The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 15 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
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: 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: 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: 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…”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Kagan: My 'freedom number' when starting AppSumo was $3,000 a month
“And for me, getting started with AppSumo my freedom number is 3000 bucks.”
Kagan: No Products Promoted on AppSumo Have Subscriptions
“We go out and find tools that are more, more or less getting started, and then we negotiate a deal, 50 dollars for life, so none of our products that we promote on our marketplace have subscriptions.”
Kagan: AppSumo Has 1 Million Entrepreneur Buyers
“We have a marketplace of, you know, million entrepreneurs that want to buy software”
Kagan: Subconscious Fear of Repeating Father's Mistakes Haunted AppSumo's Early Years
“And I was like, well, I guess in subconsciously, I'm sure that's how I felt many years running up soon. Like I'm going to do the same. Just like be reckless, be a liability, make some bad decisions, make bad hires, you know, go, you know, just self-sabotage.”