Hello, everybody. It's Sam from the Financial Samurai Podcast. In this episode, I have a special guest with me, Noah Kagan. He is the author of Million Dollar Weekend, The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a Seven-Figure Business in 48 Hours. Welcome to the show, Noah. Good to see you, Sam.

Good to see you. I love talking to you. I love all your material as well. Oh, thanks. So you've got some fancy people in your house right now, huh? Some CNBC cameramen and women? There are. So as part of that, the publicist was able to get me on CNBC Make It, but they're sharing my net income for last year, my total income, which I actually didn't know the number.

And I was like, "Whoa, I don't know if we're going to share that," but they are. Wait, really? So are you allowed to share that here? Yeah, it's 3.3 million. Wow. That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. I was like, "Are you sure that's mine?" And then coincidentally, my tax people emailed at the same time and they're like, "You owe $700,000." Yeah, that's the downside of making a lot of money.

Yeah, yeah. That's been a part of the experience. There's some kind of fun stuff in there. And then I don't even know how much I spent on insurance or all these different things. I had no idea. CNBC had to send them all my financials and they're pulling it together.

Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah. I like how thorough they are. But I guess you live in Texas, right? So you don't have to pay the 12% state income tax? Yes, but you know where they get you is this property tax stuff. So my property tax bill on this house is $41,000.

Right. But how much is your house? This house I bought for two and a half million. Got it. So I guess $41,000, that would be the same property tax bill for a $3.5 million house in San Francisco. So it's not that bad. But yeah, it sucks paying $41,000 in taxes.

I always think that, "Oh, when I finally pay off the house..." I have a good mortgage rate. I think the mortgage is like $275,000. So my mortgage is like $5,500 a month, give or take. And I'm like, "One day I'll give the house to the kids and I'll have a $40,000 a year bill." I know.

That is annoying. But with $3.3 million, let's see, after taxes, you said maybe $2.7, you could pay it off. Yeah. I mean, I like the little rate. As we were talking before the show, one, I'm trying to get the hell out of real estate. I find it so annoying and overrated.

And the other side, as part of my income, I have my own LLC. So I think everyone should have their own LLC and be an entrepreneur. And then I'm able to have a lot more expenses that I can reduce that net income by the amount of all the different side hustles, real estate, which is annoying, but YouTube channel or the book and other pieces that can reduce that income dramatically outside of the W2.

Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. So Noah, I love your story because your story is a story about redemption. And for those who don't know, could you tell us about your humble beginnings joining a couple startups that could have made you massive fortunes, but actually didn't? Billions, which is crazy.

It was billions. So I came out of Berkeley, worked at Intel, was a horrible cubicle job. Very lucky, didn't have any connections, but I got an early job at Facebook number 30. Then I got fired. I had 0.1% of the company. So if you go to Facebook's market cap today, I think it's one or 2 trillion at 0.1% of that.

Went into a pretty big depression because I was like, oh man, I'm not going to get rich. Then I was able to join mint.com as number four, got fired from that. And then I realized like I wanted to be an entrepreneur or I had to be an entrepreneur because I didn't want to have somebody else control my future or control my destiny.

And through numerous years of failing and trying and trying, eventually around when I was 30, I started out at summa.com in a weekend for about 60 bucks. And that's turned into a really special business. It's a deal site for entrepreneurs. And last year, give or take, we did around $80 million, which is unbelievable promoting software deals and helping other entrepreneurs.

So I feel very lucky to be where I am today, but definitely it was a grind and a struggle. I was telling someone recently, I was like, man, 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 that way, but that's definitely what led me to where now I feel like I'm really appreciating where I'm at.

Can you talk about why you got fired? Because to get fired, you got fired within a year, which means you weren't able to get the equity. How does that work? Yeah. So in Silicon Valley, everybody gets options and then there's a cliff. So after 12 months, generally, this is historical, you get a quarter of your options.

And after four years, you get all your stock and you have to be there 12 months to get it. And I was fired at around 10 months and one, everyone should get fired because then you realize how reality is and you realize that maybe you're not as in control as you thought you are and you're more replaceable.

And then you have to figure out how to take your own power back. And that is why I like entrepreneurship. I will say it as well. I begged, Sam, I literally begged for those options. There's Matt Kohler, who's now a billionaire as well. He's a general partner at Benchmark.

And I remember him and some of these other people who are now super multi-billionaires and famous. I was like, please can I have these shares? Because I knew it was going to be super valuable. And I think it also left, besides a chip on my shoulder, a reality that I have to get rich my 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 lesson I was very fortunate to learn early on. Like, okay, I have to make it myself. I just can't get it this way. And it felt like I just kept being so damn close for so long.

And getting fired, it was a great reminder, are you at the right place? And I think all of us, maybe no, it doesn't feel right. And we have to listen to that voice in our head. Because even for me then, I was like, I don't want to work for this guy.

I don't want to be in meetings with a bunch of people. As much as I did like Facebook, I knew something didn't feel right. Right, right. And then with Mint, it sold what, to Intuit for 500 million? I think we ended up selling around $200 million. Oh, $200 million.

So that wouldn't have been a massive exit, right? But that would have been okay. Yeah, it's funny these days. Millionaire is now middle class, which is insane to me. And the cost of living these days, I don't know how people do it with day jobs. It's kind of like you got to create something.

That's why I love your material and Million Dollar Weekend. It's like you got to create something so you at least have the option to afford life. And at Mint, my hypothesis was that it was going to sell for maybe 400 million. And I own 1% of the company. And so a lot of people are like, damn, 4 million, that's great.

But you don't get that right away. You get that after many years of the stock vesting, so three to four years. And then half goes away to taxes. I was living in California. And so after all said and done, I have a million and a half bucks. And I was like, maybe I can make that amount of money if I quit or get fired in the next three to four years doing my own thing, which ended up being close to being true.

Right. Do you feel that most people just don't have it in them to just start a business? Why is it? Because you've run your business for a decade now, right? And it's doing great. And you see the other side of the curtain where you're like, oh, running a business seems much more lucrative, more fun, more valuable.

What is it that average people who don't run a business, what are they missing? They need to believe that they can have a life that they want. I spent half my year living in Austin, half my year living in Spain. I can decide not to work for a week or I'm having a kid later this year, coming in July.

Oh, congrats, man. It's amazing. And I feel very fortunate as an entrepreneur that I can take months off, I can take the year off. And it's not, and when I have a, there's a great team around me that they can do the same ideally, if that's what the, how they want to be living.

And so knowing that there's this level of life that you can actually be at. So knowing there's a destination. And then for most people, I would say what I've observed is that they're afraid of starting. And that's literally what in Melon Dog Weekend, what we'd start the book with is like, most people don't realize that they just are afraid of getting going and how can they do it in a very kind of safe and fun way, just like you did at your day job as a banker.

You were like, Oh, let me post a blog. Oh, I'm posting more. Oh, this is kind of working. So getting started. And then the reality, and this is what people don't notice. I have a lot of friends who have great day jobs. They have really good day jobs. They work at Amazon.

They make 400 and they're like, okay, I'm going to start a side hustle. I'm going to do a YouTube channel, or I'm going to do an e-commerce business, or I'm going to do a lawn care business or a software business, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. And they, they either don't get started or if they get started, they actually do great.

They make like a thousand dollars a month, but their day job is making them 30,000 a month. And so they're not figuring out how do I just sustain this and stick with it for at least a year, two year, three year, and then it will eclipse their day job.

And then they can quit their day job. There's some good examples of this, like Steve Chu from mywifequitterjob.com. He had a day job. He liked got his side hustle going. And finally, after a few years, then he quit his day job and took over side hustle and was able to do that.

So I think they need to be a little bit more patient after they get started because the income's like, Oh, it's just not even close. Like, but that's how it was for me with AppSumo. The first year I made zero second year. I made $18,000. Then it was $75,000.

Then it was 120,000. And then a year around year six, I was like, I have no money. I don't really have significant money from, from the company that's doing really well. So it was like, all right, let me pay myself half a million and then a million and then 2 million.

And then last year went down because we didn't perform as well, but then 2023 did well, but that did take some time. And I think people with day jobs are not as patient around that. Yeah. Right. Well, it also sounds like a successful business sometimes has to come from no other options in the sense that you're like, okay, you got fired from a couple of companies.

You don't want to work for the man, you know, screw that. I've got to start my own business, be my own boss. It's ride or die all or nothing. I don't think that's the approach I did or I recommend. And I also thought it was more risky to have a job that sucked and then spend my days in this job with people and doing things I didn't like for the next 40 years to finally start living at 60.

That seemed like a riskier life. The way I approached it at mint.com. And then even at, as I was consulting afterwards for another company called speed date, it was, how do you do things very quickly and cheaply to find something that works? And then once it works, quit your day job.

So I never burned the bridges and went all the way in. So at mint.com, I thought these Facebook games, you remember those annoying Facebook games like Farmville. Remember that? That was me. That was, I'm sorry. I apologize to everyone out there who remembers that, but I was working at mint and I saw those happening.

And so I started building games with a developer. I was like, let's build a hockey game and build a football game. And then after a few months, the games were doing well enough that I was able to quit the job. Like they made money from Amazon affiliate sales to those sporting teams because they were sporting games.

And the same thing was speed date. I was doing speed data com consulting and I wanted to solve the problem of getting customers for software businesses. And so I tried a lot of options. I tried putting a fishbowl in local restaurants to help them digitize their customers via email.

Local businesses are there. They're too focused on their day-to-day surviving that they can't think about that stuff. So I was like, okay, I'm not going to do that. But I still was excited about that problem. Like how do I get customers for businesses, specifically if I can do it for software?

So I did a software taco.com, which was a software review site. No one knows about it. Reward level.com. No one knows about it, but I tried this app sumo thing in a very quick amount of time and it immediately sold thousands. And I was like, oh, oh, this is cool.

So after doing a few of these software deals on app sumo, I quit my job at speed date after about three months. And then I started taking serious. I call it the freedom number. So it was like, what's the number you need to live so that you can quit your job and do the thing you really want to do?

And most people, when they find that their freedom number is lower than they expect, it seems more achievable. And then once they're able to achieve it, they can actually go on to creating thousand dollar business, hundred thousand dollar, million dollar business and beyond. Yeah. In terms of money, what do you think is that ideal income level for maximum happiness where happiness doesn't increase anymore?

So you've gone from zero to 3.3 million. I don't know if you've made more before, but have you observed how you felt during these times of income volatility or change? Yeah. So just to give you context, three years ago I made 2 million. Then last year I made 900,000 because we didn't do well.

And this year it's back up to 3 million. I think I felt pretty good overall. I think the real question is not necessarily how much you make and it's not how much you keep. It's just like, what I notice is that, am I able to live the lifestyle that I want to live in?

How much does that cost? Right. Right. And so the lifestyle to me is, can I just buy groceries and not worry about the prices? Like I bought groceries from H-E-B yesterday. It was $150. I was like, baby, that's expensive, but it's like, okay, fine, no problem. Or I have a place here in Austin, I have a place in Spain, so I have two bikes.

I'm a huge cyclist and they're both $15,000 bikes. And being able to do that without having to budget that to me was rich. And I think that started happening not so much at making just a million dollars a year, which I think is more vanity and frankly, just arbitrary, but it was more, how do you have enough income that you can spend it the way you want without having to worry about it or having to track it and budget it?

I mean, to me, it sounds like you can live your lifestyle for 400, 500 grand a year. A lot cheaper than people realize, man. Especially if you have an LLC. So let's say you have like, you know, Airbnbs or e-commerce or content business like you've done and I've done as well.

You have a lot of expenses too. Like when I go to Spain, I can expense all of the housing I do. I can expense most of the food I do. And then you realize as a W2 employee, you can't actually expense a lot of these things. You can't expense your cell phone bill.

You can't expense your internet. You can't expense your YouTube premium subscription. I think it's the stuff that, you know, I know that you've been informed on. And I think people think it's like this big, hard thing to do. And it's actually, it could be fun and easy to get to these levels, but it is about how do I get going when I have a night or weekend available, which, you know, everyone's got 52 of them.

I will say just the other thing, making a million dollars is nice. It definitely egotistically, you feel proud of yourself. But I think we're taught how to make money a lot. And there's all these articles about how to save it and how to do your 401k or your SEP IRA or your benefit plan, all these different things.

But I don't think there's a lot of material how to enjoy living and enjoy money, which I would say until COVID, I really didn't do. That's interesting. So the other side of the financial equation is net worth. Do you have a net worth target to shoot for? Is it, or does it really not matter?

It doesn't matter. I mean, it's also, there's a Silicon, you're Silicon Valley, we're Silicon Valley guys. There's a Silicon Valley thing, which is what's your valuation? Like someone yesterday was like, our company is a billion dollar, a billion dollar company. I'm like, you only make 300 million. Like, yeah, valuation.

I was like, oh, okay. I don't really have a network target. I think what was more surprising to me, and this is something that everyone can do. I have wealth advisors. So I use this company called RedBud Advisors out in Austin. There's also a company I used before called Advice Period.

And they have a bunch of software tools and all this stuff. And they showed me this thing that said, no, if you don't make any more money, you can spend $20,000 a month and you can live till 90. And that to me blew my mind. I was like, that's so special.

That's cool that I don't have to, that to me, I guess would be FU money that I don't have to do any of these things for anyone or with anyone I don't want to do anymore. And so that was more of the interesting realization. No, that's interesting. I think what listeners might not realize is that as an entrepreneur, sure, you can make your income, but there is a valuation to your business, Absuma, right?

So what was that company that was totally bootstrapped that sold for bajillions of dollars? Oh, MailChimp. MailChimp, right? MailChimp sold for 12 billion. Yeah. And so to your original question, I don't think about my net worth. I do track it every single month. And I think that spreadsheet is on NoahKagan.com, but it's literal.

I'll just tell everyone it's a Google spreadsheet. I update every single month. It's assets, liabilities, and then just the net worth of that. It's so simple. And I do it manually, even though I helped build mint.com. And I think my cash liquid net worth all in is maybe 30 million.

That's not including Absuma valuation, but I don't, it's not something I'm, if I can be worth, I think when people are like, I want to be a billionaire, I'm like, you're lame. Like, for what? For what? Like, I'd rather live a great life. And how do I have enough money to be able to do that, I think is a better net worth thing to be measuring for people.

Like, what do you need for that type of lifestyle? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that sale for 12 billion, what did you say it was MailChimp? Yeah. So MailChimp is these guys out in Atlanta that got started as a small agency. And this is the thing I think people miss in starting businesses.

Like, oh, I got to have a genius idea. That's not true. I got to have funding. Not true. These guys started doing an agency out of Atlanta, Georgia, not a tech hub today, probably a little bit, but this is 15, 16 years ago. Did an agency, had a problem for themselves, which is a great thing to do as a business.

Started creating MailChimp as like, okay, let's have email for ourselves and our agency clients. And then that over 15, I think 15, 16 years, a billion dollars in ARR, annual recurring revenue, then they sold to Intuit for 12 billion, which is unbelievable. But on the other side of that, it's possible for everyone.

And I would say what's even more interesting is how do you create businesses that you're just enjoy working on? Like, I don't know, from my outside opinion, with all your stuff, Sam, which I love, you seem like you really love it. And when I read your stuff, I'm like, Sam's happy writing about his kid or writing about tennis or writing about his dream home in Maui.

Yeah. I mean, that is the balance, right? It's like, how much money do you want to make and that balance between enjoying what you want to do and making enough money? So I don't know. I would say I'm like a poor entrepreneur in the sense that I have a lifestyle business where I just kind of do what I want to do.

I don't optimize for anything. I'm just like, let's just do whatever. Whatever is good enough. Good enough is good enough. But then some people have hardwired different DNA. And so I think that's cool. That's very true. I mean, two things to kind of highlight that I got to say is one is I have, this changed my perspective on my money, where a few years ago, I set a goal to donate a percent of my money, spend it on friends or spend it on myself.

And just having that goal that I was looking at every day really encouraged me to be, okay, can I go donate to someone? Did someone request a donation? Can I have friends that I can like buy something cool for? Like I took my parents on a yacht this year, last year, which I don't think they would have ever done.

Or I bought them first class flights to visit me in Spain or treat myself a little bit, like get nice clothes, you know, buy, I don't know, buy a watch, get a, this is, I've got a gold necklace. It was on sale for Black Friday, you know, like, you know, still looking for a good deal.

Don't get me wrong, but trying to figure out how to, how to get that. And the other thing with the way I run AppSumo.com and just to share is I, I just got my first raise in 10 years. So my base salary was $175,000 for most of the past five, six years, give or take five or six years.

And so just recently I got a raise to $250,000. And so only if the company has profit and we've taken our whole team to Mexico for an all-inclusive trip and everyone's got their bonuses and we've paid out the team. Then yes, I get my, you know, bonus of profit share of if the business performs well.

So it's not that I'm pre-paying and taking all that money out. So I think that that is an interesting point to think about how to operate your business. Do you think you'd ever sell your business and cash out for maybe hundreds of millions? I'm assuming, I don't know if you use the multiple, like when, when is, if, if Intuit was to say, I don't know, well, let me pay whatever four X, five X.

I don't know what the multiple is. I mean, it would be tempting, no? If they offered a billion, I would sell. Cause I would also change everyone else's lives at the company straight up. Like my life is already, the only thing I would change that I don't have right now is a private jet.

That is the only, that's the only thing I don't have where, and look, I would carbon offset it. So people that are worried about that, I care, I love the environment. You can't buy the private jet if you love the environment. I know, I know. Trust me, I've gotten, one, I stood outside an airport in one of my YouTube videos asking to get on a private jet and I was able to get on one.

It is a really special experience not to wait in line, not to wait in security, to land and just get off. And I think the convenience of time saving in life, but in terms of my lifestyle, like I like making YouTube videos. I like talking about the book. I like promoting deals on AppSumo.

If that goes away, like I'm just going to do the same thing again. So why not just do that same thing? And if I could change people's lives at the company so that they can have whatever amount of money they need, I think that would be super more appealing to me at this point.

Yeah, that would be nice. Well, everything sounds pretty good, but can you talk about the dark side, the tough times of entrepreneurship? So like how many hours are you working a week? And don't tell me you're doing like a four-hour work week. Give us the raw, what were some of the losses and then the frustrations you've had as an entrepreneur?

I mean, today is Thursday. I'll tell you, Monday, the VP of finance quit at the company or he's now moving to a contractor. A lot of people are out on maternity, so we're definitely backlogged or a little behind, which is amazing that they're on maternity, but that's tougher at the company.

I lost $100,000 in a real estate deal. I got that email two weeks ago. That's maybe not as much as related to the entrepreneurship. And that's like a normal week. You know, like there's just someone quits here. This thing doesn't work. This thing is good. And there is an up and down thing.

I think as I've matured, though, I've hired coaches. I go to therapy. We have a lot more processes in place, so I'm able to handle it or have teams handle it a lot better. Like yesterday, I found out our sales manager got fired and I was like, "Oh, okay." But then you have redundancies and then you have great...

There's literally amazing people at AppSumo like Alona, Sean, Kellen, Jeff, that are able to then make sure that that stuff gets handled. And I think as I've matured, I'm not as emotional on these things where I try to pause a little bit more and realize we're on a planet floating in space and all this stuff.

Yes, it's important. And yes, we all care, but we can be a little patient and be able to address these things the next day or later. It's not as urgent. No one's dying. But there's definitely dark side. And I would say my 20s, man, like I was really frustrated.

I was depressed. I was cheap. I was frugal. I was bitter about the whole Facebook experience. I felt very insecure, unworthy. And then that was really hard. I lived in Sunset over by, I think, one of your many houses. Uh, maybe you were my landlord and I was sleeping on couches.

I was sleeping on couches drinking two buck Chuck, just really bitter that I wasn't rich. And how do I get rich so that people can recognize me? And I can eventually recognize myself. And over time, you know, you find the work you like to do. I'm like, I like promoting stuff and you, you're okay with that.

And then you're in your forties, you just find a little bit more peace with all of it is what I've done. How old are you now? No, 41, almost 41. All right. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. 41, 42. Yeah. I'm 46. Welcome to the forties. Dude, how great. And so, yeah, for your original question, you know, right now with, let's just take this book launch.

I'm probably putting in 80 hour weeks. Okay. Wow. It's intense. That's impressive. It's, it's a lot. Right. And, and I don't need to, I don't know if people need to or not. I'm loving it. Great. Like I'm up at 7:00 AM two days ago, signing books. And I was just like, this is so cool that people want my signature or, you know, I'm up today.

CNBC is here. So I'm like, okay, we're going to do all these things and then have meetings at night and all this other stuff. I love it. But what I've noticed is I've gotten older in terms of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship is it's more impressive to me to sustain.

Like this book thing is, this is just this month, just for January. But normally I'm really, I'm not doing meetings before noon. So I don't have calls. I don't have, unless it's something like this, where I'm excited to talk with someone, but normally I don't have meetings till noon.

And then I can have my Mondays and Fridays, mostly off. So if I want to go biking or if I want to chill or if I want to hang out with friends, or if I do want to work at that options for me. And I think what I'm impressed with is people that start something and stick with it for an extended period of time, like yourself with your material.

Like you've been doing this now, how long? Oh, this is my 15th year. Yeah. And so in my twenties, it was like 10 X everything, all or nothing. If it's not a million views, a million books, it's a failure. And now it's like, let's grow 5%. And let's do that for a compounded amount of time.

I think there's compounded business. No one's really talked about that, but compounded business is what you and what I've now embraced, which is, okay, let's do a little bit over. Let's try to make sure that I can do this marathon of life and enjoy it versus just trying to rush to get to the destination.

Right. Tell me a little bit more about the journey because I hear anguish and pain in your twenties and then some relief in your thirties. And you talk about going through the therapist and I'm really excited and glad that you're having a baby. I was wondering, because when we met up several years ago, pre-pandemic, you had a girlfriend.

I was like, oh, is this the one? And then a couple of years later, it didn't seem like the one. And then you have a new girlfriend and you're having a baby. So for me, I'm thrilled because I'm on the other side with two little kids and I'm super pumped.

And I'm just wondering, because I've met a lot of people who really focused on their career and making money, and then they pushed out family and relationships to their regret. So could you talk a little bit about that a little bit? Yeah. It is nice to be at a place where I've worked hard.

So I have money to be able to have more flexibility at this point. And so I think for a lot of people out there, what are you starting today? So that in five, 10 years, you'll thank yourself for maybe it's real estate, maybe it's blogging, maybe it's investing, maybe it's entrepreneurship.

And I'm thankful 13 years ago, I got AppSumo going so that I can be at this place. And so I would say I have, I call her my Le Tigre. She's from Venezuela. I met her in Spain and she's just so amazing. She's definitely one of the best things I've had in life.

And she's very kind. She makes me a kinder person. And I thought I was never going to find a partner. I didn't think there was going to be a person for me or that there'd be someone that would have my baby even. I felt that I don't know if that could be possible.

And, you know, meeting her, I was like, and then through time, it wasn't, you know, I think in your 20s, you're like, oh, it's got to be an explosion. And I met her and I was like, oh, wow. Okay. I kept getting to know her really through WhatsApp and Instagram messages.

And it was just getting to know who she was. I was like, wow, this is a really special person that I admire. It's not, I don't lust for necessarily. Like there's definitely, I'm attracted to her, but I'm like, I admire her. I respect her. It feels like an equal.

And we were trying to have a kid as we're both a little older and it's, I'm so excited now that I'm having a kid. I don't have a crying baby yet, but I'm like, oh, everyone needs to have a baby. And I'm, you know, I'm looking forward and I'm enjoying just the process of learning about parents, like reading different books, you know, showing up.

And this has been an interesting thing. Like yesterday I'm in a meeting and we have to finish an email for the book launch. And my girlfriend, I can hear her puking. By the way, guys out there, this whole pregnancy thing is so hard on the women. So do whatever they need all the time.

And so I'm in this meeting, I hear her downstairs and I'm like, guys, I gotta go. And so this has been a shift in me, which is what's my priority, which is now my family. And then my behavior now is really lining up where last night she wanted to go to, she's new to America.

And so she wanted to go to a grocery store that she hasn't been to. Everyone keeps talking about it. She's like, oh my God, this grocery store, I want to go on a, I want a date night there. I was like, of course, baby, we're going to go to the grocery store, you know?

And so she didn't feel well, so we didn't go, but we went online to the grocery store and she's like, oh, do they have, do they have Gorgonzola? And, you know, I feel excited to have a partner in that future and really show up. You know, I'm, I'm, it's not always the, it's not the fun stuff, but it's the part that I'm really proud of to be with her and then show up as a father.

Yeah. I think you're going to have this, this dilemma here once your baby is born, uh, cause you're going to love your kid more than anything in the world, like more than absolute one times 10. Trust me on this. So you're going to like have this new found thing to live for, which is going to be great.

And so you're going to think to yourself, I think you let me know after you have your baby that you wish you had your baby younger, sooner, so you can be in your baby's life for longer. Right. Because we start thinking about our mortality more in our forties and fifties as people pass away by accident or what.

So that'll be interesting. You know, I mean, I guess you don't know yet, but what do you think about the path of getting rich first and then having a baby in your forties versus having a family in your twenties when you're poor or just simply not rich and struggling through that?

What do you think about that dichotomy? I don't think I was mentally ready to have a baby in my twenties. Yeah. More separate of the money. I just was immature. I was still partying. I was unsatisfied with myself. Yeah. Right. So I don't think I could be satisfied with the partner, let alone be a good example for a child.

I feel now like a lot of people lately are like, oh, you're going to be a good dad. And I would say, if you said that to me in my twenties and thirties, if my real inner dialogue is like, no, I'm not like the insecurity was there. And, you know, I, one of the things over the past years is like, am I doing things?

I'm proud of myself for less so much external, like, okay, I'll have money or have subs or whatever you have. It's like, okay, I have more than enough of that. Like, do I feel enough in myself? And so I will say, I feel very fortunate. I think about it now.

I feel very lucky. I did put in the work and I got started, which everyone can do today right now. And then now I have the ability that if my girlfriend wants to fly first class, 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 for her, actually, it's been, that's been a financially challenging conversation because she's, she actually has two jobs, which is so impressive.

She has two full-time jobs. But for her, I think, you know, with her income and salary, she's more, you know, okay, we have to work. And I'm like, we don't have to work at all. And we can have whatever things we want. And, you know, then also how do you teach your kid about that stuff?

It's a whole separate discussion, but I would say having the option now, and we're not hiring everyone right away and trying to outsource our baby. We're going to, I want it to cry and I want to wake up and they'll be like, okay, this sucks. And some of it should suck, right?

Do some sucky work. And that's great. And some of it is like, okay, I'm probably not needing, I'm not adding a lot here. And let me find someone else to help with that. And having that option, I think is the power. Not saying you go and hire all this stuff, but having the option that we can get a bigger house if we need to, or we can rent a separate house for parents to come and visit, or staff, or you can buy whatever book you want, or you can buy, you know, the different gadgets without having to be as mindful about that, I think is a luxury that I feel very lucky to be able to do.

- How does the citizenship work? So the baby will be born in America. So the baby's American. - No, it's not. It's not born in America. So the plan, we're about 14 and a half weeks pregnant. She feels more comfortable and I'm with her to have the baby in Europe.

So the hospitals are a little bit more developed. They're actually like more up-to-date, more modern than American hospitals, a lot of them. They're easier to get appointments. Also, I have European health insurance. It's $1,000 US a year for full insurance. I find American insurance very complicated. I still don't know how it works.

I have to ask my assistant. I'm like, "Can you tell me what we can do?" It's easier lifestyle there. You know, the lifespan of people in Spain specifically, we live in Barcelona, is I think about 10 years longer than America. 10 years, right? - 10 years? Like you're 84?

- You look at the average life of Americans versus specifically Spaniards. But overall, I think the comfortability and the lifestyle, the fruit and the vegetables is healthier there, more natural. And she calls them proximity. And it's like literally they're proximity. They come and you don't have to have this whole marketing thing about farm to market or organic.

It's like literally there's like, "Oh, that's Pedro. He brought that stuff over to us." So the baby will be born in Spain and get EU citizenship. And then I'm going to Spain. And I think this is interesting for people trying to figure this out. I'm going to Spain. And because she's a Portuguese citizen, you can do a thing called Pareja de Echo, which is like common law marriage.

So we'll get married there. And then she's going to come back to America in October after the baby's three months. And then we'll get married here and get her residency through a marriage here. So the baby will have EU and American citizenship. - Okay. And she'll be able to get US citizenship?

- Dude, this stuff is complicated and expensive. So we're using this lawyer, Jason Finkelman out of Austin. I thought you watch 90 Day Fiance and it's like, "Okay, I got money." And it's like, no, it's not. It's actually, I'm like, "Baby, let's go to the wall in Mexico. I'll put you on my back and we'll climb in that way.

That's easier for you." No joke. This whole trying to follow the legal way is very expensive and lengthy and complicated. But what we're doing to get her into America is you can apply for a fiance visa. So basically she's guaranteed entry into America. That costs 4,000. And then you have to get married in 90 days.

- Okay. - And then to get married, then you have to file this paperwork, which is another about eight to $9,000 to then get a residency work permit, travel permit, which doesn't happen right away. That takes another six months. And during those six months, she can't leave the country.

So there's just a lot more complications than I expected. I thought you'd just get married and then that happens and that's just not the case. - Oh, that's fascinating. Well, good thing you have some money. So you guys will get it done. - I think that's one thing about parenting I'm nervous about where I don't want to just outsource or pay for all this stuff.

Yeah, I don't want to just, "Okay, I have a nanny for this and we have a staff for that." And you don't do any of the responsibilities of being a parent. I think that's part of the whole experience. And I think with being a CEO again of AppSumo, which I stepped away for a while or doing this book and for everyone out there, it's facing some of these harder things in life and realizing maybe they're not so hard and that we can do them.

And so I think the parenting one is going to be my most interesting and fun and deep quality challenge ever. So definitely, yeah, looking forward to it and also being patient along the way. Not so like, "Let's get the baby out." I think that's what I hear from parents.

Enjoy that they're crawling, enjoy they can't even crawl, enjoy that they're not making noises. So I'm doing my best to every day enjoy that there's this little bump in her belly growing and like rub the belly, put oil on it or talk to it. I was talking to Pat Flynn.

He's like, "You got to talk to the belly and rub her feet." That was good advice. Sam, what's your one advice for a new dad? I would just say to be there and give your partner a hall pass, like nonstop hall passes. Because it's tough, right? That fourth trimester is really tough in terms of recovery.

It depends on whether she has a c-section or natural birth. It's like sustaining a business too. If you can be there for her every single day, be patient, do what you can, it'll feel like a long time but it'll also go by quickly. And so if you can sustain that first one, two years, I think you're going to be a real hero to her and it's going to be really good for your relationship.

And it could continue on, right, if you have a second one and third one. That's the thing. Enjoy the moments, be there, be patient. I love it. Thank you for that advice. Yeah, no worries. Thank you. Yeah, just the hall pass has definitely been how much she's going through and physically and then the hormones.

But I did tell her with Million Dollar Weekend, that's the only book we're reading our kid. Well, yeah. Well, let's talk about that. So who should read Million Dollar Weekend? I mean, your audience were the people I believe that want to make more money. And maybe they don't like their job or maybe they do like their job but they at least want that option if they get fired, they have a backup plan, or they're thinking one day I'd like to work abroad or like yourself.

I mean, you were the person I wanted reading it 15 years ago when you had this job that you got paid fat and you're like, I want to do something else. And maybe it's not so expensive and it'll take so long and scary to get it started. And so what are the steps that I need to do and the mental steps as well to be able to do that in a weekend.

So someone like yourself, and I think a lot of audience, especially if they're interested in real estate, they're interested in personal finance, like that all has to do with money, which all has to do with freedom. And so how do they have more control and ability to actually get that started?

I would say someone who should read it. No, it's great. It's a great book. And Noah, congratulations for running the book because I know it's a long journey. I know marketing is a long journey. I know book writing is not that lucrative either, but it's a great milestone to achieve.

And you can just check it off your bucket list. It's definitely been a bucket list for 15 years where I felt around three, four years ago, when I got started on the project, it felt like I had the expertise at that point and the experience where I could share how to do it.

I don't think I was ready earlier. And again, I think the book for me, what's interesting for everyone out there is like, what's the hard thing we've avoided or what's the dream we've been thinking about? And how do we just get that happening and then get going on it?

And so that's, that's what it was for me. It was like, all right, I have this dream. I've always wanted to do this, but I don't even think I could write this book and help people. I had a lot of fear about that and like, oh no, I can never, I can, I can actually help them.

And so I hired tall Ross. He wrote, never split the difference. I thought by hiring him, I could avoid doing work, right? I mean, that to some extent, a lot of entrepreneurship or business is hiring people to support you. And with him though, I did have to face the book and face my fears and insecurities.

And then, you know, through writing it, through working with thousands of people on the beta version of the book, realizing I could actually write the book and help put a book together and then ultimately help people. So I'm excited to see in a year, in two years, in five years, the stories.

The money is zero. Like I made zero money from this. Like, I think, I don't know if I'm allowed to share. I almost made it. I got almost a million dollar advance from the book, but then 15% goes to the agent. And then I gave tall a lot of it.

And then I hired people to help with the book and then, you know, the marketing, all these things. So it's, you don't get rich off books for people out there. You know, I think if, if we end up selling, I don't even know how many, I literally don't know.

I'll get paid a dollar per book sold after that. Uh, I made all my money in AppSumo. And so the reality though, it's like, I'm excited to see the stories of people to reading it and be like, all right, I had a weekend. I tried like this woman yesterday.

Her name's Carrie, Carrie Caulfield. She's, I don't even know where she is, but she read the book and she's always dreamed of being an artist. And so she went into her local coffee store and was like, Hey, can, do you guys want to buy a painting? And then they said no, but then they're having a gallery.

And then, so she was able to sell one in the gallery. She sold two paintings and that's how AppSumo started. It was like, literally I got one person to buy Imgur, which is a photo hosting site. One deal at 12 bucks. That was it. One sale, 12 bucks, same with her.

And so it's exciting to see what's going to happen for her and a lot of other people from this book. Yeah. I think the key message is to start and please read Million Dollar Weekend. Noah, thanks so much for coming on the show. If they want to buy the book, where should they go?

MillionDollarWeekend.com. There you go. And then, I mean, after you've bought, buy this, not that. So first off, get Sam's book. I love your stuff. All right, everyone. If you enjoyed this podcast, I'd love a share, subscribe and a positive review. It helps keep me going. Every single episode takes hours and hours to produce.

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