[WAMA] Noah Kagan - #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint.com, Chief Sumo at AppSumo - Wed 7th May 2pm CDT

87 replies

Hey Warriors

Looking forward to answering all your questions.



Here are things I like talking about and can likely help ya with:
  • Starting 7-figure businesses without spending money. I've spent over $100k and years on businesses that have totally failed and also created 2 businesses in weekends that have made a healthy 7 figures.

  • Marketing. I got to help Mint grow to millions of users and AppSumo grow to over 750,000 email list. Specifics include paid advertising (personally spent over $2 million), content marketing (Mint blog) and tapping new channels (giveaways, etc).

  • Personal development. AppSumo grew to millions of dollars and nearly 20 people. I was at my least happiest and spent a month in India and a year working on myself. Happy to share what worked and what didn't.

  • Tacos. LOVE em. Can discuss war stories about best and worst places.

Stuff I'm involved with:

AppSumo.com , free newsletters to help entrepreneurs kick ass

SumoMe.com , free tool to help grow your website

Okdork.com , personal site about effective marketing tactics and how to start a business

Monthly1K.com , helps wantrepreneurs create a $1,000 a month business

I will be holding a Warrior Ask Me Anything - WAMA live on Warrior Forum on Wednesday 7th May at 2pm CDT Time Converter


*** LIVESTREAM HAS ENDED ***
##30 #2pm #7th #appsumo #chief #cst #facebook #kagan #mintcom #noah #sumo #upcoming
  • Profile picture of the author Alaister
    We're very excited to have Noah Kagan live with us here at Warrior Forum. He has generously offered his time to answer questions that you may have.




    Transcript of the Noah Kagan WAMA Event:

    I don’t know if it is going to be as fun just watching me type. But maybe I will talk for some of the questions.

    This question was, “I created a hash tag search engine #white and it is supposed to go viral.”

    Well I’d like a million virgins…I don’t think I could handle that many. I would just like a really nice woman but that also is…you don’t get everything you want, it takes some time. So I would recommend a few different things like:
    1. Are you making money?
    2. How have you grown?
    3. SEO.
    4. Have you validated the value that people will get out of it?

    Alright, what are the questions on Warrior Ask Me Anything. Thank you Alaister for getting this all set up.

    [01:48]

    “What are the top three things you did early on that are some of the most effective in building our email list?”

    1. Asking for emails.

    People think they ask for it. If you go to OkDork.com you can see I have actually, I would say the top things we did as far as email, like the homepage is ask for email. That’s massive. And then when you actually get into the product and same with Appsumo if you go in...I am just going to go to my screen. If you go to OkDork or if you go to apsumo.com you will see what we do, number one, we ask for emails. A lot of people are like, “Oh I would love to get email addresses. I want to grow my list.” Are you really asking for it? And they don’t aggressively ask for it.

    Sometimes, I don’t think on this page but on other pages. No not this one either. This will actually be an email collect page as your default same as it is on OkDork.com. So you have got to ask for emails.

    2. Giveaway free product or promote amazing products.

    I tried a lot of gimmicks that we had at our company but we didn’t spend a lot of money early on. We didn’t spend any money to get our email list but it was literally we would just promote great products and people would naturally spread it. I know that sounds easy and I kind of hate when people say s*** like, “Oh yeah it was just great and it worked” but it is really true. Think about when you have done things where people have responded even if it’s cooking or if it is hanging out, look for something that you have done that people have responded to. And that is what we found, when we promoted a product free or something paid but it was still a great promotion then a lot more people came and then subscribed.

    3. And then lastly is work with people who have your customers.

    So we worked with Lifehacker who had our customers, and SAS companies who promote to their non paying customers. So basically we went to people who had our customers like all these people who had web software which was the majority of what we were promoting and we would say, “Hey we have a bundle, you are a part of it.” Don’t email it to people who are already paying you, email it to people in your list who are not paying you yet and it is a great way to get them to convert. And that was very effective.

    So in the beginning that is what I did.

    [03:57]

    Nino man, you have got two questions, s*** son. “I have an idea on a car classified ad website with a few unique spins and I will probably end up challenging the leading question. How can I increase protection against an attack from the leader?”

    Is this like game of thrones? I don’t even know what that is.

    “For fast growth would you go with this unique website, high risk high roi or with the more common ecommerce store?”

    I really hate looking at things like that. And this is one of the things. I think there is a stigma on the Warrior Forum because it is all money and how do I get more money, more affiliate, more of that s***. I think you need to work backwards from how can you…and yes of course you want to make something that is passive and works online but you have got to put a little bit of work in at the beginning.

    And then obviously…that is a whole other philosophical discussion. So I would say if you are trying to get either of those I would say neither. Start with how can you validate with just one customer about your solution? Most people….

    What’s up Patrick? You guys on the livestream thing you can ask questions. Hey Matt, what’s up man? And I’ll say your name, it is pretty fun. It is like shout out, like hall or something. Like, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt. [fist pumping]

    [05:33]

    Alright. “Do you get any opt in members who forget they opted in and blacklist you with hotmail, yahoo, etcetera? If so how do you deal with this? I’ve had to work with hotmail recently to remove me from their block list and it was very painful.”

    We use SendGrid for sending our emails. A lot of people have asked me…I’m going to talk and then I’m going to write. A lot of people have asked me, how do you get people to increase your open rates. A lot of these things are macro optimizations so I really discourage a lot of micro…a lot of these are micro optimizations and I really discourage that. Ultimately you should probably be focusing on how do you get people who want to get your emails and they actually are actively, “Why haven’t I heard from….? (I don’t know your name, whatever it was.) So yes back in the day we had to go and how do we get hotmail and you have to make sure you have your DKIN and your signature on your emails and all that stuff. I mean now it is not as much of an issue. Probably do double opt-in in the beginning.

    So I’m going to be typing.

    Hey Dillon, Sobrat, Matt, Chris, look at me multitasking.

    Who uses hotmail anymore?

    We actively remove people from our mailing list so about every six months is an automatic script that if they haven’t opened, or clicked or bought anything in six months we remove them. And we think that is a pretty fair time where they haven’t done s*** so one your open rates go up when that happens, because then Gmail is like, “Oh s*** all these people aren’t opening it.” They score you down and that is pretty common against all ISP’s or ESP’s and there is a few other things but the short of it is, if people aren’t opening your emails remove them from your lists.

    And I do that pretty much across…we do that every six months. And then what you could do is after another six months send a blast out to that dead list more or less and see if anything happens and then that is a reactivation. And that is what we have done with Appsumo. So just to clarify. After six months we remove people who don’t open or click. And then six months later we resend them an email just to see if they are alive and then we will add anyone who is back alive, otherwise they are dead and it improves all of our scores.

    It is kind of weird to talk it out. I really prefer talking it out versus writing.

    [08:36]

    So this is a good question. Cyberclicks said, “I have a business that is profitable. I am seeking about $20,000 to expand it. Is it a bad move to fund a business on a credit card?”

    It is not a bad move if you know the time to RI is within your .…[08:56 typing]

    So he is asking like should I use my credit card to fund the business? And personally I am very adverse to spending money that I don’t have. So if I knew that, let’s say I spend $10,000…I would actually prefer bootstrapping and slow to grow unless something is working.

    So let me give you a clear example. With advertizing for Appsumo we knew that when we spent $10,000 we would make $20,000 within those 30 days. So then I doubled it and I spent $20, 000 and we made $40, 000. And at some point it actually leveled off. I think we were at about $300,000 and it was like holy s*** we are not making any money back. So then we brought it back down and I think now we are around $30, 000.

    So I say as long as you are doing something that is within that period, within paying the bill, you will be fine. If you are in the US check out the AMEX plumb credit card where you can get I think 90 day terms, so you actually get extended payments but you don’t get any of the points and I love those points.

    Alright who else is there? Matt Berry, Patrick McCoyan, Mike, Ryan Martin.

    I can save the livestream, I will have an offline version that I will upload to You tube but I just don’t want it public. So I will share more stuff.

    [10:13]

    Yeah Rick. Well forums are antiquated but I think forums are actually fascinating one, for product development. I do it a lot on Reddit, looking for what people are asking, for finding new customers, for promoting things, and I really like channels and forums and marketing related. I am going to put this as a respite.

    [11:11]

    Alright, it is hard to do the chat thing so I am going to do the WAMA, fly through all those questions and then I’ll finally answer all the questions on livestream.

    Hey Jennifer, what’s up girl? Wow, I can’t believe a girl is on WAMA. Ah Corey.

    I am trying to just go top down. Thank you all for coming here. I gave Michael his answer.

    [11:32]

    “You have an information based business product online and had $1000 to spend on traffic to get off the ground and running. How and where do you spend the money for maximum revenue?”

    I really discourage you from spending anything on advertizing for their product until the last possible thing. Why? (It is so much easier to talk than to do this.) [11:50 to 12:02 typing]

    So yes I do spend a lot of money on ads now, somewhere between $20 to $50,000 a month and I have gone up to $300,000 a month.

    So I hate it when people are like, “Hey would you choose A or B?” And they are like, “Well I choose C.” And I’m like, “Well I said A or B so choose it.”

    [12:37 to 13:06 typing]

    Alright, sorry guys. Do you guys just want to chat here? I’m going to do the…I think Alaister from...yeah I’m recording. So here I’ll save the livestream so don’t even sweat it and I am going to stay here for quite a while. So don’t trip okay. I will stay here and play with you guys.

    [13:27]

    Alright, Send cards, “I really love Appsumo”…love you too. “And I’ve bought quite a few deals from you guys. I’ve experienced some of the changes you made and it appears none were made lightly.” Sometimes they are. You might think we are more strategic and sometimes we are and sometimes we are not. “I think I may have even voiced my concerns at times and I think you heard me or at least you were listening to the crowd.”

    Most of the times if you don’t suck. I will say one thing this year is that we have got better at firing customers and I think that has taken us four years now to do. Because there is customers that you really want to over serve, the good ones, and then remove the bad ones. It frees up more time for better customers. “So that’s it. I wonder what other businesses might work using a similar model as Appsumo.”

    So thanks Send cards, I heart you too. The Appsumo could be used for almost any business. So like sumojerkey is an Appsumo model. Obviously it is a business I started that is now one where it is jerky of the month but Appsumo what you have to realize is like it is about the fundamentals. So what is Appsumo really? [14:32 typing]

    So here’s the thing. Ah man it is so hard to type and talk.

    So I will tell you the problem with that though.

    So here is the thing. It will work in anything. So what does Appsumo do? We just find great products that I like and we send them out. And now Anton does it. And then over the past few years we have diversified so we are not so dependent on finding things that we now create our own products. So have monthly1k.com we have sumo templates and our newest product that I really want your guys’ opinion on it is called sumome.com it is a free marketing tool. But we have a new feature coming out that I think is ******* ridiculous, I honestly and I‘m excited to use it on my personal blog. I don’t want to sell because I don’t want you to think I’m selling it. You guys tell me what you want to do with it, and I will bring it up in a little bit. But here is the thing with most people and Appsumo and this is my response. The big thing is that instead of worrying so much about how to be like the Appsumo will you persist and do it for 52 weeks?

    I have down Appsumo for four years and the first year, the business made like $700,000 or a million, some stupid number, but I only paid myself $12,000. And the next year was millions. And the third year $5 million, some number and I finally paid myself $120,000 and obviously this last year has done well. And so I think what most people neglect is it is going to take you some time. And that is really what is going to separate you out. Like are you willing to wake up at 5:00am?

    And what I want to encourage everyone to do, at least in the chatroom…hi everybody. Hey Nino and Mike and Dave and everybody else. Are you willing to wake up at 5:00am? And I will even give you a lighter thing. This is one thing I was thinking about yesterday. Who is willing to make their bed every day for thirty days? And I think it is easy to kind of come to a chat like this, or see me on a live stream and have tactical questions, but I think a lot of it is more internal challenges. Most of you know what to do and sometimes there is a tip here or there that you will benefit from, but I think the real value is you actually taking a little bit each day to improve yourself and do some work instead of just consuming. Start thinking about creating and not consuming.

    So make your bed. Who is going to make their bed for thirty days? I promise you do that, other things in your life will get better and your business will be better.

    My education background I went to UC Berkley double majored in ecommerce and business. I honestly don’t use s*** from my college. I learned everything about start ups and marketing…I’m doing marketing and I never even learned that at college. I would say about 20% of that was from books and 80% was from doing things. So doing marketing meant I created a site called [17:45 comegetyousome] I created collegeup.org, I created ninjacar.com, [17:50 wallncollege] right afterwards, just experimenting with businesses. Some made decent money, some made none. And that is how I’ve been able to develop my method in monthly1k.com to teach people how I’ve done it.

    [18:00]

    “Do you give a free Appsumo product?”

    Why should you?

    Alright, I’m going to go back to the questions…hey Jenny Sweets are you the same Jennifer? Yes. Yeah I would say you guys want my number one tip for being more productive? 1. Buy a faster computer. 2. Learn to type faster.

    [18:36]

    Alright, I’m going to go back to the text ones. Clickmonkey…a lot of click people. “How do you determine when to pivot or when to persevere with a solution to a problem, especially when you are in a grey zone where the solution is valid but it is not getting as much traction as you hoped for?”

    Sounds like you know the answer.

    Would it help if I showed you guys my screen while I’m typing?

    So this is a good question, when do you pivot and when do you not? So I actually wrote this out, it is totally random, I am doing an interview with this afterwards. So I’m buying a loft, a very little loft, not very expensive and my mom said this question, I thought it was really good. Would I regret not getting it? And I think that is a really good question. Like would you regret not seeing this through? Would you regret not making this successful? And at this point I would regret not getting this place. Or last year we did monthly1k.com and honestly it sucked. It sucked big time.

    But one I had a clear goal. I wanted to challenge our team and ourselves to really persevere, to 1) build a great product so we could be diversified from always finding products and 2) hit a goal and our goal was 3,333 people. And we have been able to sell more than that. (4672) And that was our only goal. FYI if you have more than one goal, you are doing too many goals.

    So I would say pick one goal, decide if you would actually regret or not, not completing it. I knew I would if I did not complete it. And ask yourself, one of the simplest questions I do is, “Is this what you really want?” Like if you are asking people, “Hey what do you think I should do? What do you think I should do?” It is probably not what you should be doing.

    So ask yourself…I go to therapy every other Tuesday. I’m writing the answer. Like we had this goal to help 1 million entrepreneurs with Appsumo and I remember when we did it and I am looking at the team of 18 people and I am looking around and I was just like, I ******* don’t care to help 1 million entrepreneurs. I really don’t. In my heart I could give a **** less.

    And then there are other stories. We went to Napa a few weeks ago and none of us were really that excited to do it and it was an okay trip but I think when you are not excited, you are not sincere or authentic about what you are doing. When you actually do it, it comes off that way, people know.

    It is like women, they know anything. When I’m [22:12 muttering], they’re like, “You’re this way.” I’m like, how did you know?

    So what I want you to think about is ask yourself the question. What do you really want? Would you regret doing it? And then what kind of goal are you really trying to accomplish that is authentic for yourself?

    [22:29]

    Do I do any offline marketing? No. I will just post that. [Typing: I don’t do offline marketing. Online world is more trackable and effing huge but...typing.] So about offline marketing and I also think about it on a grander scale, when you are doing marketing you have to really be looking, and I call it quant based marketing, I have written about it on OkDork.com. If you are doing offline marketing or you are doing marketing, the main main main thing is to see what is actually effective.

    So let me show you. I was doing a lot of you tube marketing last year. Because for OkDork.com and for Appsumo as well I wanted to grow my email list, that was our big thing, that was our only goal at least for OkDork. And so I was like, alright …I will show you. And so I was like wow. So last year all I focused on was you tube. I got 6,000 subscribers and there was 100,000 views. So that’s great. And then I was like alright now let me go optimize all my videos. So I went optimized all my videos. Here I will show you the videos. So all these videos are optimized. Every video has a little subscribe thing here and they have got links down here and there is links in the video later but if you actually go to acquisition in my Google analytics which is what really matters. So alright how much traffic is you tube actually driving me? Nothing.

    That’s the point is that as much as you can do offline or online you should really be thinking about what is actually effective.

    What one channel works…? I’m posting a link. So if you wanna…boom. [typing]

    Let me see what Alaister from…Yeah awesome no worries. Alaister is in NZ so I do his accent. Yeah just chat we can save the livestream and sort it out later. Thanks.

    That was like a bad Asian South Australian one.

    Alright let me do the live stream a little bit.

    So if you haven’t gone to livestream, go to livestream, we will save this just for you guys. I am not going to keep it online. It will be just for the Warrior Forum members.

    [25:27]

    So, how many hours do I work in a day?

    When people ask that question it is more a reflection on you are not working enough. And I would say my hours have actually significantly changed from when I was in my 20’s. I am 32 right now. So when I was in my 20’s I would work all the time but I was not very effective. And in my 30’s it comes in waves. I will work some days like ten to twelve hours, some days I’ll work two, some days I’ll work none. Some days I’ll work weekends and I think it just kind of varies depending on it.

    And I think what most people do is work about the hours. Work on your effectiveness not your efficiency.

    What I have been using lately, I will show you guys. I use this app called Toggle. And so I’m writing a Facebook book. Here is the book. It is about everything that happened at Facebook. Ooooh. So Mark and things that were there and drama and all that stuff. I’m going to publish it. It’s free Toggle, and this works for me. What works for me may not work for you but I’m just going to recommend it.

    But I say," I’m only going to work on the Facebook book." So I turn off everything else. And I think there are a lot of other apps but this is what I use for now and I just time myself. And doing this has made me get more work done. And that is what it ultimately comes down to. Not are you playing business but are you doing the work to move you towards your goal? So I want to get this book out, so that gets me towards my goal.

    Or like our monthly1k sales are down, so I wanted to figure out why they are down. So I spent almost an hour of dedicated time ….thanks, cool. Make sense? So T-o-g-g-l-e works for me. But you really need to look at what your goal and what are you actually doing that helps you become productive?

    [27:04]

    Yeah, FB mafia.

    “What is your opinion about finding your passion versus…”?

    Oh I don’t ******* know. About passion advice, I don’t think it is about passion because passion…there is a great article, let me find it for you guys and I will just post it. Thomas Keller said it, yeah. I will come back to the chat room. And I have an opinion on this; I have an opinion on most things.

    So regarding passion I don’t think it should be passion but I really think you should focus on something you are interested in solving for yourself. I think too many people on Warrior Forum and when we help with monthly1k.com are focused on passive incomes and I actually talked to a guy last night who is going through a quarter life crisis. And I have done two, I did one at twenty five and I did one at thirty. One to Argentina and then I went to India. And he had a passive income business and it was making the money that he wanted, that he always wanted and he finally had everything. And he was unhappy at that point because it is not about generally getting to what you want, because then you are like, oh s*** what do I do now? And that is stuff I struggle with. So instead of thinking about passion I just encourage people to solve their own problems.

    Oh s*** I’ll do Toggle for talking with you guys. Stop. Doing WAMA.

    Alright now I’m toggling so you guys can see. I am doing Toggle for talking with you guys so I won’t do anything else.

    But yeah I would say just focus on solving your own problems, like tons of things suck. My friend…even early this morning it was so great, we were at the gym and every time at the gym I am always writing down on my phone, here is the exercise, here is the number of reps, here is the weight. And he found an app that just did it. And so it started really getting me thinking about any time you have something that is done manually, how can you make it better? Online or offline. And I just thought that was a really great way of looking at it. Anything done manually, how can you then automate or create software to solve?

    And with that what I would discourage you from is creating the software but doing it manually, seeing that it sucks, then go validate getting paying customers, then actually creating it.

    [29:29]

    Alright. “Could you go into more detail about advertizing? Be specific. Is the ultimate goal passive income?”

    No I wouldn’t say that because guess what happens after you get passive income? What do you do all day? And I think it should be called active income because like I want to passively make passive income and I’ve never been able to do that. If you can make passive income being passive let me know and I will invest in you. But what it is is…let’s say you get passive income and you travel the world and you get bored of it, which you will because I’ve done it. Then you are like, what next?

    Well guess what you are probably going to want to work because it is satisfying and fulfilling. Every time I have done work or even go to the gym, I feel, because I’m producing something it feels better.

    So I would just say why don’t you create a job that you don’t really want to be avoiding? Why don’t you create a business that you are excited to be working on? And yes you will have bad days it is inevitable but just creating something you are more interested in will help you persevere.

    [30:20]

    Have I made an 80/20 analysis for our business?

    No, not really. I think that is a good question. I just kind of look at what is working and doing more of it. So Pablo asks, “Have you done an 80/20 analysis?” And what specifically that is about is that what in your business can you do more of? So with Appsumo we used to do bundles and we found out that if we just promoted one product instead of a bundle it took less time and we made more money. So no more bundles.

    Twitter advertizing. We only have let’s say $10,000 a month. We are doing Twitter ads and Facebook ads and all these ads and I’m like, which ads are actually being the best? Alright small site sponsorships like andrewchen.co or site point or Tim Ferris ads, retargeting, and then Facebook ads. And I cut everything else out.

    And then same with Appsumo products. We stopped promoting so many things so then we have one product, monthly1k.com, and then we are very stringent about what we are actually going to promote to our mailing list or sumo links.

    [31:13]

    Dave, “Is Woo…” you’ve asked this question a lot bro. “Is Woocommerce a good ecommerce platform, what would you suggest?”

    Dave how much money are you making because I would guarantee it is not that much and I would say under $10,000 a month. So how much are you making Dave because you are probably focusing on that versus something that is more important which would be, growing the $10,000.

    There is a very common avoidance issue I am seeing with people who are starting their businesses is that they are focusing on the play stuff which is, should you shop Woocommerce, What color should this be? It is like who ******* cares? Is your business big enough that it actually even matters? Probably not.

    [31:50]

    Oh Maria that is really cool. So Maria is saying, “I make paper products like notebooks and workbooks basically for people that like to put pen to paper. So I am struggling with automating that.”

    You can’t automate pen to paper. What’s the problem you are actually facing Maria?

    [32:01]

    Rick Corbit asks, “You grew Appsumo to 700,000. If someone has a small list and needs to grow in a specific market what are the top five tips for growing your list? You have also mentioned you spent too much money.”

    So Rick, a few things. 1) The two million I spent took me 18 months to get to. I spent $400 the first month, $1000 the next month, so it wasn’t that I knew advertizing would work right away at all. I had no clue but I tested it, it worked, so I kept increasing my spend.

    I said three of them already in the forum. 1) Ask for people’s emails aggressively, if you think they should be getting your emails. Sometimes you don’t need an email. Like I told you on monthly1k.com we stopped advertizing just to the email, we advertized to go buy it because it made sense to do that.

    2) I would say great product. I know some of this is cliché but maybe me saying it will help you. Either a free product, a great free product not some piece of s*** or just some great product people will share.

    3) We asked people to promote for us because it benefitted them. So we bundled products or we would have products or even Lifehacker, I went to Lifehacker and I looked up their top products, I reversed engineered it. And I said, “Hey would you promote a bundle if I got your best products”? They said maybe. I got their best products; they promoted it. Work backwards from where your audience is with these types of things, where you are trying to get traffic from.

    So like one of my favorite sites now is growthhackers.com. So I very actively, I love the site, I use the site and I see who are the writers or what is the content that gets shared and then I either go work with those people or I write content that is complementary to it.

    4) I would say giveaways worked really well. Contests and giveaways. But I would caveat that with make them very specific to your audience. If you do an Ipad you are going to get slick deals and fat wall and all these s***ty people, no offense but they are discount hunters, I want quality customers. So do giveaways that are targeted towards your audience. If you are a marketer give away Seth Godin books. If you are doing Technology giveaway paidgethub or newrelic accounts. If you are doing health, give away nutrition stuff.

    5) And then fifth, I don’t know. I would say guest posting. I would say guest posting on your own site or other people’s sites right now has probably been one of the most surprising things I have been able to, OkDork.com my personal site, doing three to five thousand word posts. One, I work backwards, where do I want to great traffic from? Growthhackers.com, I want traffic from there, I am candid about that and I want to write great things that people want to share there where I don’t have to ask, “Oh can you upload this? Or do you mind sharing this with your audience?” People will want to share it. But that also takes about 40 hours an article. And that is what is going to help differentiate me.

    So you have to ask yourself what is going to differentiate you? Those would probably be the things.

    [34:47]

    Yeah Maria I’m not saying…I was just giving…if you are trying to figure out ideas or businesses to be doing, I was just saying look for problems where you’re like, “this kind of sucks” or you are doing it manually. Manual things can be automated. I’m trying to make sure that made sense: yes. Manual things can be automated so if you are looking for a business or you are looking to create software or an ap look for things you do yourself manually, and that is actually a great opportunity.

    [35:11]

    I don’t like cold calling, I don’t. I have done sales for years. I’m not bragging I’m just trying to give you some background. I did sales at OfficeMax for two years, I Was the top salesman and then I did payment for Facebook games called Gambit and I personally sold, I think about 20 to 30 million dollars in revenue, personally. And I would say cold calling is s***. You want to do things that are already within your network, or they are already warm.
    So a) either educate people so that they want you to talk to them or b) ask for referrals.

    I just think cold calling is s***ty man, I don’t want to do it, I just don’t want to do it.

    So either get people wanting to talk to you, be the hot girl. So either educate them content, meetups, presentations, YouTube, webinars like this where people want to get to know you or ask your friends or asks your other customers for people you want to be talking with. The more you put it out there, like I have been telling people I am single, “Hey guess what I’m single, I’m single and I’m looking maybe for a Jewish, or some nice lady.” The more I keep saying that to friends or people that is a referral. And guess what people are sending me girls. Not, that sounds kind of weird but I’m starting to get friends saying, “Hey you should meet this friend.”

    And so it is very much like a relationship with anybody. Think about going up to a girl in a bar, “Oh hey what’s up? Do you wanna like…can I get your number and try and go out with you?” Right? Like that works 1% of the time. But what if you friend was like, “Hey you should meet Stephanie”? How many times is that going to work? Exactly.

    So I just think you are going to get higher conversion rate and better sales and better effectiveness working on relationships instead of just going cold.

    Be the hot girl. Exactly.

    [36:42]

    “Who do I learn from?” That’s a question I saw yesterday.

    That is actually what I struggle with. I am looking to surround myself more with people that are doing just anything than necessarily wanting to be around people that are starting. I learn from people that are starting a lot, that is what I spent the whole last year doing but like go to entrepreneur organization, that is what I’m starting to get involved with, ask your friends who they are meeting with, that they are impressed with. That is one of my favorite questions when I’m talking to my friends I’m like, “Hey who have you met recently that has impressed you?”
    So like yesterday a friend was like, “Hey you should come to this meet up, it is a lot of like experienced entrepreneurs.” So I got to meet the founder of discnation.com and it is a big online disc golf story, and I love disc golf and so now I am going to play disc golf with them in a few weeks. So you want to go put yourself in places where people that you want to meet are.

    As well you need to be in a place where people want to meet you.

    So I would say with people now, 30% is just books, 10% is maybe reading online and 40% is just talking to friends or asking for people that other people are finding interesting. And I think of it as flying first class. If you pay extra to fly first class, guess who you are going to meet? People flying first class. That doesn’t mean you always need to spend more money but it just basically represents like, if you are not willing to put up a bit more work or hustle a bit more or do volunteer work, bitch work, then it is going to be a lot harder for you to impress and meet those other people, you are just going to be flying coach. That is a good one, I like that analogy.

    [38:04]

    Right now I just finished, Why We Get Fat by Gary Tubs. It is good. On OkDork.com I will put a review and now I am reading Jenna Jameson’s biography. I find biographies really fascinating. Lately I’ve been into rock star and pawn star biographies, so I am reading Jenna’s book.

    [38:22]

    The number one thing that Facebook did to get big is that they started very niche. And so they excluded people. And that was probably the number one thing. There is this psychology of why colleges and all that work, but the exclusivity is what worked and they were very niche. Most people go too broad too early.

    [38:37]

    Yes, Damian solved sumome.com. That’s what I’m talking about. It is a free tool, there is no up sell, down sell, cross sell, direct email none of that but sumome is a free tool that has basically all the tools we have built at appsumo.com and we are releasing for free via sumome.com and go grab it. I’m going to sell you guys, yeah I’m going to sell you, you know why? Because when people don’t sell they are not serious and they are not proud of what they created. You ever have someone, or yourself, you are like, “Oh yeah I have this thing, but whatever.”

    You know we were at this Napa retreat for our customers two weeks ago and this guy has been trying to sell his paintings. And I said, “You know there is nine people who just spent $5,000 each all around you. Have you asked any of them to buy your paintings or your pictures?” And, what’s up Brian? Didn’t you get enough attention today? And so he finally was like, well let me sell to the people that are already here and he just was nervous and he was embarrassed so I think you should sell to people. So I am going to sell you guys something in the next few minutes that I think you will like and it should be beneficial.

    Let’s see if Alaister said anything. Alaister is saying, “This is a great chat, the best chat we have ever had.” That is his New Zealand accent.

    [39:47]

    Yeah Jennifer that is a great point. If you are going to be doing work for people you can’t be, “I’m going to do this for you, but you have to do this for me.” Like people send me gifts it is really nice. Like people send me wine sometimes. Or a lot of people love sending us sumo stuff, someone sent us a hat, like in our little guest room. Actually this guy sent me a hat and was like, “Now you have to promote me in Appsumo.” And I was like well **** your hat.

    So it is not always about…Brian has a great point, Brian Harris from videofruit.com he has a great point. Gary Vanderchuck, give give ask, but it has to be authentic. You can’t give give expect.

    [40:23]

    “Have you continued making health wealth me analysis?”

    Health wealth me analysis, so it is basically a triangle where you kind of evaluate where things are in your life, your health, your wealth, and then your love. And so health is kind of yourself. Exercise, eating, and I’ve been on point with that. Like my s*** honestly is on lock. I use myfitnesspal.com, I love it. I’ve been reading books about nutrition. I’m starting to read books about how to best optimize exercising. Wealth wise it is not off the charts you know. We’re not crushing it. We have some pretty good expectations with sumome and our new product that I want to tell you guys about. And I will afterwards, I’m not trying to lead you on. So that is good with Appsumo. And then love, you know I’m starting to date which has been good. And I’m starting to kind of look for a partner and that is getting there. And relationships with my friends are great.

    One thing I noticed is that recently, I’m not going to put a time period, I was talking with someone and I realized like every time I talk with them I’m like I just feel worse and it just takes my energy. I’m like I’m so tired after talking with you. And I really want everyone to think about is who do you interact with, or who do you spend time with or what even activities you do that you spend time with that make you feel better about yourself. And go do more of those. And so I don’t think people do that enough. They go and have conversations where they have the same s***ty friends and they complain about it but cut those friends out.

    Like I have a friend who texted me, “Hey I’m coming into town next week.” I’m like, not hanging out with him because guess what, every time it is the same bulls***. I don’t feel better, I don’t grow, I don’t learn. Get rid of her.

    [41:46]

    Did Dave ever answer how much money he was making? I scared Dave off? ****, Dave. See just don’t worry about playing business. Have one goal that is realistic, use a short term target, three months, and focus on that. So Dave asking should I get Wu commerce or Shopify, don’t worry about which shopping platform, worry about like alright is that your biggest problem or is it doubling your business?

    Alright I’m going to look on WAMA. Dave, I’m here. How much money are you making Dave? How much money are you making dog? You didn’t respond earlier because you know, mind games son, mind games. $12,000 not bad, I called $10,000, alright sue me.

    So I think that is great, you are much further ahead than everybody else, don’t get distracted. I would say don’t worry about that yet because you are already making money, that is great.

    Well here Dave let me simplify your thinking. Let me give you a very simple parameter. All you can think about is 2x ing your business. And look let me do a little caveat and then I want to sell you guys something. Dave, read the book small giants and everyone I recommend this book Small Giants, it is one of my favorite books this year. Your cart blows but you are making $12,000 obviously your cart is not blowing enough. So read small giants. I don’t think everyone has to worry about how do I grow so much or how do I get so much? Just worry about having a great life and a great product. That is what I really want you to do.

    Dave. I’m almost done with you bro. You are pushing my nerves in a friendly way. Yes you can do a lot more, but small giants says, read the book small giants, I wrote a review on OkDork.com but don’t always worry about growing unless you really want to be growing and it satisfies something. Work on being great.

    Now let’s get to Dave. Dave, you really want to do an up sell, have you emailed all the people who have already bought from you a product they could buy? That is an up sell. You don’t need to be integrating your technology just yet.

    Am I millionaire? Yes. That is really crazy, yeah I am. I’m not even that much of a millionaire, seriously like, and guess what, guess what happens when you have a lot of money? Then you have new problems. Because like your problem is how do I get enough money? Then you have this problem, what do I do with this money, I’m so unhappy. There is always a problem no matter how poor or how rich you are. So don’t always worry about that. Worry about. “How am I living the life that is really fulfilling for myself?”

    [44:08]

    So John, where are all these weekly mail outs? Dave was that a new idea or are you already doing those mails?

    John, what business are you doing and what happened to all those old customers because that sounds like a huge funnel. So John is making money, but it is like a bucket, it is like this cup that has a leak in it. Before you even make any more money John, like I can’t drink if the water is all falling out. Plug your hole and figure out what is going on. So let’s solve it right now.

    So Dave exactly, you are already doing up sells if you are emailing them once a week. What I really encourage you to do Dave is do 2x’s get a 2x mindset. I think 10x would be better but how do you actually 2x your business, not …will Wu commerce 2x your business? I don’t think it will.

    So John if you are doing web design there are a few different options.

    1) Is there anything pattern based that people keep asking from you? Are they asking for icons, are they asking for templates, are they asking for themes, are they asking for structure, are they asking for management? Focus on something that you can then repeat and I guarantee you have something in there.

    2) Is there any way you can do more like with your customers, is there any way to do an ongoing program? Is there a coaching program you can do? Is there a maintenance thing you can do? Is there touch ups once a month you can do and presell them on a longer cycle period.

    So “Hey I built your website, guess what there is going to be tons of new things and I’m going to be around for just $500 a month, you don’t ever have to worry about this.” Guess what a lot of people will do it because they are excited about you and they want you to stick around be valuable.

    So John, if the clients don’t come back to redo their sites, what do those clients go and focus on?

    [45:41]

    Pablo I don’t think about Appsumo in five years.

    [45:47]

    I think Gregory one of the biggest mind shifts that has helped me is investing in myself and a lot of people are too cheap to actually invest in yourself. I have spent thousands, tens of thousands not tens of thousands...on going to conferences, on reading books, on staying humble and meeting people and I think there is definitely an older school approach that people don’t want to spend money to grow themselves and grow their businesses.
    I had a friend who runs chess.com, they make a lot of money, and he bought our monthly1k.com package/course to just see something new and see if he got inspired or learn one thing. And that really has stuck with me.

    [46:20]

    Yeah John exactly, I guarantee you go to your customers today and you say hey…1) What you need to do and I call it the totem pole, you need to come back to your customers and understand what are their top problems. Go back and figure out what their top problems are and see how you can do a little bit more with that.

    [46:38]

    Alright, I’m going to go back and do preregistered questions now so just stick with me here and I am going to do some of the preregistered questions because those people were prepared. Alaister where are the preregistered questions can you shot them to me in Skype? Yeah Alaister if you can give them to me I can type them up. How do you post man? Alright. I don’t want to do a quick reply I want to do like a regular reply. Oh here are the questions. Man you guys have a lot of questions, this is crazy.

    [47:30]

    Alright, Janine asks, what roles did I have at mint.com?

    I was product manager at Facebook helping figure out which products to build and how they function. At mint I was director of marketing in charge of all things marketing.
    Failures at Appsumo? ******* every day there are failures. Let me give you a recent one. Like monthly1k.com sales are down and it sucks. And I like it when things are bad more than good. You know it is funny we will have days where we make let’s say…I say money because obviously it makes it more interesting for you but it doesn’t, once you start making money it is not as appealing. So I would say there are days we make money, the days we make a lot of money I’m like, whatever. It’s the days we are at zero that I’m actually like alert. Like when you have uncertainty that’s when you are alive.

    So yeah so yesterday I spent I don’t know 60 minutes, that’s a lot for me on one dedicated task just looking at what’s changed with our traffic from the last 30 days from previous, then went back to what was working and redid it.

    Alright, yeah I’m going to sell you something. Alaister, can I sell something? Well I’m going to do it anyway, I don’t give a ****. Here is what we are going to do and I want to see what your guy’s opinion is. I’m going to answer the preregistered questions. So I’m only going to do it for five people in here. If you are on WordPress pay attention. If you are not on WordPress zone the **** out, I don’t care. If you are not on WordPress zone out.

    So at appsumo.com I am just going to show you guys we built a ton of stuff. And that is what sumome.com is.

    Yes Alaister I’m plugging something because guess what, I’m not getting paid for this and I think it is good for everyone.

    So we built this free tool. We just launched image sharing. I will show you what that looks like. It is everything we have used to grow Appsumo so we built a ton of stuff. So basically this is our own custom AB testing solution that helps you optimize everything. It is just ******* genius, Chad is a genius who built it. Basically what it does, instead of an AB test it figures out winners in real time and it starts adjusting towards things.

    So our course used to be called How to make your first dollar and now it is called How to make a thousand dollars a month. And that is because we used our headline tester. So let me show you the numbers. So it used to be called, How to make your first dollar which was converting at 1.3%, now it is converting at 1.38%. So that is a 6% increase on conversion every day x ten people a day, that is an extra 254 customers a year, x a product after refunds and everything that is an extra $56,000 a year.

    Did you guys get the math that was very fast? So basically I looked at how much better was the conversion rate, this is the many days, how many I want to sell a day and after refunds and delinquencies and drop outs. So I think just from that headline I make an extra $60,000 a year from one test. So we built an automatic tool that does headline testing for WordPress blogs. So if you are writing a WordPress blog …and we are not launching yet, we are launching in two weeks but for five people, our PayPal is yay@appsumo.com, you can have it unlimited for the year. And I will show you what it looks like.

    So what happens here, when you write a full blog post, you can put in different headlines and it automatically figures out which one will get you the most traffic? It takes your inbound traffic and then figures out in real time, starts adjusting winners and losers so that whatever post title gets the most it will automatically default that. You don’t have to do s***, set it and forget it like [52:34 Romco.]

    And so for five people I will get you guys early access in the next few days. So yay@appsumo.com.

    What did you guys think about that? Pretty cool? Cos like instead of writing headlines, sometimes I don’t know what headlines to write, and I have shown you right here that this headline made us an extra $60,000 just from doing that change. It is $100, only five people, because we’re going to launch it and probably charge a lot more, we are going to charge a lot more. yay@appsumo.com, $100.

    Alright, I sold, I’m done. It’s called headlines WordPress plug-in. There is nothing else like it, we built it in house, we use it, we make a s*** ton of money from it, we love it so we are excited to share it with the world. But now we want to get a few beta testers and we refuse to give it away for free, refuse. We are pretty smart sometimes.

    Alright, you guys like it? Thoughts? It only does WordPress blogs. We are going to be launching one for sales and landing pages in a bit.

    What do you guys think? In the future you can test other parts but right now it is just WordPress headlines, WordPress title posts. It only does titles it doesn’t do anything else. You guys like? Thoughts? I’m curious about the thoughts.

    The landing page one will probably come in the next month and a half.

    Nice, nice, nice. Oh I’m glad you guys like it, it feels validating to see that you guys are all going to enjoy it. Let me see if anybody paid. Let’s see if anybody bought, I’m kind of curious. It’s just fun because everybody doesn’t show s***. That’s the thing you want to be different. Like be different. Everyone is like, “Oh yeah I make money.” It’s like show people how you actually do it.

    Let me teach you guys something. Alaister, Alaister, don’t worry. The number one way we sold our course, this is our course, I will show it to you. The number one way we sold our course...oh my face, nice. The number one way we sold our course is this. I will show you guys exactly, proving it to people. I started a jerky business overnight in 24hours and I made $1,000 profit. This was the number one that we have sold the course. And guess what? Because people believe and they can see it instead of you just telling them about it.
    Has anyone bought? No one bought? Damn it, now my feelings are hurt. yay@appsumo.com I guess none of you want it. See, talk is cheap.

    You would buy it? Liar. No you don’t have to control the rotation, it automatically figures it out. So you throw in five headlines and it automatically figures out which ones are going to get you the most traffic.

    I’m focusing on this today. I think this was actually the thing I was most interested in. No this was the thing I’m most interested in. And I have a few other things to do today, like I am talking with my buddy and a book signing by Ryan Holiday but this is the one.

    None of you guys? Oh, man hurts my feelings. But that’s good, when no one buys…how come no one bought because I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t do.

    Maria just sent it, so there are four more left but I am actually just curious and this is what you should do in your businesses and we did this with our monthly1k course we emailed all of our customers, I think we emailed 10,000, excuse me 10,000 targeted so all of the people who are very targeted, and no one bought our course in the very beginning. And a lot of times when that happens…

    Yes David, everything is valid for sharing. yay@appsumo.com

    Here is what happens and I think this is a huge thing for all of you guys. You PayPal it to me and I will respond to you today. When things don’t work out or people don’t buy from you that is the chance to learn and fix it and get them to buy. Let me see if I can find it for you. So we sent it to 10,000 and we have a huge mailing list, 10,000 people that are super targeted, no one bought. I think there was five. And then we emailed them this survey it is OkDork.com, let me see.

    Alaister don’t worry I am going to do more of the chat ones.

    So we emailed people that opened and clicked but didn’t buy and we emailed them and said, “Hey what’s up?” And then I actually called them to understand it. Then we went back, used their language that they said why they didn’t buy, and we fixed the product if it was within reason, like hey I actually needed more things about I’m afraid, so we added Failure Olympics. I need a lot more things on marketing. Guess what we added a lot more things on marketing.

    Alright I’m coming back.

    Chris awesome. Matt perfect you don’t have a blog you are not a good customer. Gregory not at the buying stage. Anybody else didn’t buy it, I’m curious. Derek, too expensive for just a headline testing plugin. Awesome. How much are you paying for optimizing and how much has it increased your business? This is for people whose blogs help make them money or the traffic is useful for them. Like if your traffic is valuable and you want more of it this is the easiest way to just put in a few headlines and it auto figures out which one gets you more and then you don’t even have to touch it. You add five titles and it gets you more traffic. Done.

    Yeah this wallpaper is called Momentum, I highly recommend it. It is a Chrome extension. I will post a link for it of what I use.

    But I just want to finish that last thought. When people don’t buy from you, reach out, call, get them on the phone and try to understand why they are not buying from you. That is such the greatest time to learn.

    I have gone back to your ads over and over before buying. Don’t need to test my article site I just [05:37 mumbling/reading fast]. John that’s fair, the titles, I mean I guess for you it’s an education, you don’t realize how much more just changing your titles can really get you more traffic. It is actually kind of cool that it showed you guys how it has actually benefitted us.

    Yeah Christian I think there is something interesting with other things have more features but this is more of a focused use case.

    Nice. Don’t have a blog. Okay.

    David, beta testers? I mean I guess I could reframe it marketing wise, say “early access” plus you are going to get it more affordable than when we actually launch it publically.
    Tiffany just bought it.

    Jennifer save your money. If it is not really going to increase your business do not buy it. It does not help me. I do not need your money. It is nice to get your money in exchange for something I believe will truly help you.

    Dave all headlines are available for sharing but it just figures out the one that will give you the most traffic and it will default to that one and choose it for you so you don’t even have to think about it.

    Dave, you get early access. It is not going to be available for a few weeks. I’m going to see how many bought otherwise I’m going to close it out. Actually I’m going to move on. So if you want to get the headline testing tool for WordPress, I’ll show it to you guys one more time. You add in multiple titles when you write a blog post and it auto figures out whichever one will get you the most traffic so you get early access plus a much discounted price than when we launch it, in I don’t know maybe a few weeks. In two weeks ideally we will put it out there. Maybe longer.

    Alright moving forward I am going to answer more of the WAMA questions.

    [01:01:30]

    Gregory Gary Humphrey asks, “Is giving away something to build a list profitable …or are you just…“

    Yes it is extremely profitable but make sure is the key. Here I will show you guys. URL doesn’t matter, it is a WordPress plugin that optimizes your headlines. If you want to buy it I think there is three left now. It is yay@appsumo and I’m going to give you early access plus you will get it before anyone else at a discounted price.

    And I’m done with that.

    You should buy the monthly1k.com. Does it work with opt in links? It automatically figures the title. I don’t know about opt in links. I don’t know what that means. Mind games son.

    Alright I will show you about contests. I have got another eleven minutes. Alright, I’ll just show you my…dude if you are a business person and you can learn sequel, use sequel. Right I’m not going to show you all of them because a girl has got to have some privacy.

    So let me just be specific with this one.

    This is a contest for the ultimate entrepreneur getaway. We gave a free contest. We paid for the flight; we bought a Macbook, paid for everything. And it drove this many new subs and it made us $20,000 in profit from all the people who joined. Can you guys see that? See I show you things, how we do it, I’m not, I don’t, “Oh yeah I think it would be fun.” So I showed you that, boom.

    So here is the thing about contests they can work but a) Be specific, make sure there is an ROI. And we used to do a lot of contests but honestly like content subscribers they are not necessarily going to be paying. Some will like 30 to 50% pay and the rest won’t so you just have to try it and see if it actually backs out for you or not.

    Hey someone said thank you. Thanks man. I’m human too, I bleed real blood. I wanted to do that inline reply thing.

    Alright I’m going to give a few more, I’ve got nine minutes. Where the hell is Alaister? Everybody put it together for Alaister, do this thing, virtual clapping. Yay.

    Here is a question from Alaister, do I invest in startups?

    No. Why? I think that is a good question. If you and yes diversify, but you can’t control other people and I think there is something fundamentally wrong if what you are working on isn’t valuable enough that you want to put in other people. If you are a professional investor that is different. If you have so much cash that you can spend it off then that is different but look at it as a return. If I can put money in Appsumo and make more why would I go to someone else where I have no idea and yes it is leverage I understand but it is just the way I look at it. I think that I can make more money and I have confidence in myself than just giving it and hoping in someone else.

    You guys clap for Alaister? Yeah buddy.

    Hey Brian been a while. David you just bought it, welcome to the family. He bought the headlines tool.

    Alright a few more questions.

    [01:06:08]

    What the ****, where did the rest of it…we made it to page two. Everyone post more questions, let’s at least make four pages. Can we please do four pages?

    Do I know Kevin Rose?

    Briefly met him a long time ago, why does that matter?

    [01:06:20]

    Is sumome replacing your internet plugin?

    Yes. Sumome will be the default place where all the tools we have used to grow our business we are giving away for free and some we will charge for like this headlines tool.

    [01:06:34]

    Matt I didn’t know where your question is so I can’t tell you to shut up.

    Corey what is your question?

    I want to see four pages then I’m way more excited.

    Corey, like I have to read your life story. Okay Corey I can just tell you exactly what to do. Here is the thing let me just tell everyone and I will put $1,000 on it. You won’t do what I am telling you to do because it is going to be hard. That is why you are not willing to listen to my advice Corey. If you do you will be different and you will actually get something .

    Warrior Ask Me Anything. Boom son. I like Matt Barrie, looks like a badass in his photo.

    Corey here is what you have to do. Go sell one person. Look at all the s*** you are doing. “I have done wireframe, I have an app, I have a software” I have blah blah blah bulls***, I don’t even care. I have all this s***. Have you sold one person yet?

    Nope. That is what you need to do today. Get off this chat, go disconnect. I’m going to see if I can ban you. I’m going to ban you because I want you to go sell one person. That is what I am doing right now. I’m banning you Corey. Hold on. Go sell one customer. Don’t worry about a wireframe. Don’t worry about that stuff because guess what you do all that stuff and you get back to them – damn it I can’t find you now to ban you - then guess what you get stuck with how the hell do I find a customer. Go find your customers and sell it and work backwards.

    “Wouldn’t I need a product to sell it?”

    Alright and you are banned. Boom son. Go to work. So why did I ban Corey? Because a) he is not going to listen to my advice and b) he is worried about all the…and hopefully it is a little lesson for him but the point is don’t worry about anything but solving people’s problems

    And that is what they will give you money for.

    [01:08:10]

    Damn David Temple that is what I am talking about. For example let’s say you want to teach people how to start a business. Yes it is an easy example because that is what I am doing but guess what I did for a year, I manually helped people, then I wrote it down. And I’ve shown people this. Let me show you how I wrote it down. This is how our product looks. So let me just show you a contrast. This landing page cost $15,000 to make and it took us about three months. Our whole course cost us about $400,000. Like look we built a lot of s*** for it. Like we can tell how far people have got. I can tell like when people drop off let me show you. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building this stuff.

    I will show it to you because it is pretty bad ass.

    So we have built, this is how many students get through and where they get stuck. And then it is all custom built. It is all custom built. And then this is how far people get in the course and where they drop off and then we figure out alright how do we optimize it so then they get further along and they get more successful. This is every single page in our course. It is optimized. We have automatic follow ups, we lock people out, blah blah blah it is customized. We didn’t spend a lot of money in the beginning. We made sure people wanted it and most people neglect that. They try to figure out how do I build and spend and play versus getting customers.

    And that is what I want to encourage Corey and all of you. That is what we do with the monthly1k.com and that is what I have done my whole life. Go focus on getting one customer. Then when you get too inconvenienced with people, then you can put it into software.

    [01:10:17]

    Ah Brian it is over four thousand. I don’t know.

    [01:10:25]

    Pablo: Why did I spend so much money creating the course.

    Because we wanted to make the course really damn great. I was going to say great. And that is how much it took to get it to the point great.

    [01:10:40]

    How did I get our first thousand customers for monthly1k?

    We did have the appsumo.com mailing list, that was helpful. I would say guest posting has been really big just going to different blogs that have people that are potential customers has been really helpful, yes like Kissmetrics, Pat Flynn, but guess what, alright, no I don’t have access to that. God it is annoying. What about start up bros, what about reddit.com/r/startups?

    Next we did some advertizing. We spent very little money on retargeting. Super effective on retargeting, super super effective. Next we did meet ups. I went all around the nation, I went to Australia, I went to Europe and I did a lot of in person work shops selling the course, promoting it, learning what people needed and help people. Did some Facebook ads, micro sponsorships on Tim Ferris’s site, on Andrew Chen’s site, I’m trying to think who else we sponsored. I tried to limit the amount of sponsorship we did. Tried some YouTube stuff, got Neville to promote it from nevblog.com. Did some partnerships like got lifehacker to be an affiliate and promote it. Haven’t really done a lot of affiliates, I don’t really like doing that because it just seems a lot of the times it is dirty.

    Nate, good dude, what’s up man?

    [01:11:52]

    Best recommendation for besides personal networks?

    Referrals and education. I think those are great for expanding network. I think referrals is massive that people, “Oh I’ve asked.” You have not asked everyone. Have you gone through everyone on your LinkedIn?

    I would say content marketing, so blogging, advertizing, referrals, those are kind of the four major categories for growing your business. What you need to do is make sure you’ve tapped out your lowest hanging fruit first.

    I’m going to write that down. That was pretty good. Most people have not tapped out their lowest hanging fruit.

    Education is teaching people something that helps them so that they trust you. How to videos, eBooks, blogs, meet ups whatever it is. I think Joe from sharp something, I don’t know his name. He was doing house cleaning and he actually started putting out pamphlets and booklets and blogs and posts about how to have your house clean. And that is when people start being interested and asking, “Oh why don’t you come clean my house?”

    So Maria, hey you, so for Build Your Own Bitters kid, have you gone through everyone on Facebook, everyone on your Twitter, everyone in your phone book that likes alcohol? No you have not. Then if I were you for selling bitters…basically the only thing in marketing is who is where? Who buys bitters, where are they online? Are they on craft cocktail blogs? Are they at craft cocktail bars? Could you do a craft cocktail night at one of your local bars? Any of your local craft cocktail companies, you know local alcohol companies they have Facebook and Twitter pages, can you do giveaways for them?

    There is a ton of options you just have to go do it.

    [01:13:42]

    Nice Edgar. Where’s your post about sumome? SEO for Appsumo and all of our stuff has been s***, it has been total s***, nothing, nada, zero. Mint.com it was big because we had a lot of content because we were asking for a lot.

    The other thing that helped us a bit but it actually didn’t sell us a lot is HowIgotmyfirsthreecustomers.com. I think if we put more into it, it could be a lot more valuable as a lead gen for the course but it is a really interesting website.

    HowIgotmyfirstthreecustomers.com. It has helped and I think if we focused on more, we could have actually driven more sales from it but SEO hasn’t helped us. Marketing is [01:14:21 _]. That’s it. You just have to make sure you are solving a problem day one.

    If you can solve someone’s problem that is important. Finding them is a joke.

    Alright, did we get to page two? How many pages are we at now? Damn it. Everyone go ask one question or say one comment about this. s*** I’m already over. Because I want to get to at least three pages, come on. Maybe not four but three.

    I’m going to do two more questions that people submitted because those people were prepared. Alright I’m going to answer them verbally because I think it will go faster that way and people can listen.

    [01:15:00]

    So Mike Bailey, “How did you get initial buy in, on the Appsumo in the early stages to help develop and monetize?”

    So in the early stage I always think of it as a fire, you have got to use kindling before you can fire the log. You start your fire small then build it up. So I started with small products, I started with [01:15:15 Imager]. Then I started with bundles of products that you know I said Hey it is not going to sell a lot. And when you are doing sales all I said was, how many sales do you need to make it worthwhile? That is a phenomenal sales question. What do you need for this experience to be amazing for you? And guess what? You just deliver that experience. Great sales technique. Setting the expectation, how many do you need to be successful and I will match that for you, or beat that. And I Started small and then I kept eventually getting bigger where people now were like, if you can’t do 1,000 then it is not worth it.

    And guess what, now we can work with audible. We worked with LinkedIn. Do you think if I called them in the beginning they would give a s***? No. I didn’t try to work with them in the beginning and that is the same with your marketing. Start small, start niche, start tight just like Facebook then start doing larger stuff.

    [01:16:01]

    Alright. How did we launch Appsumo?

    There is an article, how Appsumo started for $50. It literally has every single thing about how we started Appsumo. I’m going to post that for Chris Campbell. I mean I’ve written up dude, just read this because it is going to do everything you want.

    Yes we are at page two. Come on guys let’s get to page three.

    Hey Matt I banned that guy, don’t worry, it’s our time. People don’t kick enough customers. One of my favorite books last year was Devil in the Kitchen by Marco Pierre White. And he was like, “I cook great dishes and I want great people to enjoy these great dishes.” And I just thought that was a great attitude.

    So many times Arial who is awesome she is our community manager for monthy1k she has all these people that are just ragging on her. And I’m like, how much time do you spend on the raggers? 80%. How much do you spend on the winners, the people who are doing well or at least are struggling with good attitudes? She’s like, “20%.” I’m like, “Fire those customers.” So we start firing them and guess what, now we have happier customers and she has time to do better for the people who are going to do better for us long term.

    I have got to come back to the online questions.

    [01:17:44]

    “What are the awesome things that make up an awesome growth team?”

    A great product. Dino asked that. That is the number one thing that makes up a growth team. Secondly I would say someone who can do sequel and have one specific goal for your business. Third it would be nice to have a developer so you could test all the different strategies for growth. I would try to do one strategy a week.

    [01:18:05]

    At Appsumo how many team mates do we have?

    I think there is six or seven of us total.

    [01:18:12]

    “How do you build your team when your resources are low or underdeveloped?”

    So with appsumo.com I did everything in the beginning. I did the coding, I did the marketing, I did the sales, I did the support, I did the ass cleaning, I did the ass kissing. And only when you think about what will help you 2x or 10x your business, what you don’t like to do or what sucks or what is really holding you back then you start hiring people to do that. So with Appsumo I called it a death plan and what was holding me back, 1) was getting products or sales. And so I hired someone to do that. And so from the beginning you are going to hire cheap people and just like your business over time you are going to hire better people but I would encourage you not to say, “Oh well someone else will figure this out.” In the beginning try to get a really good understanding of why things are happening and why things happen.

    Last year one of our guys quit in the support team and I was like, **** we don’t have a support guy, guess who is going to do it? (Points to self.) Right? It doesn’t matter how much money you have or how little you have you know you are still going to have to do the work. So I wound up doing support and guess what it was awesome. We were sucking at it. And so from me going back and doing it I learned all these things and I improved all these things that we could do for support.

    [01:19:11]

    Chris, what inspired me to create Appsumo?

    Three different things. 1) I have a big mouth and I love telling people about things I love. 2) I saw there was a big trend in web tools coming out and I wanted those tools at a special price. 3) I saw mackheist.com and wu.com promoting things with bundles and time limitations and I thought that was a new distribution method for a product so I put all those together and I made the app sumo.

    [01:19:38]

    “If you want to create your own product service or website, what advice would you give me?”

    Go get real customers without a website to begin with. Help people manually, even online like get them on email, get them on the phone, do it in person and only when you get people to start paying you…finding the customer is the hard part. The website and all the playing and outsourcing I can do that in a minute for you. Designing all that is a joke. The customer is the hard part. Make sure you find something that is important for people, solve it, and then everything else becomes a lot easier.

    [01:20:06]

    When I was at Facebook team and started out, the question is, “What was the makeup of the Facebook team when you started?”

    It was probably about 50% engineers 15% support and 15% like marketing staff, product management, operations.

    [01:20:19]

    Do I do any offline marketing?

    No not really but I think that is something strong. Like if everyone is doing online marketing, everyone is promoting the same product, go do something else that everyone is not.

    [01:20:28]

    Delay Ojawumi, cool name. “What has been your most successful traffic generation strategy?”

    For Appsumo it has been great products and advertizing. For OkDork.com my personal blog it has been honestly long ass articles that people want. So I go to the places I want traffic from which is, inbound.org, growthhackers.com, Reddit maybe and I see what content gets well written up and who is writing it I will either ask them to guest post or I write my own articles relating to that because I know the audience will like it and I put in three to five thousand words and it takes me literally 40 hours of work. And so yes it is a lot of work, but guess what, it works but it is going to take you some time and are you willing to put in that work?

    [01:21:13]

    Why did I get fired from Facebook?

    Read the article,OkDork.com why I got fired from Facebook. I wrote the article so I did not have to answer questions like that, that is why I wrote it.

    Let me give you one more tactic and then I am done guys, it has been a long day.

    So here is how to help your customers even more. It is a very simple trick, not even a trick, it is a very simple thing. It is surprisingly stupid but it has helped me make a good amount of money and it will help you too. Put your contact information using snapengage.com for live chat or put your contact information everywhere on your website on the top, on the middle, on the about, contact, whatever. And I just finally added it back on OkDork.com. Guess what you get out of that? You get the language that your customers want to use. Secondly you get to hear the problems that they want solved.

    So why do you think we created monthly1k.com? Because the number one question I was getting was, how do you start a business?

    Why do you think I released sumome.com now as our main product for this year? Because everyone was like, I have a business, how do I grow it? So if you let people reach out and get a hold of you even on small sites and you get on snap engage and you talk to them proactively, snap engage uses a great feature called proactive chat and you start talking to them, guess what you can start answering their questions and then you can start selling them something that they actually want and you can give that to them.

    So it has been an hour and thirty minutes, I’m out of here ya’ll. I’m going to plug some of this stuff. Love you guys for hanging out with me. OkDork.com is my personal blog about marketing, appsumo.com hopefully you are on the mailing list for free tools and paid tools that are awesome. Sumome is our main product, it is a free marketing tool to help you grow your website. And monthly1k.com if you are trying to grow your business.

    Thank you Alaister for setting it all up.

    Leave comments on the forum so we can get to three pages.

    I’m out, love you all, big ups, 2pop, miss you and I’m out, later.

    [End Recording 01:23:13]
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    • Profile picture of the author michaeloslier
      Hi Noah,

      Thank you for giving up your time. I know you have built a huge list at AppSumo and essentially your list is the lifeblood of the business.

      What were the top 3 things that you did early on at AppSumo that were the most effective when building your list?
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      • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
        Originally Posted by michaeloslier View Post

        Hi Noah,

        Thank you for giving up your time. I know you have built a huge list at AppSumo and essentially your list is the lifeblood of the business.

        What were the top 3 things that you did early on at AppSumo that were the most effective when building your list?
        1- ASKING for EMAILS.
        2- Give away free products or promote amazing products.
        3- Work with people who have your customers (Lifehacker and SaaS companies (who'd promote to their NON-paying customers)
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Thanks Alaister.

      Let's get it on
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  • Profile picture of the author mccflo99
    You have an information based business product online and have $1,000 to spend on traffic to get it off the ground and running. How and where do you spend the $1,000 for maximum revenue?
    Signature
    Copywriter With High Profile References...
    Click Here >>> Copywriter
    Personal Blog (Music Reviews, Bad Business, Poetry)...
    Click Here >>> http://www.ibechris.com
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    • Profile picture of the author gilesadamthomas
      Hi Noah

      I currently run a design agency but I want to move away from client work into productised or saas businesses.

      How do I transition away from my current business into a new one?

      The current business makes about $20k per month but it is all normalised wages, eg me and the other founder do 95% of the work.

      Do I save up and quit or run both at the same time?

      Giles
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by mccflo99 View Post

      You have an information based business product online and have $1,000 to spend on traffic to get it off the ground and running. How and where do you spend the $1,000 for maximum revenue?
      I discourage people from spending on info products until they've tapped out ALL non-spending channels.

      Personally I've spent $300k+ a month on ads but it's easy to say your product sucks when ads aren't working.

      If I had to choose I would sponsor very small niche websites. We do this for Monthly1k.com at AndrewChen.co

      They have the most targeted audiences and are more affordable than other places. Plus their readers have better relationships.
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  • Hi Noah,

    - What are your thoughts on the explosion of exit-intent pop-ups on e-commerce sites? Are these last second pop-ups saving traffic, building email lists and driving sales?

    - What important tweaks should e-commerce website owners be making (on their homepages and product pages) to drive sales?

    Thanks!
    Signature
    Need Help with your E-Commerce/WooCommerce Website? PM ME!


    RugSale.com - Area Rugs On Sale
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by purpleswizzleswirl View Post

      Hi Noah,

      - What are your thoughts on the explosion of exit-intent pop-ups on e-commerce sites? Are these last second pop-ups saving traffic, building email lists and driving sales?

      - What important tweaks should e-commerce website owners be making (on their homepages and product pages) to drive sales?

      Thanks!
      Hey Purple

      I think the exit-pop ups are good (a tad annoying) but I'm seeing HUGE success with acquiring emails WITHIN the content people are consuming.

      Most businesses neglect asking for email which is a HUGE mistake. As long as your product or content is good I encourage it within reason. If it annoys you while visiting your own site like it did with us at AppSumo, then consider changing.

      Yes, most ways to get more email addresses are a good thing. Ultimately, if you email out shitty things regardless it doesn't matter how big your list is.

      ---

      To drive sales I'd encourage

      1- Retargeting. No brainer
      2- Have less options on their pages and focus the visitor
      3- Use crazyegg to see where people are clicking
      4- Have 1 metric that you are targeting only to optimize around. People focus on too many so all end up sucking or none at all. Both cases are bad.
      5- If the purchase is a LONGER cycle then I'd consider getting an email. At Monthly1k.com we found advertising to direct page was better than to a free-product (email collect with drip).
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  • Profile picture of the author figgity
    Hi Noah,

    Is it really possible to start a business with no funding? Everything I've read (except get rich quick stuff) says you need some capital or investors backing you. I ask because I have a news website that I've been boostrapping for a while. It started out as a hobby, but I'm trying to turn it into a revenue generating business. I'm thinking direct advertising is the way to go, but finding clients and pitching them is another job in itself. Any help/tips would be appreciated.
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by figgity View Post

      Hi Noah,

      Is it really possible to start a business with no funding? Everything I've read (except get rich quick stuff) says you need some capital or investors backing you. I ask because I have a news website that I've been boostrapping for a while. It started out as a hobby, but I'm trying to turn it into a revenue generating business. I'm thinking direct advertising is the way to go, but finding clients and pitching them is another job in itself. Any help/tips would be appreciated.
      It's 100% completely possible and what I'd encourage everyone to do.

      What's your news site about and which specific advertiser would significantly benefit from reaching that audience?

      Most people like yourself build the site and then look for someone to pay. I'd work backwards from which type of specific audience does an advertiser want to reach???
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      • Profile picture of the author Michaeltat
        Banned
        [DELETED]
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        • Profile picture of the author Alaister
          Originally Posted by MrIMVO View Post

          was this not recorded!?!
          Originally Posted by AutoClubHero View Post

          Hey Everyone. I'm new to the forum and really glad to be here. Can anyone tell me where to find the recording to this WAMA? Forgive me in advance if it was already posted somewhere. Probably missed it - Thanks!
          Hi there,

          This Warrior Ask Me Anything event was recorded. The recording is in the War Room. You can join the War room to get access to all the recordings of our events here:

          War Room - Warrior Forum
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  • Profile picture of the author workoutstuff1
    How do we get on the Noah Kagan webinar? I tried clicking on the sign up link, but it doesn't do anything different, and the webinar was suppose to start 3 minutes ago.
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by kid carson View Post

      Livestream? YEAH! Post the link.
      okay. getting into a private room.

      Here's the link for livestream:
      https://new.livestream.com/appsumo/events/2980638
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      • Profile picture of the author nootkan
        Do you get any opt in members who forget they opted in and blacklist you with hotmail, yahoo etc? If so, how do you deal with this? I have had to work with hotmail recently to remove me from their block list and it was a very painful experience.
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        • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
          Originally Posted by nootkan View Post

          Do you get any opt in members who forget they opted in and blacklist you with hotmail, yahoo etc? If so, how do you deal with this? I have had to work with hotmail recently to remove me from their block list and it was a very painful experience.
          We use sendgrid for sending our emails.

          A lot of people have asked how do we increase our open rates, etc..

          1- Double opt-in
          2- Who uses hotmail anymore??
          3- Make sure the customer knows you ARE going to email them and WHY it's beneficial to them.
          4- Actively remove people who haven't activated with you after 6 months. Then test them again to see if any are "alive" 6 months later.
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  • Profile picture of the author jkhdsf
    So uhh... how do I get on the call?
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    • Profile picture of the author Nuno
      If you decide to start a venture, with a new partner, what would be the main asset he/she could bring for that challenge in order to captivate you? Fresh ideas, experience, honesty, or any other quality?
      Signature
      I have 15+ years of experience & millions of visitors (I'm also a warrior since 2002)!
      NunoAlex.com explains how I can help.
      I'm looking for a limited number of serious partners.
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  • Profile picture of the author oldwarrioruser1
    I guess no one here as ever seen an AMA
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  • Profile picture of the author mattbarrie
    Let's make sure we can get all of Noah's commentary here in the forum.
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by mattbarrie View Post

      Let's make sure we can get all of Noah's commentary here in the forum.
      Yup. I'll be posting here and just talking. Guess you can stare at my face which is kinda weird (the staring part) = )
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  • Profile picture of the author Nino
    Hi Noah, i submited 2 questions...but just to be sure i will post them here too..

    i have an idea on a car classified ads website with a few unique spins and i will probably end up challenging the leading website (romanian one). how could i increase protection against an attack from the leader? and another question: For fast growth : Would you go with this unique classified website (high risk high reward) or with a more common ecommerce store(lower risk lower reward)? thanks!
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by Nino View Post

      Hi Noah, i submited 2 questions...but just to be sure i will post them here too..

      i have an idea on a car classified ads website with a few unique spins and i will probably end up challenging the leading website (romanian one). how could i increase protection against an attack from the leader? and another question: For fast growth : Would you go with this unique classified website (high risk high reward) or with a more common ecommerce store(lower risk lower reward)? thanks!
      I would say neither.

      Start with how can you validate with just 1 customer about your solution?

      Most people are worried about which method is better but actually going and validating with real people will tell you the truth, MUCH quicker.
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  • Profile picture of the author figgity
    Watching you on the livestream. Laughing at your nonverbal reactions to our questions. So, how do we find these great products to promote?
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  • Profile picture of the author cyberclicks
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by cyberclicks View Post

      I have a small ecommerce business selling products -- that is profitable, and seeking about $20k to expand it. I rather not take on partners. Is it a bad move to fund the business on a credit card? if so, what suggestions do you have?

      Due to many expenses (non business) it is rather hard to get ahead to fund this myself.

      thanks,

      David!
      It's not a bad move if you know the time to ROI is within when you'll have to pay the bill.

      Check out the Amex Plum Credit Card for extended terms on paying your bill off.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rick Corbett Jr
      Noah, you grew you AppSumo list to 700k. If someone has a small list and needs to grow it in a specific market, what are the top 5 tips for growing our list.

      You also mentioned you have spent $2M on advertising, can you give us a breakdown of how much of that was spent for app sumo list building and where did you spend it?

      Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author wordloop
    Why did you move to Austin from Silicon Valley? Why have you stayed?
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  • Profile picture of the author gilesadamthomas
    Hi Noah

    I currently run a design agency but I want to move away from client work into a productised or saas businesses.

    We build saas products and do content marketing for clients so this is a no brainer.

    My first saas products weren't big enough pain points and therefore we dumped them, didn't do enough early cust dev.

    Should I build a community around a niche marketing topic and then build a product they want or just do cust dev until I find the pain point?

    We make about 20k a month but this normalised wages not profits really.

    It is so hard to focus on two things properly. Do I save up and quit for a period or run both at the same time?

    Giles
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  • Profile picture of the author SendCards
    I really love AppSumo and have bought quite a few deals from you....I have experienced some of the changes you made and it appears none were decided on lightly....I think I may have even voiced my concerns at times and I think you heard me or at least you were listening to the crowd....So that said I wondered what other businesses you think might work using a similar model as AppSumo....you guys aren't just another deals site, I think it goes deeper than that....
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by SendCards View Post

      I really love AppSumo and have bought quite a few deals from you....I have experienced some of the changes you made and it appears none were decided on lightly....I think I may have even voiced my concerns at times and I think you heard me or at least you were listening to the crowd....So that said I wondered what other businesses you think might work using a similar model as AppSumo....you guys aren't just another deals site, I think it goes deeper than that....
      Thanks SendCards.

      I heart you too!

      What you have realize is that it's about the fundamentals?

      What is AppSumo?

      An Email list. Duh

      But really, it's a tool to promote kick ass products. That's it

      EVERY other vertical wants great products or to learn about something they are interested in.

      Here's the problem that most people face. They aren't patient enough.

      Pick a channel. Send out an email every week for 52 weeks. And BAMN you have your own Baby-AppSumo.
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  • Profile picture of the author SendCards
    Yeah, What is AppSumo ReallY?
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  • Profile picture of the author ClickMonkey
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by ClickMonkey View Post

      How do you determine when to pivot, or when to persevere
      with a solution to a problem? (Especially when you're in a "gray"
      zone where the solution *is* validated, but it's not gaining as
      much traction as had been hoped for?) Thanks!
      Sounds like you know the answer!

      I think if you are creating more things related to what you're interested it's easier to persist regardless of the "success."

      1- Ask yourself on the regular, "what do you really want?"
      2- Ask yourself if you'd regret giving up on this project
      3- And think if the goal you set out is really authentic.

      We had this goal for AppSumo to help a million entrepreneurs but I knew I could care less. So we spent the time to really think about what we want to do.

      Promote cool products!

      So we do that.
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      I don't do offline marketing. Online world is more trackable and Fing huge!

      BUT if everyone is doing online marketing for your product maybe there's an opportunity for you...

      What one channel works for one, may not work for all.

      Ultimately look at what's effective.

      I recommend this method that I did at Mint.com:
      Marketing for Startups: Quant Based Marketing | Noah Kagan's Okdork.com
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Great article about NOT passion for your work:
      Thomas Keller On Why Passion Shouldn
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  • Profile picture of the author Alaister
    Hey Noah,

    Here are some questions from people who pre-registered for this WAMA:

    Al Harji asks:
    What are the top 10 tools you use daily?

    Mohammed Jabbour asks:
    Hi Noah, what is AppSumo's main source of traffic? Thank you

    Guido Mueller asks:
    What was the point when you decided to start AppSumo which operates in a competitive market?

    Radu Vrabie asks:
    Do you do AB testing on okdork.com? If so, please give us some details.
    <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Nuyts_UEX6U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

    Mike Bailey asks:
    How to get initial buy in on the APP in the early stages to help develop and monetise

    Jenny S asks:
    What roles did you have at Facebook at Mint.com

    What is a failure that you encountered running AppSumo?

    Gerry Humphrey asks:
    Is giving away something to build a list actually profitable in the long run or do you just get a bunch of people that want free things?

    Apoorv Parijat asks:
    I have a SEO analytics business in which I need to crawl Google to gather SEO data. How can I keep doing this and still be a legitimate company? What should I tell the investors if they question the legality?

    Chris Campbell asks:
    How did you launch App Sumo? What are the things we should take care before launching our First Product. I was trying to launch my Product from last year but can't do it yet.

    Dino T asks:
    What are the main things that make up an awesome growth team?

    Charles Harper asks:
    Was the your list built by affiliates or by more traditional means?

    What are the 2-3 most important tips you could offer someone that is trying to grow an email list?

    Hey Noah, thanks for giving up your time. What does your daily routine look like?

    How many employees do you have at App Sumo?

    LaToya Glenn asks:
    do you invest in startups?

    Noah, It may be a little different climate today than when you built the AppSumo list. How would you start over today building such a large list and what would you do differently if anything at all? Cheers! Chris.....Your Number Three Fan!

    Chris Campbell asks:
    How do you go about building your team when resources may be low / undeveloped? As is the case in many startup environments.

    Jay Wilson Jr. asks:
    Whats the most effective way for a freelancer to find quality leads?

    John Hill asks:
    What were your biggest accomplishments while at Facebook and Mint.com?

    Matt Lee asks:
    Once you scale your business to something substantial who should I entrust to manage my money?
    I like profits, but hate numbers and anything accounting related puts me to sleep. Would a CPA be what I need or are there better options to manage my money? I need someone who I can manage taxes, payroll, expenses, and advice. Thanks!

    Chris asks:
    What inspired you to create AppSumo?

    Frank Svendsen asks:
    When I want to create my own product (service on a website), what advice(s) would you give me?

    What was the make up of the FB team when you started?

    What is your single best link building strategy?

    Do you do any offline marketing?

    Dele Ojewumi asks:
    What Has Been Your Most Effective Traffic Generation Strategy?

    Joe asks:
    How much does social media impact a business? Also, what mistakes do people make with social media marketing?

    Kezz asks:
    How did you get through the initial build up process for AppSumo.

    Nalin Savara asks:
    Based on your travels around the world; How do your lessons of AppSumo and Facebook apply to mobile ?

    Phil Moulds asks:
    What are your thoughts on getting a celebrity endorsement on a product, to feature the 'celebrity' on your site - kind of how CanvasOnDemand use Ty Pennington for example?

    Steve Hawkins asks:
    what was his marketing strategy to get brand awareness for appsumo

    Why did you get fired from Facebook?
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  • Profile picture of the author oldwarrioruser1
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
      Originally Posted by PLR Video King View Post

      Hello Noah!

      Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions.

      I have a few questions about startups.

      I have this great idea for a new social media website. (Who doesn't, am I right?)

      Anyways, I've already wireframed the site, app & software that would be needed for this project. Now, I am saving up my own money so that I can hire a team of programmers to bring this idea to light.

      Once it's built, I plan on spreading the word to family, friends & other networking sites to try and get a wave of traffic via word of mouth.

      Is outsourcing everything like this a good idea? I have no experience with startups, so I'm kind of running into it blindfolded.

      Should I be focusing on something else to better my chances at success?

      The idea itself is great and I have no doubt in my mind people would love it, but I also understand it's about execution.

      I have always assumed that if my website got hot, investors and other business opportunities would present themselves. Is that a fair assumption?

      Thanks,
      Kory
      GO GET 1 CUSTOMER.

      Focus on solving the problem manually.

      No software for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author workoutstuff1
    I am LOVING the live stream!!! Its fun hearing Noah click on the keys.

    The reason I asked earlier about the live stream / webinar is because the sign up link which lead to a Google Doc asked us to put in questions for him to answer on this. But when I checked this thread only the questions that were typed on the thread directly were being answered.

    If this was suppose to only be a "type your question, and get an answer" kind of thing, why did we need to "sign up"?
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  • Profile picture of the author ysckyler
    As I am starting out in IM, and focusing on affiliate marketing.

    Question
    Is a great looking site key to success?
    I know can a solely curation site be a successful site?
    How do I know i have a winner site or a winner niche?
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  • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
    Jenny S asks:
    What roles did you have at Facebook at Mint.com
    I was Product Manager at Facebook. Helping figure out which products to build and how they function.

    At Mint I was director of marketing. In charge of all things marketing aka getting them customers.

    What is a failure that you encountered running AppSumo?

    Monthly1k.com sales are down and it sucks. I like it when times are bad. Uncertainty helps you learn and improve. Uncertainty are the times you are most alive.

    So I spent 60 minutes just looking at what's changed with our traffic from last 30 days from previous. Then went back to what was WORKING and fixed it (fixed retargeting and adjusted Facebook ads).
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  • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
    I use this chrome extension:
    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...jkokdgca?hl=en

    and recommend Toggl for increasing my productivity.
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  • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
    Gerry Humphrey asks:
    Is giving away something to build a list actually profitable in the long run or do you just get a bunch of people that want free things?
    YES, it's EXTREMELY PROFITABLE!!! But make sure is the key.

    1- Be specific
    2- Make sure there's an ROI (cost of prize vs spending from new subscribers)
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  • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
    LaToya Glenn asks:
    do you invest in startups?
    HELL NO. Cause the best return should always be with yourself!
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  • Profile picture of the author SendCards
    Clap, Clap, Clap!!! Alastair...
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  • Profile picture of the author iamsankalp
    Hey, this is Sankalp. I am an undergraduate student in Computers.

    How do you see internship at an early age startup?
    Like, i have an offer of nearly unpaid internship in UI/UX Design field at a startup interestingly related to facebook {getfbpay.in}
    The person with whom i'll be working is an MS in HCI from CMU.

    So, there is not going to be much cash to earn. If i have to earn cash- i can choose to freelance rather than internship.
    What you might suggest, yes or no?

    Past Internships: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sankalpagrawal
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  • Profile picture of the author SendCards
    While you were in Napa, did you have any good ideas for a new wine related business I can steal....
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    • Profile picture of the author JennySweets
      Thank you so very much for sharing your time with us, and jumping on the livestream. Looking forward to watching it again so I can soak up more -you're a terrifically smart dude, and I think one of the smartest things about you is the ability to cut all the BS off your process and efforts - something I think a lot of us feel is necessary garbage just isn't, and it's made you very successful.

      At any rate, I will probably watch a few times because there was just a TON of info dropped in there. I can't believe I got to sit in with you on that for free - THANK YOU NOAH and Thank You Alaister for setting this up and holding it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
    Thanks for all your insights and suggestions.
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  • Profile picture of the author crxnamja
    Here's the EXACT story of how we started AppSumo:
    How AppSumo was built for $50
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  • Profile picture of the author SendCards
    Fantastic, Thanks Noah!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author jkhdsf
    Thanks for the chat Noah & thanks to Alaister for hooking it up!
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  • Profile picture of the author mattbarrie
    Thank you Noah Kagan for kicking off the WAMA series with a great livestream interview!
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  • Profile picture of the author InTh3Moment
    Hey Noah! Thanks for taking the time to share your insights with us. Much appreciated.
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    • Profile picture of the author Gerry Humphrey
      Due to unexpected travel today I missed the livestream.

      Is the stream recorded and going to be shared in the near future?

      If this was mentioned above I apologize for missing it.
      Signature
      Gerry Humphrey
      Business Consultant, Technical Support Rep, Developer, Trainer
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      • Profile picture of the author JennySweets
        Originally Posted by Gerry Humphrey View Post

        Due to unexpected travel today I missed the livestream.

        Is the stream recorded and going to be shared in the near future?

        If this was mentioned above I apologize for missing it.
        Noah said he was recording it and it would be available for WF members, so I'd expect a link to be posted here later.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alaister
        Originally Posted by Gerry Humphrey View Post

        Due to unexpected travel today I missed the livestream.

        Is the stream recorded and going to be shared in the near future?

        If this was mentioned above I apologize for missing it.
        Hey Gerry,

        Noah answered your question too!

        We'll be posting the recording in the War Room shortly.
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    so I pre registered and asked a question which Alastair put in this thread in that long post he done, and god bless him Noah answered it in the last ten minutes of his show, nice one, I really liked his delivery style too .
    Signature

    Mike

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  • Profile picture of the author aallendewett
    Hi Rand,

    I have very simple question if you could answer. I just want to know how to do perfect competition research for any niche/keywords so that you could know the chances of getting success with less efforts into that niche/keywords.

    E.g.: With your experience you could easily tell me that the competition for which keyword is high or low:

    keyword 1: affordable seo services

    keyword 2: girls fail videos

    but how to calculate it exactly and know how much efforts do we need to put to appear on top 10 position on Google.com

    My another question is that Google keywords tool does not give you exact idea how many times a keywords is being searched. Is there any other tool which is good & how Google keywords tool is helpful in SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author Syed Bilal Shah
    Hey! I want to know how to iframe maxbounty CPA offer links? I want VIDEO tutorial not text. I have already tried text i don't know where to go from here. And, I also want to know what are the requirements of iframing the offer. i mean what do i need? like Hosting, Domain etc?

    I want to iframe link and promote on my fan page.

    Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author ShaneHutton
    Hey there Noah....I've been going for 44 days now.....total newbie.........I'm thinking about using a solo ad to attract prospects to a product I selling as an affiliate....any tips# re solo ad providers with great list?????........truthfully I really need to start paying bills...so any help/direction/tips would be greatly appreciated.......any tips on structuring the ads...etc would be awesome...

    Shane
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  • Profile picture of the author L2market
    Noah, thanks for that awesome WAMA!

    I enjoyed listening to every bit of that, and got some great advice and inspiration from it.

    My favorite part was about stop consuming information and just start doing. Make your bed every day for 30 days and see what happens. Take a little bit each day and improve yourself by doing work!

    P.S. hopefully we get to page 3!
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    • Profile picture of the author momo1978
      Hello there Noah.

      Im a total noob here. i wanted to thank you for sharing your expertiese and allowing warriors to ask.There are a lot of great questions asked by warriors and answered by the expert. I would love to see what have you talked about in the live stream session, I believe in my self and doing this knowing if others do it and been doing it then; it does work and i can follow directions and make it work from a profitable hobby to full profitable business, I just got laid off from my job and currently have nothing but time and when i started 3 years ago i didn't continue and i didn't generate any income/profit from what i started except for Ebay sales. when i focus on Affiliate marketing and try to do any thing; i get distracted by different things and ideas and don't know where to begin, Can you please advise on where should a total noob begin.

      Thanks in advance
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  • Profile picture of the author Little0ne
    I just started a blog last week that seems to be catching a lot of interest(2,500 hits, 100 fb likes, high fb engagement) and I would like to know what you would recommend to grow traffic and spread the word faster?

    Currently I have been posting 3-5 new articles a week and sharing them on Facebook($5 boosts) and twitter. I also launched my first give a way campaign today.

    My goals are to get 100k+ fb likes and 100k+ hits a month for traffic... with high hopes to reach those goals around my 1 year mark.

    So if you have any suggestions I am all ears. Current marketing budget:$250mo
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  • Profile picture of the author Isaac Trump
    Banned
    Hey Noah, Thanks for taking out your time to do this. Do you have the recorded vid as I'm late over here?? Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author graemel1m
    Noah - SumoMe is amazing. I have never before seen something so minimal but effective. I had it working on my site in seconds and hooked into my mailchimp account. Next step...List building!
    thanks man - you rock.
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  • Profile picture of the author ninjaboss
    Love'd the montlhy1k program!
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  • Profile picture of the author MrIMVO
    was this not recorded!?!
    Signature

    The 'Voice' of Internet Marketing - quality voice over with a quick turnaround at a 'wso' price. :)

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  • Profile picture of the author AutoClubHero
    Hey Everyone. I'm new to the forum and really glad to be here. Can anyone tell me where to find the recording to this WAMA? Forgive me in advance if it was already posted somewhere. Probably missed it - Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author DrSanders
    Hi Awesome I hope we continue to be in touch. I have several projects of mine that are grwoing faster than I expected

    regards
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  • Profile picture of the author SandraDLaurean
    Banned
    So sad to hear about this but don't worry keep trying.
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  • Profile picture of the author concobebe
    I don't do offline marketing. Online world is more trackable and Fing huge!

    BUT if everyone is doing online marketing for your product maybe there's an opportunity for you...

    What one channel works for one, may not work for all.

    Ultimately look at what's effective.
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