Noah Kagan > Quotes

“Next time you are overthinking and not taking action, tell yourself to prioritize taking action NOW and don’t worry about the HOW. After you do this ONCE, you quickly get momentum and it becomes easier and more natural.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Customers Want Solutions, Not Ideas Customers don’t care about your ideas; they care about whether you can solve their problems. And you should not build your idea into a business if you don’t know with 100 percent certainty that it’s a solution your customers will pay for.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Most people: Overthink first, act later. Every successful entrepreneur: Act first, figure it out later.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Go see if your weaknesses are hindering you at your job...Fix them or move to another position. Also, constantly ask yourself, "how can I make the company more valuable?" You do that and you will never get fired.”
― Noah Kagan

“I was beginning to see that to live well as an entrepreneur, I just needed to stop thinking so much and go get busy. That meant starting small, starting fast, and not worrying about what I didn’t know. I became an expert at taking leaps. Being unafraid to start new things meant that, unlike most people, I was constantly conducting experiments in my personal and professional lives, in both big and small ways. New industries. New hobbies. New technologies. New roles. New people. New side hustles. That’s where I found my superpower, which taught me a lesson I want to pass on to you: focus above all else on being a starter, an experimenter, a learner.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“you have to decide your own self-worth versus letting others determine it.”
― Noah Kagan, How I Lost 170 Million Dollars: My Time as #30 at Facebook

“Use the motto NOW, Not How. PRO TIP: Next time you are overthinking and not taking action, tell yourself to prioritize taking action NOW and don’t worry about the HOW. After you do this ONCE, you quickly get momentum and it becomes easier and more natural.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Most people never pick up the phone, most people never ask. And that’s what separates, sometimes, the people that do things from the people that just dream about them. You gotta act. And you gotta be willing to fail. —Steve Jobs”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“I shook my head. “So many noes. No, no, no, no. All day. Doesn’t it make you want to quit?” I asked. My dad replied with something that would change my life: “Love rejections! Collect them like treasure! Set rejection goals. I shoot for a hundred rejections each week, because if you work that hard to get so many noes, my little Noah’le, in them you will find a few yeses, too.” Maybe that’s why he named me NO-ah, to remind me of this daily to keep going. Love rejections?! Set rejection goals?!”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth . . . not going all the way, and not starting.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“The BEST way to get famous is make amazing stuff. That’s it.”
― Noah Kagan

“Then I remind myself of Rejection Goals: “This is going to suck. Let me aim to get at least twenty-five rejections.” That”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Business is just a never-ending cycle of starting and trying new things, asking whether people will pay for those things, and then trying it again based on what you’ve learned. If you’re afraid to start or ask, you can’t experiment. And if you can’t experiment, you can’t do business.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Don’t be afraid to act. Be afraid of living a life that seems more like a résumé than an adventure”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“That meant starting small, starting fast, and not worrying about what I didn’t know.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“PRO TIP: Don’t base your happiness or your self-worth on being the smartest, the most successful, the richest. Being so focused on the end results sets you up for a major fall because there’s ALWAYS going to be someone who’s smarter, more successful, or richer—and every time you see that you’ve fallen short, it will eat away at your motivation. Defining yourself by the things you do each day (the process) will get you to where you want to be quicker and more joyfully than measuring yourself against others.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“The whole group was derailed by the same two fears: FEAR OF STARTING. At some point people are told entrepreneurship is a huge risk, and you believed it. You figured more preparation, more planning, and more talking to friends would help you overcome your insecurities. But that inaction only breeds more doubt and fear. In actuality, the best way to learn what we need to know—and become who we want to be—is by just getting started. Small EXPERIMENTS, repeated over time, are the recipe for transformation in business, and life. FEAR OF ASKING. Soon after starting, the fear of rejection emerges. You have some impressive skills, an amazing product, every advantage in the world, and you’ll never sell a thing if you can’t face another person and ask for what you want. Whether you want them to buy what you’re selling or help in another way, you have to be able to ask in order to get. Once you reframe rejection as something desirable, the act of asking becomes a power all its own.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“YouTube is simply the best way I’ve ever seen to grow an audience—and an audience of quality—for free.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Become a Problem Seeker The best entrepreneurs are the most dissatisfied. They’re always thinking of how things can be better. Your frustrations—and the frustrations of others—are your business opportunities. Great ideas come from being a problem seeker. Analyze frustrations in your day, including the things that bother you at home, waste your time on your commute to work, or online. Here’s a list of things that bother me: What to make for breakfast that’s quick, healthy, and full of caffeine How to find a reliable house cleaner Where to go to dinner with my partner How to find my next therapist What kind of investment to make with some extra cash I received And these are just the problems I’ve encountered today. I could go on and on . . . and that’s the point! The number of things that can be better are endless—which is a gold mine for newbie entrepreneurs. The crucial first step toward entrepreneurship is to study your own unhappiness and to think of solutions (aka business opportunities) for you to sell.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“I always advise sending your best Content Email (free course, best articles or videos, content most useful for your audience, etc.) in the beginning. The reason is simple. For each subscriber, open rates usually start high, then decline after a few emails. So show subscribers your best work to minimize that decline.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“It is deadly to build a business without first verifying that there are paying customers.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Show me an experimenter, and over the long run, I’ll show you a future winner. —Shaan Puri”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“To come up with your unique viewpoint, ask yourself a few questions: What is something everyone thinks is true—but you think is wrong? What is something nobody in your target market is talking about—but should be? What are the biggest mistakes people in your market are making—but are totally blind to? Ultimately, your audience wants to learn something from you that’s relevant, useful, and surprising. And they want to do that by going on a journey with you.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“PRO TIP: Selling is helping. If you believe your product or service improves the lives of your customers, sales is just education. You’re helping people out. Reframing selling/asking as helping makes it exciting to offer your consulting or window-washing services or provide someone with delicious cookies. Once you accept that truth, asking becomes loads easier and feels much more like a communal gift than a selfish desire.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“What’s your unique angle in thirty seconds or less?” In other words, why would anyone care to read his newsletter? I know that sounds harsh, but that’s the first question you have to answer before you put yourself into the public sphere. Pressed into defining his unique angle, Ben paused. He rumpled his face up, laughed nervously, and shrugged. This is hard! Finally he spoke, slowly, and then with confidence. Listen to how Ben defined his angle, his sauce: “I’ve been a performance coach for the last fourteen years, working with the best athletes in the world. Helping people perform better is my groove. I want to help anybody who wants to have a great day and shift them into the mentality to dominate their life. I have information to share when it comes to dealing with the best.” That is beautiful! Both in its heartfelt honesty and authenticity, but also in its clarity. Let’s pick it apart and look at what he did in those four sentences: He defines who he is, Why you should trust him, What he is passionate about, and What unique thing this prepares him to do for you. It is clear, approachable, direct, and short. The first three sentences define what makes him special (fourteen years helping the best athletes in the world perform better!), and the fourth (how he’s solving his customers’ problems, teaching mindsets needed to dominate life) defines the kind of love and attention he’ll generously dispense to cultivate a community. Take a minute, and as Ben has done, write out a pitch in your journal describing your special sauce. CHALLENGE Write out your unique angle. There are no right answers here. You can change these any time you’d like. Who are you? Why should people listen? What are you passionate about? What will you do for people?”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“That’s why, when it comes to generating business ideas, customers come first. Before the product or service. Even before the idea. To build a business, you need someone to sell to. I can’t tell you how many times someone has emailed me saying, “What do you think of this business idea?” My auto-reply? “Have you asked what the customer thinks?” Steve Jobs said, “You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards.” Jeff Bezos, too, insists everyone at Amazon use a Customer First Approach to generate ideas and decide which to develop. The first of his sixteen Leadership Principles—Customer Obsession—starts by saying, “Leaders start with the customer and work backwards.” Working backwards prioritizes access to a group of customers (a group you probably belong to) and focuses on an aspect of a customer’s life that doesn’t work. If you do it this way, you’re assured of nailing the three Ws of business right from the start: Who you are selling to What problem you’re solving Where they are Your goals in this chapter are to use the Customer First Approach, to narrow in on three markets that you’ll target, to use your knowledge and experience of these markets to generate lots of ideas, and then to choose the three you think are the most likely to succeed. It’s the first step in the three-part Million Dollar Weekend process, in which you’ll learn to sell ideas to a small early adopter group before you’ve built the product (or spent a cent) in order to validate that there is a market that will pay. Repeat, fast and cheap, until it hits. Experiment, experiment, experiment—BOOM!”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Love rejections! Collect them like treasure! Set rejection goals. I shoot for a hundred rejections each week, because if you work that hard to get so many noes, my little Noah’le, in them you will find a few yeses, too.” Maybe that’s why he named me NO-ah, to remind me of this daily to keep going. Love rejections?! Set rejection goals?!”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Yes,”
― Noah Kagan, How I Lost 170 Million Dollars: My Time as #30 at Facebook

“superpower, which taught me a lesson I want to pass on to you: focus above all else on being a starter, an experimenter, a learner.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours

“Much like the Validation process my Monthly1K students made me use for Sumo Jerky, to validate, I turn to the Golden Rule of Validation: Find three customers in forty-eight hours who will give you money for your idea. Success means moving quickly and spending no money. And that’s what makes the Golden Rule of Validation so effective. Here’s why it works so well: You’re allowed only forty-eight hours. Limitations breed creativity. Having a tight time limit will cut off the doubting wantrepreneur inside you and force you to iterate fast and be creative until you find something that works.”
― Noah Kagan, Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours