322: Noah Kagan - Early Stage Founder Hurdles & How to Jump Them

Arvid Kahl
Noah Kagan founded Appsumo, which is now a hundred million dollar business. He's been helping founders find their million dollar ideas while building his own businesses in public. Today, you will learn from one of the best. This episode is sponsored by acquire.com. more on that later.

Now, here is Noah, a man who, besides all of his entrepreneurial skill, is obsessed with one particular kind of food. Noah, you wrote an amazing and very insightful book in the million dollar weekend. I've read it. It's spectacular. It's super instructive too, for people at early stages, later stages, for everybody who wants something out of, you know, their entrepreneurial journey.

I love it. And you mentioned in the book that you're really good at getting started without overthinking stuff. And more importantly, that you can eat a crazy number of tacos. And then you talk about your business ideas, selling limited edition poster of local tacos. And then you write about your taco shirt.

Let me know, like, how many of your business ideas are ultimately taco related? There's a lot. I literally just landed. I got back from Mexico. I was on a taco tour.

Noah Kagan
Of course, it's not like a marketing, I don't know, I just, they're really good. But yeah, a lot of our, we have a site we just launched called fivetaco.com comma, which is like a directory for software tools like Podscan on Appsumo. Our rating system is tacos, not stars. That's how it's been for a decade. I don't know.

It's been a fun thing. I like the taco. I love that you just lean into something you like. You know, that to me is like one core tenet of successful entrepreneurship. It's like going to do things that you like, that you care about, that you need, and then expanding this into your world.

Arvid Kahl
And I love this about appsumo, too. I think you mentioned this in the book somewhere that somebody told you at some point, oh, yeah, it needs to be more corporate, it needs to be less quirky. And then you reflected on that and was like, does it really like, you know, can we just do the thing we want to do? Are we the arbiters of our own choices? Like, how do you deal with this kind of stuff, this kind of external pressure to make things more streamlined that other people think you should be doing?

Noah Kagan
Yeah, I think the big takeaway for a lot of the people is, it's supposed to be fun, actually. I think we create this big, scary entrepreneurship monster. Like, oh, I've got to build it in public, and I've got to launch on indie hackers if I don't make it on Appsumo, or if I don't make it on product hunt. And really, it's like, okay, what's the fun problem? I'm excited to work on, and hopefully other people are excited to give me money to work on this problem.

How amazing is that? I think over time, though, we either have created such a big, scary experience about that, or as we've gotten businesses going, we kind of forget the fun. And the greatest part about life is that you're in control so you can start making these changes to say, like, hey, I don't like my podcast. Great, change it. Hey, I didn't like these podskin.

Hey, I really wanted this thing. Great. Make it. And I think more people should be enjoying the up and down of this entrepreneurship experience. Yeah.

Arvid Kahl
Realizing that ups and downs are both kind of moves forward like any that it's actually a progressive move, either if it's good or bad, like in the traditional sense. I think that's hard because most of us come from an employment situation. Most of us are engineers or designers or they work in marketing. They are working for somebody. And if you're employed, the best way to survive is to kind of keep your head down, do the thing you're asked to do.

Don't take risks. And then you have to do this mental switch if you want to be entrepreneurial. And then you say this so much. Like, every single chapter in the book is really about you telling people to lean into discomfort, like, every single time. Like, enjoy asking, enjoy rejection.

Like, do these make these rejection goals? Like, get as many rejections as you can. All of this stuff is leaning into discomfort, which for an employee, that's not what you want. You want success at every single point. So how do we reframe ourselves or our perception of stuff?

Because a lot of people listening to this are just on the verge, just on the verge of quitting their job, but they still are afraid to fail in public in front of others. How can we convince ourselves that that's a good idea? Yeah, I like the idea that confidence is built through evidence. Confidence is built through evidence. And in entrepreneurship, it is the idea that you, through evidence, are building confidence in doing something yourself.

Noah Kagan
And I don't think you have to actually be risky or worry about failure as such a negative thing. So, one, I've always believed you get to your freedom number, which is the amount you need to quit your job, and then you make that decision. Some people keep both. Some people are like my wife, quitterjob.com Steve Chu, he had a six figure job that he loved, and he had a seven figure side hustle.

When you think about rejection and failure, that's why in the book we talk about rejection goals and reframing it maybe as a positive thing. A lot of the things that we are still doing, and I see people doing is that rejection or that failure led them to the right place and looking at it as a learning opportunity. When we do things at Appsumo, we launched a coupon recently and it didn't work. And then the team's like, okay, well, how come? And it was okay, it failed.

And people were kind of disappointed. And then we understood it was more because it was a credit, not a coupon. Redid it, relaunched it, now it's working. And that's kind of true for a lot of these, the biggest business in the world, you look at them, they're trying, they're trying, and each of that is actually getting them to the point. But what people struggle with is in that moment when it's the failure or people see it fail, they're like, oh, but that actually is getting you to the place you want to be going.

And what I've seen from success is this mentality of just not yet. It's like, I'm going to get there. Just not yet. I haven't gotten there yet. And if you can just keep that for yourself, and it's okay to feel disappointed.

It's okay to feel frustrated. But everyone loves a hero's journey. Everyone loves a success story. And so if you fail in public, people actually like, I saw this guy recently, Steven de Wim. He like, yeah, I've been failing.

And then he's actually now getting more attention about his failing. And now people are rooting for him to succeed. And I think a lot of us want that. A lot of. A lot of people are excited to see that.

Arvid Kahl
Yeah, for sure. And it builds something that transcends the success of any individual business. Right? It's like with you, you had some things that didn't work out. Talking about the taco situation, the shirt also turned into something, but it's not a million dollar idea, but it's something you did.

And, you know, it's part of the journey, and it becomes fuel for other people to kind of be able to relate to you in this, in this way. You built this personal brand in front of people that through success and failure, just gets better and better and more insightful over time. So that's. That's something that I've noticed. I've noticed in all these people building in public, no matter if it works or not, like, their reputation in the community just keeps on growing.

Noah Kagan
Well, it's funny. I've posted maybe two or three times how much money I lose in real estate. I, like, suck in real estate. I've lost hundreds of thousands, literally cash. And I think I'm one of the few people that's, like, publicly sharing how much I'm losing.

And people love it. People are like, yeah, dude, one, you suck. But I think people are like, yeah, thank you for sharing that story. And, you know, I think from a building public perspective, just sharing the story is good and bad. I think the good.

The good is, like, people are happy for it, but really, the bad makes you relatable. And I think in business, what I'm observing is we. We'll frequent people more, we'll support people more, we like people more, we'll spend more if we know their story. And so, even with you, Arvid, I've started to see more of your story. You're starting to share more, your story, and then as that comes out there, people are like, wow, I want him to win.

And I would encourage people to think about, it's okay if you share positives and some of these negatives. I actually shared my Facebook firing story maybe 15 years ago. Mostly is just therapy, actually. I was really embarrassed and ashamed, and I felt really disappointed in myself. But when I shared it, I think a lot of people felt seen.

A lot of people said, hey, I've been fired, or I've been let go. And appreciate you putting yourself out there. Yeah. You just create something for people to relate to, and you leave evidence of your ambition along the way. Right.

Arvid Kahl
Getting fired from Facebook must have sucked, but you can now use it to show well. And then I did something really awesome. Right. In spite of it, or maybe because of it or whatever, you can craft something that other people can latch onto. I think that's the magic.

That's the magic of your journey. I feel like you are just so honest, so brutally honest with yourself, that it just spills into being honest with others and doing this in public. I think that's so attractive of that whole journey. Only somebody who is honest with themselves would share this to begin with. Right?

Noah Kagan
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the next versions of building in public is kind of. I think you're doing a good job of it. I think I'm always trying to do it.

It's what? I encourage a million dollar weekend, which is building with the public. So stop building it and telling them about it. Like, have them come in the kitchen, have them come to your house, have them come in your WhatsApp group, have them come in your live chat. And you're really interacting with these people.

And entrepreneurship in its basic elements is helping other people. And you start looking at as like, man, you had these problems and you're excited to give me money to help you with that. Let's hang out and have a good time doing that. And, you know, a lot of these, the failures really do get you to the place, and that's hard when you're trying to launch these. I see a lot of people trying to launch and, you know, I'm trying to launch things that still aren't working.

Arvid Kahl
Oh, for sure. And, you know, these things still don't work. And you're just like, okay, well, it's not working. Great. Why not?

Noah Kagan
And then let's fix that and then keep kind of, you kind of keep going and going and going. And eventually, you know, we launched Breeze Doc, which is a docusign alternative, and it's already on track to be a seven figure business in twelve months. But that's the within our originals team, I think that's our 10th product we've launched in ten years and only the third or fourth one that's actually worked significantly. Yeah. And the magic is to not stop at the 9th.

Arvid Kahl
Right. That's the thing. You just should never stop the experiment because the next one might just be the one that actually succeeds. The thing with business that people don't recognize is that it doesn't discriminate. You could be any gender, you could be in Ottawa, you can be in Germany, you can be in Africa, and you can succeed.

Noah Kagan
And the other thing in business that's amazing about, especially with the Internet, you can do it anywhere. But the thing that's amazing about it is you only need one hit. You literally. Like, Mark Zuckerberg hasn't done anything good since 2004 when he launched Facebook. Like, everything he's done has been bought, right?

He's been bought. He bought Oculus, he bought WhatsApp, he bought Instagram. But I'm just saying, you just need one hit to win, which is an amazing sport. Like, no sport in the world is entrepreneurship. Now, the thing that most people are doing incorrectly, though, is that they don't stay consistent.

They have a win. Like, hey, I launched Podscan. I'm getting $1,000 a month. Yeah, I'm bored. It's like, get bored is sexy.

Not boring businesses, those suck. But bored is sexy. Consistency is sexy. Longevity is sexy. Sustainability is sexy.

And if you can either do it yourself or find someone to do it or find software to do it, that's how you really create compounded success. My millions came because of consistency. It didn't come because of one year. It came, I think at year seven for my own personal net worth. That's something I want to encourage people.

If you got something going, most people are like, yeah, I'm going to try something new. It's like, no, no, no, this is great. Run up the score on this. I just met a guy, he's got a two and a half million dollar business doing made scheduling software. Zen made.

Yeah, yeah. I was like, how. How fucking cool is that? What one? It sounds boring as hell to me.

Like, that's awesome. There's so many ways to get rich. So many ways. And you eventually will find that way if, you know, if you. If you get there, not if you get there, you will get there.

But once you get there and you find that there's at least a few customers, I always tell people, three people, three customers, 48 hours, then stick with it or find someone else that can stick with it instead of you. And you know, I think there's going to be a few people, if not one, that will listen to this show Arvid and be thinking, okay, that's me. And that's what gets me excited. Well, I bet a lot of people are currently listening and thinking, three people in 48 hours. But I hate talking to people I don't like to hear.

Arvid Kahl
No, right. That's the thing. Like most people condition, I think also like through the educational systems we step through in our life, we are conditioned not to give false answers or give answers that are questionable. Always do the right thing. And we're conditioned not to speak when we don't know something and we don't want any kind of conflict.

So that is quite the opposite of the reality. When you want to talk to people, when you have to talk to people to learn, to sell, to convince, to just get feedback from. So how can we overcome this? I struggle with this still. And I do customer discovery calls every single week.

I talk to people that use my product and I try to figure out, well, what's your job to be done? How can I help you even more? And sometimes I talk to prospects, what do you need? And all that. And every single time, like, it's weird.

I have interviews like this with you and it's super easy for me. But the moment I have to talk to a customer who I don't really know, it's like, ah, should I, or should I just cancel the call or whatever? How can I overcome this? Yeah. When you do these customer calls, have you made sales on them?

Occasionally, yes. And what's happening there? Well, I asked them if they need it, ask them if they want to buy it, and then they occasionally do, and sometimes they don't. And that's fine, too. I learned something either way, but it's still, I know cognitively it's super necessary to talk to people, and I know how to get something out of them and amp them up.

I've talked to enough people to be able to kind of vibe with them on a call because I also understand that problem, but it still is always this. It's kind of like stage fright for me. Is it for you too? Like, do you feel that, or is it something different? No, it's uncomfortable.

Noah Kagan
It never goes away. But you're a developer. Yeah. When you wrote your first line of code, I'm guessing it's very different than your most recent line of code. And that's the same thing with asking.

That's why, literally, I have a whole chapter dedicated to how do you get better at asking? And it's not something that, you know the first time you do it, you're perfect at it. But it's a skill. It literally is a learnable skill that as you talk to people, I'm guessing what'll happen for you, Arvid, is, let's take Podscan. You start talking to a lot of people, and you notice that when you talk to maybe a business owner or someone who has a book or someone who has another show or whatever it is, you're like, holy crap.

When I talk to german people who live in Mexico, who have agencies, they love my product. And so you'll start finding the person to talk to, and then as you talk to them, it'll change the dynamic. So, you know, a few things that I would also say in there. How you ask makes a difference. So when I've done these videos where I knock on people's doors and ask them what they do for a living, and when I first started it, I would say, hey, so what do you do for a living?

And they're like, why do you have a camera? And who are you? Right? And fast forward. You know, I've been doing this for a few years now.

And now when I go up to their house from the YouTube channel, I say, I love your house. Tell me about the architecture. This is just such a cool house. We're doing a documentary here in Newport beach. Oh, my God.

Let me tell you. By the way, what do you do for a living? Oh, I sell strawberries. Really? Tell me more.

And so, same exact thing, but I'm practicing the ask now. Number two, I think people are not proud of what they've made enough. They're not proud of what they made. And so what I mean by that is, it's not that you have to make it perfect, but are you proud of what you're doing? Are you excited that what you've created, whether it's Podscan dot FM, whether it's breezedoc.com comma, which is our docusign alternative, or even million dollar weekend, I'm excited if I think someone's trying to start a business to get them to.

I'm trying to help them if I think I can really solve a problem, because I'm very proud of what I created. Like, I went to Barnes and Noble two weeks ago, and there was a guy in the business section, and I just got to. I'm like, hey, man, are you looking for a business book? He's like, yeah, you know, what kind of, what are you looking for? He's like, yeah, you know, I'm kind of getting a business.

I don't have any revenue, but I'm trying to get started. I was like, actually, I wrote this book right here on the shelf, and I sold him the book, you know, and. But I think it was also because I'm proud of what I've created, and I truly think it'll, it'll solve his problem. So I think that that's part two. And then I'd say the last thing is you can practice it with the coffee challenge.

That's what I've talked about in the book, which is, how do you practice it in a very safe, kind of sterile environment? You ask for 10% off when you buy coffee, and a few people do it. That's the thing. A lot of people read the book now it's selling well. People are changing their lives from it.

And a few of the people will go do the coffee challenge, and every time they realize how more powerful they are and how the ability of asking for a raise, for a husband, for a wife, for a job, for employment, whatever that is, they can do it. And the fear that we've created around this ask and bugging people is really never as bad as it seems. And the upside of these things like getting a job, having your own, having your own business, having a wife, getting a raise. The upside of these asks is amazing. So using coffee challenge as a skill that you can just use to practice asking.

Arvid Kahl
I love your perspective on asking. As something with unlimited upside, downside is kept at you get rejected like one of many rejections you will face in your life, but upside is unlimited. And I think you talk about this in the growth and the marketing chapter, the last couple pages of the book as well. You just have to try different things and sometimes it takes a while for them to actually kick off. And then it happens.

And then all of a sudden, all the steps that you put into place before they just cumulate or accumulate more value and more opportunity for you along the way. That's kind of what I find. Asking is not just asking a person, it's kind of also kind of allowing yourself to ask for opportunity. You know, that's kind of what I hear under, underneath all of this. It's just kind of enabling yourself to feel like you deserve it.

And then you can actually go out and ask it because like, you know, asking for it, it requires permission sometimes from yourself, and you have to give yourself that right. You know, like, what is that is, you know, I like thinking about it as, can I help this person with their problem? Like all business, whether you're creating software, whether you're service business, whether you're real estate, all these things are what's a problem that this person has? And can I actually help them or not? And some of the best asks or sales is when you say, I can't actually help you.

Noah Kagan
And people are like, really? I'm like, yeah, that's not something I can really do for you. I think you should use this other product and that is something that everyone can do. And you know, if you're an indie hacker launching on indie hackers, or you're starting to build in public, I do think what's highly missed out, probably one of the biggest misses is really messaging and connecting with people one on one. And so again, if you hate people and you're trying to get rich behind your keyboard, it's possible, but just do it in the DM's.

Don't do this video chat shit, you know, like, or do video chat without the faces. Just do it on audio. Or have your AI bot talk to their AI bot. Yeah, I will. You know, I will tell you, I've seen like, there's a guy, Pat, he's featured on the back of million dollar weekend.

He literally just cold. I don't recommend this because I think there's easier ways. But he cold DM'd people. It was like, hey, I've done a lot of YouTube video editing and consulting. Like your videos kind of suck.

Can I help you with them? Just in Instagram DM's and now he, I think last I talked to him, this is a month ago. It's probably bigger now. But he was at $25,000 a month, YouTube consulting business. He's not doing a lot of calls.

He's not doing a lot of like, oh, I've got to go out and do crazy. No, he just kind of messaged people one by one. And I think people are looking to make it too hard on themselves. Like if you have 100 followers on Twitter, you have enough to build a business. Yeah, for sure.

Arvid Kahl
Yeah. Because you have access to everybody on Twitter. You're just one conversation away from it. Right. Like with these DM's in particular.

Noah Kagan
Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of you can. Look, I would just highlight one of the things that you said, arvind, I think is a good point is you're looking for people to raise their hand that you can potentially help them. So hey y'all, I'm working on this idea. Has anyone ever had this problem?

Or here's an image screenshot. You can use canva, you can use Google Slides, you can use all the different AI tools from Appsumo, whatever. Hey, here's someone I'm working on. Does anyone have this problem? And then look for people raising their hand and from there you can actually then just directly follow up individually with those people and say, hey, you had, it sound like you had this problem.

Do you want to pre order it? Like, I did that for our breeze doc product I posted in I'm in a WhatsApp group in Austin. Everyone's in a WhatsApp group. Me too. Or discord.

And I posted like, hey y'all, I'm working on a docusign alternative. I hate docusign. Does anyone here else hate docusign? And a few people raised their hand. They were like, they just did the emoji hand raise and I just dmed them.

I said, hey, working on this product, here's what it's going to be doing. Do you want to pre order it? It was interesting because people were like, yeah, I'm hella excited. I'm very excited. And then they didn't actually want to preorder.

I was like, okay, great, how come? Well, I don't like being a beta user. Okay. Hey, I want to see it out there. Okay.

But the reality was that I also asked other people in other groups who did pre order, and that led us to then eventually launch it with a lot of confidence that now it's on track to be a seven figure business after we had significant pre orders. That's so cool. Also, what I just really want to point out here, you're asking, why not? I think a lot of people stop at the know and then they start to justify internally, I was a bad customer and I shouldn't talk to them. Nothing to gain from this guy.

Arvid Kahl
Not going to pay me money, but they're going to pay you something way more valuable than that. Whatever amount of money a sale could have done at this point, right? They give you reasons. They give you insights, they give you feedback. Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you the phrase I use that crushes, it's, you can just, you just, you say this like, hey, I just want to learn, dot, dot, dot.

Noah Kagan
And most people are happy to reply to you about why, what they want to explain how come they're not making that decision for you, and either, a, you can solve that problem, or b, you now have some better understanding of the right customer, the right problems that you can use. The other thing that's kind of crazy about business. Arvid. So I launched this book, and I had an exclusive webinar for my email list. I said, hey, free, just come hang out.

I'll hang out with you guys for an hour on this webinar. I'm like, hey, who here has bought the book? And it was about 80% of the people. I was like, what's wrong with the 20% of you?

But for people out there, you have to keep repeating your messaging, you have to keep positioning and showing your product multiple times, so many times. And this is my own audience I've built up over decades. And it's always a nice reminder that whether you're doing Podscan or appsumo or whatever you're building out there, you have to say, hey, here's something I worked on today. Here's something I worked on today. One of the things we're doing every week now is on Wednesdays we're saying, hey, here's a crazy thing that's coming out in our newsletter tomorrow.

This is what we're, you can see it on our Twitter, how we're doing this. And it's really good. This is now, like, I think it's two or three. Xing our daily email signups on Noah KAGAN and it's like, oh, I thought everyone's already on the list. No, you have to keep asking your customers.

And if they say, no, hey, I just want to learn. Or if you send an email for people to buy things and they don't buy it, great, ask the opens or the clicks who didn't purchase. Like, hey, you seem like you're interested, what happened here? And they'll tell you, then you could fix it or you learn and improve for the future. Yeah, that, that is a really, really important point.

Arvid Kahl
Like everybody's on their own journey, right? Their own temporal journey. People are wherever. Like they may have started last year, other people have started ten years ago. Some people are going to start next month, right?

Whatever, whatever you want them to do or whatever your audience wants to do. And you will always be exposing whatever you do to this massive group of wildly differently timed people. And I'm doing this every year or so I ask people, hey, do you know I have a newsletter on Twitter and I do a poll and every year it's the same results. Like 30% say, yeah, I know, 20% say, no, I never heard of that before. 50% say, oh, I've been subscribed for years.

It's always the same amount of numbers, it's the same distribution. Never changes. There's always new people coming in and old people graduating away to somebody else that they follow. Like, you have to constantly just expose what you do to people. You're the only person that cares as much about your stuff as you do, right?

Everybody else cares about their stuff. Well, you and your mom, I would say my mom cares a lot about. I think all of our moms care a lot, right? You know, I think there's, there's again coming back to kind of maybe some themes that we're talking about in this conversation. It's also just swings, you know?

Noah Kagan
Like if you increase your swings, you increase your probability of success. And having an email list does make it easier, right? Like you have your own communication channel with audience that can be eventually customers. But I think there's been some people myself, you know, Mark Lu, yourself, other people who are like, yeah, I'm swinging, I'm swinging, I'm swinging. And then there's some admiration, but also for you, you get these learnings.

So again, for people out there, one, get your own email list. Use Sendfox or beehive or convertkit or whatever, Gmail, it's free. And then be swinging. And eventually you find something like Podscan where I guess for you, I'm curious with that, does that feel like product market fit? Like, how does Podscan feel to you?

Arvid Kahl
It's almost there. I'm currently trying to really get my ICP ducks in a row. I know that you said something earlier. It's funny. It's not germans living in Mexico being agencies, but it is definitely podcast booking agencies that I found to be the most resonant in those conversations.

It's like Vas or people who help people like yourself be booked on shows, right? Like, anybody that has a profile and wants to go on a podcast tour for their book, they get an agency. And that is one of my main customers. The other people build businesses on top of data. So I have two very distinct customers.

I'm trying to figure out which one I really want to dive into right now because building a data platform is a lot of fun, and that makes a lot of money on the enterprise side. But building for all these podcast agencies where people really need it and have an actual job to be done, that's kind of more of a vibe fit for me. So that's where I'm currently at, but I'm almost there. Like, revenue is growing, usage is growing, the product is not exploding. So that's good.

You know, like, it's going places compared to the other things I did before, like the two, three projects that went nowhere. They're still somewhere, and they're running all by themselves. But I don't put much effort into that because obviously I have something here now. So, yeah, that's what's the difference. Honestly, now that I read your book, it's the market size as well.

You have this little exercise in there where you look, is it a million dollar idea? And you look at what is my average sale price for an item and how many people are in the market, and you multiply these two very simple numbers with each other, and if it's bigger than a million, then it's a million dollar idea. Turns out I should have done this for the things that I did prior, because they're probably not there with potskin now. Easy. It's an easy 40, $50 million business if I just look at the agency side, let alone the enterprise, for the potential data platform.

So it's pretty simple math, but I should have done it much earlier. That is awesome. Yeah, no, I'm a happy paying customer. How long have you been running it? January 2024.

So it's half a year. Almost half a year old, maybe. I just was at a dynamite circle conference. And one thing I think people can be patient with is just that. Think of your business like your child, right?

Noah Kagan
And if you have a baby, you know, you probably don't expect a baby to walk after a few weeks, you know, like, and, you know, you go to puberty at, I don't know, 1213. I don't know. I think that's around it. And that really is true for your business. Right?

Like, okay, how do I fix my pricing? It's like, dude, it's like your four months, not you. I'm just saying that I think if people can look at that same nurturing and timeframe, like, okay, I need to get it to 18 years old so it can go be its own adult. Yeah, right? So I'm on year 15 of Appsumo, and I think finally I'm like, oh, my kids in school all day, and I don't have to worry about it.

I can do some other things because there's a team and then there's structure and there's KPI's and there's organization around it, but that's also being patient to really develop our businesses over a longer timeframe. I love that. I think just having patience with the business, with the market, with people, the adoption of the business, with understanding even your market, and with yourself as a founder, that you don't have to solve every single problem immediately. Like, you can give yourself time. I think that's important.

Arvid Kahl
Man, I was looking. I found something very funny earlier today. I was in the book again. I was looking at the numbers, and somewhere you mentioned $65 million. That's where Appsumo was at that point.

And then I looked at the actual. Just the flap, and it says 70 on here. So between the printing of the book and the printing and inclusion of the flap, there's a $5 million difference in just revenue of the business. I just love that. That's just such a.

I did do this, and then I do that, and then next steps happen, and it's just a progressive move forward. So I found that really funny. Yeah. The publisher wanted me to use lower numbers. That's a whole other thing that I.

That I'm super excited about. The launch of the book. Man, that was such an amazing job that you did there, and obviously, the team around you did. Like, I thought I was. First off, I got a.

I got a box, so I did this. This book is cool. I got the box. There's a dollar in there, which I framed at somewhere in my hallway here. I walk past that every single day because it's such a gesture on so many levels to receive a dollar from somebody as an entrepreneur, I felt like ten times as much excitement, I guess, as a normal person would feel to get a dollar.

But it was such a clear message that came in that and then there was a lot of swag in the box. The book was in there, it signed and all that. There was such a cool move. You did the launch party where you met, where you hung out with all these other really cool authors and entrepreneurs. That was a spectacular event.

How do you feel about that? I felt proud. Yeah, I felt proud of myself. Honestly. There's a lot of times where I'm very, I think a lot of entrepreneurs are very hard on themselves.

Noah Kagan
Like I'm not a millionaire yet, or I don't have this much users or my product market fit or my twitter is not growing or my TikTok this. And it's like, I think more of us on a daily basis could benefit from positive self talk. Myself probably. Number one, be your best cheerleader as much as your own positive critic.

A few things that I think the audience can learn in their own product launches is the amount of intentionality and strategy that went into that, just to give it a context. I spent maybe give or take three years writing the book just to get. And it was validated kind of. Exactly. What I teach in the book is how I run appsumo and all these things where it's like I tested a blog post and then I tested a course and then I tested tweets and then I tested it with beta readers, then I tested it with someone living at my house and then I tested it with WhatsApp.

So I was like, okay, this product works. It's product market fit. And then I spent, and this is an important part, about a year setting up the launch and now most people I think are doing a launch and they're like, okay, my product finished and what they're doing is they're running a mile. And on the last lap, which is kind of the most important one, they're like, I'm a little tired and I would agree, right. And so there's ways of working on that, but it's like that's the time to really finish strong.

And I was, I like that phrase like finish strong. And so I hired a, a CEO of the book launch and I think you should find people dedicated to important pieces of your business. So, you know, my YouTube channel has a CEO and appsumo has day to day operator CEO's even though I'm the, I guess, technical CEO and then the book launch had a CEO and that definitely supported me to be able to be like, okay, I need you to help me execute towards our goal, which was to get 1000 reviews on the launch. Now, a few things for people doing their own launches, whether it's mostly, you know, a lot of indie hackers out there work backwards from success. People are trying to be way too creative.

Like, you don't even have to be creative to win anymore. You just have to put in a little bit of effort, like winning. It's so easy these days because everyone's so lazy. Everyone just is so uncreatively lazy. And you could be lazy.

Success, successful. You just have to put a little bit. And so with the launch, you know, work backwards from your goal. And as we were doing things, it was noticing, you know, kind of like podskin, okay, hey, I launched it. There's a bunch of people trying it, maybe kind of being curious about it, but holy crap, if they're on a book tour, they're paying.

If they have something to go promote, they're paying if they're looking for. So I actually, it's funny you say that. I will talk about post launch launch, but I started thinking, holy crap, I should probably be seeing like, where people who are similar to me or going on shows. So maybe that could be my future launches. So I'm starting to add alerts around that.

And that's interesting for you to notice who your customers are. So same thing with our launch, as we were getting going, we started sending out some of the books with the dollar because I thought it'd be fun and people started posting it. And so we kind of literally completely focused on that maybe three weeks before the book actually launched. It's like, holy shit. People like you and influencers within.

We were targeting kind of like three categories, like entrepreneurship, real estate and finance. And personally, I like people like you who are normal humans. You're not like Joe Rogan. Joe's normal human too. He goes to the bathroom like all of us, but you're just accessible.

And I actually enjoy connecting and promoting and, like, working with people like yourself. I find that more effective, find it more fun, easier. And so we kind of went all in to make these boxes that we looked at other people that have done it, and we looked at how other people have launched and we're like, okay, well, how does it work for us? And what would be something exciting that if you got it, you're like, holy shit. A dollar and a green pen and a handwritten note and a signed book versus, you know, I will say I get people mailing me their books, and it's like, here's a book and a letter from the publisher about why I should read it.

It's like, all right, all right. So I think we admire or we respect when someone's at least putting in the effort. We're like, well, if they put this much effort into sending me a box, maybe they put this much effort into the book, too, which we did.

There's a lot more things here. But I'd say the other thing that's just as important, if you find something that works in your business, do more of it. And that's the most annoying advice I'll give people today. But what I mean by that is, I did this launch that was like, hey, we have bundles, we have a webinar we'll do. And it did really well.

People enjoyed the launch. So we're doing a second launch. And I think that's the thing for all of our businesses, where if you posted on indie hackers and you got a bunch of customers, post again. If you sent emails via LinkedIn or if you contact people via WhatsApp, do it again and again and again. And so we're doing a second launch in November based on a debrief.

So we do this with all of our businesses, which is if you do any campaign debrief it, like, what are you going to do again? What are you not going to do again? And what's new? And so now we, and this is what we do at Appsumo for now a decade. So all the things we've done, it's like, okay, you're really compounding your learnings and the same thing with this launch.

And so I was proud of the launch. I was proud that I said I wanted to do something, which is the book, and then I was proud to get it out there. And I'm excited. People like you and others that get it and take a few sparks away, that really get them going on their own journey. Yes, sparks indeed.

Arvid Kahl
Man, you have sparked so many businesses into life by just being present in people's social feeds and in their bookshelves and all that. I think you're doing a massively important and impactful job with what you do and how you do it is super impressive. And I feel super fortunate to a, have gotten a book and a dollar, right. But to have read it and to have understood something about myself, about how I approach stuff, and to know that the people who read this book will understand that about themselves and learn something in the process as well. I really, really highly recommend this.

I don't usually do this, so thank you. It's really spectacular. Thank you so much for being on and sharing all of these insights, both in the book and today. It was quite a pleasure to hear just the thinking, the approach to thinking, the decision making behind that kind of stuff. That's the kind of secret sauce that you don't get often.

We got to tell you, I think. All these advice, the advice that we all hear, Arvid, is do things that don't scale. That's literally the thing to do. That's literally. It's the boring stuff, but it works, right?

Noah Kagan
It works. How do you sell Podscan? You reply to my DM's and now I'm a paying customer? Yeah. That's literally the same thing with the book I posted.

Hey, I'm working on a book. We kind of want to launch a launch team. I posted on Twitter. People started dming me and I just. There wasn't no, there was no bot.

There's no anything secret. It was literally me saying, hey, I'd love for you to join the launch team. Do you mind pre ordering my book? And here's some of the other things you're going to get with it. And I literally did that to a thousand people over months.

That was the secret. And then we added this really cool launch team that was giving feedback on the book and I was helping them on their businesses and really connecting with people. Whether you want to be introverted and do it over a DM or via email or via video chat or in person, it's a nice experience to delight people, too. It's so easy. The bar is so low to reply to a DM.

The bar is so low that you give someone a little discount. The bar is so low that you mail them something to their house. And if you can just do a little bit, like, really, you can have everything you want in life. Yeah. That's my biggest learning from all of this.

Arvid Kahl
Like, both my own experience in entrepreneurship and reading your work and following you and being in the newsletter and all that is that people are at the core of everything. And building relationships with people trumps every other activity over time. Like, you have this kind of delayed effect sometimes. Sometimes it takes them a couple years to warm up to it, but once that happens, the cumulative outcome of all of these together just trumps every single other thing you could possibly do. I really believe in that, too, which is why I'm doing public stuff and which is why you are so successful being in public in front of people, right?

It's relational. We want to build relationships. We want that. And you kind of have to want it to build something. I met a guy yesterday.

Noah Kagan
He's got, I don't know, maybe a $10 million business. He's like, I want to have a popular YouTube channel. I was like, why? You're rich in private. Like, that's great, too.

And so, you know, I've been doing the public thing since 2000, before you were born, arvid. And. That'S not true, but okay. I don't know. I like it, man.

Even if it hasn't, like, directly, I'm not selling something on my YouTube channel. It puts me in places where I'm learning how to write. I'm learning how to think. I'm meeting super interesting people. You know, it's becoming a way that you can kind of connect with such cool people.

It's like this new business card. They're like, oh, yeah, I know you. I've seen your stuff at all different levels. And you can connect with, you know, I think people are not connecting enough. Like, there's so many cool people out there on the Internet, especially the ones up and coming, that are exciting to answers.

Arvid Kahl
Right? That's what you call them in the book as well. And I'm still connecting with these people. I. You know, there's a guy, Joe Gannon, Jay Yang, who actually joined our team.

Noah Kagan
There's people, I don't know, just, like, across. I met this guy, Kyle, got camera. He's doing health videos on YouTube. He came over to my house. We went in the sauna.

I don't know. Just have fun out there. And I would say the public part, it doesn't have to be for everyone. You can get really rich with small audiences or no audience at all. And finding the thing that works for you.

I've enjoyed the public part. I'll probably do it forever. Yeah. Feel the same way. You just have to be curious, and you can be curious in public, and you can be curious in private.

Arvid Kahl
You just have to have curiosity for other human beings. Right? That's really what it is. Yeah. I mean, I saw this business that I thought was just so cool.

Noah Kagan
It was like my dental alert, something like that.

It was a dentist who wanted to expand his revenue outside of just looking inside someone's mouth. And so he created this platform. Let me see if I can find the website. And the idea there was, for $100 a year, he'll give you dental advice, just like, you can send him anything. And he'll give you a dentist advice.

And then he also writes reviews on all these toothbrushes. Nice. This guy doesn't, he's not building in public and he's building, I don't know if it's at a six figure business yet or not, but to me, I was like, oh, what an interesting business. You have some skill, you're interested in entrepreneurship, and then now you can actually create. The coolest part about entrepreneurship is unlimited upside.

You can literally create businesses that have unlimited upside. And in most of these other activities, like a dentist, like you have to open new practices or you have to look at more mouths and you could create a website where now it's like around the world, he can help people dental, or he can create a platform so doctors and dentists and Cairos can now run businesses off his platform. Yeah, that's kind of, you have this one little part in the book, too, where you take what works in other fields and you transport it into your own industry. That's exactly what this is. Right?

Arvid Kahl
You just kind of connect. And again, it goes into connecting people. It goes into educating people but also connecting people. So it kind of boils down to very, very clear messages here, man. I really appreciate you sharing this.

And I know a lot of people now at a point where they want to know more about you and want to learn more from you and follow you. Where do people want to go or where should people want to go if they want to learn more about you, your journey and the things that you. Yeah, for sure. Definitely check out million dollar weekend if they're looking at starting a business or they want to build some confidence in themselves. I do have a podcast.

Noah Kagan
You can search Noah Kagan on the podcast world. And yeah, I have a newsletter, noahkagan.com dot. So I sent an email. Lately it's been like just entrepreneurship stories@noahkagan.com. dot like this week we shared how jayang the high schoolers making $150,000 a year by doing free work, which is a pretty, pretty wild story.

The guy's impressive. I'm glad he keeps me around. That's right. Yeah, I was excited to read that. I haven't yet read it because we're recording just around the time that it's coming out.

Arvid Kahl
So I'm quite excited for that, too. I think for the indie hackers, you have a lot of creators on your show. I think you have a lot of people making software. We have two ways that we help people promote for free. So five taco.com dot I actually submitted your product.

Noah Kagan
It's a directory of solopreneur tools, totally free. It's a way to get exposure. It's definitely starting to take off. So submit your product@fivetaco.com. and appsumo.com dot software deals so if you've either created a tool or you are looking for tools, especially as a solopreneur or just getting started, or like good deals, appsumo.com dot man, thanks so.

Arvid Kahl
Much for everything you do for the community. Really appreciate it. Thanks man. Yeah, it's fun. Well, thanks for being on the show as well.

That was a spectacular conversation. I really, really appreciate you coming on. That was extremely insightful and quite enjoyable. Thank you. And that's it for today.

I will now briefly thank my sponsor, acquire.com dot. Imagine this. You're a founder who's built a really solid SaaS product. You acquired all those customers and everything is generating really consistent monthly recurring revenue. That's the dream of every SaaS founder, right?

Problem is, you're not growing for whatever reason. Maybe it's lack of skill or lack of focus or apply in lack of interest. You don't know. You just feel stuck in your business, with your business. What should you do?

Well, the story that I would like. To hear is that you buckled down. You reignited the fire, and you started working on the business, not just in the business. And all those things you did, like audience building and marketing and sales and outreach, they really helped you to go down this road. Six months down the road, making all that money, you tripled your revenue and you have this hyper successful business.

That is the dream. The reality, unfortunately, is not as simple as this. And the situation that you might find yourself in is looking different for every single founder who is facing this crossroad. This problem is common, but it looks different every time. But what doesn't look different every time is the story that here just ends up being one of inaction and stagnation because the business becomes less and less valuable over time and then eventually completely worthless if you don't do anything.

So if you find yourself here already at this point, or you think your story is likely headed down a similar road, I would consider a third option. And that is selling your business on acquire.com. because you capitalizing on the value of your time today is a pretty smart move. It's certainly better than not doing anything. And acquire.com is free to list.

They've helped hundreds of founders already. Just go check it out at try dot acquire.com. arvid and see for yourself if this is the right option for you. Your business at this time. You might just want to wait a bit and see if it works out half a year from now or a year from now.

Just check it out. It's always good to be in the know thank you for listening to the Bootstrap founder today. I really appreciate that you can find me on Twitter at avedkar a r v Eddie Kahl and you find my books and my Twitter course tattoo. If you want to support me and this show, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. Get the podcast in your podcast player of choice, whatever that might be.

Do let me know. Would be interesting to see and leave a rating and a review by going to ratethispodcast.com founder. It really makes a big difference if you show up there because then this podcast shows up in other people's feeds and that's, I think, where we all would like it to be. Just helping other people learn and see and understand new things. Any of this will help the show.

I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful day and bye.

322: Noah Kagan - Early Stage Founder Hurdles & How to Jump Them

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1: Introduction to Noah Kagan

2: Embracing Failure

3: Practical Advice for Founders

4: Staying Motivated and Consistent

5: Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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