Noah Kagan

Now Not How: just start before you're ready

Noah Kagan's core principle from Million Dollar Weekend: don't obsess over HOW to do something, just start NOW. The actionable version is 'how do I get a buck right now' - go ask a friend or relative to Venmo you a dollar to prove you can transact.

“number one thing is this now, not how idea. And it just means just fucking start right away. But people get so, especially with, you guys see so many people listening to your show and they're like, I don't know, I want to listen to more shows. I need to go listen to these like fake YouTube gurus that are out there that don't even run real businesses. But realizing they can actually do things like right now, like how do I get a buck right now? Just go get a dollar.”

Steal thisStop researching and go make your first dollar today - ask a friend to Venmo you a buck to prove you can transact.

The Coffee Challenge: ask for a discount to build asking muscle

Noah Kagan teaches 'the power of asking' through the coffee challenge: go to a coffee shop and ask for a discount. The point isn't the discount - it's getting comfortable being rejected so you build the muscle that all of business (sponsors, customers, partners) requires.

“The second thing is what you just said, which is the power of asking. Like the upside of asking is like, I got on a private jet. The upside of asking, and we teach it through the coffee challenge and other examples. Coffee challenge is what you did, which is you asked for a discount. So I did it. I did the coffee challenge last week. I did a YouTube video where I tried to do the coffee challenge. I got rejected a ton. And you know what? You get rejected. You're like, oh shit, guess what? That's okay. Let's go forward.”

Steal thisWalk into a coffee shop and ask for 10% off - practice asking until rejection stops stinging.

Airbnb tested a $100B idea with one couch email

Noah Kagan recounts that Airbnb's founders tested their business by emailing attendees of a nearby designer's conference asking if anyone wanted to stay on their couch. That tiny test became a company now worth around $100 billion - proof you don't need a Silicon Valley funded launch.

“So they had a designer's conference and they sent an email to the designer's conference saying, hey, does anyone want to stay on our couch? That was how they tested the business that's now worth $100 billion. And I think that when you start realizing like there's other ways of doing this, you don't have to do like some Silicon Valley funded way. You start realizing like, hold on, Facebook started that way in a weekend. Airbnb did. A lot of other companies can too.”

AppSumo: $76.7M gross, $56M net, $7.5M profit

Noah Kagan shared AppSumo's full numbers: $76.7M in gross sales, $56M in net revenue after paying out software partners, and $7.5M in profit - all bootstrapped over 14 years.

“So gross sales is 76.7, net revenue was 56. Wow, pretty good. And then profit was 7.5.”

Copy Amazon: spend all profit in Q4 to keep growing

AppSumo deliberately runs at roughly 0.5% net income margin, copying Amazon. Every Q4 they spend down nearly all profit - team trips, ads, servers, prepaying, distributions - so the next year is bigger, taking only what's left as owner distributions.

“So we copy Amazon for, if you actually look at our net profit over the past, literally 14 years, it's like 0.5% net income margin. Uh, and so what we do is in Q4, we try to spend all the profit we have so that every year gets bigger and bigger. So take everyone on the team to Mexico, ads, servers. Sponsorships if we can, hiring investors, prepaying for things, whatever we can within tax rules, and pay the team distribution.”

Steal thisReinvest nearly all profit each year into growth bets so the business compounds instead of sitting in a bank account.

Noah hit $1M by 30 on day-job salaries and extreme frugality

Noah Kagan says he was never broke and had $1M liquid by age 30 - largely from being extremely cheap (sleeping on floors, living with his mom and aunt) plus a ~$350K payday from his Gambit payments company that processed FarmVille microtransactions.

“No, I, I've never been broke. I had $1 million at 30 from day jobs. I think that's kind of like not recognized by most people, meaning one, I was super cheap, right? So I lived on floors for a year. That's a good way to save money. Lived at my mom's house, lived at my aunt's house. So just as, as cheap as possible. I did get two paydays. One payday was from the Gambit Payments company. So I think I made around $350,000.”

Cold apply with mockups: how Noah got hired at Facebook

Noah Kagan landed his Facebook job by cold-submitting his resume with mockups - he designed a fake 'Facebook Maps' feature showing exactly what he'd build. The mockups plus his portfolio of college-student businesses made him stand out.

“So I sent in my resume cold, but the differentiator was that I sent in mockups. So I took Facebook and I was like, here's Facebook Maps. If we ever have a Facebook Maps feature. So if you want to go see your friend, here's how it would look. And they were like, wow, you have a bunch of businesses for college students and you're doing, you're showing us what you would do here.”

Steal thisTo land a job at a company you love, send mockups of features you'd build for them, not just a resume.

24-year-old Zuck rejected Yahoo's $1B offer

Noah Kagan recalls that early Facebook copied ConnectU in a weekend, then 24-year-old Mark Zuckerberg rejected a $1 billion acquisition offer from Yahoo - a level of conviction Noah says he, Sam, and Shaan all admit they'd never have had.

“So some of the crazier things that I recall was at a very early time, he rejected a billion dollar sale, which now maybe sounds a lot or a little, but imagine like Sean, you're what, 30 something, 31, 35. Yeah. 35. You're 24 years old and there's like, hey, I'm gonna give you a billion dollars. This was Yahoo. I think all of us would take that in a heartbeat.”

Facebook grew from $10M to $50M during Noah's tenure

Noah Kagan, an early Facebook employee, saw internal metrics jump from roughly $10M the day he started to about $50M the day he got fired - the insider growth signal that told the team something special was happening while Google and MySpace loomed as threats.

“I think the thing that was interesting that others didn't know is that we saw the internal metrics about the growth. So we knew there was something happening that others didn't see in terms of like, I think we were at $10 million the day I started. By the day I got fired, it was about $50 million.”

Billionaires did one thing for decades but tell you to diversify

Noah Kagan observes that almost every billionaire he's worked for didn't set out to be one - they pursued one thing they were curious about and stuck with it for 20-30 years. The irony: they preach diversification while their own wealth came from extreme focus and slow compounding.

“These billionaires just did one, but they tell us to diversify. And so I, I think that's always fascinating for me is they do one thing. And, and this is, again, we kind of come back to the AppSumo story, is they stuck with it for a very long period of time. Like, think about any billionaires you know. How long did it take? Yeah, I mean, 20 years, 30 years, a lifetime, a life, a career, a lifetime, a lifetime. And we're trying to get rich in a weekend, or which, you know, crypto rich in a month.”

AppSumo: $100M revenue from just 40 hours a week for 10 years

Sam relays Noah Kagan's lesson that AppSumo, now doing $100M gross (about $50M net) and 10 years old, didn't work at first. The 'secret' was treating it like a job: 40 hours a week for a decade until it paid off, the same persistence behind the podcast's growth.

“This year they're going to do $100 million in gross revenue, of which like $50 million is their revenue. It's a great business. It's 10 years old. And he was like, you know, I realized something, that this business that we're running, it's done really well, but it didn't do well at first.”

How Codie collects cool people: a ludicrous box of Butterfingers to Sam

Before having a network, Codie 'collected' interesting people by finding their quirks and sending memorable gifts: she shipped Sam a ludicrously large box of Butterfingers (his favorite candy) so he almost had to call her back, and sent Noah Kagan a taco-themed shirt. Her point: lack of a network is an excuse.

“And so, I found out what his favorite candy was, which is Butterfingers. I don't know if it still is now. And so, I shipped him this ludicrous-sized box of Butterfingers. Butterfingers, right? Just like a shit ton of Butterfingers, to the point where like he didn't have a lot of choices except to like call me back and say like, you know, what, thanks.”

Steal thisTo break through to someone you admire, find a specific quirk (favorite candy) and send a memorable, oversized gift instead of a cold DM.

Email is the only audience channel you fully control

Noah Kagan argues every platform (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok) is incentivized to make you pay to reach your own audience, because they have to make money. Email is the only scalable channel where you fully own and control the relationship.

“So I think, you know, the one problem that I noticed with all the channels like YouTube or Instagram or TikTok or any of these is that ultimately they are incentivized to get you to pay to talk to your audience. Why? Because they have to make money. And so email is the only channel I've ever found that can scale communicating with an audience that you can fully control.”

Steal thisBuild an owned email list as your audience foundation before relying on any rented social platform.

Active list size, not total list size, is the metric that matters

Kagan says the number that matters is not your total email list but your active list: people who opened or clicked within the last 3 months. He had 175,000 lifetime OKDork subscribers but only 55,000 active.

“But the second thing is, the number that's the most important is not your email list size, it is your active email list size. So it is the amount of people within 3 months that have opened and clicked your email. Because, you know, I've had hundreds of thousands. I think in my total lifetime of OKDork, I've had 175,000 subscribe to the newsletter. My active audience is only 55. Think about that.”

Steal thisTrack active subscribers (opened/clicked in last 90 days), not raw list size, and sunset the dead weight.

Email marketing is just expensive hosting of zeros and ones

Kagan estimates ESPs pay roughly $0.00015-$0.002 per email sent, and frames email companies as very expensive hosting where the real profit comes from subscribers who never send. Substack and SendFox disrupt this by making sending free and monetizing elsewhere.

“$0.002. It might be $0.00015 times how many subscribers, how many emails they're sending a month. The profit is all in the people who don't email. It's basically, I think of email marketing companies as very expensive hosting. You're basically paying a lot of money to host zeros and ones and digits that don't cost anything.”

The 18-month payback, 7-figure bar for new projects

Kagan's rule for allocating AppSumo profits to new bets: it must pay back the investment within 18 months and be at least a 7-figure opportunity. If it's not 7-figure, they don't do it.

“So will we make break even money back in 18 months? And secondly, is it at least a 7-figure decision? So is it at least— if it's not a 7-figure opportunity, uh, we won't do it. The reality is the majority of the money is best spent into whatever's making the most money from a capitalist standpoint.”

Steal thisGate new projects on two questions: payback in 18 months, and at least a 7-figure outcome.

Would AppSumo be a $100M business if they'd never built side projects?

Kagan admits there's an internal debate that if all the time and money spent on SendFox, KingSumo, HaulDrop, and MeetFam had gone into AppSumo alone, it would likely be a $100M business today.

“there's discussion internally that if we would have spent all the money and time that we built on SendFox and KingSumo and HaulDrop and MeetFam and all the things we've done just on AppSumo, the main thing, would it have been a $100 million business today? And the likelihood is, yeah.”

Igniter vs. fuel: play to your strength, hire the complement

Kagan's self-model: his strength is igniting (starting fast), his weakness is consistency. He pairs himself with 'fuel' people like Eamon and David who sustain what he starts, and advises doing only what you're amazing at.

“My greatest strength is igniting. Like, I go and start something and I'm like really quick and I'm really fast. My greatest weakness is, is like consistency. I always think of it as like, I'm a great igniter, but I'm not a great consistent source of fuel. And so you have to find that balance of who is your fuel.”

Steal thisIdentify whether you're an igniter or fuel, then hire the opposite to cover your weakness.

Reach out to anyone impressive, for your whole life

Kagan's lifelong habit: anytime you notice anything impressive, reach out to that person and figure out how to get around them. He says it's a far easier path to greatness than building relationships cold from the ground up.

“anytime you notice anything impressive, reach out to the person. That's it. And over your lifetime, figure out how the fuck do I get around that guy or girl? And I think that will lead you to easier chances of greatness. Because it's a lot harder to like go out and try to like date and find people just from the ground up.”

Steal thisWhenever something impresses you, immediately reach out to the person behind it.

Give them a football and tell them where the end zone is

A leadership lesson Kagan got in a Microsoft interview: you give people a football, tell them where the end zone is, set the boundaries, and let them decide how to score. The way they get there is up to them.

“He's like, you give them a football, you tell them where the end zone is. You say, hey, here's the boundaries to get to the end zone. How you want to score is up to you.”

Steal thisSet the goal and the boundaries, then leave people alone to figure out how to get there.

Impressive hires give you something valuable for free, unasked

Kagan's pattern across his best hires: every one of them offered something of value he wanted, for free, without being asked. That unprompted generosity is the strongest signal of a great hire.

“I think one of the ones I've really observed lately, every person I've hired that's been the most impressive has done two things. They've offered something for free, of value that I've wanted, and they did it without asking. And those people have been the most impressive.”

Steal thisTo land a job or partnership, deliver something valuable the person wants, for free and unprompted.

Sam built a millions-dollar business from one of Noah's blog posts

Sam reveals his entire conference/events business and friend network came from Noah's blog post about making money hosting conferences. He's since made millions personally and met everyone on the call, including his best man Neville, through it.

“Yeah, so I saw that and I was like, well, I had a book club at the time and I was like, well, I've been hosting these meetups, but I don't make any money from it. I should like make money off this thing. And so I started my company and I've made millions of dollars personally off conferences because of that blog post. And more importantly, or maybe not more importantly, I've met— I met actually all 3 people on this call and most of my friends and coworkers because of that blog post.”

Three years of side hustles before the side hustle became the main hustle

Kagan describes stacking businesses while at Intel and Mint, working mornings, weekends, lunches, and nights on Facebook apps and games, until after about three years his side hustle finally became his main hustle.

“I was putting on these conferences that I charged for, and then I was working at Mint. I started doing the Facebook apps, like I did all these games, and I started making a lot of money. And I was working at morning, I was working on weekends, I was working at lunch, I was working at nights. Uh, I was working, I was— I kept going and I kept trying a lot of different— and eventually, after probably 2 and a half, 3 years, graduated in '04, and 3 years later, my side hustle finally became my main hustle.”

Steal thisUse a day job as your investor and stack side bets cheaply until one becomes the main thing.

AppSumo's YouTube made $121,840 on AdSense in year one

After spending ~$400K building out a YouTube team in its first hardcore year, AppSumo's channel earned $121,840 in AdSense revenue.

“Last year on AdSense, we made $121,840 in year one.”

Noah Kagan values AppSumo at a quarter-billion to a billion

Asked what AppSumo is worth, Noah pegs it between $250M and $1B, against roughly $80M in annual revenue.

“Um, I think AppSumo is worth somewhere between a quarter billion and a billion dollars.”

AppSumo's YouTube: 849 videos, 3 made all the money

Noah Kagan's AppSumo channel published 849 videos in a year, but just 3 of them generated essentially all the AdSense revenue — a power-law reminder to keep shipping until a hit lands.

“We put out 849 videos. 3 of them basically generated all this money.”

AppSumo started as a side hustle aiming for $3,000/month

Noah Kagan says AppSumo, now an ~$80M/year business, began as a side project in a San Francisco basement with the modest goal of making $3,000 a month, never millions.

“no, it just started as a side hustle. Like, I was in a basement in San Francisco that was like, yo, I have a theory about what I think will be big and I want to make $3,000 a month. Never was it like, I want to make millions of dollars or I want to have a bunch of people or I want to have a bunch of customers.”

Monday KPI red-flag sheet: trust but verify

To manage a 140-person business without weekly anxiety, Noah uses a color-coded Monday KPI sheet (gross margin, customers) so he only intervenes when a number turns red.

“every week we have a Monday KPI sheet that they update our gross margin, they update like customers. And so there's color coding and it's like, okay, are there red flags in any of the numbers that I need to call shit on? And I think that is— that obviously reduces your anxiety and it helps you make sure that you're trusting but verifying.”

Steal thisRun one weekly color-coded KPI sheet so you only step in when a metric flashes red, instead of monitoring everything daily.

Be disciplined when times are good so you don't have to be when they're bad

Noah Kagan's recession-proofing principle: keep doing things people want, and build spending discipline during good times so a downturn doesn't force painful cuts. He admits AppSumo got loose on spend and hiring because times were good.

“how do you have discipline when times are good so you don't have to be as disciplined when times are bad? And I think right now, candidly, with AppSumo, I think we're being a little bit undisciplined with our spending and our hiring because times have been better. And I'm trying to get that a little bit more tighter”

Steal thisTighten spending and hiring while revenue is strong, so a downturn never forces emergency cuts.

Buy neglected WordPress plugins to acquire millions of installs cheap

To grow Sumo.com, Noah scraped the WordPress plugin directory, sorted by most installs that hadn't been updated recently, and cold-emailed those owners — buying millions of installs for cheap because no real market existed for them.

“So I got all the rankings and then I sorted it by ones that were not updated recently. So I said, which ones had the most installs that no one's taken care of? And I would just email them and say, hey, you haven't taken care of it. Uh, I'll pay you for it. And because there's not a market for it, you can get a cheaper price. And then I just sent a blast email to a lot of these people and picked up millions of installs.”

Steal thisFind high-install, low-maintenance plugins/extensions and buy them before anyone makes a market.

$100K for a WordPress plugin with a million installs

Noah's most expensive WordPress plugin acquisition for Sumo was a Google Analytics plugin with a million installs, which he bought for $100K.

“For the Google Analytics one, they had a million installs. I paid $100K.”

Win on channels before they hit market rate

Noah's growth playbook: find ad channels or marketplaces that savvy people haven't piled into yet. AppSumo went bonkers on Facebook News Feed ads when no one else was running them, because anything at market rate gives you no edge.

“So look for these ad channels or places that not a lot of people are like kind of all paying attention to. When News Feed came out, no one was doing it and we went bonkers on it. And that was a huge driver, uh, at AppSumo for a lot of our growth. Because it was just so much cheaper because not everyone— if you're paying, if you're playing in the market, you're going to pay market rate.”

Steal thisPour budget into new ad channels before they get crowded and priced to market.

Noah's 'boring investor' crypto play: auto-buy monthly, hold

Noah Kagan calls himself a boring investor who focuses energy on active income. For crypto he started in 2015 and set it on autopilot, auto-buying a fixed amount every month for six years.

“So I just started buying in 2015 and I just put it on autopilot and I just auto bought it every month for the past 6 years.”

Steal thisDollar-cost-average into your conviction asset on autopilot every month and stop trading it; spend your real energy on active income.

Grow a newsletter by sponsoring sub-10K micro creators

Noah's modern growth move: if launching a newsletter, sponsor very small TikTok/YouTube creators (under 10K subs) because they have engaged audiences, don't know their worth, and are flattered by the attention.

“Like if I was trying to grow a newsletter, um, I probably would go try to sponsor like super micro people on TikTok and YouTube. Like these guys that are guys and girls that are like, sub 10,000 subs, like, like if your, your channel has like 966 subscribers, like you'd be a perfect person cuz you have like an engaged audience. You're super smaller. You don't know how much money you're supposed to be making.”

Steal thisSponsor sub-10K-subscriber creators for cheap, engaged reach before they price up.

Auto-buying crypto since 2015 turned ~$400k into $4M

Noah Kagan reveals his dollar-cost-averaged crypto holdings are now worth $4 million, off a cost basis of roughly $400k–$500k accumulated by auto-buying monthly since 2015.

“Not $4 million, but it's $4 million.”

Your own business is the best investment you can make

Noah Kagan argues that starting your own company has the highest multiples available and, unlike passive investments, you can actually control it if you can get it to work.

“I mean, I think the best investment for everyone is their own business. So if you look at it like active income, like really creating your own company has pretty much the highest multiples I can imagine. Also, you can control it if you can get something to work, because most of them don't work that well.”

If you're going to grind, grind on something with high upside

Noah tells a story of a guy grinding for $60K. His point: the grind costs the same effort regardless of payoff, so pick a vehicle with a bigger financial ceiling.

“I was like, but if you're going to grind, at least grind something that has higher upside for yourself. Because it's the same amount of work. Like, he doesn't work harder than me. I don't work harder than him. I just worked on something that from a strictly financial perspective has a better opportunity.”

Steal thisBefore committing to a hard grind, check the ceiling: same effort on a higher-upside vehicle compounds into a totally different outcome.

Why Noah left Mint early: he ran the exit math

As Mint's 4th employee owning ~1%, Noah figured the company would sell for at most ~half a billion, meaning $5M pre-tax / $2M post-tax for him. He decided he could generate $2M himself in four years, so he left early. Mint sold to Intuit for $170M.

“And I just did the math to think about, well, I own 1%, so max I'll get $5 million pre-tax, which post-tax means I'll get $2 million. And I was like, well, I think, you know, in, in 4 years, do I, do I think I can generate $2 million for myself? And so I was willing to take that bet.”

CityDAO: pool crypto money to buy and govern real land

Noah is fascinated by CityDAO, where people pool money to buy land (in Wyoming) and NFT/token holders vote on what to do with it, with all votes public on-chain.

“So some of the really interesting ones, one is called CityDAO. So basically everyone pulls their money and then they buy a city. So they bought land in Wyoming. And now if you own one of the NFTs or tokens within it, you get votes to what they're going to do with the city. That's amazing. I find that really fascinating. Plus everything's public. So you see who's voting, you see what the votes are.”

Steal thisPool capital via on-chain tokens to buy a real-world asset, then let token holders vote transparently on how it's used.

Attack a giant category with one product and a sharp angle

Noah's read on MudWater's founder: start with a problem you personally have inside a huge category (coffee is one of the biggest in the world), find the angle against the incumbents, and build one product with great branding rather than chasing 18 ideas.

“I think what's fascinating was what's a problem you have and what's a big-ass category. And like coffee is one of the biggest categories in the world. And so I love that he kind of said, all right, well, what's the angle against them? Uh, and he created his own version, literally, I think buying products off Amazon and just mixing himself together.”

Steal thisPick a huge category, find one sharp angle against the incumbent, and nail one product.

MudWater hit ~$60M in revenue with one product

Noah cites MudWater — a coffee-alternative chai-style drink the founder originally mixed from Amazon ingredients — as doing roughly $60 million in revenue off a single product line.

“I think he's, I mean, last we heard it was a $60 million revenue, which revenue is always different than profit, as I'm sure you, you know.”

Be the Wirecutter of doomsday prepping for city dwellers

Sam and Noah riff on an urban-focused 'doomsday prepper in a box' — affiliate/review content (Wirecutter for the end of the world) telling city people how to store water, what generator to buy, etc. If you can't buy into a hot space, just document and review it.

“It's like you don't have money and you can't buy it. You can always just document it. Just go review it. Like you said, it's like your idea. Be the Wirecutter of these different categories. Be the TikToker or YouTuber or whatever that is.”

Steal thisBecome the trusted reviewer/Wirecutter of a hot category you can't afford to invest in.

AppSumo's Black Friday: ~$2M in a single day

AppSumo's biggest day ever was Black Friday at almost $2 million in sales, of which at least half was paid out to the creators selling their software on the marketplace.

“Black Friday was our highest day, uh, almost $2 million in that one day on Black Friday, which we paid out half of that, uh, at least half of that to creators”

Sell tools (or training) that help people make money

Based on AppSumo's bestseller data, Noah's repeatable idea: build products that help people make money or save time. Hottest categories included stock photo/video/audio, video editors, and GPT-3 auto-content tools like Copy.ai alternatives.

“Secondly is video editing, which if you're not technical, that's probably harder to do. This is, this is the area that like, this blew up a lot last year and it's still going, which is all this GPT-3 auto content stuff. So auto ads, auto writing, um, so like copy.ai alternatives.”

Steal thisBuild (or train people on) an alternative to a fast-rising AI content tool.

Peter Thiel spends 'almost nothing' on longevity

Noah Kagan, who recently spent four hours with Peter Thiel, was shocked that a man worth roughly $10 billion spends almost nothing on extending his own life.

“If you had 5, he's probably worth like $10 billion. I was like, Peter, how much are you spending on longevity? And he's like, almost nothing.”

Thiel: diet and willpower won't 'move the needle' on longevity

Per Noah, Peter Thiel eats dark chocolate and chocolate cake at night, has his assistant hide food on trips, and says none of the disciplined-diet stuff meaningfully moves the longevity needle. He accommodates his low willpower rather than fighting it.

“And he's like, he's like, none of that really is going to move the needle dramatically. He's like, I eat dark chocolate. I eat chocolate cake at night. Like he was telling us how his assistant hides food from him so he doesn't eat it when he travels.”

Only invest in companies you actually use

Noah's personal investing rule: buy stock only in companies whose tools he uses inside his own business — Shopify, Atlassian, HubSpot — because that's where he has an edge or understanding others lack. A $10K Shopify bet at its start grew to ~$60K.

“So when we were building Shopify apps 5 years ago, I was like, I don't know if our Shopify apps are going to work, but I'll put $10,000 in Shopify stock when it just started. So if our apps suck, I think the Shopify thing will probably work. And that Shopify stock now is like $60K.”

Steal thisInvest only in the products you already rely on — your usage is your edge.

Thiel's 'look ahead function' and hunting for non-zombie thinkers

Noah shares Peter Thiel's phrases: the 'look ahead function' (how far you project the outcome of a decision) and 'zombification' (most people share the same thoughts, so he hunts for anyone with genuinely unique ones).

“basically like, how are you looking when you're thinking about a decision? How are you looking ahead to what the outcome could be? And I thought that was really clever. Like, how much are you thinking further ahead on things? Uh, zombification. He's like, everyone is a dumbass. There's no— everyone has like the same thoughts. He's like, I'm looking for anyone who has unique thoughts.”

Steal thisWhen judging a person or bet, ask how far ahead they model outcomes, and whether their thinking is unique or just zombie consensus.

Most of my net worth is from who I know

Noah Kagan attributes most of his net worth to his relationships, citing how meeting Nick Bare led to mutual help, and how he invests in people he genuinely wants to see win.

“It's like most of my net worth is from who I know. And so Nick, I got to meet him and help out, help his stuff. He helps me out.”

The monthly life review email to close friends

For 7 years Noah has emailed a small group of close friends a monthly 'life review': scroll through the month's photos, score the month, check how he did against last month's intentions, and note what's coming. The point is reflection, not feedback.

“Yeah, it's actually been, I mean, it's kind of dude. So every month, and this is, I've done this now for about 7 years. Um, and it's basically an email I sent to Tynan, Nick Gray, and my buddy Jimmy and Leo. And you basically just review your past month and you, I actually started sending it to like my brother, my buddy Johnny, and a lot of, a few other close friends, but it's pretty fascinating to track what's happened in a month.”

Steal thisEmail a few friends a monthly photo-driven life review to stay accountable and reflective.

Library Extension: see free library books while browsing Amazon

Noah recommends the 'Library Extension' Chrome extension, which shows whether a book is available as a free digital or audiobook from your local library while you browse Amazon.

“There's a Chrome extension called Library, uh, it's called Library Extension that'll show you if you can get digital or audiobooks for free. And it shows you when you go to Amazon. So you just put in Austin Library. It's, dude, I use it all the time.”

Steal thisInstall the Library Extension and add your local library so Amazon shows you which books you can borrow free.

Offer to pay cost + promote to get gear cheap

Noah's hack for expensive gadgets: instead of asking for free product as an 'influencer,' message the brand offering to pay their cost and promote it if he likes it — supporting the business while getting it far below retail.

“I hit them up and I said, hey, I'm a social media influencer, which I find ironic. I, I, I say that as a mockery. I didn't actually say that. I was like, hey, I'm interested in your product. Can I actually just pay cost and then I'll promote it? Cause I figured like I want to support them as a business. So I think for people out there that want to get free crap, like just pay cost, you get it a lot cheaper and you can promote it if you like it.”

Track CTR and average view duration to fix a YouTube channel

Noah's prescription for MFM's underperforming YouTube: stop uploading raw podcasts and make content built for YouTube. Track click-through rate (aim for 5%, 3% is decent) to validate topics/thumbnails, and average view duration as a line graph month over month.

“Look at your CTR, like the click-through rate of all these different videos, and that'll basically show you if you're picking the right topics. And then I, as well, your thumbnails are baseline. Uh, if you can hit a 5% CTR, you're, you're doing very well.”

Steal thisJudge YouTube topics by CTR (target 5%) and content by average view duration, tracked monthly.

Document what you already love instead of waiting to be an expert

Noah on a friend who built a 7-figure spearfishing-gear business (Cast and Spear) just by filming his hobby on TikTok: don't wait to feel like an expert or fight imposter syndrome — document the thing you're already excited about and people will pay.

“So I think instead of getting big at Tim where maybe people are expecting, I wanna be known, or I'm an expert, or I've got imposter syndrome, just like do the thing you're already excited about, document that. And I think people will be shocked that they can make a lot of money doing it.”

Steal thisFilm the hobby you already love and build a niche business around the audience.

Negotiate down people's medical bills for a cut of the savings

Noah's brother reviews hospital bills for insurers; now he's exploring doing it for individuals — review your medical bill for free, then take a cut of whatever he saves you. 'What do you have in your day job that you can make a business out of?'

“And so he's exploring how to help individuals optimize the, well, not optimize, but reduce their medical bills. So if you got a medical bill, And it's like $5,000 or $1,000 or $10,000. He'll review it for free and then maybe take a cut if he's able to reduce the amount of money that, uh, that's actually a great idea.”

Steal thisTurn your day-job expertise into a 'success fee' service — free review, cut of the savings.