hecho in Spain? | Sterna Abogados
• These Countries Will Grant Americans Citizenship Based On Their Ancestry | Forbes
• Benefits of Immigration Outweigh the Costs | George W. Bush Presidential Center
• 90 Day Fiancé | Prime Video
• AppSumo Org Chart | The Org
• What Is a Chargeback? Definition, How to Dispute, and Example | Investopedia
• Snatch | Prime Video
• Recession Proof: How to Create a Survival Plan (So You Can Maintain Confidence) | Mixergy
• Noah’s Coffee Challenge and Flexing Your Courage Muscle | Life-Long Learner
• Tim Ferriss Quote About Life Punishing the Vague Request | D. Brown Management
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | Amazon
• Ed Zschau — The Polymath Professor Who Changed My Life | The Tim Ferriss Show #380
• Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations by William Ury | Amazon
• The Tim Ferriss Experiment | IMDb
• Automation That Moves You Forward | Zapier
• The Data Cloud | Snowflake
• What is Average Order Value (AOV)? | BigCommerce
• Key Performance Indicator (KPI) | Investopedia
• We Give Startups a Disproportionate Advantage | Y Combinator
• 80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle) | Investopedia
• How Does Uber Do Performance Management? | PerformYard
• Andrew Chen — Metaverse, Metrics, and Meerkats | The Tim Ferriss Show #550
• Google Forms: Online Form Creator | Google Workspace
• The Leading People Success Platform | Lattice
• Google Sheets: Online Spreadsheet Editor | Google Workspace
• How I Turned $300 Into $5 Billion (w/John Paul DeJoria) | Noah Kagan Presents
• How to Start a Billion Dollar “Boring” Business (w/Paul Orfalea) | Noah Kagan Presents
• From Refugee to Billionaire (w/Andrew Viterbi) | Noah Kagan Presents
• How to Be a Blue Collar Millionaire (w/Larry Janesky) | Noah Kagan Presents
• Oil Tankers and Billion-Dollar Investments (w/Michael S. Hudner) | Noah Kagan Presents
• John Paul DeJoria — From Homelessness to Building Paul Mitchell and Patrón Tequila | The Tim Ferriss Show #441
• Glengarry Glen Ross | Prime Video
• “Always Be Closing” Clip | Glengarry Glen Ross
• How to Build a World-Class Network in Record Time | The Tim Ferriss Show #99
• SXSW Conference & Festivals
• The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss | Amazon
• The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss | Amazon
• How to Say “No” When It Matters Most (or “Why I’m Taking a Long ‘Startup Vacation’”) | Tim Ferriss
• Red Ocean Strategy vs. Blue Ocean Strategy I Blue Ocean Strategy
• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne | Amazon
• The Boy and the Heron Official English Trailer | GKIDS Films
• How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino | Amazon
• The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch | Amazon
• Jamie Foxx on Workout Routines, Success Habits, and Untold Hollywood Stories | The Tim Ferriss Show #124
• Jamie Foxx Part 2 – Bringing the Thunder | The Tim Ferriss Show #167
• Tim Ferriss Interviews Arnold Schwarzenegger on Psychological Warfare (And Much More) | The Tim Ferriss Show #60
• Arnold Schwarzenegger Part 2! Bodybuilding, Investing, and Online Battles | The Tim Ferriss Show #216
• Be Useful — Arnold Schwarzenegger on 7 Tools for Life, Thinking Big, Building Resilience, Processing Grief, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #696
• 2023 Writers Guild of America Strike | Wikipedia
• How to Learn Any Language in Three Months | Tim Ferriss
• Investor Relations | Duolingo, Inc.
• 10 Best Films That Tackle Toxic Influencer Culture | Screen Rant
• Email Newsletter by Tim Ferriss | 5-Bullet Friday
• Legit Work-from-Home Jobs | Hire My Mom
• How to Be a Trillionaire | Shirtless Noah Kagan
• How to Peel Hard-Boiled Eggs without Peeling | Tim Ferriss
• The Making of Godzilla Pinball | Stern Pinball
• Mr. Money Mustache — Living Beautifully on $25-27K Per Year | The Tim Ferriss Show #221
• Handcrafted Tacos Across Texas | Tacodeli
• My Ayahuasca Experience — The Worst Night of My Life | Noah Kagan
• The One-Minute Startup Pitch Template | Founder Institute
• Noah Kagan’s YouTube Growth Hacks | The School of Growth Hacking
• A Beginner’s Guide: How to Rent Your Ideas to Fortune 500 Companies with Stephen Key | Tim Ferriss
• Joe Gebbia — Co-Founder of Airbnb | The Tim Ferriss Show #301
• How to Increase Your Luck Surface Area | Codus Operandi
• Rent/Buy Textbooks | Chegg
• Marketing Automation for Email Marketing, SMS, and CDP | Klaviyo
• Explore What the World Is Searching | Google Trends
• ChatGPT Suggests 10 Business Ideas That Will Make You $100K | Yahoo! Finance
• How I Made $1k in 24 Hours — Sumo Jerky | Noah Kagan
• How Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Reflected in AppSumo’s Platform — And People | Built In
• The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: How I Built The Tim Ferriss Show to 700+ Million Downloads — An Immersive Explanation of All Aspects and Key Decisions (Featuring Chris Hutchins) | The Tim Ferriss Show #538
• Climbing, Yoga, and Fitness | Mesa Rim Austin
• Thomas Sowell: “There Are No Solutions. There Are Only Trade-Offs.” | GoodReads
• Money Dials: How You Spend and Why | I Will Teach You to Be Rich
• I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No B.S. Just a 6-Week Program That Works by Ramit Sethi | Amazon
• After a Two-Year Delay, Deliveries of Tesla’s Cybertruck Began Thursday | NPR
• The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies by Chet Holmes and Amanda Holmes | Amazon
• The Story of the Dream 100 Strategy | Chet Holmes International
• Up: Meet Dug | Disney Pixar UK
• Up | Prime Video
• Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss | Amazon
• Seth Godin on How to Think Small to Go Big | The Tim Ferriss Show #177
• The Magic of the Internet | Imgur
• Redditor: A Fascinating Comprehensive Guide | DotCom Magazine
• A Century of Breakfast Tradition | Pork Store Cafe San Francisco
• Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Brian Chesky of Airbnb, and How to Scale to 100M+ Users | The Tim Ferriss Show #326
• Why Tim Ferriss Sold His Muse | Inc.com
• Asking Millionaires How to Make $1,000,000 | Noah Kagan
• Hobbes’ Moral and Political Philosophy | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Starbucks: The Early Years | HistoryLink
• Why I’m Stopping the Fan-Supported Podcast Experiment | Tim Ferriss
• 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly | The Technium
• The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout | Amazon
• The Law of the Category | Niklas Rosenberg
• Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferriss | Amazon
• Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Podcast
• Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin E. P. Seligman | Amazon
• There Are Only Four Times You Should Agree to Work for Free | Inc.com
• Opening the Kimono Event | Tim Ferriss
• The Finals: Scholarship for Opening the Kimono | Tim Ferriss
• Experiencing the “Tim Ferriss Effect” and Getting $1.2M in Funding | The Ecommerce Influence Podcast
• Premium and 100% Grass-Fed Bone Broth | Kettle & Fire
• The Ultimate Landing Page Best Practices Guide | AppSumo Blog
• Classified Advertisements | Craigslist
• The History of CrossFit | Anabel Ávila
• Wirehog, Zuckerberg’s Side Project That Almost Killed Facebook | TechCrunch
• How Mark Zuckerberg Battled the Winklevoss Twins Over a $65 Million Facebook Settlement | Vanity Fair
• From the Garage to the Googleplex | Google
• Microsoft Moves from New Mexico to Bellevue on January 1, 1979 | HistoryLink
• Backpacks Under $20 | Amazon
• Schotten Totten 2: License to Kilt! | Amazon
• Tacocat Spelled Backwards | Amazon
• Paleo-Keto Friendly Hydration | LMNT
• Zwilling J.A. Henckels Ultra-Slim Nail Clipper | Amazon
• A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller | Amazon
• Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer | The Tim Ferriss Show #522
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott | Amazon
• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron | Amazon
• 10 Random Gifts That Please Almost Everyone | Tim Ferriss
• Flingshot Flying Monkey Plush Toy | Amazon
• Pilot G2 Premium Gel Roller Pens, Ultra Fine Point 0.38 mm, Pack of 12, Blue | Amazon
• 11 Reasons Not to Become Famous (or “A Few Lessons Learned Since 2007”) | Tim Ferriss
• ‘Squid Game’ Has Transformed What It Means to Go Viral | Protocol
• Squid Game | Netflix
• The Rise of Trash TV: Jerry Springer | SBS Viceland
• Five Proven Ways to Grow Your Email List Using YouTube | AWeber
• Async Video Messaging for Work | Loom
• #1 in Electronic Signature and Contract Lifecycle Management | DocuSign
• Start a Business (How to Use DEAL) | The Tim Ferriss Experiment
• How I Filled My Event in 48 Hours: My Experience with Tim Ferriss by Cindy Manit | Facebook
• How to Create a $4,000 Per Month Muse in 5 Days (Plus: How to Get Me As Your Mentor) by Noah Kagan | Tim Ferriss

SHOW NOTES

• [03:55] Noah and some of his notable successes.
• [07:00] Is Barcelona the new Austin?
• [13:43] Navigating the legal hurdles to living/working in another country.
• [17:44] Running an $80 million business.
• [20:41] Noah’s negotiating basics.
• [24:33] The chargeback maneuver.
• [27:02] WIIFT (What’s In It For Them?)
• [29:54] A recap of the coffee challenge.
• [31:31] “Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask.”
• [34:12] Other comfort challenges Noah recommends.
• [39:12] Feedback is a gift.
• [42:26] When comfort challenges aren’t appropriate.
• [45:33] LOT (Listen, Options, Transition).
• [46:59] Tracking metrics that matter.
• [52:17] T3 B3 (Top Three, Bottom Three).
• [59:46] Weekly reviews.
• [1:02:42] The value of unambitious goals.
• [1:06:51] Regrets of billionaires.
• [1:13:32] My approach to book launches: then and now.
• [1:26:50] Priorities: then and now.
• [1:43:19] Finding a sustainable purpose.
• [1:49:42] Do I still find my past work useful today?
• [1:52:44] Testing the waters with new hires.
• [1:55:22] Don’t forget to look in the rear-view mirror sometimes.
• [1:56:23] Why should you trust Noah’s advice in Million Dollar Weekend?
• [1:59:47] Now, not how.
• [2:03:18] What’s your freedom number?
• [2:03:59] Getting your ask in gear.
• [2:05:09] Counterintuitively, constraints catalyze creativity.
• [2:08:17] Turning annoyance into opportunity.
• [2:11:21] Determining if your intended market has value.
• [2:14:12] Most profitable, elegant businesses are simple at their core.
• [2:14:57] Entrepreneurs rise from the ashes of fired employees.
• [2:17:14] Why you should start a podcast or business.
• [2:18:18] “No solutions, only trade-offs.”
• [2:19:01] Putting the idea to the test.
• [2:22:52] Are you making this harder than it needs to be?
• [2:24:09] The Dream 10 as a test for market viability — and your commitment.
• [2:27:07] Rejection as teacher.
• [2:27:58] Deliver on promises before worrying about scaling up.
• [2:32:01] The three Ws: what, who, and where?
• [2:33:04] The AppSumo origin story.
• [2:36:24] Early high-touch community building and scaling considerations.
• [2:38:29] The BrainQUICKENing.
• [2:42:43] Finding underserved opportunities.
• [2:44:48] Initiate correspondence with humility.
• [2:48:12] Little ask, big ask.
• [2:48:56] How do I handle rejection?
• [2:51:18] Revisiting the Law of Category.
• [2:56:16] How Noah handled a recent rejection.
• [2:57:28] Dating circa now and learning optimism.
• [2:59:18] How Pat seized opportunity in Poland.
• [3:00:36] Free work?
• [3:04:35] Behind the scenes of my Opening the Kimono event.
• [3:12:02] Making sponsorship deals win/win.
• [3:15:47] Streamlining business idea validation.
• [3:19:42] Unorthodox simplicity.
• [3:22:02] Better to be chased for money than chasing it.
• [3:23:45] Best holiday purchases for under $50.
• [3:31:28] Is competing for attention on YouTube worth my time and sanity?
• [3:39:55] Low-effort, high-reward YouTube experiments.
• [3:45:21] Lessons learned from spending more than a million dollars on coaching.
• [3:53:01] Benefits of the board.
• [3:53:35] How to take on the 48-hour challenge.
• [3:56:00] What’s the DEAL with Cindy 10 years after meeting Noah and me?
• [4:00:34] Parting thoughts.

MORE NOAH KAGAN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“That’s why I left SF — I wanted to live. I’m not here just to work all day, and that’s why I’m in Barcelona. I want to have a good balance of enjoying life and making money the way I want.”
— Noah Kagan

“Get off the emotion and get to the solution.”
— Noah Kagan

“You say your ask or your number and you shut up. That’s it. … That is the power move.”
— Noah Kagan

“That’s all this whole life is, is asking people things. And if you ask, guess what? You can get.”
— Noah Kagan

“One of the misconceptions in sales is that we’re harassing or bothering people, when maybe it’s actually a good thing and people need to maybe reconsider their perception of what a sale is.”
— Noah Kagan

“Over time, I’ve realized that challenging respectfully is very healthy.”
— Noah Kagan

“I think people confuse inaction with patience.”
— Noah Kagan

“Don’t trust any business author, I would say, that’s gotten rich from their book or their course.”
— Noah Kagan

“Getting rejected is an opportunity to learn.”
— Noah Kagan

“In sales, I do this all the time. I’ll just say, ‘I just want to learn.’ That’s my first phrase. Second phrase is, ‘You didn’t want this? Just tell me why not. I want to learn.’ People will reply and they’ll tell you.”
— Noah Kagan

“Business, really, it’s three Ws. It’s what’s a problem you’re solving that people care about, who are those people, and where are they?”
— Noah Kagan

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Related and Recommended

The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than 900 million downloads. It has been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it’s been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.