565: Noah Kagan - The Art of Asking For What You Want, Launching a Business, Handling Rejection, Working For Mark Zuckerberg, and Not Living a 'What-If' Life
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk
Ryan Hawk
4.9 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2024
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Order our new book, The Score That Matters
Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com
- "Rejection is a test if you really want something. The upside of asking is unlimited."
- "People are afraid of asking. The people who make it happen are willing to ask, be rejected, and keep going."
- One of the biggest lessons learned from working with Mark Zuckerberg? Pick one goal. Then focus relentlessly on reaching it. His was 1 billion users on Facebook. This is how Noah has grown App Sumo to $80m in revenue. Focus on one big goal and the system implemented to make it happen.
- Noah's parental influence:
- Fearlessness - Ask for everything. Set rejection goals. You learn that selling copiers door to door.
- His mom is very disciplined. Always working out in the gym. She follows through. She's persistent. She grinds. His mom also hated her job.
- "I don't want to live a 'what-if' life"
- "Are we getting what we get or are we getting what we want?"
- The law of 100 -- Do the thing 100 times before you quit.
- Get going, get started. It's about now, not how.
- Create an exciting vision: "What are we looking forward to?"
- Million Dollar Weekend:
- Start it
- Build it
- Grow it
- Noah's philosophy on interviewing:
- 1) Talk with people you're genuinely interested in
- 2) Tell them how they've positively impacted your life. People love genuine compliments. And they loved to hear that they've helped others.
- 3) Tell them what's in it for them. Create questions that make your guests excited to answer (set them up to tell interesting stories)
- Entrepreneurship is not risky. Risky is spending your life at a job you hate, with people you don't like, working on problems you don't care about.
- Freedom is about gaining control of your schedule. Money is the tool, not the goal.
- This trip was one of my highlights of the fall. Nothing like biking across America. So much good time to think and reflect. Reminds me that whenever you're in a funk, just get moving. (Helps to be surrounded by beautiful landscapes)
- The future of big business is small teams. One person. No employees. Everything automated. Solopreneurs are the future.
- Acknowledgements:
- Adam Gilbert for our bike ride ten-plus years ago where I shared a dream to put my knowledge into a book for other people. And for always always being my guardian angel.
- Tahl Raz - I dreamed for years of the chance to work with you on a book. Thank you for taking a chance on me. Somehow you were magically able to take all my adventures/theories/ideas/antics and put them together in a helpful narrative better than I could have ever dreamed. Thank you! Also for being a mutual lover of schvitzing.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to The Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. |
| 0:07.5 | I am your host, Ryan Hawk. |
| 0:10.4 | Thank you so much for being here. |
| 0:11.7 | Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of Mindful Monday. |
| 0:17.4 | You along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world will receive |
| 0:22.1 | a carefully curated email for me each |
| 0:24.2 | Monday morning to help you start your week off right you'll also receive details |
| 0:28.8 | about how my new book the score that matters will help you become a much more effective leader both at |
| 0:35.8 | work and at home. Text Hawk to 66866 now on to tonight's featured leader. |
| 0:44.7 | Noah Kagan is back. |
| 0:46.0 | He's the Chief Sumo at app-sumo.com, |
| 0:48.6 | an eight-figure company that teaches lessons |
| 0:51.2 | on how to start our business, grow a business, and improve your marketing. |
| 0:55.4 | Before AppSumo and Sumo.com, he was the 30th employee at Facebook reporting directly to Mark Zuckerberg where he helped build the |
| 1:05.4 | Facebook ads platform. He's the author of Million Dollar Weekend, the surprisingly |
| 1:11.7 | simple way to launch a seven-figure business in 48 hours. |
| 1:16.1 | During this conversation we discussed how his experience as Facebook's 30th employee |
| 1:20.9 | influenced his entrepreneurial mindset and ventures that came after. |
| 1:26.3 | Then Noah shares why he values rejection as well as the importance of asking for what you want. |
| 1:33.5 | And then at the end, Noah walks through the million dollar weekend process |
| 1:38.4 | and gives me some personal one-on-one business building coaching. So cool. Ladies and |
| 1:45.9 | gentlemen please enjoy this conversation with Noah Kagan. |
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