Noah Kagan
Founder & CEO, AppSumo. On 6 shows, 8 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveauthorhost@noahkagan ↗LinkedIn ↗noahkagan.com ↗
Noah Kagan is the founder and CEO of AppSumo and was an early employee at Facebook and Mint. He is also the author of Million Dollar Weekend and produces business and marketing content across YouTube and podcasts.
6shows
8appearances
108statements
8resolved
5supported
3contradicted
63%fully supported
177said about them ↓ Everything Noah Kagan said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Andrew Chen: Startups failing to reach a $1B valuation have failed
“I have a, an advisor, Andrew Chen. He's like, if you're not a billion dollar company, you failed.”
Noah Kagan: Brex and Ramp are overvalued $10B branded credit card companies
“I think some of the stupidest companies that are big that I don't get is like Brex or Ramp. They're like credit card branded companies that are like ten billion dollars.”
Kagan: Pair elite fractional advisors with hungry junior internal employees
“We go and look at who did the thing at this company that's ahead of us. And then we pay that person a lot of money per hour. And then we hire a more junior person who cares probably a little bit more about AppSumo. And then they, it's kind of a nice, nice merg…”
Noah Kagan: Reid Hoffman's 'jump off a cliff' advice sounds crazy
“I think most people think they have to take a big risk. I got to quit like Reid Hoffman's famous line. Yep. Jump off a cliff. I'm like, and you build a parachute on the way down, which I was like, that sounds crazy to me.”
Kagan: Most highly successful people are also the most naive
“Most of the most successful people are also the most naive.”
Kagan: AppSumo failed every time it tried to force hypergrowth
“Every time we've tried to hyperscale and go beyond, I guess, the organic growth curve of our company we've, we fucked up.”
Kagan: Businesses outside winner-take-all markets can win by sustaining
“And I think you can win by sustaining. Some businesses, maybe there's a winner tick all, but really almost, there's a lot of opportunities outside of that. That's like saying one restaurant is where everyone eats.”
Kagan: Prior job tenure under a year is a hiring red flag
“When people are like, Hey, I've had a job less than a year. That, that just, even to this day, almost a red flag to be hired at our company.”
Kagan: Anyone claiming not to be a micromanager micromanages
“Everyone who says they're not a micromanager, micromanagers.”
Kagan: Only 3 to 4 out of 100+ podcast appearances moved the needle
“I would say I did a hundred plus podcast The reality, even though it was good to practice on all of them, only three, I would say three or four really moved the needle.”
Noah Kagan: Companies like Facebook and Airbnb started in a weekend
“Facebook started that way in a weekend. Airbnb did. A lot of other companies can too.”
Noah Kagan: Leaking email expansion to TechCrunch led to Facebook firing
“And I let Arrington at TechCrunch know like, Hey, Facebook's opening up to at Microsoft and at corporate emails in the morning. I think you should write about it and get and talk about it. Cause Facebook wasn't going to do any press. And he wrote about it that…”
Noah Kagan: Billionaires build extreme wealth focusing on one business over decades
“All of them got rich as well in one way. Like I was just at FedEx this morning because I interviewed the guy from Kinko's. He just focused on copiers. That's it. But a lot of newer entrepreneurs I've seen are ones that haven't had as much success. They're like…”
Kagan: Sponsoring hyper-niche and international creators beats paid ads on ROI
“Don't go to me. Go to the person whose audience is, like, hyper engaged on a really tight subject, And even if you want to be even more creative, go to different languages. So we have people crushing it in Spanish, crushing it in Portuguese. And it's like when…”
Noah Kagan: AppSumo team spends roughly $30,000 per YouTube video
“I mean, we're spending on per video, I don't know, maybe 30,000, if you look at salaries, and editing, and thumbnail designer, and consultants, and all this different travel stuff”
Kagan predicts Google Analytics will be disrupted and lose significant market share
“So one of the easy ones I think is going to easily get its ass kicked is Google Analytics.”
Kagan bets his new DocuSign alternative will make $1M within a year
“And then I believe, I would bet, I'll bet a million dollars, it'll make a million dollars in a year.”
Kagan: The best compensation method is asking hires what they want to make
“I think the best way to pay people is ask them how much they want to make.”
Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook to meet women, not for billions, says Kagan
“Like Mark didn't start Facebook. I'm going to be a billionaire. It's like, ah, let me see if I can meet some chicks online. If we're honest. Right. And I worked for him. So I know that stuff.”
Noah Kagan bought 5M WordPress plugin installs to launch Sumo.com
“So when we launched sumo.com, I actually bought probably about five million installs. I think give or take five million installs of WordPress plugins. So I bought like some of the most popular WordPress plugins around.”
Sponsoring creators under 10K subscribers is prime underpriced growth arbitrage
“Like if I was trying to grow a newsletter I probably would go try to sponsor like super micro people on Tik Tok and YouTube. Like these guys that are guys and girls that are like sub 10,000 subs. Like if your channel has like 966 subscribers, like you'd be a p…”
Kagan: Marketplace platforms exist because creators cannot market effectively themselves
“If Google was cheaper or Facebook was more efficient or people could do marketing themselves, like there wouldn't be AppSumo. There wouldn't be Airbnb if you could just promote your home yourself.”
Kagan: Validate business ideas by getting three paying customers in 48 hours
“The, what I've talked about in, you know, Million Dollar Weekend, and for me, it's three customers, 48 hours. That's it.”
Kagan: Practice management by hiring a home cleaner first
“Now, for me, I think hiring is a great practice, and the easiest way to practice it at home. Hire a cleaner. Just practice it. Do they come on time? Do they, do you have a checklist for them? How do you make sure they're doing well? How do you pay them where t…”
The other half of the tape: Noah Kagan's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 165 times in 33 episodes across the shows. 12 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Alex Lieberman 76Sam Parr 38Greg Isenberg 12Jonathan Courtney 8Rob Walling 7Paddy Galloway 7Sahil Bloom 6Codie Sanchez 5
Statements about Noah Kagan, by other people (12)
Parr: Noah Kagan lost $100M in unvested equity when Zuckerberg fired him
“Noah was the 32nd or 30th employee employee... And Zuck goes to his desk and he goes, you're fucking with my company. You're out. And he fires him on month nine. So Noah was three months away from his first invest. And Noah's told me, he goes, had I just made …”
Sam Parr: Business plans, business cards, and LLCs are stupid
“Business plans are stupid. Business cards are stupid. LLCs are stupid.”
Parr: AppSumo will hit $100M gross and $50M net revenue
“Noah Kagan runs this company called AppSumo. It's a weekly email where you get deals on software this year. They're going to do a hundred million in gross revenue of which like, 50, fifty million is their revenue.”
Creators must niche down their content to an uncomfortable degree initially
“And the TLDR here is that you want to niche down your content an uncomfortable amount. Productivity as your content circle is too broad. Productivity for professionals is too broad. Productivity and test-taking strategies for medical students in the UK is a pe…”
Parr: AppSumo will generate over $80M in revenue in 2021
“Their goal this year was a hundred million in revenue. They're gonna miss it by a little bit, but he said they're gonna get north of eighty million in revenue.”
Noah Kagan's Channel Grew From 15k to 500k Views Per Video
“When I first started working with Noah, he was doing 1015, maybe 20,000 views a video. At our height of working together, we were doing four or 500 K views a video.”
Parr: Noah Kagan's AppSumo generates $100M per year in revenue
“And now it's like, you know, a business that does a hundred million a year in revenue.”
AppSumo generates $65M annually, with over 50% of revenue from email marketing
“Noah illustrates the power of email by sharing how his business, AppSumo, which generates sixty-five million dollars a year, Has over 50% of all of its revenue come from email?”
Noah Kagan was fired as Facebook's 30th employee for leaking expansion plans
“Noah gets into this section by sharing his experience as a twenty-four-year-old being hired as Facebook's 30th employee and subsequently being fired for leaking information about the company's expansion plans beyond colleges while he was partying at Coachella.”
Isenberg: Noah Kagan's AppSumo generates approximately $80M in annual revenue
“He has AppSumo, which is doing really well.
I think it's eighty million a year.”
Parr: AppSumo is bootstrapped, majority founder-owned with 150 employees
“He owns most of the company, has never taken any outside money, and they have, like, a 150 employees at this point.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Founder's Journal 77
My First Million 44
the Startup Ideas Podcast 35
Startups For the Rest of Us 9
2025 8 mentions in 1 episode
2024 102 mentions in 15 episodes 7 per episode
- 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours
- This legend gave away 3 crazy cash-flowing business ideas
- I can't believe he gave away these GENIUS 3 AI startup ideas (watch this)
- Everything I Learned From 48 Hours With MrBeast (The +$1B Mindset) (#539)
- Jesse Pujji on Bootstrapping a +$1B Business + Selling To The Ultra Rich
- How to meet anyone you want
- 5 game-changing startup ideas from a life hacking genius
- You Have 70 Days to Win the Year
- 7 more episodes that year, every mention in 2024 →
2023 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2022 12 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
- How to Build Hype with Matteo Franceschetti | Where It Happens
- The Future of the Creator Economy
- Why Airlines Are Banks, How to Annual Plan for Your Business & The Biggest Myths About Founders
- Is The Rock Going to Make $1B+ From Tequila? + Placebo Water, STR Update, and More
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 36 mentions in 10 episodes 4 per episode
- How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, QVC for Mobile, and More
- The NSFW Framework & the Magic of Community-Product Fit with Amanda Goetz | Where It Happens
- How Virtual Horses are Making Millions & A Potential 9-Figure Company | My First Million #181
- How to Buy Distressed Assets, How to Network with Codie Sanchez | My First Million Ep. #176
- MFM #160: How to Build a Paid Community Making $20M a Year
- Half-Baked TV Show Ideas, Miss Excel Making Millions, The Adventure Challenge, and More
- Fitness Hotels, Steel-Manning, and Why the Creator Economy is Overhyped
- Why You Should Have a Diversified Investment Portfolio | My First Million #214 with Ramit Sethi
- 2 more episodes that year, every mention in 2021 →
2020 5 mentions in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Noah's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 MASTERS OF SCALELEDGER | Founder & CEO, AppSumo | 1 | 30 | 50% 2/4 | full record on Masters of Scale → |
| STARTUP IDEASLEDGER | Founder & CEO, AppSumo | 2 | 27 | 50% 1/2 | full record on the Startup Ideas Podcast → |
| MY FIRST MILLIONLEDGER | Founder & CEO, AppSumo | 2 | 22 | 100% 1/1 | full record on My First Million → |
| STARTUPS FOR THE REST OF USLEDGER | Founder & CEO, AppSumo | 1 | 18 | 100% 1/1 | full record on Startups For the Rest of Us → |
| FOUNDER'S JOURNALLEDGER | Founder & CEO, AppSumo | 1 | 7 | — | full record on Founder's Journal → |
 MIXERGYLEDGER | Founder & CEO, AppSumo | 1 | 4 | — | full record on Mixergy → |