Noah_Kagan_Jan_2024_-_1-21-24_1.48_PM
00:00:00.000 | Hello, everybody. It's Sam from the Financial Samurai Podcast. In this episode, I have a
00:00:13.000 | special guest with me, Noah Kagan. He is the author of Million Dollar Weekend, The Surprisingly
00:00:20.240 | Simple Way to Launch a Seven-Figure Business in 48 Hours. Welcome to the show, Noah.
00:00:26.560 | Good to see you, Sam. Good to see you. I love talking to you. I love all your material as
00:00:30.080 | well.
00:00:31.080 | Oh, thanks. So you've got some fancy people in your house right now, huh? Some CNBC cameramen
00:00:37.100 | and women?
00:00:38.100 | There are. So as part of that, the publicist was able to get me on CNBC Make It, but they're
00:00:43.280 | sharing my net income for last year, my total income, which I actually didn't know the number.
00:00:49.240 | And I was like, "Whoa, I don't know if we're going to share that," but they are.
00:00:51.600 | Wait, really? So are you allowed to share that here?
00:00:54.160 | Yeah, it's 3.3 million.
00:00:56.800 | Wow. That's a lot of money.
00:00:59.440 | It's a lot of money. I was like, "Are you sure that's mine?" And then coincidentally,
00:01:03.600 | my tax people emailed at the same time and they're like, "You owe $700,000."
00:01:08.800 | Yeah, that's the downside of making a lot of money.
00:01:12.280 | Yeah, yeah. That's been a part of the experience. There's some kind of fun stuff in there. And
00:01:16.280 | then I don't even know how much I spent on insurance or all these different things. I
00:01:22.160 | had no idea. CNBC had to send them all my financials and they're pulling it together.
00:01:26.000 | Oh, wow. Wow.
00:01:27.080 | Yeah. I like how thorough they are.
00:01:29.000 | But I guess you live in Texas, right? So you don't have to pay the 12% state income tax?
00:01:34.600 | Yes, but you know where they get you is this property tax stuff. So my property tax bill
00:01:40.200 | on this house is $41,000.
00:01:42.560 | Right. But how much is your house?
00:01:44.840 | This house I bought for two and a half million.
00:01:46.880 | Got it. So I guess $41,000, that would be the same property tax bill for a $3.5 million house
00:01:53.880 | in San Francisco. So it's not that bad. But yeah, it sucks paying $41,000 in taxes.
00:02:00.600 | I always think that, "Oh, when I finally pay off the house..." I have a good mortgage rate.
00:02:04.560 | I think the mortgage is like $275,000. So my mortgage is like $5,500 a month, give or take.
00:02:10.080 | And I'm like, "One day I'll give the house to the kids and I'll have a $40,000 a year bill."
00:02:14.720 | I know. That is annoying. But with $3.3 million, let's see, after taxes, you said maybe $2.7,
00:02:23.160 | you could pay it off.
00:02:24.040 | Yeah. I mean, I like the little rate. As we were talking before the show, one,
00:02:28.360 | I'm trying to get the hell out of real estate. I find it so annoying and overrated. And the
00:02:32.640 | other side, as part of my income, I have my own LLC. So I think everyone should have their own
00:02:37.480 | LLC and be an entrepreneur. And then I'm able to have a lot more expenses that I can reduce that
00:02:43.640 | net income by the amount of all the different side hustles, real estate, which is annoying,
00:02:47.720 | but YouTube channel or the book and other pieces that can reduce that income dramatically outside
00:02:53.560 | of the W2.
00:02:54.040 | Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. So Noah, I love your story because your story is a story about redemption.
00:03:01.280 | And for those who don't know, could you tell us about your humble beginnings joining a couple
00:03:07.640 | startups that could have made you massive fortunes, but actually didn't?
00:03:11.800 | Billions, which is crazy. It was billions. So I came out of Berkeley, worked at Intel,
00:03:19.800 | was a horrible cubicle job. Very lucky, didn't have any connections, but I got an early job
00:03:25.600 | at Facebook number 30. Then I got fired. I had 0.1% of the company. So if you go to
00:03:30.360 | Facebook's market cap today, I think it's one or 2 trillion at 0.1% of that. Went into a pretty
00:03:36.040 | big depression because I was like, oh man, I'm not going to get rich. Then I was able to join
00:03:39.920 | mint.com as number four, got fired from that. And then I realized like I wanted to be an
00:03:44.960 | entrepreneur or I had to be an entrepreneur because I didn't want to have somebody else
00:03:48.240 | control my future or control my destiny. And through numerous years of failing and trying
00:03:54.080 | and trying, eventually around when I was 30, I started out at summa.com in a weekend for about
00:03:59.680 | 60 bucks. And that's turned into a really special business. It's a deal site for entrepreneurs.
00:04:05.520 | And last year, give or take, we did around $80 million, which is unbelievable promoting
00:04:10.320 | software deals and helping other entrepreneurs. So I feel very lucky to be where I am today,
00:04:15.120 | but definitely it was a grind and a struggle. I was telling someone recently, I was like, man,
00:04:20.000 | I lived so cheap for so long and I was so unhappy for so long. And I don't know if I had to do it
00:04:26.400 | that way, but that's definitely what led me to where now I feel like I'm really appreciating
00:04:29.760 | where I'm at. Can you talk about why you got fired? Because to get fired, you got fired within
00:04:36.320 | a year, which means you weren't able to get the equity. How does that work? Yeah. So in
00:04:41.520 | Silicon Valley, everybody gets options and then there's a cliff. So after 12 months, generally,
00:04:46.160 | this is historical, you get a quarter of your options. And after four years, you get all your
00:04:50.080 | stock and you have to be there 12 months to get it. And I was fired at around 10 months and one,
00:04:55.360 | everyone should get fired because then you realize how reality is and you realize that maybe you're
00:04:59.040 | not as in control as you thought you are and you're more replaceable. And then you have to
00:05:02.320 | figure out how to take your own power back. And that is why I like entrepreneurship.
00:05:07.120 | I will say it as well. I begged, Sam, I literally begged for those options. There's Matt Kohler,
00:05:14.960 | who's now a billionaire as well. He's a general partner at Benchmark. And I remember him and some
00:05:19.360 | of these other people who are now super multi-billionaires and famous. I was like,
00:05:23.120 | please can I have these shares? Because I knew it was going to be super valuable.
00:05:26.640 | And I think it also left, besides a chip on my shoulder, a reality that I have to get rich my
00:05:32.080 | own way. I can't get it the easy way. No one's just going to give it to me. And that's a great
00:05:35.920 | lesson I was very fortunate to learn early on. Like, okay, I have to make it myself. I just
00:05:39.760 | can't get it this way. And it felt like I just kept being so damn close for so long. And getting
00:05:44.800 | fired, it was a great reminder, are you at the right place? And I think all of us, maybe no,
00:05:51.760 | it doesn't feel right. And we have to listen to that voice in our head. Because even for me then,
00:05:54.480 | I was like, I don't want to work for this guy. I don't want to be in meetings with a bunch of
00:05:57.360 | people. As much as I did like Facebook, I knew something didn't feel right.
00:06:00.320 | Right, right. And then with Mint, it sold what, to Intuit for 500 million?
00:06:06.240 | I think we ended up selling around $200 million.
00:06:10.800 | Oh, $200 million. So that wouldn't have been a massive exit, right? But that would have been okay.
00:06:16.080 | Yeah, it's funny these days. Millionaire is now middle class, which is insane to me.
00:06:24.080 | And the cost of living these days, I don't know how people do it with day jobs. It's kind of like
00:06:28.880 | you got to create something. That's why I love your material and Million Dollar Weekend. It's
00:06:32.400 | like you got to create something so you at least have the option to afford life. And at Mint,
00:06:37.680 | my hypothesis was that it was going to sell for maybe 400 million. And I own 1% of the company.
00:06:43.040 | And so a lot of people are like, damn, 4 million, that's great. But you don't get that right away.
00:06:47.120 | You get that after many years of the stock vesting, so three to four years. And then half
00:06:50.880 | goes away to taxes. I was living in California. And so after all said and done, I have a million
00:06:56.560 | and a half bucks. And I was like, maybe I can make that amount of money if I quit or get fired
00:07:01.360 | in the next three to four years doing my own thing, which ended up being close to being true.
00:07:05.120 | Right. Do you feel that most people just don't have it in them to just start a business? Why is
00:07:12.640 | it? Because you've run your business for a decade now, right? And it's doing great. And you see the
00:07:19.600 | other side of the curtain where you're like, oh, running a business seems much more lucrative,
00:07:24.960 | more fun, more valuable. What is it that average people who don't run a business,
00:07:29.760 | what are they missing? They need to believe that they can have a
00:07:32.480 | life that they want. I spent half my year living in Austin, half my year living in Spain.
00:07:36.320 | I can decide not to work for a week or I'm having a kid later this year, coming in July.
00:07:41.440 | Oh, congrats, man. It's amazing. And I feel very
00:07:44.560 | fortunate as an entrepreneur that I can take months off, I can take the year off.
00:07:48.640 | And it's not, and when I have a, there's a great team around me that they can do the same ideally,
00:07:53.680 | if that's what the, how they want to be living. And so knowing that there's this level of life
00:07:57.680 | that you can actually be at. So knowing there's a destination. And then for most people, I would
00:08:01.600 | say what I've observed is that they're afraid of starting. And that's literally what in Melon Dog
00:08:07.200 | Weekend, what we'd start the book with is like, most people don't realize that they just are
00:08:10.800 | afraid of getting going and how can they do it in a very kind of safe and fun way, just like
00:08:14.480 | you did at your day job as a banker. You were like, Oh, let me post a blog. Oh, I'm posting more.
00:08:19.040 | Oh, this is kind of working. So getting started. And then the reality, and this is what people
00:08:22.640 | don't notice. I have a lot of friends who have great day jobs. They have really good day jobs.
00:08:27.360 | They work at Amazon. They make 400 and they're like, okay, I'm going to start a side hustle.
00:08:31.840 | I'm going to do a YouTube channel, or I'm going to do an e-commerce business, or I'm going to do
00:08:34.880 | a lawn care business or a software business, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. And they,
00:08:37.920 | they either don't get started or if they get started, they actually do great.
00:08:40.960 | They make like a thousand dollars a month, but their day job is making them 30,000 a month. And
00:08:46.400 | so they're not figuring out how do I just sustain this and stick with it for at least a year, two
00:08:52.160 | year, three year, and then it will eclipse their day job. And then they can quit their day job.
00:08:56.480 | There's some good examples of this, like Steve Chu from mywifequitterjob.com. He had a day job.
00:09:02.160 | He liked got his side hustle going. And finally, after a few years, then he quit his day job and
00:09:05.920 | took over side hustle and was able to do that. So I think they need to be a little bit more
00:09:09.920 | patient after they get started because the income's like, Oh, it's just not even close.
00:09:13.680 | Like, but that's how it was for me with AppSumo. The first year I made zero second year. I made
00:09:18.960 | $18,000. Then it was $75,000. Then it was 120,000. And then a year around year six, I was like,
00:09:25.280 | I have no money. I don't really have significant money from, from the company that's doing really
00:09:30.000 | well. So it was like, all right, let me pay myself half a million and then a million and
00:09:33.120 | then 2 million. And then last year went down because we didn't perform as well, but then
00:09:37.440 | 2023 did well, but that did take some time. And I think people with day jobs
00:09:42.080 | are not as patient around that. Yeah. Right. Well, it also sounds like
00:09:48.320 | a successful business sometimes has to come from no other options in the sense that you're like,
00:09:55.520 | okay, you got fired from a couple of companies. You don't want to work for the man, you know,
00:10:00.000 | screw that. I've got to start my own business, be my own boss. It's ride or die all or nothing.
00:10:07.200 | I don't think that's the approach I did or I recommend. And I also thought it was more risky
00:10:12.000 | to have a job that sucked and then spend my days in this job with people and doing things I didn't
00:10:16.480 | like for the next 40 years to finally start living at 60. That seemed like a riskier life.
00:10:21.440 | The way I approached it at mint.com. And then even at, as I was consulting afterwards for another
00:10:26.000 | company called speed date, it was, how do you do things very quickly and cheaply to find something
00:10:30.480 | that works? And then once it works, quit your day job. So I never burned the bridges and went all
00:10:35.040 | the way in. So at mint.com, I thought these Facebook games, you remember those annoying
00:10:39.600 | Facebook games like Farmville. Remember that? That was me. That was, I'm sorry. I apologize
00:10:45.200 | to everyone out there who remembers that, but I was working at mint and I saw those happening.
00:10:49.200 | And so I started building games with a developer. I was like, let's build a hockey game and build a
00:10:54.720 | football game. And then after a few months, the games were doing well enough that I was able to
00:10:59.520 | quit the job. Like they made money from Amazon affiliate sales to those sporting teams because
00:11:04.000 | they were sporting games. And the same thing was speed date. I was doing speed data com consulting
00:11:08.960 | and I wanted to solve the problem of getting customers for software businesses. And so I
00:11:14.480 | tried a lot of options. I tried putting a fishbowl in local restaurants to help them digitize their
00:11:20.080 | customers via email. Local businesses are there. They're too focused on their day-to-day surviving
00:11:26.320 | that they can't think about that stuff. So I was like, okay, I'm not going to do that.
00:11:29.360 | But I still was excited about that problem. Like how do I get customers for businesses,
00:11:32.160 | specifically if I can do it for software? So I did a software taco.com, which was a software
00:11:37.120 | review site. No one knows about it. Reward level.com. No one knows about it, but I tried
00:11:41.600 | this app sumo thing in a very quick amount of time and it immediately sold thousands. And I was like,
00:11:46.240 | oh, oh, this is cool. So after doing a few of these software deals on app sumo, I quit my job
00:11:52.560 | at speed date after about three months. And then I started taking serious. I call it the freedom
00:11:57.200 | number. So it was like, what's the number you need to live so that you can quit your job and do the
00:12:01.200 | thing you really want to do? And most people, when they find that their freedom number is lower than
00:12:05.360 | they expect, it seems more achievable. And then once they're able to achieve it, they can actually
00:12:10.640 | go on to creating thousand dollar business, hundred thousand dollar, million dollar business and
00:12:15.600 | beyond. Yeah. In terms of money, what do you think is that ideal income level for maximum happiness
00:12:24.720 | where happiness doesn't increase anymore? So you've gone from zero to 3.3 million. I don't
00:12:29.760 | know if you've made more before, but have you observed how you felt during these times of income
00:12:36.800 | volatility or change? Yeah. So just to give you context,
00:12:41.120 | three years ago I made 2 million. Then last year I made 900,000 because we didn't do well. And this
00:12:46.160 | year it's back up to 3 million. I think I felt pretty good overall. I think the real question
00:12:51.760 | is not necessarily how much you make and it's not how much you keep. It's just like, what I notice
00:12:56.640 | is that, am I able to live the lifestyle that I want to live in? How much does that cost? Right.
00:13:01.280 | Right. And so the lifestyle to me is, can I just buy groceries and not worry about the prices?
00:13:04.640 | Like I bought groceries from H-E-B yesterday. It was $150. I was like, baby, that's expensive,
00:13:09.600 | but it's like, okay, fine, no problem. Or I have a place here in Austin, I have a place in Spain,
00:13:13.680 | so I have two bikes. I'm a huge cyclist and they're both $15,000 bikes. And being able to do
00:13:18.160 | that without having to budget that to me was rich. And I think that started happening not so much at
00:13:23.600 | making just a million dollars a year, which I think is more vanity and frankly, just arbitrary,
00:13:28.240 | but it was more, how do you have enough income that you can spend it the way you
00:13:31.760 | want without having to worry about it or having to track it and budget it?
00:13:34.560 | I mean, to me, it sounds like you can live your lifestyle for 400, 500 grand a year.
00:13:40.960 | A lot cheaper than people realize, man. Especially if you have an LLC. So let's say you have like,
00:13:45.520 | you know, Airbnbs or e-commerce or content business like you've done and I've done as well.
00:13:50.640 | You have a lot of expenses too. Like when I go to Spain, I can expense
00:13:53.840 | all of the housing I do. I can expense most of the food I do. And then you realize as a W2 employee,
00:13:58.880 | you can't actually expense a lot of these things. You can't expense your cell phone bill. You can't
00:14:01.520 | expense your internet. You can't expense your YouTube premium subscription. I think it's the
00:14:05.280 | stuff that, you know, I know that you've been informed on. And I think people think it's like
00:14:09.280 | this big, hard thing to do. And it's actually, it could be fun and easy to get to these levels,
00:14:14.080 | but it is about how do I get going when I have a night or weekend available, which,
00:14:17.600 | you know, everyone's got 52 of them. I will say just the other thing, making a million dollars is
00:14:22.960 | nice. It definitely egotistically, you feel proud of yourself. But I think we're taught how to make
00:14:27.520 | money a lot. And there's all these articles about how to save it and how to do your 401k or your
00:14:31.600 | SEP IRA or your benefit plan, all these different things. But I don't think there's a lot of material
00:14:37.360 | how to enjoy living and enjoy money, which I would say until COVID, I really didn't do.
00:14:42.560 | That's interesting. So the other side of the financial equation is net worth.
00:14:47.920 | Do you have a net worth target to shoot for? Is it, or does it really not matter?
00:14:53.760 | It doesn't matter. I mean, it's also, there's a Silicon, you're Silicon Valley,
00:14:56.480 | we're Silicon Valley guys. There's a Silicon Valley thing, which is what's your valuation?
00:15:00.240 | Like someone yesterday was like, our company is a billion dollar, a billion dollar company.
00:15:03.680 | I'm like, you only make 300 million. Like, yeah, valuation. I was like, oh, okay. I don't really
00:15:09.200 | have a network target. I think what was more surprising to me, and this is something that
00:15:12.960 | everyone can do. I have wealth advisors. So I use this company called RedBud Advisors out in Austin.
00:15:18.880 | There's also a company I used before called Advice Period. And they have a bunch of software tools
00:15:23.440 | and all this stuff. And they showed me this thing that said, no, if you don't make any more money,
00:15:26.320 | you can spend $20,000 a month and you can live till 90. And that to me blew my mind.
00:15:31.520 | I was like, that's so special. That's cool that I don't have to, that to me, I guess would be FU
00:15:36.480 | money that I don't have to do any of these things for anyone or with anyone I don't want to do
00:15:40.640 | anymore. And so that was more of the interesting realization.
00:15:43.200 | No, that's interesting. I think what listeners might not realize is that as an entrepreneur,
00:15:49.760 | sure, you can make your income, but there is a valuation to your business, Absuma, right? So
00:15:54.720 | what was that company that was totally bootstrapped that sold for bajillions of dollars?
00:16:00.080 | Oh, MailChimp.
00:16:01.360 | MailChimp, right?
00:16:02.160 | MailChimp sold for 12 billion. Yeah. And so to your original question, I don't think about my
00:16:05.680 | net worth. I do track it every single month. And I think that spreadsheet is on NoahKagan.com,
00:16:10.720 | but it's literal. I'll just tell everyone it's a Google spreadsheet. I update every single month.
00:16:14.720 | It's assets, liabilities, and then just the net worth of that. It's so simple. And I do it
00:16:19.120 | manually, even though I helped build mint.com. And I think my cash liquid net worth all in is
00:16:24.560 | maybe 30 million. That's not including Absuma valuation, but I don't, it's not something I'm,
00:16:30.960 | if I can be worth, I think when people are like, I want to be a billionaire, I'm like, you're
00:16:34.560 | lame. Like, for what? For what? Like, I'd rather live a great life. And how do I have enough money
00:16:41.520 | to be able to do that, I think is a better net worth thing to be measuring for people. Like,
00:16:45.360 | what do you need for that type of lifestyle?
00:16:47.760 | Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that sale for 12 billion, what did you say it was MailChimp?
00:16:53.920 | Yeah. So MailChimp is these guys out in Atlanta that got started as a small agency. And this is
00:16:59.360 | the thing I think people miss in starting businesses. Like, oh, I got to have a genius
00:17:02.400 | idea. That's not true. I got to have funding. Not true. These guys started doing an agency
00:17:07.040 | out of Atlanta, Georgia, not a tech hub today, probably a little bit, but this is 15, 16 years
00:17:12.400 | ago. Did an agency, had a problem for themselves, which is a great thing to do as a business.
00:17:16.960 | Started creating MailChimp as like, okay, let's have email for ourselves and our agency clients.
00:17:21.520 | And then that over 15, I think 15, 16 years, a billion dollars in ARR, annual recurring revenue,
00:17:27.600 | then they sold to Intuit for 12 billion, which is unbelievable. But on the other side of that,
00:17:32.160 | it's possible for everyone. And I would say what's even more interesting is how do you create
00:17:36.240 | businesses that you're just enjoy working on? Like, I don't know, from my outside opinion,
00:17:39.440 | with all your stuff, Sam, which I love, you seem like you really love it. And when I read your
00:17:43.520 | stuff, I'm like, Sam's happy writing about his kid or writing about tennis or writing about
00:17:47.440 | his dream home in Maui. Yeah. I mean, that is the balance, right? It's like,
00:17:52.960 | how much money do you want to make and that balance between enjoying what you want to do
00:17:57.680 | and making enough money? So I don't know. I would say I'm like a poor entrepreneur in the sense that
00:18:03.440 | I have a lifestyle business where I just kind of do what I want to do. I don't optimize for anything.
00:18:07.840 | I'm just like, let's just do whatever. Whatever is good enough. Good enough is good enough.
00:18:11.920 | But then some people have hardwired different DNA. And so I think that's cool.
00:18:16.000 | That's very true. I mean, two things to kind of highlight that I got to say is one is I have,
00:18:20.560 | this changed my perspective on my money, where a few years ago, I set a goal to donate a percent
00:18:25.920 | of my money, spend it on friends or spend it on myself. And just having that goal that I was
00:18:30.800 | looking at every day really encouraged me to be, okay, can I go donate to someone? Did someone
00:18:35.520 | request a donation? Can I have friends that I can like buy something cool for? Like I took my
00:18:39.840 | parents on a yacht this year, last year, which I don't think they would have ever done. Or I
00:18:44.880 | bought them first class flights to visit me in Spain or treat myself a little bit, like get nice
00:18:49.920 | clothes, you know, buy, I don't know, buy a watch, get a, this is, I've got a gold necklace.
00:18:55.680 | It was on sale for Black Friday, you know, like, you know, still looking for a good deal. Don't
00:19:00.560 | get me wrong, but trying to figure out how to, how to get that. And the other thing with the way
00:19:04.240 | I run AppSumo.com and just to share is I, I just got my first raise in 10 years. So my base salary
00:19:10.480 | was $175,000 for most of the past five, six years, give or take five or six years.
00:19:17.040 | And so just recently I got a raise to $250,000. And so only if the company has profit and we've
00:19:22.080 | taken our whole team to Mexico for an all-inclusive trip and everyone's got their bonuses and we've
00:19:27.120 | paid out the team. Then yes, I get my, you know, bonus of profit share of if the business performs
00:19:32.480 | well. So it's not that I'm pre-paying and taking all that money out. So I think that that is an
00:19:36.960 | interesting point to think about how to operate your business. Do you think you'd ever sell your
00:19:40.640 | business and cash out for maybe hundreds of millions? I'm assuming, I don't know if you use
00:19:47.440 | the multiple, like when, when is, if, if Intuit was to say, I don't know, well, let me pay whatever
00:19:55.840 | four X, five X. I don't know what the multiple is. I mean, it would be tempting, no?
00:19:58.880 | If they offered a billion, I would sell. Cause I would also change everyone else's lives at
00:20:05.600 | the company straight up. Like my life is already, the only thing I would change that I don't have
00:20:10.240 | right now is a private jet. That is the only, that's the only thing I don't have where, and
00:20:14.320 | look, I would carbon offset it. So people that are worried about that, I care, I love the environment.
00:20:18.080 | You can't buy the private jet if you love the environment.
00:20:23.200 | I know, I know. Trust me, I've gotten, one, I stood outside an airport in one of my YouTube videos
00:20:28.560 | asking to get on a private jet and I was able to get on one. It is a really special experience
00:20:32.640 | not to wait in line, not to wait in security, to land and just get off. And I think the convenience
00:20:38.160 | of time saving in life, but in terms of my lifestyle, like I like making YouTube videos.
00:20:42.320 | I like talking about the book. I like promoting deals on AppSumo. If that goes away, like I'm
00:20:47.920 | just going to do the same thing again. So why not just do that same thing? And if I could change
00:20:52.160 | people's lives at the company so that they can have whatever amount of money they need, I think
00:20:55.840 | that would be super more appealing to me at this point. Yeah, that would be nice. Well, everything
00:21:00.800 | sounds pretty good, but can you talk about the dark side, the tough times of entrepreneurship?
00:21:06.720 | So like how many hours are you working a week? And don't tell me you're doing like a four-hour
00:21:12.240 | work week. Give us the raw, what were some of the losses and then the frustrations you've had
00:21:18.480 | as an entrepreneur? I mean, today is Thursday. I'll tell you, Monday, the VP of finance quit
00:21:24.400 | at the company or he's now moving to a contractor. A lot of people are out on maternity, so we're
00:21:29.360 | definitely backlogged or a little behind, which is amazing that they're on maternity, but that's
00:21:32.720 | tougher at the company. I lost $100,000 in a real estate deal. I got that email two weeks ago.
00:21:37.920 | That's maybe not as much as related to the entrepreneurship. And that's like a normal week.
00:21:43.760 | You know, like there's just someone quits here. This thing doesn't work. This thing is good. And
00:21:51.120 | there is an up and down thing. I think as I've matured, though, I've hired coaches. I go to
00:21:54.720 | therapy. We have a lot more processes in place, so I'm able to handle it or have teams handle it a
00:22:00.880 | lot better. Like yesterday, I found out our sales manager got fired and I was like, "Oh, okay." But
00:22:08.320 | then you have redundancies and then you have great... There's literally amazing people at
00:22:13.040 | AppSumo like Alona, Sean, Kellen, Jeff, that are able to then make sure that that stuff gets
00:22:17.360 | handled. And I think as I've matured, I'm not as emotional on these things where I try to pause a
00:22:23.440 | little bit more and realize we're on a planet floating in space and all this stuff. Yes,
00:22:28.960 | it's important. And yes, we all care, but we can be a little patient and be able to address these
00:22:34.560 | things the next day or later. It's not as urgent. No one's dying. But there's definitely dark side.
00:22:40.720 | And I would say my 20s, man, like I was really frustrated. I was depressed. I was cheap. I was
00:22:46.960 | frugal. I was bitter about the whole Facebook experience. I felt very insecure, unworthy.
00:22:52.640 | And then that was really hard. I lived in Sunset over by, I think, one of your many houses.
00:22:59.200 | Uh, maybe you were my landlord and I was sleeping on couches. I was sleeping on couches drinking
00:23:04.320 | two buck Chuck, just really bitter that I wasn't rich. And how do I get rich so that people can
00:23:09.600 | recognize me? And I can eventually recognize myself. And over time, you know, you find the
00:23:14.720 | work you like to do. I'm like, I like promoting stuff and you, you're okay with that. And then
00:23:19.120 | you're in your forties, you just find a little bit more peace with all of it is what I've done.
00:23:22.880 | How old are you now? No, 41, almost 41. All right. Yeah, it's great.
00:23:28.560 | Yeah. 41, 42. Yeah. I'm 46. Welcome to the forties.
00:23:32.400 | Dude, how great. And so, yeah, for your original question, you know, right now with,
00:23:37.360 | let's just take this book launch. I'm probably putting in 80 hour weeks.
00:23:41.280 | Okay. Wow.
00:23:43.120 | It's intense.
00:23:43.760 | That's impressive.
00:23:44.560 | It's, it's a lot. Right. And, and I don't need to, I don't know if people need to or not.
00:23:49.280 | I'm loving it.
00:23:50.080 | Great.
00:23:50.640 | Like I'm up at 7:00 AM two days ago, signing books. And I was just like,
00:23:53.600 | this is so cool that people want my signature or, you know, I'm up today. CNBC is here. So I'm like,
00:23:59.280 | okay, we're going to do all these things and then have meetings at night and all this other stuff.
00:24:03.040 | I love it. But what I've noticed is I've gotten older
00:24:05.520 | in terms of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship is it's more impressive to me to sustain.
00:24:09.680 | Like this book thing is, this is just this month, just for January.
00:24:13.200 | But normally I'm really, I'm not doing meetings before noon. So I don't have
00:24:16.880 | calls. I don't have, unless it's something like this, where I'm excited to talk with someone,
00:24:20.000 | but normally I don't have meetings till noon. And then I can have my Mondays and Fridays,
00:24:22.960 | mostly off. So if I want to go biking or if I want to chill or if I want to hang out with friends,
00:24:27.280 | or if I do want to work at that options for me. And I think what I'm impressed with is people that
00:24:32.160 | start something and stick with it for an extended period of time, like yourself with your material.
00:24:35.920 | Like you've been doing this now, how long?
00:24:37.280 | Oh, this is my 15th year.
00:24:40.080 | Yeah. And so in my twenties, it was like 10 X everything, all or nothing. If it's not a million
00:24:46.960 | views, a million books, it's a failure. And now it's like, let's grow 5%. And let's do that for
00:24:52.560 | a compounded amount of time. I think there's compounded business. No one's really talked
00:24:55.840 | about that, but compounded business is what you and what I've now embraced, which is, okay, let's
00:25:00.960 | do a little bit over. Let's try to make sure that I can do this marathon of life and enjoy it versus
00:25:06.480 | just trying to rush to get to the destination. Right. Tell me a little bit more about the
00:25:11.680 | journey because I hear anguish and pain in your twenties and then some relief in your thirties.
00:25:18.080 | And you talk about going through the therapist and I'm really excited and glad that you're having
00:25:22.720 | a baby. I was wondering, because when we met up several years ago, pre-pandemic, you had a
00:25:27.040 | girlfriend. I was like, oh, is this the one? And then a couple of years later, it didn't seem like
00:25:32.000 | the one. And then you have a new girlfriend and you're having a baby. So for me, I'm thrilled
00:25:36.560 | because I'm on the other side with two little kids and I'm super pumped. And I'm just wondering,
00:25:43.120 | because I've met a lot of people who really focused on their career and making money,
00:25:48.240 | and then they pushed out family and relationships to their regret. So could you talk a little bit
00:25:53.920 | about that a little bit? Yeah. It is nice to be at a place where I've worked hard. So I have money
00:25:59.120 | to be able to have more flexibility at this point. And so I think for a lot of people out there,
00:26:02.960 | what are you starting today? So that in five, 10 years, you'll thank yourself for
00:26:06.080 | maybe it's real estate, maybe it's blogging, maybe it's investing, maybe it's entrepreneurship.
00:26:10.880 | And I'm thankful 13 years ago, I got AppSumo going so that I can be at this place. And so
00:26:15.440 | I would say I have, I call her my Le Tigre. She's from Venezuela. I met her in Spain and she's just
00:26:23.520 | so amazing. She's definitely one of the best things I've had in life.
00:26:26.000 | And she's very kind. She makes me a kinder person. And I thought I was never going to find a
00:26:33.520 | partner. I didn't think there was going to be a person for me or that there'd be someone that
00:26:36.880 | would have my baby even. I felt that I don't know if that could be possible. And, you know,
00:26:43.840 | meeting her, I was like, and then through time, it wasn't, you know, I think in your 20s, you're
00:26:47.280 | like, oh, it's got to be an explosion. And I met her and I was like, oh, wow. Okay. I kept getting
00:26:51.680 | to know her really through WhatsApp and Instagram messages. And it was just getting to know who she
00:26:56.880 | was. I was like, wow, this is a really special person that I admire. It's not, I don't lust for
00:27:01.440 | necessarily. Like there's definitely, I'm attracted to her, but I'm like, I admire her. I respect her.
00:27:05.600 | It feels like an equal. And we were trying to have a kid as we're both a little older
00:27:10.160 | and it's, I'm so excited now that I'm having a kid. I don't have a crying baby yet,
00:27:14.640 | but I'm like, oh, everyone needs to have a baby. And I'm, you know, I'm looking forward and I'm
00:27:23.040 | enjoying just the process of learning about parents, like reading different books, you know,
00:27:27.360 | showing up. And this has been an interesting thing. Like yesterday I'm in a meeting and we have to
00:27:30.640 | finish an email for the book launch. And my girlfriend, I can hear her puking. By the way,
00:27:36.160 | guys out there, this whole pregnancy thing is so hard on the women. So do whatever they need
00:27:40.640 | all the time. And so I'm in this meeting, I hear her downstairs and I'm like, guys, I gotta go.
00:27:44.080 | And so this has been a shift in me, which is what's my priority, which is now my family.
00:27:48.320 | And then my behavior now is really lining up where last night she wanted to go to,
00:27:53.120 | she's new to America. And so she wanted to go to a grocery store that she hasn't been to.
00:27:57.280 | Everyone keeps talking about it. She's like, oh my God, this grocery store,
00:28:00.320 | I want to go on a, I want a date night there. I was like, of course, baby, we're going to go to
00:28:02.960 | the grocery store, you know? And so she didn't feel well, so we didn't go, but we went online
00:28:07.120 | to the grocery store and she's like, oh, do they have, do they have Gorgonzola? And, you know,
00:28:13.600 | I feel excited to have a partner in that future and really show up. You know, I'm, I'm, it's not
00:28:19.040 | always the, it's not the fun stuff, but it's the part that I'm really proud of to be with her and
00:28:24.000 | then show up as a father. Yeah. I think you're going to have this, this dilemma here once your
00:28:30.240 | baby is born, uh, cause you're going to love your kid more than anything in the world, like more
00:28:35.280 | than absolute one times 10. Trust me on this. So you're going to like have this new found thing to
00:28:41.760 | live for, which is going to be great. And so you're going to think to yourself, I think you let me
00:28:47.360 | know after you have your baby that you wish you had your baby younger, sooner, so you can be in
00:28:54.400 | your baby's life for longer. Right. Because we start thinking about our mortality more in our
00:28:58.160 | forties and fifties as people pass away by accident or what. So that'll be interesting.
00:29:03.040 | You know, I mean, I guess you don't know yet, but what do you think about the path of getting rich
00:29:08.400 | first and then having a baby in your forties versus having a family in your twenties when
00:29:14.240 | you're poor or just simply not rich and struggling through that? What do you think about that
00:29:18.960 | dichotomy? I don't think I was mentally ready to have a baby in my twenties. Yeah. More separate
00:29:24.320 | of the money. I just was immature. I was still partying. I was unsatisfied with myself. Yeah.
00:29:30.560 | Right. So I don't think I could be satisfied with the partner, let alone be a good example for a
00:29:34.480 | child. I feel now like a lot of people lately are like, oh, you're going to be a good dad. And I
00:29:38.160 | would say, if you said that to me in my twenties and thirties, if my real inner dialogue is like,
00:29:41.840 | no, I'm not like the insecurity was there. And, you know, I, one of the things over the past years
00:29:47.280 | is like, am I doing things? I'm proud of myself for less so much external, like, okay, I'll have
00:29:51.280 | money or have subs or whatever you have. It's like, okay, I have more than enough of that. Like,
00:29:54.480 | do I feel enough in myself? And so I will say, I feel very fortunate. I think about it now. I feel
00:29:59.920 | very lucky. I did put in the work and I got started, which everyone can do today right now.
00:30:04.160 | And then now I have the ability that if my girlfriend wants to fly first class,
00:30:08.800 | we can do it. Or if we want a full-time nanny, or if we want a night nanny, or if she wants a doula
00:30:13.280 | for her, actually, it's been, that's been a financially challenging conversation because
00:30:17.280 | she's, she actually has two jobs, which is so impressive. She has two full-time jobs.
00:30:21.280 | But for her, I think, you know, with her income and salary, she's more,
00:30:26.240 | you know, okay, we have to work. And I'm like, we don't have to work at all. And we can have
00:30:30.960 | whatever things we want. And, you know, then also how do you teach your kid about that stuff? It's
00:30:34.080 | a whole separate discussion, but I would say having the option now, and we're not hiring
00:30:38.080 | everyone right away and trying to outsource our baby. We're going to, I want it to cry and I want
00:30:41.840 | to wake up and they'll be like, okay, this sucks. And some of it should suck, right? Do some sucky
00:30:46.000 | work. And that's great. And some of it is like, okay, I'm probably not needing, I'm not adding
00:30:49.360 | a lot here. And let me find someone else to help with that. And having that option, I think is the
00:30:53.440 | power. Not saying you go and hire all this stuff, but having the option that we can get a bigger
00:30:57.840 | house if we need to, or we can rent a separate house for parents to come and visit, or staff,
00:31:02.640 | or you can buy whatever book you want, or you can buy, you know, the different gadgets without
00:31:06.080 | having to be as mindful about that, I think is a luxury that I feel very lucky to be able to do.
00:31:11.760 | - How does the citizenship work? So the baby will be born in America. So the baby's American.
00:31:17.680 | - No, it's not. It's not born in America. So the plan, we're about 14 and a half weeks pregnant.
00:31:23.760 | She feels more comfortable and I'm with her to have the baby in Europe. So the hospitals are a
00:31:30.880 | little bit more developed. They're actually like more up-to-date, more modern than American
00:31:35.280 | hospitals, a lot of them. They're easier to get appointments. Also, I have European health
00:31:42.000 | insurance. It's $1,000 US a year for full insurance. I find American insurance very
00:31:47.200 | complicated. I still don't know how it works. I have to ask my assistant. I'm like, "Can you tell
00:31:50.400 | me what we can do?" It's easier lifestyle there. You know, the lifespan of people in Spain
00:31:56.960 | specifically, we live in Barcelona, is I think about 10 years longer than America. 10 years,
00:32:02.640 | right? - 10 years? Like you're 84?
00:32:04.240 | - You look at the average life of Americans versus specifically Spaniards. But overall,
00:32:09.600 | I think the comfortability and the lifestyle, the fruit and the vegetables is healthier there,
00:32:14.560 | more natural. And she calls them proximity. And it's like literally they're proximity.
00:32:19.520 | They come and you don't have to have this whole marketing thing about farm to market or organic.
00:32:24.080 | It's like literally there's like, "Oh, that's Pedro. He brought that stuff over to us."
00:32:28.560 | So the baby will be born in Spain and get EU citizenship. And then I'm going to Spain. And
00:32:35.120 | I think this is interesting for people trying to figure this out. I'm going to Spain. And
00:32:38.000 | because she's a Portuguese citizen, you can do a thing called Pareja de Echo, which is like
00:32:41.600 | common law marriage. So we'll get married there. And then she's going to come back to America
00:32:47.600 | in October after the baby's three months. And then we'll get married here and get her residency
00:32:52.000 | through a marriage here. So the baby will have EU and American citizenship.
00:32:55.920 | - Okay. And she'll be able to get US citizenship?
00:32:58.880 | - Dude, this stuff is complicated and expensive. So we're using this lawyer,
00:33:04.080 | Jason Finkelman out of Austin. I thought you watch 90 Day Fiance and it's like,
00:33:08.560 | "Okay, I got money." And it's like, no, it's not. It's actually, I'm like, "Baby, let's go to the
00:33:14.160 | wall in Mexico. I'll put you on my back and we'll climb in that way. That's easier for you." No joke.
00:33:18.400 | This whole trying to follow the legal way is very expensive and lengthy and complicated. But
00:33:24.480 | what we're doing to get her into America is you can apply for a fiance visa. So basically she's
00:33:28.400 | guaranteed entry into America. That costs 4,000. And then you have to get married in 90 days.
00:33:33.760 | - Okay.
00:33:34.400 | - And then to get married, then you have to file this paperwork, which is another about
00:33:37.760 | eight to $9,000 to then get a residency work permit, travel permit, which doesn't happen
00:33:42.320 | right away. That takes another six months. And during those six months, she can't leave the
00:33:45.600 | country. So there's just a lot more complications than I expected. I thought you'd just get married
00:33:50.960 | and then that happens and that's just not the case. - Oh, that's fascinating. Well, good thing
00:33:56.480 | you have some money. So you guys will get it done. - I think that's one thing about parenting I'm
00:34:01.760 | nervous about where I don't want to just outsource or pay for all this stuff. Yeah, I don't want to
00:34:06.080 | just, "Okay, I have a nanny for this and we have a staff for that." And you don't do any of the
00:34:10.080 | responsibilities of being a parent. I think that's part of the whole experience. And I think with
00:34:14.880 | being a CEO again of AppSumo, which I stepped away for a while or doing this book and for everyone
00:34:19.680 | out there, it's facing some of these harder things in life and realizing maybe they're not so hard
00:34:23.840 | and that we can do them. And so I think the parenting one is going to be my most interesting
00:34:28.800 | and fun and deep quality challenge ever. So definitely, yeah, looking forward to it and
00:34:34.400 | also being patient along the way. Not so like, "Let's get the baby out." I think that's what I
00:34:38.000 | hear from parents. Enjoy that they're crawling, enjoy they can't even crawl, enjoy that they're
00:34:42.160 | not making noises. So I'm doing my best to every day enjoy that there's this little bump in her
00:34:46.560 | belly growing and like rub the belly, put oil on it or talk to it. I was talking to Pat Flynn. He's
00:34:51.520 | like, "You got to talk to the belly and rub her feet." That was good advice. Sam, what's your
00:34:58.480 | one advice for a new dad? I would just say to be there and give your partner a hall pass,
00:35:06.800 | like nonstop hall passes. Because it's tough, right? That fourth trimester is really tough
00:35:11.760 | in terms of recovery. It depends on whether she has a c-section or natural birth. It's like
00:35:20.640 | sustaining a business too. If you can be there for her every single day, be patient, do what you can,
00:35:28.240 | it'll feel like a long time but it'll also go by quickly. And so if you can sustain that first one,
00:35:35.920 | two years, I think you're going to be a real hero to her and it's going to be really good
00:35:40.320 | for your relationship. And it could continue on, right, if you have a second one and third one.
00:35:45.200 | That's the thing. Enjoy the moments, be there, be patient. I love it. Thank you for that advice.
00:35:49.840 | Yeah, no worries. Thank you. Yeah, just the hall pass has definitely been how much she's going
00:35:54.160 | through and physically and then the hormones. But I did tell her with Million Dollar Weekend,
00:35:58.160 | that's the only book we're reading our kid. Well, yeah. Well, let's talk about that. So
00:36:05.520 | who should read Million Dollar Weekend? I mean, your audience were the people I believe that want
00:36:11.040 | to make more money. And maybe they don't like their job or maybe they do like their job but
00:36:14.640 | they at least want that option if they get fired, they have a backup plan, or they're thinking one
00:36:19.120 | day I'd like to work abroad or like yourself. I mean, you were the person I wanted reading it
00:36:24.240 | 15 years ago when you had this job that you got paid fat and you're like, I want to do something
00:36:28.400 | else. And maybe it's not so expensive and it'll take so long and scary to get it started. And so
00:36:33.520 | what are the steps that I need to do and the mental steps as well to be able to do that in a
00:36:37.600 | weekend. So someone like yourself, and I think a lot of audience, especially if they're interested
00:36:40.720 | in real estate, they're interested in personal finance, like that all has to do with money,
00:36:44.320 | which all has to do with freedom. And so how do they have more control and ability to actually
00:36:49.440 | get that started? I would say someone who should read it. No, it's great. It's a great book. And
00:36:54.080 | Noah, congratulations for running the book because I know it's a long journey. I know
00:37:00.000 | marketing is a long journey. I know book writing is not that lucrative either, but it's a great
00:37:06.320 | milestone to achieve. And you can just check it off your bucket list.
00:37:10.400 | It's definitely been a bucket list for 15 years where I felt around three, four years ago, when
00:37:14.640 | I got started on the project, it felt like I had the expertise at that point and the experience
00:37:19.280 | where I could share how to do it. I don't think I was ready earlier. And again, I think the book
00:37:24.000 | for me, what's interesting for everyone out there is like, what's the hard thing we've avoided
00:37:28.640 | or what's the dream we've been thinking about? And how do we just get that happening and then
00:37:31.920 | get going on it? And so that's, that's what it was for me. It was like, all right, I have this dream.
00:37:35.440 | I've always wanted to do this, but I don't even think I could write this book and help people.
00:37:38.400 | I had a lot of fear about that and like, oh no, I can never, I can, I can actually help them.
00:37:42.960 | And so I hired tall Ross. He wrote, never split the difference. I thought by hiring him, I could
00:37:46.880 | avoid doing work, right? I mean, that to some extent, a lot of entrepreneurship or business
00:37:51.920 | is hiring people to support you. And with him though, I did have to face the book and face
00:37:56.640 | my fears and insecurities. And then, you know, through writing it, through working with thousands
00:38:01.200 | of people on the beta version of the book, realizing I could actually write the book and
00:38:04.880 | help put a book together and then ultimately help people. So I'm excited to see in a year,
00:38:09.920 | in two years, in five years, the stories. The money is zero. Like I made zero money from this.
00:38:15.280 | Like, I think, I don't know if I'm allowed to share. I almost made it. I got almost a million
00:38:18.160 | dollar advance from the book, but then 15% goes to the agent. And then I gave tall a lot of it.
00:38:23.200 | And then I hired people to help with the book and then, you know, the marketing, all these things.
00:38:27.200 | So it's, you don't get rich off books for people out there. You know, I think if, if we end up
00:38:30.720 | selling, I don't even know how many, I literally don't know. I'll get paid a dollar per book sold
00:38:34.960 | after that. Uh, I made all my money in AppSumo. And so the reality though, it's like, I'm excited
00:38:40.960 | to see the stories of people to reading it and be like, all right, I had a weekend. I tried
00:38:45.680 | like this woman yesterday. Her name's Carrie, Carrie Caulfield. She's, I don't even know where
00:38:50.240 | she is, but she read the book and she's always dreamed of being an artist. And so she went into
00:38:54.800 | her local coffee store and was like, Hey, can, do you guys want to buy a painting? And then they
00:38:59.200 | said no, but then they're having a gallery. And then, so she was able to sell one in the gallery.
00:39:02.880 | She sold two paintings and that's how AppSumo started. It was like, literally I got one person
00:39:07.120 | to buy Imgur, which is a photo hosting site. One deal at 12 bucks. That was it. One sale,
00:39:12.720 | 12 bucks, same with her. And so it's exciting to see what's going to happen for her and a lot of
00:39:16.400 | other people from this book. Yeah. I think the key message is to start and please read Million Dollar
00:39:23.120 | Weekend. Noah, thanks so much for coming on the show. If they want to buy the book, where should
00:39:28.400 | they go? MillionDollarWeekend.com. There you go. And then, I mean, after you've bought, buy this,
00:39:32.960 | not that. So first off, get Sam's book. I love your stuff. All right, everyone. If you enjoyed
00:39:37.920 | this podcast, I'd love a share, subscribe and a positive review. It helps keep me going. Every
00:39:43.200 | single episode takes hours and hours to produce. And if you want to keep in touch, check out the
00:39:48.000 | Financial Samurai newsletter at FinancialSamurai.com/News. Talk to you all later.
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