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Things, but it doesn't have to be you, and you can pull the things out over time. So it's like stuff needs to be done to make a business successful. You can do that stuff in 24 hours or a week or a month. And so it's like if you're cutting down your hours, maybe your pace will be a bit slower. But you can still get the stuff done. And we do so much useless stuff. Right? I think that often there are a set of essential activities that are actually moving things forward and making progress. And those things do not take 10 hours a day. They take 2 hours a day, And then we mess around trying to find stuff to do for 8 hours. Yeah. Yeah. What's the rush? I saw Tim Ferris put a tweet out this morning. I I thought was cool about how because we're bored we wanna micromanage and we wanna do emails. Yeah. But let's take a quick pause, and we're gonna keep on the story of doing less and making millions, which is kind of what what you've been able to do. You just I'm gonna put a timer on. Alright. I'm putting a timer on for 25 seconds. I just want you to brag about yourself. Oh. Okay. 25 second brag. My brags are, what I've been working for myself since I was 21 full time, like, always made it work, made my own money, I've had 2 successful exits. Actually, I've had one public one for Mead Edgar, but I also sold another business to my business partner, and that bought me house in Venice, California. So that one that one was pretty good too. I have an amazing home life. Great Bragg. Oh, thanks. 25 second brag. I might use that more often. That was cool. Yeah. I think sometimes we don't recognize what we've done. Like, even your first one, I think most people wouldn't say that's the thing, but that's what a fucking cool thing. We didn't have to go and do the standard job life that some people enjoy, and that's great. Yeah. Some people were like, for me and you Right. It's not for us. Yeah. Yeah. Good for you. Good for me. Good for you too, listener. So sometimes I listen to a show. I'm like, dude, I hate this guy, but then I'm like, no. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. And so tell me more about your slow pick. Tell me about what's this week of not doing a lot. It's not that you're not doing a lot, but you're doing it at a, like, sustained pace.
Gonna be okay. And everything ultimately actually is always okay. But what that sparked me to do was really just map out, like, I think I wrote 3090 36510. It was just working backwards from where I wanted to go. And I still think one of the best books all the time is Steven Covey, 7 habits of highly effective people. It doesn't say successful, and that was a great reminder of working backwards from where you wanna go. I think I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur make a lot of money, live my life away. I just didn't know how it was gonna get there. And so, actually, being a little more concrete with that saying, alright. How do I get a $1000 money in the year? And I remember 30, I wanted to be a millionaire, which I think I got to that. I wanted to have my own house. I did not have that. I wanted to have a wife, kids, and dog did not have that, but at least it gave me somewhere to to shoot for. So working backwards from some of your goals. You know, some of the other business advice, I was very good at getting focused on something to accomplish, maybe to a fault, Zuckerberg taught me about focusing on one goal. And so the the good about that is I would get you know, we talked about working backwards. I would get obsessed to get to the goal at all cost. Then I would kinda stop right after I got the goal because I was so fucking tired. And I was, like, burnt of these different areas. And so it's great to have one goal, but make it a more achievable goal that you can you when you hit when you hit it, you can sustain that for a longer period of time. What I learned at Mint was the the best marketing is a great product. And it was so exciting to work on it for myself because I loved the problem. And the marketing was just easy. You know, Aaron, the founder came over 2 days ago for some tea at my house, and he was just like, I've never seen one market like you did. I wonder from time, like, if I didn't do in the marketing that hired someone else, like, what would have happened for mint. What it has been where it is? Maybe. And so I do think there's a balance. Like, if you make make a great product and tell no one, you know, I I think that's the the fantasy people trick you on. Like, oh, if you make a great video or make a great song, you make a great software, you make a great book, like, people just tell others about it, But if no one knows about it, I think that's gonna be a a lot harder. And so to make your marketing easier, find a business and find a problem that people are excited about, and it makes the market getting fun and it's just a lot more easier to be effective.
Noah Kagan Presents
Asking Is the Biggest Skill No One Uses
Thu Apr 04 2024
Passing grade. And I was like, oh, I do this with other classes. And I ended up, like, asking teachers like, oh, can I take this class? Yeah. You could take oh, I already took calculus. Can I just get past calculus? Yeah. You could pass calculus. It just kind of reinforced. It's like a flywheel. Like, you start asking people say, yes. They ask again. And then you get good at asking, even when people I have a great example, lit this morning. So part of the membership for all the hacks, we do these member calls. And we like points and miles. And so the founder of this company aways, which is a tool for searching hotel awards, is gonna do a demo and walk people through exactly how the product works, answer all these questions, And we were like, hey, do you wanna give away anything to the listeners? And he's like, well, don't we already give all your members 50% off? And we were like, yeah. But if you wanted to do anything more, like, a free membership, he's like, Okay. We'll do 3. And I was like, at first instinct, I was like, don't we already give 50% sounded like he was saying, why would we possibly give something away? But he was just clarifying to make sure he understood and that following up would be like, it's totally fine if you don't want to, but if you do, we could give something away. And now 3 members are gonna get a free, like, $100 a year membership. Which pays for your thing by itself. Right? Yeah. The membership's a $100. So we we have enough perks it. If you just join and you wanna do a state planning, you'll save more than the cost. But I don't know what people just need to ask. And then you just find that people say, yeah. And then you ask more, and then they say, yes. And and you can do this in the context of, like, asking for a discount at the coffee shop. Right? Off a challenge or asking for a raise or asking off money off your bills. It's kinda crazy when you start out and you're like, oh my god. They say yes. Yeah. What have been some of your best asks and best knows? So the best ask, when you have data, it works really well. So I remember when I was negotiating my salary at Wealthfront, they were like, this is how much we're gonna pay you. And if I had gone back and said, well, I want more. I now know this in hindsight that Andy, the CEO would have been like, why would I give you more? But instead, I went and downloaded I was in a slightly fortunate position because as the founder of a company, I had access to some of these tools with salary benchmarks, Search download all its benchmarking data. And by the way, it takes 2 minutes to download. So if you ever know anyone who
Doing it intentionally. I wasn't trying to commit, and I didn't realize. And, again, if I was listening to this, I'd be like, I don't know. I'm gonna go hook up with other people. I don't give a shit, dude. Cool. You're married with the kids. Sounds boring. Like, going to 6 Street, Austin, Texas, which is our party street and going to a bar and getting drunk in some bar and then having to try to get home And then maybe talking to someone is, like, the most empty thing I could ever imagine right now. Like, that would be, like, the last thing I'd ever wanna do. You'd have to pay me a $1,000,000. Okay. I would do it then. No. That just says sucks. It just feels empty. It feels shallow now. We're going out and we're getting a oreo milkshake tonight, and then we're gonna talk about different marriage things. It's just, like, super cool to me. Like, hey. We're talking about our honeymoon. We're doing an RV trip. I'm like, damn, that sounds fun with my wife. I even look. I'm like, you're my wife. I can't believe it. And so a few things around dating better in your twenties. 1, just keep working on yourself. So what does working on yourself mean? Just like yourself. So the simplest question that can really encompass all of yourself is, are you doing things you're proud of? That's it. Just be the person that you are proud of. Are you proud of how your health is? Are you proud of your behavior? Are you proud of how you're shown up at work? Are you proud of how you're shown up to your parents? A lot of times in my dating now, I was just like, asking women. I was like, tell me about how your relationship is with your parents. And that was almost like the number one thing that would clarify who they are themselves. And that would show how their pride is. So for yourself, are you proud? It's just like business. Like, when you hire someone, it's almost never the first person you hire that ends up working out. You know, one thing surprisingly about the career is give way less fucks about all these other people. And I'm still giving fucks about other people. I'm not gonna try to front. Like, I I don't care. I don't like the subs or whatever they're called and and all these different things. But how can you just keep doing more things, especially earlier in your career that you can just be proud of yourself? Oh, give them montage music. But, no, for real, it's how do I just do these things? Yes. Maybe it's okay to get some external recognition, external validation, think about the things that you are within your control that'll make you feel proud of yourself no
Noah Kagan Presents
How to Get Rich as an Introvert.
Thu Mar 21 2024
Thing. So how do I find other people? Because that's part of life is that you go through a lot of people to find the people that are your people. So think of it all the same practice to find that. Next up is introverts can host events, but structure it so it works for you. So maybe your events are super small. Like, last night, I had John. You're shy. You can check him out j0nyoushae. I, who's an awesome YouTuber, really like this guy, has become a good new friend. And we just had him and his wife and me and my wife over, and we just had a nice Thai food dinner and hung out for 3 hours. And maybe it's a small thing like that. Maybe it's a board game night. Maybe it's a walk. Maybe it's a taco meetup. Shout out and hit me up. But set it up in a way that you're actually excited to be a part of it. I used to have dinners at my house when I moved to this new house and would hire a chef. It was, like, 700 bucks. And I'd be doing these dinners and I'd try to meet interesting people. And after about the 6th dinner, I was in bed. And I was like, I don't really even enjoy this. I'd rather have Chipotle straight up. I don't need 6 new people. I just want one other person to get to know better and I don't even need to do it over food. I'd rather do it over a walk or do it over a pickleball or do it over a bike ride or do it over throwing a football around. And so just really thinking about how do you make it a thing where you actually look forward to, and if it's not working great, you can improve it. Number 3, check out law of 100.com. This is a site, that I bought from somebody read $1,000,000 weekend. And it's totally free. And you can use it to practice to talking to a hundred people. So in law of 100.com, commit to meeting a hundred people. You can do it over a 100 days. And just every day, hey, did I talk to one new person today? And I promise you, and you can leave notes for yourself. And at the end of a 100 days or the end of a hundred people, I think you'll be surprised about what you've learned. Doesn't mean you're gonna go off and be extravert as hell, but you realize like, I actually am a pretty good at this chit chat thing, and maybe There's a few people I've met through this that I actually really like that I can end up building a business or building a life with. And the last thing I'll share with you about extraversion as a learnable skill is using how or what