Chief Sumo and Best Seller Noah Kagan Improvises a Startup Clinic at the Hill Climbers Summit

Noah Kagan was one of the first people I met when I moved to Austin, TX 5 years ago. He immediately invited me to his annual AppSumo ride and also put me in touch with Jeffrey Nolte, who became one of my closest friends in Austin. This is the kind of guy Noah is - he loves Austin and knows that newcomers will get the most out of it by meeting great people.

We reconnected meaningfully when I launched the Hill Climbers group rides - he was one of the first to suffer with us at 645am so his support was extra appreciated. He also put me in touch with Stephen Cunningham, who has become another close friend and partner on Hill Climbers. This time my connection with Noah was a bit tighter because my son had just arrived and his daughter was on the way - we shared the incredible experience. 

Anyway, Noah has had quite a journey and accomplished a lot along the way. This is why I knew he was the guy to approach about being the featured guest at our First Annual Hill Climbers summit. Noah was flattered when I asked and on board right away. The evening came together perfectly, and frankly, Noah blew the crowd away with his honesty and audience engagement skillz.

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Theme Music: Summer Vibes by Rizik

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:01)
you

Speaker 1 (00:03)
We've done a lot of rounds of applause. Everyone, give it up for Noah Kagan. thank you.

It's funny though, because I've written with some of you, but I only recognize you in spandex. I didn't know that's how you looked. was just like, this is weird. Are you liking what you see? Yeah, it's great in person. All right. Well, without further ado, can kind of get the party started here. I usually start with the softballs. do it. Yeah. So really easy. mean, you've ⁓ made a name for yourself.

you know, online, writing books, starting companies. ⁓ Can you just tell us kind of where you're from and where you're from? What have you got into bike riding? Bike ride? Anybody from California and Californians here? Yeah, NorCal. Which part? From San Jose, which part? Nice, Cupertino, Lemberg High School, class of.

Speaker 2 (01:00)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09)
you guys are the rich ones. We're like down the hill. ⁓ Yeah, I grew up in the bay around tech and all these computers and like AOL chat rooms, AIM. You guys know this stuff like IRC. ⁓ So just grew up around it. My dad was like a sales guy for, copiers. Copier people out there, I don't know. And then my stepfather is a electrical engineer in semiconductors. So he bought Nvidia stock early is what I'm talking about. And that worked out pretty well. ⁓

And then, I just kind of was in tech my whole life and I got a chance to be really lucky being born in the Bay and around a real interesting environment to be at Berkeley, Facebook, Mint.com, and then starting a lot of my own companies. And then biking, I remember some of you guys, like Alec, were in a decent amount, Steven, I was telling Sam the story. So I think I got into biking because my father stole someone's bike. Like he said he found it. This is a true story. was like, where'd you find it? He's like, oh, you know, was like outside their house.

I was like, no, that's someone's. ⁓ But then I rode that bike for 10 years and I ended up giving it away. I was trying to get rid of it. So I kept trying to give it away to other people. It was a Nishiki, you guys remember like the Nishiki stuff? ⁓ And so that kind of led me, I think where I started biking when I got my first Spandex, that's like the crossing point. When you change into the Amazon brand Spandex, you guys know what I'm talking about? The Sponeed. That's a moment in your life. And that was probably 10 years ago.

give or take, give or take about 10 years with the spandex transition. Yeah. And we're going to get into Noah's career and, you know, all the things I've aforementioned things he's been up to. ⁓ but I actually kind of met you. you're one of the first people I met when I moved to Austin five years ago, ⁓ right out of the gate. It was like, okay, you know, let's ride bikes and, and Noah I've noticed is, is not.

a competitive cyclist as far as like metrics and, know, Strava PR and like this and that, like it's not what drives him. ⁓ And I've always really like respected and appreciated that. Like why why ride bikes? Like what what does it for you?

I'm competing is just you're better. You're just kicking my arm like, there's Sam going again. I'm trying to be a lot of it back over. The irony with that is that I know, no, it's very competitive. am. You're seeing the bike meme, the bike meme where it's like, I beat another random guy who had no idea today. You guys see that meme? It's like, yeah, I competed. That guy had zero, zero clue or female. And no, I think with cycling, I was talking with Adam a little bit about it where

And I've talked with you guys know Gabriel Porterfield. He's like a pro in town. Yeah, awesome. He's a young guy. And I think what what he got me thinking more about was just like you can win with sustainability. You can win with consistency in biking. And I find that I just get more joy out of that versus like, I want to get a PR like I was in Spain this summer. And I've been going every year for about six, seven years, mostly for cycling. And there's like a few hills. One's called it. Does anybody write? I know if you're in Spain, but there's one in Barcelona called our Repasada. And it's like you want to get a good time.

And like, I literally like, I'm gonna, I'll give myself a heart attack, right? You guys understand what I'm talking about. You give yourself a heart attack to get that like the KO, not KO, but the PR for yourself. And then I just don't want to get back on the bike. And so, you guys know what I'm about where you like go so hard and you go home and my wife's like, I need you alive. Like you have a baby, like now we're having another baby, you need to stay alive. And I'm pushing myself so hard, I will kill myself. Like I'm willing to go there. And I was just like, okay, I can't die.

And so how do I find just more joy in the cycling and sustaining? And that's what Gabe and I have talked about, which is like, how do I not ride super hard and then stop off just like ride the same? And I think he was saying competitively or professionally, like that's a better way to improve your overall cycling. So I think I aim with that, but that's probably also the same in business. and business, I'm probably just the same level of competition. ⁓ and I think part of my success in business is like sustaining, like how do I bring energy, but then also try to figure out how to sustain it over long period of time.

I did want to ask you about Spain though. So you've been visiting for pretty extended periods last what few years? Yeah, seven years. Last seven years. tell us about riding riding bikes in the mountains, the mountains of Spain. What have you guys ridden in Europe? It sounds so bougie by the way. My friend's like, you've ridden in kilometers. It is bougie. I ride in Espana. We have paella, you know, like.

That's it. It is that good. OK, and I am that rich. ⁓ No, no, no, you can. It's gotten more expensive just like Austin has, but you can ride literally in like the world class cycling and then the cost of living there is cheaper than Austin. And so so and are the rides close to Barcelona? Are they like just like how do you get out of the mountains? Everyone with me. Yeah, just the roads. Just close your eyes. Roads, it's like perfect roads and like in America, like

We only make the highways nice. Think of the roads that no one's even driving on. Europe's like, we're gonna be equal. So you roads that no one goes on, they're perfect. They're perfect roads. Like it's perfect. You guys know that feeling? Yeah. When you're on it. Smooth. You were in spin riding and you're up riding. It's just like, so smooth. And you're just like, I can't believe I get this for myself. And then you got the views. The views, you're just like, oh yeah, that's the gaudy thing from 1400. That's not it. 1800. You got the ocean, you have the mountains. And then I come back to Austin, I'm like.

great, another Texas flag, that's cool. No mountains here, unfortunately. And then the mountains are right there. You have Girona right there. This year I rode in Andorra, I rode in Italy, not Italy, France. ⁓ And you can do it on a train, so like the train rides. And it's also just so much cheaper. So if you're living in Austin and you have the ability professionally or with your family or by yourself, ⁓ I'd highly recommend it. I was lucky that seven years ago my buddy Dan

was living there and he's like come through. So it wasn't as intentional, but then since I've been there, it's just such a blast and it's a nice balance to take a break in the summer to be able to ride there. So I highly recommend it you need suggestions on how to live, there's a site called Ukiyo for cheap air, relatively affordable Airbnbs. And you can talk to Kate at Zwift, she's moving there soon. So y'all can, y'all will be riding in Spain. No, it's just, it's such a magical place, especially for the riding. think

⁓ My wife and I got there this summer if I'm sure and honestly and she didn't want to be there because she's pregnant and I just wanted to be there for riding and so we just had to negotiate because I you know don't know when we can come back. Yeah But if you get a chance to go out there just so many amazing mountains There's a really good, know, pretty good amount of groups Barcelona Road cycling group. I just had a really nice time man. I was just ⁓ I was sad I said I said to come try to join you out there at some point group right out there It's if you guys get a chance. I think Kate or someone here was saying it

Okay, you're saying your previous job, I think like a group tour out there, like if you can do like an Italy or France or Spain would be just such a magical experience.

let's start talking about your illustrious career here. like, this is, I feel like part of what makes up the enigma, the mystique of Noah Kagan. So ⁓ Noah is, yeah, it's kind of internet famous for being an early employee at a number of very successful tech companies, among them Facebook, Mint.com. ⁓ Being an early employee and not sticking around quite long enough.

to have his stock vest to the point where it would really benefit him. So what Noah has done is kind of flipped it and he's created, I don't know if you'd call it a persona. I don't know exactly what you, I just think from a self branding and content perspective, it's really feel like it's put you on the map. I've always wondered like, yeah, like how did you go about?

flipping the script, changing the narrative from like, shit, I lost out on this to, hey, this is an opportunity and really building an aim for yourself off that. Yeah. No, I'd much rather be a billionaire. I would have preferred if I did not get fired. Yeah. Right. And I think that would have been a nice outcome. I don't know how my life path, you know, that path would have gone. I own 0.1 % of Facebook. And so I think there are like a few trillion now.

That was pretty good. math folks. Yeah, it was an interesting time like living at a house with all these guys and working directly for Zuckerberg and yeah, I was devastated and I think we should all get fired, right? You should all. Everyone here should have some tragedy in your professional life and that you know that makes you stronger, gives you resolve and helps you figure out what you want to do or not do. ⁓ And so why I started like talking about the failure was more by accident. It was on a Saturday. I was at a coffee shop.

and I was just writing about my Facebook experience and how I got fired and how I lost out on the money. And can we, can we put a timeline on this? how, you know, how old were you? Uh, well I got fired at 23 or 24. I was working at Intel in a cubicle. Okay. Just a real standard job. Uh, fired early, went back home to live with my mom and, uh, yeah, I think I just was like, man, that that's not cool. That was disappointing. Yeah. And so in terms of like branding it or being a persona, that, wasn't my intent.

It was more just sharing a story. And I think that's kind of like Million Dollar Weekend, AppSumo, the things that I've had success with. I'm kind of just playing around and I'm curious and I'm trying things out. And then I think what I do is I pay attention to what people are responding to. So I put out this article, like how I lost $100 million and then it just went viral. It was like a million views in two days. Can you tell us about it? how did you go? What did you publish it on? Like how did it go viral? My blog, nocagon.com. just put a...

the article out and then I don't know if there's Twitter at this time, 2007. No, I'm talking about I don't I don't think Noah gives himself enough credit for just like some things just don't go viral. You know what I mean? Like it takes copywriting. It takes marketing savvy. Yeah, sometimes and sometimes they do go viral. But yeah, I think there isn't it's finding what works and then how do you do a lot more of it? I think that's a lot of my success is just really testing things really quickly as fast as possible. It's what we do at AppSumo. And then once you find something that works, it's like, OK, we're going to go insanely hard on this.

And so the article, I don't know, I think I spent a Saturday or two, not as long. I've had probably four articles in my life go super viral. And those I spent months on. Those were ones that were- And the first one was just a weekend. It was not million dollar weekend. shouldn't plug the book. Sorry for confusing people. It was more just that I wanted to share the story. I think I was embarrassed. I spent a lot of time with life coaches and therapists and I was angry. I was so disappointed. It probably took me like 10 years to really

reduced amount of anger I had at Zuckerberg and Facebook and all these guys are so rich and like they're elite and they're Harvard, right? And I'm like, you know, public school. And so I think I just wanted to share the story. It wasn't that I wanted attention for it necessarily. It was just like putting it out there and it resonated. People liked it. And so actually a friend of mine now was like, oh, you're number 30 Facebook. And so he just started calling me that like Neville, one of my best friends. So all of my marketing was like number 30 Facebook and people were like, oh, that guy's legit. And it's weird how it.

I would have never really talked about it or gone with it, but people responded well. Yeah, that is a really heartfelt, authentic, vulnerable story. I didn't know that. That's a... Yeah. I mean, it was a tough-ass time. It's funny though, I feel like LinkedIn now is all... That's everybody's story today in LinkedIn. It's like, oh man, the sales call didn't answer. That sucks. I'm so vulnerable. I've had a bad day. I was like, I only lost a...

I only lost a hundred million at that time. Now it's a billion and all these other guys that were there with me and after me are now billionaires. And I'm only like a multimillionaire. Oh, that's for you, dude. Now, no, it was more like I was just happy to share the experience. I don't know. I don't, I think in times in life, it's like, well, what's the upside? A lot of people benefit. I'm sharing a good story. Maybe some other person gets fired, realizes that life goes on. Downside is like not very much. So I think that that calculation was very quick and put it out and

I think that led me to then also get fired at Mint. People wanted to hire me to fire me. I thought that was a pretty smart business move on different companies.

I think you really, like you said, you tested out a lot of things, ⁓ started companies. ⁓ Were you pulling from those challenges to, did it give you extra sort of great fortitude to then jump into a number of different companies? Like how did you approach part of your career at like Afterman? I think, does anyone have job? Does anyone hate their job here? It's okay. All right, we got a few. Yeah, Be honest. It's okay.

Speaker 2 (14:21)
you

Speaker 1 (14:27)
Yeah, yeah, there's more. It's more than more hands than people. Like I was like, I hate my job. I hated working at Intel. It was like it was the worst job. I didn't have to do anything, but it was just it was such an annoying job to like show up. I were a business professional. The walls had no colors. There was like meetings about meetings. So I used to like sleep at the office. I would just like put my desk to block the cubicle and I put a sleeping bag underneath with a pillow and then I would just spend, you know, at least four hours a day sleeping. ⁓

That's the Seinfeld textbook. George, George, yeah. He did it too. It great. And so I think I got clear working at Intel and Facebook and Mint that I was really excited to have my own schedule. I was excited to have my own freedom. I was excited to have my own like, why don't I just work with people I really like? Like Paul's here. Paul's because we're Paul is right there. You should look at him. So make it awkward. And Paul's was like, wow, what if I could just work with all awesome people?

like Paul and other people at AppSumo. And so ⁓ I think just in my twenties, I was really willing to experiment and try a lot of things out. I think now that I'm married, I've got a mortgage, I've got almost two kids, it's definitely, I can see where it's scarier to give up my ⁓ lifestyle inflation, right? It's hard, like car payments, ⁓ you know, it's definitely harder at this point. I respect any parent out there or someone who is a parent and trying to get something started, it's definitely more challenging.

Yeah. I think my twenties, was, I'm gonna say I lived in my aunt's basement. I lived on floors for a year. I lived at my mom's house two years and I was just so determined to prove Facebook wrong to try to feel good about myself. And so I tried so many things during that period. Like I tried working at Mint. I built Facebook games. Remember Farmville? Yeah. I was, I helped do Farm Town. We did Oregon Trail. He was my Oregon Trail. That was us. Sorry about that.

And so I think I've done a good job in my career picking categories of industries that have done well. So right now, the biggest, most popular one is AI, everyone's doing AI stuff. I've been, I'm starting to get into that, but I think historically I've done like, you know, with social networking was big, personal finance is big, Facebook games were big. And then I kept trying to like the, try to take pieces of what I don't like in jobs and what I don't like in people, what I don't like in myself and how do I keep learning to eventually have my own company so I can show up to work every day and be like, this is great.

And I would say finally at AppSumo, 20 years later, I would say I show up and I'm really, I'm excited about what was going on. It's not always been the case. I just took the last year off on Portunity. But I think in my 20s, was a lot of ⁓ desperation, frustration, and then trying a lot of experiments. This is what I talk about in the book as well, if you're trying to get your own business started, just starting and then trying things like, all right, let me event and then learning from each of these different endeavors. Yeah, and I think that's a good,

good transition to talk about the book. And I've read the book and if you can't tell, I'm starting something here with Hill Climbers. So I was definitely taking notes. And one of my favorite themes in the book is the ask. Like you really emphasize that point for entrepreneurs, you know, in order to really make any modicum of progress, like you got to ask people for

for something, for the first sale, for the first dollar. ⁓ Is there any background story to that? Like, is that something you can expound on? Can you maybe articulate kind of how you see that as important? Yeah, growing up, I have a father and I just remember feeling always embarrassed when he would ask for things. Like we'd go to the store and he'd ask for the discount. We'd go to a garage sale, he asked for 50 % off. And I think it's in...

you know, a little bit of how he was built and maybe in some of the Jewish culture. so, there's no Jewish culture. You're taught to ask. I have a Jewish mother and this resonates. If you want to accomplish things in life, get a Jewish mom. It's such a cheat code. Doesn't matter your religion, get a Jewish mom on your side. Like, did you do this, Noah? Yeah, I did it. I did it. But you didn't and then you actually do it? No, I always do it. ⁓ She's ruthless, know, never forgets anything.

⁓ Sorry, where are we going with it? was just ⁓ like that. That was an important theme of the book. I was starting and asking, you know, it was seeing my dad asked for things. And then with absolute.com, we've been running this business doing software deals 15 years. It's the culmination of all the things I learned at Facebook and meant and all the other startups I tried. And then I launched a course in it called monthly one K. And the idea was like, can I actually replicate my success and teach it to others?

And what I noticed is so many people would like talk about their idea. And they're like, all right, I got this idea. It's an AI thing or it's a e-commerce product or Shopify product or it's a service product. I'm like, okay, great. Did you get a customer? No, no, no, I'm building it. Okay, cool, cool. How long you been building it? Years. Great. When are you going to do it? No, no, I need more time. And I was trying to understand, there's like tens of thousands of people who have taken this course. And then I was trying to, what's the essence of what's holding these people back? It's like how many people here are entrepreneurs running their own business?

Do you? Wow. that, yeah, raise your hand. Raise your hand. That is like 60, 70 % of the audience here. A lot. And then how did you get your first customer? Gentleman in the back is saying kind of hand to hand combat. Just one at a time. And I think, I think when people are looking today, there's like AI agents that do the thing, that do the thing, and you don't have to talk to anyone ever again. You just get rich, you know, via TikTok and it works. But what I've realized is that most people just never get started.

and they never get the first customer. And so was like, well, what are the things that are, what are the two elements that are core for success? It's like, well, you gotta start. And I think people are spending like a year or two, like let's say you wanna be a photographer at events, go do an event today, go find someone to do an event. And then the second part is how do you ask? Right, cause I think a lot of people hope or they wish or they pray. And I noticed that if you can just get started and then you can practice the skill of asking, it's probably the most important skill of success.

And the thing with asking that people don't realize it's a skill. It's just like cycling. Like a cycling, you guys all have like your heart rate bands and you have FTP, you have your wattage and you do like zone, whatever. It's like your skill is improving because you have a plan. But people don't think in business that you can develop a skill and improve your skill, which specifically I'd say asking, you if you want to get more clients as a law firm or if you want to get more customers or more clients as a audio, how do you practice it?

And so those are the things I noticed that people from my course, from my own success, from my childhood, that people needed to work on and develop as skills to have success in business. And I think one other thing I just got to say is like, awesome part about business is that you just don't have to be tall. You don't have to be good looking. You don't have to be anything. You just have to go do it. And that was the thing that people were really holding themselves back on. It was like, you just can do it right now. Like, is anyone here wanting to start a business that hasn't?

Yes. We got a few hands. Okay, great. And so have you, what's your business idea or like? I think my big fear has always been is there a demand for a product like that? And you know, one of my old colleagues, Mike, who's also a former ER doctor who had the cojones to actually branch out and do something that he wanted to do kind of tipped me to do this, but I was always fearful of demand. like, is anybody interested in a product like that? I think even seeing like two hands would, would make me interested.

Got many hands up. Yeah, so the idea and the where the idea came from is, you know, I went to a primary care doctor appointment like everybody else and I'm a cyclist and I know that I'm moderately healthy and he said, hey, you're healthy. I'll see you in a year. He did like two blood tests and it was the most disappointing thing in my life. And this is what I do for a profession. And I just thought like, God, what a shit product this is. There's got to be more. And and yes, so.

Yeah, as a cyclist, you know, I care about FTP and power and all these things. And there's ways to test those and monitor those and optimize those things from a physician standpoint. And yeah, it was just too chicken shit to ask anybody or or wonder if there was demand out there. So that's the story. And so so there's demand today. Is there demand today? we can you get a piece of paper or your phone and then go around? And this is the greatest. This is five hundred or five dollars I've ever heard in my life. ⁓ Great.

So there's people, why don't you go and just raise your hand, keep your hands up and then you go get a bunch of people right now. You take your phone and go do it. Yeah, I'll be around. Cool. No, no, no, let's do it right now. Can I get some paper? Is there paper or your phone? Nice here. Let me give you a book.

Speaker 2 (23:26)
Daniel, you are

Speaker 1 (23:37)
So raise your hand so Steve can come do it. Keep going. Yeah, do your thing. Do your thing. Here's what I want to highlight. A lot of I've done this. I've done this a lot of times. I've helped a lot of people. Sorry, real quick. So we've got event magic set up for this very purpose, Steve. If you scan those QR codes, you will have a digest email tomorrow of all the people that you connected with. here. Yeah. Raise your hand so Steve can take your photo. He'll come photo your chest.

No, let's do it. Keep your hand up.

I want to make sure he gets the context of the people. Yeah. So what I want to highlight real fast while Steve does this is that when I started my business, when Adrian is Adrian started business, when Lee started his business, when John, even a law firm doesn't matter, you just start with one customer. And I think people have this this idea that it's like, no, no, they just magically appear. But no, it's just one. And a lot of times it's from advice. It's from your network.

It's from your, hey, I'm at a cycling event. Maybe I could ask a person if they if it's them or they know someone. And I think we tend to add a lot of fear. Like I have fear, too, about different things as well. And this is totally normal. And it's a skill as well that you start practicing the starting, start practicing asking. It becomes easier and easier and easier. And I'm learning that in real time with hill climbers. I bring it up, as some of you might have noticed, my wife in particular, in almost every single conversation. And the reason is that

that's how you get performance. That's how you get an outcome out of it. ⁓ And to Noah's point, like at first, you're feeling self-conscious and sort of squeamish about sharing your vulnerable idea, your thing that's fledgling. And then after three years, it actually becomes something. Now we got a room full of people. It's like, it's really, so get the book, read the book. ⁓ It's definitely inspiring if you're looking to start something.

So moving right along, one of the topics you touched on that I loved was like early days, managing your time. You've now started a family. You took some time away from AppSumo and now you're back. So I was really curious to hear your thoughts and reflections on, okay, I had a year and change.

dedicating just to the family, now you're back at work. How do you feel about your use of time right now? How many people here have kids? Wow. How'd you guys get out tonight? Like, how did you do it? So I do think entrepreneurship is the way to freedom of your time. Right, so you can choose if you want to be at work or you don't have to be at work. And I feel very lucky that I put in the work to be able to get to this point.

And so I took a year off for a paternity and it was, I would say it was challenging. I feel lucky that I could see my daughter from zero to one and every single day, all day, I got to be with her. But I will say that personally, I also felt a little emptier, little less confidence, ⁓ not as good about myself because it's nice to work. It's nice to create. It's nice to help people if you're making something like a physical practice or a product or a service or software.

And so coming back to work has been a nice treat. It's been different because I'm used to spending like, you 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with my family. ⁓ And now I'm sure like a lot of people here, it's like seven and nine with my daughter, nine to six with work, six to eight with my daughter, and then eight to nine with my wife and then go to sleep. And so the day you just don't have, there's really not as much time for yourself. ⁓ And so it's definitely an adjustment.

would love to talk a little bit about AppSumo as well. ⁓ you've, what year is this at the company? 15 years. 15 years doing this company. How do you you're new about AppSumo? you don't know AppSumo and you're looking to grow your small business and you want to save money on software, open your phone, go to AppSumo.com right now and join the newsletter. ⁓ We do software deals for entrepreneurs. Yeah. And I guess we can take a step back like.

How do you stumble upon this idea? what? It's a really, it's such an elegant idea. Yeah, it's, you know, in our careers, there's like, there's these, everything you're learning from, right? It's all these different steps. And so at Facebook, I was like, oh, I like making web products. And then Mint, liked marketing. And then after Mint, I built those Facebook games, I told you, and I did payments for Facebook games. And I was like, oh, I don't like infrastructure stuff as much, but I like.

giving people customers. And so it was kind of like, how can I do this in a way that in an industry that I like? And so I basically saw that software was going to get bigger. There was only like Dropbox, LinkedIn, MailChimp, FreshBooks. Those are like all the software that existed. And I was like, maybe there's a way that I can help bring those kind of companies customers. And is there a way I could test this out, just like we did with Steve, like very quickly to see if there was demand. And so my first idea to bring companies customers was to go to local restaurants.

and bring them a fishbowl. And then people put in their cards in the fishbowl. And then I would digitize, is high tech, I would digitize these cards, business cards, and I would give them an email list. And so I go to a local restaurant and I'm just like, this is a real shitty business. Like this is never gonna work. So that one, it's called fishbowl, that one didn't work. But the problem I was excited about from my experiences, I was like, people like customers. Like Facebook brings people customers, Google brings people customers.

Amazon brings people customers. Like these are the most valuable companies in the planet. And so I got excited about that in a category, but I didn't know how I would solve it. And so then the second idea was called software taco.com. And the idea there, I eat a lot of tacos. Shout out, we all love tacos here in Texas. And so the idea there was, can we do software reviews? So I hired a bunch of people on Upwork for $5. And then we wrote a bunch of reviews of software and then no one came. And I was like, okay, this is so slow.

So the final, the third one that finally worked was I was like, Oh, what if I did like a daily deal? This is one group on actually just launched. It's like, what if I did a daily deal instead of software, instead of, you know, nail salons on software? And so I posted it. Uh, I put a PayPal button on a website and then I just posted on Reddit. There's more to the story. It's in the book, the details. Um, and I posted on Reddit and then I did think we did like 200 sales in a weekend or like very, very quickly of a, it was an image hosting company called Imgur.

I know if you guys are amateurs a little. And so I'm a huge Redditor and I still was then I am now. And I posted it and immediately people bought it. I was like, OK, this Daily Deal software thing is the thing. And then so we've evolved and made mistakes. And, you know, it's been it's been quite a journey from just by myself to hundreds of people and to now we're back down to around 50 people. OK. And yeah, I guess coming back into the CEO role.

What's the latest? mean, how has the game changed over the last few years? Paul, how's it working at AppSumo? Paul likes working at AppSumo. It's what? It is a fun game. so I took a year off and I think there's a cool story to tell. Like, start a company and it's making millions of dollars and I'm not working, right? Like, that's a story I think people want to try to brag about.

But I think I never felt good when I'm not being a part of the work. And ⁓ it's nice to create things and feel productive. You feel good about yourself. And I was surprised how much I missed it. And so our company has been basically making a lot of our own mistakes. So probably in the last 18 months, like we went from almost $100 million in revenue to this year, it'll be closer to more like $60 million in revenue. That's not good. And so.

I was seeing that happening and that's partly our fault, partly we haven't evolved well with the market. so my wife, it's you get yourself a good husband or wife, Jewish mom first, husband, wife second, you know, like unstoppable. And so I don't think any Jewish jokes. OK, so but my wife was like, you got to go back there and fix it. You got to go back there and fix it. And, you know, I think in life it's like, do you want to be a seagull or, you know, the seagulls come by and they poop and they fly away.

You to be on the sidelines just kind of commentating about the game or do want to be in the game? And I was like, all right, let me get back in the game. Yeah. And so ⁓ it's been probably some of most stressful. I've only been back two months and it's been stressful as hell, you know, because I'm with my family. trying to give time for that. But there's so much change in our company. have companies going out a bit. We promote software deals. Companies are going out of business. The customers are rude. Not all of them, but some of them.

⁓ Our website's not converting. We people quitting. And so it's just been a, it's been a challenge. It's been a real stressful challenge ⁓ for the past two months, but it's been exhilarating. I'm enjoying it. Like I was voicememory a guy today and I'm, I don't know, I'm just at peace with this. Like what a cool life I get these problems. I get to wake up and have problems every day. ⁓ It's not that I want the problems every day necessarily, but it's the same thing with my daughter that I'm up at 5 a.m. today.

And I'm like, what? I'm lucky to have this experience. And the same thing goes with AppSumo, instead of me complaining, which I do, I love a good complaint or a kvetch, but at the same time, I'm trying to think, all right, we had a partner today who some of the people are writing reviews. How do we, how do we address this? Cool. I get to, I get to work on that. And I have smart people like Paul, who's really impressive. And we have a lot of smart people at the company. And so it's been nice to start seeing, getting back to the fundamentals of our business, which is, it's a very straightforward company. find people who've made cool software.

We package it, get a good deal on it, and then we do our best to tell as many people as possible. So really going back to the fundamentals and doubling down on what's historically worked for our business. Is there any ask for the crowd, any crowd sourcing, any help from this group or? ⁓ Sign up if you're looking for software deals or you would buy software today like Stripe, Dropbox, any of these type of tools, check out AppSumo.com, join the newsletter. Yeah, and I have definitely used it for some podcasting software. So ⁓ great platform.

I think we're ready to move into some Q &A. Do we have any any first volunteers for question and answer? This usually takes a look. It's the best part of the show. It takes a little bit. OK, we got John. Can you come up to the mic here? What is the most unexpected benefit of actually being an entrepreneur that has crossed your path? The first thing comes to mind is like.

I think I think about my time very differently than other people. Like I try to hire help at home and my wife's like, no, no, no, don't use the nanny or I have an assistant. She's like, don't use this and I'll do it. I'm like, I'd rather be able to spend my time with you or with our daughter or how I want. I think that's definitely an entrepreneur, like unexpected that you you start using that in other areas of your life. I think fundamentally the another core thing has just been who I've met. Like just being out there, like coming to events like this, putting myself out there on Twitter.

putting a book out, doing a company like today. There's these guys in San Francisco, it's called Dart AI, it's on AppSumo, it's a project management tool. It's just like two guys from San Francisco making things, like how cool is that? I just get to meet different people. And I think for my blog, nocagon.com or all these different things I've worked on, I think that's probably the most unexpected. It's not always monetary. know, like meeting a Zwift person is really cool. Shout out Zwift, yeah. ⁓ The different paths of people you cross is definitely unexpected.

I know Mike Provenzano has one. Hey Mike. Hey, how are you? Pretty well. Forgive me for not knowing this. I don't really follow a lot of what is happening today, but... I just ride a bike, all I'm literally. I relate to your trips to Europe. Oh man. Honestly, like, if I could leave today, I would go find a little apartment in the Basque country and never leave. Let's do it. Hold on, how come you're not doing that? I pimp Sam's kits every chance I get.

Speaker 2 (35:51)
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (36:09)
You slept all day at Intel and didn't get fired. Yeah. What got you fired from Facebook? Yeah, that's the problem. I'm sorry. I don't know. No, no, no. It's OK. don't know. How come you don't go to the Basque country and do that little house thing you want to do? No, that's a plan. I'm actively like selling things off. Hell yeah. I got some real estate here. I've got a friend. We're going in April to watch Tour of the Basque Country. ⁓ He's got a little apartment in Locadio. His wife is from there. And I'm like, I'm doing this.

So I go, I've been there three years in a row and like, you just can't beat Europe. so good. They're so friendly. They love you there. Like if you get out of their way, they wave you back into the road. They just like, it's an amazing place. Dump this. I just got back yesterday from a trip. I was in California. It's awesome. And I'm really still kind of pissed off. I'm back. Dude. So you're talking about Spain. like, Oh, you gotta get back there. What?

Yeah, the Facebook thing. ⁓

First off, I leaked information. It sounds more dramatic. It's not as dramatic. was like, we were launching, like Facebook used to be for college kids and we were launching professionals. So if you have at microsoft.com, you could join. And so we weren't doing any press. So the night before it launched, I emailed TechCrunch, because I was friends with them and I was like, hey, we're launching this in the morning. Can you write about after it launches? And I was at Coachella. you know, I might have been, you know,

impaired in the site. you know, I don't know. Block Party was playing, if you guys know that band. yeah. And he ended up writing about it right away. And so that wasn't good. And I was with I think I was Dustin Moskowitz. He's one of the co-founders. And I emailed the exec team. And so I think it was that. And then I think that was one part. And I think the other fundamental part for me was more I wasn't a good fit when they got to 150 people like I think with that. So right now there's a lot of chaos.

And there's a lot of energy needed to make things happen. And I'm excellent. I'm like, this is my element. This chaos, this like fork, this force is really where I'm at. And I think when you get to a larger size and there's like project management meetings about fonts is where I didn't thrive. And I think, no, no, no. And people, people do, people love fonts. They loved meetings about that stuff. And I remember, I even looked at my old, you know, my own journal and it was like, I don't like being here. want, and I was, you know, similar to Sam.

Even at Facebook, I was starting side hustles. at Facebook, similar to this, had a conference business called Entrepreneur 27. And then I was doing a venture, it was called Labor versus Capital, dodgeball tournaments. Like, I don't know, this is the stuff we thought of. And I was playing like chess tournaments. And I was hosting a lot of events and working on my blog. I met like the box.com, you guys know box.com? Of course. Yeah, those guys like came to my office at Facebook. I was...

I was excited about that stuff as well. think they kind of, and Mark came to me one day and it's like, you want to be here at Facebook or you want to be Noah Kagan and do your thing. And I think ultimately I kind of knew that even then I kind of had that feeling. And I think they made the decision for me. And so many times now that I run a company, when I'm talking to people are unfortunately having to let them go. I'm like, a lot of times I'm like, yeah, this is not for me here. They know that too. And I think I knew that, but it was just, I was young. I was so excited to be there. It was like my everything. Like I, that was my life.

Speaker 2 (39:32)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:34)
⁓ Great answer. Mike doesn't remember this. He had a question that I loved. said, as someone who helped launch the social media age, how much time do you really spend scrolling? Be honest. Yeah.

Lately, where I spend the majority of my time is fantasy football. OK. So I think that that's my. Not a lot of scrolling. I scroll on Twitter. The thing is, people aren't honest with themselves. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, I do it here. I probably just mostly Twitter, probably like an hour a day. OK. On Twitter. There you go. I use a lot for business. A lot of times I'm reaching out to people, get feedback, talk about their products. I don't I'm posting here and there. But yeah, I don't do Instagram as much. Maybe just to see what my.

My wife sends like these family memes like, look what this dad does. I'm like, OK, I'll do that. But no, no Facebook, LinkedIn, never. All right. That's a that's awesome. Yeah. Spent a lot of time on LinkedIn these days, so that's great. I think whatever plot, you know, and I used to do a YouTube channel, I think some of you guys have seen my videos where I like I go to people's houses in Austin or I did. did a private jet where I just went up to some guys asked me to on his jet. That went very viral. And so I was in.

I think I go through, you know, like all of us, go through spurts. And so I was, you know, probably thinking about which platform I want to be creating on. So I don't scroll, but I do watch a tremendous amount of YouTube. I don't know a lot of people here. I watch a lot of fantasy football analyst videos. Nice. Did you have a question or thanks.

I wanted to sort of dig into your transition, right? It sounds like you had your child, your first child, you took 12 months off and that's obviously kind of a different lifestyle and different experience for you and now you're coming back into being the CEO, right? you know, I think the question is around sort of like being a CEO is you said, you said earlier, it's chaotic, stressful.

takes a lot of energy as well, right? How do you, so how was that transition for you? How did you manage that coming from like sort of being there for your family, being there with your wife, being there with your daughter, and then going into this stressful, chaotic situation and probably less time to ride bikes, less time to travel most likely. So how do you sort of like cope with that on a daily basis? How do you keep your energy up?

And how do you manage sort of the dynamic that evolves at home with your family? What's it like for you or what's going on with you? Well, for me, I took my, I took off, actually I took off a year and a half from running my business, right? And I exited and it was, I'm not at a stage where you are where I would be able to go all in again, right? Because I still.

need to get need to have a little bit more energy, right. And so I would feel I wouldn't say guilty about jumping all in because I think it would maybe take away a little bit from the experience with my kids. That's kind of what I'm feeling right now. Yeah. Yeah. There's a guilt, guilt aspect of maybe not being as available as I could be otherwise.

Speaker 2 (43:04)
you

Speaker 1 (43:04)
Yeah, it's it's I'm sure a of people can relate. So today I went downstairs at three to 50 because I'm meeting at three and I wanted to get a snack and my daughter sees me and then I hold her and then I want to give her back to my wife. And then she just starts bawling. And that that is really because then I have to like walk away. But I want to be with her. And so I ended up just bring her on the Zoom meeting. So I was just like, well, my daughter is going to join for a little bit here. And then she like, you know, kind of almost ends the Zoom meeting, which I wouldn't mind.

I'm joking. And then my wife comes and gets her. But I do my best to not let my daughter see me on my phone. And then I really try when it's like seven to nine, I do my best seven to nine and then like six to nine just to be present with her and my wife. But I guess my narrative or the story I tell myself is I have like insane energy. I think even same on the bike. What's OK? I'm what's the name? I I mean, I mean, mean,

Aminono, what's the company called? Armanino. Armanino. For the sake of the recording, Mike just made a very valid point, which is, you know, life is hard. Riding bikes is not really hard. And, ⁓ yeah. Yeah. And so I think coming back to the work, think one, I tell I have a narrative in my head that I'm like, I just have an insane amount of energy, like abnormal. it's the same as all of yours. It's just what I tell myself, like.

Speaker 2 (44:17)
Bye.

Speaker 1 (44:32)
Repeatedly, it's like on repeat like then you I can't believe you have a lot of energy all day for your daughter for this for that And then I don't think I feel guilt right now. I'm really enjoying my balance I'd miss I think like everyone's a parent. I miss The freedom of like I want to go ride on a weekend and I don't have to worry about a time to come home And that that's just part of the experience. So I also try to appreciate like hey, this is the experience of this time period

Speaker 2 (44:54)
I don't got that, no.

Speaker 1 (44:56)
the unlimited energy, having that as a mindset. Yeah. Right. That energy is a choice. Where do you think you got that from? Was that like a childhood thing or is that something that came to you later? There's a book. The book I'd recommend is called Powerful Engagement. Power. It's not like a Eckhart Tolle book. It's more talking about like instead of time management, energy management. It probably comes from my mom. Yeah, my mom's very is going to be this is live. It's going to be recorded.

Yeah, I mean, it's not streaming, but yes, it's like and we can edit. it's like she comes to the house and she just won't stop. And like you just chill for a bit. And she's like, no, no, I got to clean more dishes or clean the oven or whatever it is. And so I think it's probably from my genetics, probably something from that. But I don't know. I would say lately I've I try to think how am I making progress? Like I'm showing up Monday. I'm leaving work Friday. What's different this week? And I think of each week I wake up come Monday. Look forward to it. Look forward to Monday and leave Friday being like

What did I want to accomplish? Did I make things move forward? It's an exciting week to live. And then I do my best the mornings, nights and weekends to be available to my family. in life, it's trade-off. So I don't cycle as much. I do it at like two o'clock between meetings. I was talking with Andy. So it's not what I want, but it's just where life is. But yeah, jump back in, I would say.

I don't know. I'm very happy finally back in with work. Personally, I love it. It's not easy, but I love it. Thanks, Matias. I think Carol's up. Where's Carol?

Hi, Crow.

Speaker 2 (46:38)
I ask this question just because I'm curious. ⁓ And similar to you, I have a Nigerian mom, not a Jewish mom. And growing up, watching her ask for certain things was very embarrassing, especially after we moved to the US. ⁓ My question is, what is one ask that has felt kind of in...

possible and somewhat embarrassing that's changed your entire trajectory with business and kind of, you know, where you that's brought you kind of where you're sitting right now.

Speaker 1 (47:22)
Probably with my wife. The ask of the wife. Well, we broke up. ⁓ Right. And so then I had to ask her back. And that was not easy. And then she was she's such an amazing woman. She's very strong, but also sweet and all these things. And so asking her back and then working through those ⁓ some of the things we had to work through was very awkward. And I had a flight to Spain. We met and I met while cycling in Spain. That's how we ended up meeting, too. But that was definitely the hardest one.

And I talk about in the book and I'm not saying you have to go buy the book, but I talk I encourage people to do the coffee challenge. And so that that's become famous through the book as well as I've done it, you promoted a lot, which is not this bark. It's an open bar. But try it. Try it yourself. Like what I love is who here will commit to. Let me tell you what it is. And let's see if you commit to it tomorrow. You go to Starbucks or, I don't know, Houndstooth or Joe's wherever you order your coffee and then you just ask for 10 percent off. And.

And then they look at you like, what do mean? You're like, can I get 10 % off? And the thing that's interesting about it is it's universal. You could do it every day. You could do it at different places. And the point is not the discount, but it's the discomfort and the skill of practicing asking, does anyone here do it? Will anyone do it tomorrow? Will anyone do it tomorrow? Right there in the back with hat? Elliot will definitely do it.

All right. 100 percent. You get a signed copy of Million Dollar Weekend. All right. Report back about your ask. And and there is actually something to this because. Noah, in the book, I think there's sort of like a daisy chain, right, where you're asking people to pass it on. ⁓ in the book, yeah, there's a page like I think 29 or so. I asked the reader to write a review. Right.

And so, you know, it's just it is asking. It's just a skill like asked to be a photographer, asked to be a guest, asked for the space or sponsors, you know, asked for a wife or husband. That's really as you start thinking, like asking for a job, asking for help. Like it's a skill and it's it's kind of the fundamental element of humans. It's like how we actually, frankly, get the things we want instead of getting the things you're getting.

Speaker 2 (49:35)
I don't know if you've had the same experience, but watching my mom ask for an additional discount at Ross, my God, just bury me. ⁓

Speaker 1 (49:45)
Yeah,

my my mother's sound lately. should hang out. My mom, my mom returns more than she buys, which I don't know how that's possible. She's like, I'm like, she all her clothes have the tags on. I'm like, Mom, her nightmare somewhere cuts the tags off. You can't return it.

Speaker 2 (50:03)
⁓ yeah, think that's it. Okay. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 (50:05)
Thanks, Carols.

We have covered so much ground and you've been really just thoughtful about like sharing. I've learned a lot about you from this conversation. You've done all this stuff, like really remarkable stuff. mean, the book is a bestseller, AppSumo, a very successful company. And we didn't talk about the YouTube channel, but it's got like a million plus subs. So Noah has a lot of people know who Noah is.

And especially now as a family man, what kind of legacy do you want to leave on? people know Noah Kagan, how do you want to be known?

I don't think about that. guess I just think that's fair. Yeah. I think lately I want my wife to like me. I just like, yeah, I want her to like me and then I want to like me too. I know I want my wife likes me like baby happy, wife happy, Noah happy. Right. Like that's the order. And, you know, I think in terms of the legacy, I guess I have this imagination that like after it goes, like none of all your accomplishments just get

just disappear. Yeah, like this all just disappears. So like, don't be so focused on getting like a bench named after you. ⁓ Instead, it's just like, are you treating your significant others she liking who you are? And then how do feel about yourself? Yeah. And so what's been interesting is coming back to APSUMO with Paul and being able to work with someone like him and all these other people. Anna and Sean and Alona. I'd say it's given me confidence to feel better about who I am. Right. Like it's like when you do a hard ride.

And you get where I was talking with Adam and you like come home. You're like. I'm the man. Where's my cherry juice? I my tart cherry juice in my electrolytes because I'm the man here. You know, Tom, you know what I'm talking about? You know, it's like and I think there's that, you know, at the end of the day, like if I can feel good with my wife and feel good about myself, think that's a very nice legacy. That's a great answer coming from someone that's got some, you know, public sort of public figure. So, yeah, that's awesome. All right. So last question.

I always ask is, have you thought about some of the parallels between entrepreneurship and bike racing, bike riding? Anything you can draw, it can be a stretch. What do we think? I think business like cycling, it's more fun with friends. Some of my favorite things is just like, who do I get to go on a journey with? think sometimes cycling becomes too much other stuff, which is like, and same in business. Like, who am I working with and can we do things we're proud of?

together. And I would say success in cycling and success in business is a lot of it is like, you consistent? Are you doing it for a long period of time? It's easy to kind of have a little bit and it goes away with our health. so consistency, who you're doing it with. ⁓ I think that that's a good you ⁓ asked probably 22 people. I think you're the first person that's answered with with your company. That's, know, not your company.

who your company is, the company you're keeping, yes. Yeah. It's a great answer. Yeah. No, no, No. No. No.

All right. My ⁓ my asks at this point are that you come ride bikes with us tomorrow at 7 a.m. Yes. Got to see some of you folks out there. We got some really fly merch. Please, please buy our merch. ⁓ The only start tomorrow at the meteor 7 a.m. at the meteor. And we'll wrap up with some coffee thanks to cold cycle and and fronks actually. So.

Do the coffee challenge at the Meteor, that's great. Yeah, and we gotta get Doug to see if he'll dole out some 10 % discounts. ⁓ Doug's a tough cookie, guys.

The final ask and a really exciting one is that, you know, we're building an in real life community here as is showcased with the event this evening. I'd like to try to formalize it. So we're going to send out a survey asking for feedback from namely founders and investors that are here asking you what sort of value can Hill Climbers bring you that would get you to kind of lean in and tap in more.

So again, my ask is that when you get that survey, please complete it and turn it around because we're building something here and we'd love for you to let us know what you would like to see out of it. So that's all we got y'all.

So is there still open bar for everyone? Yeah, we got another hour and a half of the bar, so go get it.