Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Opinion
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.”
Insight
Kagan: Most highly successful people are also the most naive
“Most of the most successful people are also the most naive.”
Disclosure
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.”
Insight
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.”
Disclosure
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.”
Insight
Kagan: Anyone claiming not to be a micromanager micromanages
“Everyone who says they're not a micromanager, micromanagers.”
Insight
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.”
Insight
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.”
Insight
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…”
Insight
Kagan: Entrepreneurs should secure base income before launching new ventures
“What I've noticed is that if you're like, oh, my God, I've got to sell 10,000 dollars and I've got to be the best salesperson in three months and all this shit. That is very hard if you're not worried about how you're going to get food tonight. That is very to…”
Disclosure
Kagan: I never quit a day job before a side hustle succeeded
“Like I've never quit my job until my freedom number was hit and my side hustle was working. And then I quit. I never took the risk.”
Assertion Contradicted
Kagan: Mark Zuckerberg fired me directly from Facebook
“I got fired by Facebook from Zuckerberg directly.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kagan: Gaming payments venture reached $30M in revenue in one year
“Then I did payments for games, thirty million dollars in one year.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kagan: AppSumo grew from over $300K to $3M in its second year
“And then AppSumo, our first year was somewhere 300,000 plus. Second year is three million.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kagan: How I secured free launch ads from Reddit's founders
“And then I got, I asked the founders to give me ads for free. Jeff Berman: The founders of Reddit to give you ads for free. Yeah. Why would they? Noah Kagan: Well, I think because they were launching their ad platform and they wanted some data on it. And so, y…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kagan: AppSumo launched with only $48 in total startup costs
“No, it cost me 48 dollars. I got, a guy named Muhammad who I still talk to this day, 15 years later he helped me put the PayPal button on the website. And it was 12 dollars for the domain, that's part of the 48 dollars. And then I used Gmail as my back-end.”
Assertion Supported
Kagan: AppSumo makes almost $100 million a year in revenue
“Now, you know, AppSumo today, you know, almost a hundred million dollars a year in revenue, which is insane.”
Insight
Kagan: Success comes from persistence, which founders can delegate to others
“I think what's changed in my perspective as I've gotten older is that a lot of success is just sticking with things. It's just sticking with it and either, and guess what? You don't have to do it yourself. Find someone else that likes sticking with it.”
Disclosure
Kagan: AppSumo is tracking at 25% growth in 2024
“And I just got a, you know, every day I get a pulse and like we're already at 25% growth this year because we're not stressing on how we 10 X our business so fast and try to prove to anybody else.”
Disclosure
Kagan: Book was partly motivated by insecurity from Facebook and Mint firings
“I think I wanted to prove that I'm smart or prove that I'm successful or prove that Facebook when they fired me and then when mint fired me, like I can do it. And I think this book was probably, probably some of that, like, hey, I want some level of attention …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kagan: Sam Parr's directory made $24K in month two
“In month two, they did 24,000 dollars. They're in month three, I think they're on track for 30,000 dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kagan: A 2010 AppSumo Dropbox giveaway gained 250K sign-ups in hours
“This is in 2010, and we actually built software to run our own giveaway. Launched it in the morning, and by noon, a quarter million people signed up for it.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kagan: AppSumo-built Calendly competitor TidyCal generates $3M-$4M annually
“So we launched a Calendly competitor called TidyCal. I don't know if you've heard of this, but yeah, that's a, you know, three, four million dollar a year business.”
Noah Kagan