Feb 2, 2024 · 49m · my-first-million
How This +$80M Founder Launches A Startup In A Weekend | ft. Noah Kagain (#546)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of My First Million, hosts Sam Parr and Sean Puri interview AppSumo founder Noah Kagan about his 'Now, Not How' framework, the reality of bootstrapping versus Silicon Valley venture capital, and the power of launching businesses through immediate weekend experiments.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 64.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 4.6 Guest teaching 3.4 Guest disagreement 1.6 The hosts pushing back 2.0
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 31:54 Noah dismisses Zuckerberg's post-2005 internal innovations
Noah combatively challenges the common praise of Zuckerberg's product genius, asserting that Facebook hasn't created anything great internally since 2005 aside from acquisitions.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 18:24 Shaan challenges Noah's zero-profit reinvestment modelShaan directly pushes back on Noah's strategy of copying Amazon by draining annual profits on team trips and prepaid ads, bluntly asking what the point of running the business for 14 years without taking profits is.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:24 Noah lays out the exact unit economics of AppSumoNoah educates the hosts on the exact financial mechanics of AppSumo, breaking down gross sales of $76.7M, net revenue of $56M, and $7.5M in profit.
The host holds their own ▶ 24:36 Shaan calls out romanticized startup mythsShaan displays his deep industry knowledge by correcting Sam and Noah's mythologized version of the Yahoo acquisition story with the factual board dynamics and revisionist history.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing Noah Kagan and the Now, Not How Principle | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | The episode opens with warm banter and mutual appreciation before Noah pitches the core concept of his book, 'Now, Not How.' The hosts facilitate the introduction smoothly with minimal friction. | |
| The Power of Action and the Coffee Challenge | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Sam shares personal stories of how Noah's early course prompted him to get stick-and-poke foot tattoos, and the group riffs collaboratively on the power of asking and low-friction business validation. | |
| Sponsor: HubSpot and Hampton's Growth Playbook | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Following a sponsor integration, Shaan demonstrates strong domain expertise breaking down the reality of Silicon Valley lottery winners versus operators of steady cash-flowing businesses. | |
| AppSumo's 14-Year Bootstrapping Journey and Financial Breakdown | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | Noah reveals AppSumo's exact top-line revenue, net revenue, and profit numbers, prompting Shaan to probe and question the logic of spending down profits each year like Amazon. | |
| Noah Kagan's Early Days and Firing at Facebook | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Noah recounts his tenure as an early Facebook employee and his eventual firing, while Shaan actively deconstructs romanticized Silicon Valley board-meeting folklore surrounding Mark Zuckerberg. | |
| Billionaire Focus and the Discipline of Saying No | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Noah reflects on the intense single-minded focus of billionaires he knows, leading Shaan to detail his own operational rule of blocking dedicated deep-work time for content. | |
| Million Dollar Weekend and the Power of First Sales | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Sam teases Noah about his matured demeanor compared to his wild early days, and Shaan validates Noah's core philosophy by sharing his first weekend drop-shipping success story. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Noah Kagan: Wealthy founders succeed through immediate action, not waiting
“And I think people are waiting to be ready, and they're just never ready. And people like yourselves, me, who ultimately have gotten to somewhere of wealth, We're just doing shit.”
Sam Parr: Business plans, business cards, and LLCs are stupid
“Business plans are stupid. Business cards are stupid. LLCs are stupid.”
Noah Kagan: Business fundamentally reduces entirely to making asks
“Business is like, Hey, will you be my sponsor? For your guys show necessarily, or will you be my customer? Will you be my partner? Will you be my employee? It's an ask.”
Shaan Puri: Airbnb founder Joe Gebbia's sales formula is SW²+WC=MO
“So this is the Airbnb founders sales formula and it's SW squared plus WC equals MO. So I don't know if you can, if you've ever heard that, he's like, everybody heard this for like, no, he goes, no. So here's what it stands for. Some will, some won't. Who cares…”
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.”
Shaan Puri: Startup success is not determined by talent or intelligence
“I don't think out of the batch of a hundred people that the difference between the winners and losers was intelligence or talent or hard work. I don't believe that that's what was the difference.”
Shaan Puri: Carrd bootstrapped with two people for 10 years before VC
“And now, and I think they just raised like a venture around 10 years later, like they bootstrap for 10 years and then raise like a single round from investors because they kind of couldn't deny like, hey, this is now much bigger than a two person project.”
Noah Kagan: AppSumo did $76.7M gross, $56M net, $7.5M profit
“So gross sales is 76.7 net revenue was 56. Pretty good. And then profit was 7.5.”
Noah Kagan: AppSumo kept a 0.5% net profit margin over 14 years
“So we copy Amazon for, if you actually look at our net profit over the past literally 14 years, it's like .5% net income margin.”
Noah Kagan: Reached $1M liquid by age 30 through extreme frugality
“No, I, I've never been broke. I had a million dollars at 30 from day jobs. I think that's kind of, like, not recognized by most people. Meaning, one, I was super cheap. Right? So I lived on floors for a year. That's a good way to save money. Lived at my mom's …”
Shaan Puri: Disregard for social norms is a strong signal for success
“The absolute disregard for social norms I've now learned is like a very, very positive attribute or signal in highly, highly successful people.”
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…”
Shaan Puri: Scaling success requires rejecting equal-rate opportunities for 10x upside
“The hard thing is when you're making a hundred grand and somebody comes to you and says, here's the thing that can make a hundred grand. And you're like, that's my rate. But what happens is you now, you've now split your focus and you're basically, you're losi…”