[AMA] Founder of AppSumo and author of Million Dollar Weekend 💚🫰
Hola hackers 👋
LOVE to answer questions on growing your software businesses.
You may know some of the business we've created: AppSumo.com ($80m / year), TidyCal.com, KingSumo.com, SendFox.com, Monthy1k (all are 7-figure businesses).
Here's a list of some of the projects I've built that failed: shortysms, softwaretaco, hauldrop, rewardlevel, sumo-market, sumome, freecallsto, emailbadge, million dollar email templates, sleekbio, meetfam, betarcade, and more.
And today released the book of exactly how you can do it: MillionDollarWeekend.com
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Hey Noah,
What marketing advice do you have to solopreneurs who feel like they're just screaming into the void? How does one get that lucky break in social media promotion that finally gets the ball rolling?
Hey JD. Was checking out pen pinery. Great on building something!
You get lucky with more swings. And FORTUNATELY in business it only requires ONE lucky swing to work. So you got to keep swinging.
Screaming into the void generally reflects lack of product market fit.
Especially at the size of your site I would do two things:
1- Really focus LESS on adding more features or building AND get closer to the writers (talk to them): are they coming back to the site daily / weekly, what are they spending their time on, what sites do they use, whats the biggest challenges they are facing in being a writer, etc... This will help you really find the OH MY GOD yes thing where people are screaming at you since they 💚 your product!
2- Realize this is all part of the process. I've built so many things as you can see above, not everything works. There's a FAKE glorification to keep adding features and grind through it. DO THAT once you've found something people really want. How do you know they want it? They pay you (aim for 3 customers in 48 hours). And if people aren't coming back or using it, GREAT - talk to them and figure what they really want so you can do that.
I appreciate you actually looking at my background before answering the question. Everything you wrote is super solid advice, thank you. Congrats on releasing the book, I look forward to reading it, just bought a copy b/c of this AMA.
Now that you know Pen Pinery, I would be a fool not to ask. Here's an example magazine that catalogued all their issues on the site: https://penpinery.com/futurefantasteek/
Hell, I'll create the profile and share your book for you if that's easier and no strings attached, pure promotion for Million Dollar Weekend!
Hey Noah, Just bought your book yesterday! Can't wait to read it :).
I would like to know your approach for when you decide when to move on from one idea to another.
For example, I've been working on an MVP version for an app called MemoryCrib (a flashcard app for children), and the more I worked on it I realised it would require more effort and then the market for it would be very small. So I am now thinking of shifting my focus to a different product, something similar to Linktree, while I know that Linkbio space is a bit saturated, I feel that if I differentiate my product correctly, getting customers would be easier than the other product with less initial development effort.
What are your thoughts on that? Am I on the right track?
Let me know how reading goes.
Love the idea of your business. How can you truly validate the flash card biz in the next 48 hours?
1- Don't jump to next thing without trying. Think of it as getting reps / practice more than failing / succeeding.
2- Be customer first. Parents don't care about an app, they care about learning and succeeding in life / school. Apps are the solution, find the best way to solve the problem first.
Hey Noah, thanks for taking the time to write that, I think I needed someone to tell me to stick with it rather than give it up :D before I even knew it would be successful or not.
In terms of the validation part, the only validation I have so far is the fact that we've been looking for something similar for my 5-year-old daughter and my wife and I both thought the available products online right now do not deliver what we expect.
I completely agree with the two points you've mentioned, I'm glad you replied and I am gonna take this advice and iterate a basic version and get it to parents who are looking for similar solutions.
Report back how it goes. Happy to support.
You are starting and that's the important part!
Hey Noah! I've literally just signed up to be able to post here.
Technical founder here, we consider we've built the best product in our niche and market. Got only 5 customers since launch and we're close to signing an enterprise deal.
Still struggling to switch from a developer mindset to a business/founder one.
What comes next after building a great product? I usually build my plan based on my knowledge/theory I've learned or experienced, but I've never done this before (nor have any of my friends), so I'm living a constant confusion.
Hey Noah! Been a big fan for the past ~10 years. You've been a huge inspiration behind a number of the things that I have built. Excited to read your new book.
I have taken your advice and have gotten pretty good at starting / building products with very minimal resources (MTAW.app, WondrJournal.com, ElitePickleballAZ.com). Getting initial users isn't very hard now and I have built products that people use daily. But I feel like I am just MVP guy and I have a tough time getting them to the next level (more users, revenue etc). Primarily because splitting time from building to marketing / selling can get dicey.
So a few questions:
Any advice to thinking and evolving a product to something bigger?
Also, when you have a very small team like 1-3 people and have to do most of the work, how do you decide what is most important to work on?
Super grateful for the opportunity to ask you something! If you're ever in Phoenix, would love to play some pickleball with you. I run a thriving league out here!
– Tim
Tim! I'm also in Phoenix. Would love to meet up and play pickleball with a fellow founder. Let's chat.
my man tim. way to go on making things happen. i like you 💚
for you a few things that will help:
1- which of the things you are working on are million dollar opportunities? id say pickleballaz prolly not - NOT that its bad but its work either way so just mindful which thing you work on really has the upside. for instance pickleballaz maybe not mil but an ecommerce pickleball store could be.
2- stick with it. i only really got rich after 6 years, the first years it was reinvesting everything back in to the business. do it yourself, hire people or use software to keep the businesses growing + running.
3- do more what works. what did you do to get to this size? how much of it are you still doing? id bet you stopped some of it
4- whats your 1 goal this year? focus on a target, doesn't have to be ambitious. for my youtube channel and AppSumo its around 10% yearly growth from year before. slow sexy compounded returns!
5- just do the one winning project. for me was AppSumo but realize i launched tons of other things and killed them all to just double down on the winner.
love to play pickleball next time im out there!
Huge, you're the man, thanks for taking the time to write that. All checks out and gives me direction to work towards.
One more question...
Also, this is absolutely gunna get lost in the weeds, but just remember, Pickleball with Tim in Phoenix. What other channel is best to follow up on with this?
id submit now and see what happens, AppSumo.com/sell
instagram.com/noahkagan - if you see me in phx holler.
I know others have asked too, but what Marketing adive to you have to get the first 50-80 customers for an MVP
For an MVP I really focus on just the first 10. WAY more than enough.
Recently wanted to create a docusign alternative - so I looked through my gmail and made list of 10 people who sent me docusigns that may be interested.
Called them up, listened, talked about my idea, got $3000 in pre-orders before we've built it. Launches in the next 30 days.
Many people want to convince you they built in public, two tweets and bamn they are a SaaS millionaire. It can definitely happen and I love building in public.
My main advice is go direct 1 by 1 and be proactive in getting your first customers.
At what point in your bootstrapping journey did you start delegating tasks/hiring? What's the biggest thing you look for when hiring?
I LOVED doing everything in the beginning, support / programming / sales / marketing - it's essential to understand the business. As well, sometimes people are praying that others can magically fix things, I haven't seen this work well.
I HIGHLY recommend hiring as early as its profitable. Specifically an assistant (use hiremymom.com) or the #1 task that is holding you back. For me this was sales when I started AppSumo, second was customer support, third hire was a developer and fourth was a marketer.
Hiring is a skill and you have to practice. So many times people have 1 weird experience and never do it again. That's part of the process.
I look for only two things when I hire: attitude and effort. A few of my fav questions to figure this out:
Many immigrants are amazing, children of immigrants or people with immigrant mentality (they want to work hard and earn things). Look for that.
How did you find and vet your business partners? Working with friends seems like it could be a trap long term/detrimental to the friendship.
Hey Noah, you built an empire, man.
I've been watching your videos for years; I started my B2B marketing examples blog/newsletter gallery because of one of your videos you shared long ago about 7-figure newsletters like The Hustle, Mister Spoils etc and have been generating all my traffic/subscribers by simply highlighting what other people have done like you do with your interviews.
I was wondering if you repurpose the layers of content in your interviews into standalone, shareable blog posts(not transcripts). If so, how effective has this been in generating traffic?
On a side note, I wondered what happened to the OkDork FB group. The community doesn't seem to have recent posts anymore.
Hey Cameron
1 by 1 my man.
Most of past 2 years I've been 100% focused on just YouTube and nothing else for audience growth. And then email - noahkagan.com to communicate with people.
One thing - surprising is posting the email I send on social in a similar format. Works well to maximize exposure of the content.
All Facebook groups are 😴. Been focusing on what works.
Hey @noahkagan! Thanks for doing this!
My co-founder @marc2242 and I launched FounderReports.com on January 8. We focus on interviews with startup founders and also discuss mental health issues surrounding entrepreneurship.
Two-parter here:
What mental health issues did you -- and those you've worked with -- deal with (if any) in running different businesses and projects?
Would you be up for an interview? Can you recommend anyone you think might be a good fit?
I'm looking forward to MDW. Sounds like it's right up my alley.
Thanks!
Dave
P.S. You likely don't remember, but we met about 10 years ago in Austin. I stopped by your HQ when I was in town for a real estate conference.
I'm working on building emailemu.com, a place for marketers to save time and discover email strategies from leading brands without inbox clutter
I would love to know how you would recommend or found success getting businesses to use your product. In the long run, I'd like to target more marketing agencies.
How did you get your first 100 signups?
I got them through a combination of posting on LinkinedIn, Word of Mouth, ProductHunt, and Random Forums. I have been primarily just going after the general marketing community atm.
How's monetization? I'd focus on that before I do more marketing.
I have been wondering what the right time to turn on monetization? I just have a free offer, but wanted to ensure the value was provided before turning on the paid version.
Doing a Quick glance at my product any high level thoughts on early stages areas for monetization?
What are 5 ways you think you can monetize today / this week?
Great question. These are the few that come to mind
I'd test these quickly, some may say even in a weekend (:
Then focus on that versus just marketing.
Thanks dood!
I would love to know how you may go about getting businesses to sign up vs individuals. I assume there was a big learning curve getting businesses onto AppSumo.
As my product expands, marketing agencies and small to medium-sized startups will be the bread and butter.
Noah I used sumome a million times, why did it fail?
Hi Noah,
I heard you mention your dislike for QuickBooks in a recent podcast with Rob Walling. I'm developing an accounting software and would love to know your specific pain points with QuickBooks. Can you share what aspects you find challenging or frustrating? Your insights will be extremely helpful in refining my approach.
Hey, Noah! Have listened to you on @robwalling's podcast and really enjoy your story. Congratulations on your success.
Do you have any advice on splitting attention between multiple products while solo? Some marketing savants like @amyhoy will say "split focus is death," while others seem to have the ability to stack at least a few projects while ultimately winnowing focus down to the most successful ones.
In your experience, is it best to defer new products until others are firmly revenue-positive (or shelved) or is there a certain amount of acceptable parallel focus? Thanks for your time!
Hi Noah, I don't know if you are still here, but here's my question. What is your opinion on the SAAS fatigue? For me, it is way easier to sell a digital product for a one time fee than retain SAAS customers.
Good luck on your book! I would love to check it out.
Hey Noah, thanks for the AMA. Have you ever used No code to build any recent projects of yours and if you did why would you recommend founders (technical or not) to use these sort of tools?
I'm 100% buying this book, and I loved your interview with Tim Ferris!
Hi Noah!!!
I loved using SumoMe and recommended to friends. Why would you list it among failures? What would you have done differently?
Just curious to know things to keep in mind while scaling a validated product
Noah,
Love your videos, they've been a life saver please create more marketing content
My Questions
When do you decide it's time to kill an idea I can get traffic but I feel super done with
building anything as a Dev
I like challenges but I am kinda burned out by being a Dev
You worked at FB and intel as a dev when you decided to stop being a dev and be a founder and why?
I've sold my agency but now I am fed up with being a Dev but want to try other things like The Story Teller so I'm thinking of writing a newsletter or podcast or YouTube
I know your law of 100 but
There are a few ways I think :
a. Reach out to brands for a content series for a whole year that we will get this much traffic and I will use your product complete year for maybe like $100/mo and it will get like 100,000 views
Like building a business using your tool email series or a YouTube challenge building a business using Webflow, framer, kajabi, clickfunnels , appsumo, or HubSpot
The worst is you lose $100 the max you can get 10,000 leads email list that we build during it.
b. Making it paid only challenge: I can make the content paid only not a course i don't sell courses but a community maybe
c. Starting a SaaS: I'm also thinking of starting a serious saas instead of side projects
Hey Noah. What advice would you give to someone for getting software ideas and how would you approach marketing it?
I heard twitter is a good idea for marketing but I'm pretty introverted and not comfortable documenting online.
I am building https://spinosis.com - UX personalization tool for SaaS. Do you find the project reasonable? I would like to work with B2B Enterprise companies, how can I reach them? Many thanks
@noahkagan you famously built a huge email list. Any advice for someone trying to grow/monetize a super niche newsletter? It covers the latest archaeological/anthropological discoveries, so not your typical high-growth niche.
Growth (currently 3k+ subs) has been primarily through reddit posts so far, and that's drying up a bit recently. The monetization model is freemium ($4k+/yr) because it's hard to find sponsors/etc. in the space.
Current game plan: Consistency and time, which is doable because I love the topic... but I'd love your thoughts on how to give it some juice.
How do I get my first customers? I know how to build products quickly, but I don't know how to get people to use them if I have no big social media following.
How can you help 1 person today with the what you build? Just one.
People do not needs large followings at all to build large wealth.