“Behind-the-Scenes” Working with Noah Kagan

I started working with Noah Kagan two years ago.

Like the desk right next to him. 

My first thought was, “wow this dude moves fast.” Maybe even too fast. 

He was employee #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint, and started 20+ companies since (including AppSumo, my current employer). So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. 

But from typing speed and keyboard shortcuts, to quickly bouncing around discussion points in a meeting. And then creating and publishing content. Everything felt like 2x speed. 

So I was forced to adapt. 

I was now “in charge” of OkDork, Noah’s brand which operated as a business unit inside of AppSumo. AKA, my job was to make sure stuff happened. Sometimes that was testing email growth hacks or giveaways. Other times it was hiring (and firing) new teammates. We did a LOT in two years. 

While stressful at times, it led to breakthroughs for me personally and professionally. Here are my top learnings I wish I’d learned earlier. 

Prioritize the NOW, not the how. 

Noah’s instinct is first to act, then think based on feedback.

Thus, getting real feedback on whether to continue or not. Basically the opposite of how I was hardwired (I wanted to think things through, then act later). 

So this act-first method naturally led to much chaos and stress for me. 

Eventually, it’d come naturally. But it took some reps. Journalling one day I told myself to “prioritize the now, not the how.” 

Sounds kinda catchy, but what’s it mean? 

Glad you asked. One example is when I knew I wanted to write online again and start this blog. Old me would’ve been caught up in the details, focusing too much on the how. (Which CMS and hosting to use? Which domain should I pick? What should I put on the home page?)

But reminding myself “now, not how” forced me to just get started. So I picked a simple WordPress theme. Then when Mitchellcohen.com was taken, I just grabbed MitchellLandon.com (middle name) and got going.
Now, not how. 

I still use this mantra constantly and it’s been a gamechanger. Even for small new projects that come up. 

When moving quickly, there isn’t time to fully invest. Only time to test things to see what works. 

Test then invest.

This is a core saying within our company AppSumo. 

  • Hiring a new teammate? Start with a 1-month paid trial.
  • Buying a new software tool? Pay for just one month, not the full year. 
  • New marketing idea? Do it manually first to see if it works. 

I often ask myself, “What’s the smallest test to see if this will work?”

It also works great when working with outside contractors or software tools. The other week I finished a trial for influencer marketing software. They told me the next step was a full-year contract. And they don’t do anything less than that. 

So I told them our policy of “test then invest” and was able to negotiate a five-month deal. (And I got a discount too because I just asked for it… Why not!)

Have ONE clear goal. 

Noah learned this from Zuck during his early days at Facebook. Always have ONE clear goal that everyone at the company is aligned on. 

One time Noah pitched Zuck to start monetization on Facebook. Zuck proceeded to write on the whiteboard, “USER GROWTH IS #1.” That was the goal and everything they did must help that. Point taken, no monetization.

So we now use the same method.  

  • AppSumo’s goal this year is $90M revenue.
  • OkDork’s goal is 250K YouTube subscribers. 

This makes decision-making MUCH easier. For example, the other week Noah asked me if we should get on TikTok since people are blowing up there. 

While shiny and new… it wouldn’t help our YouTube goal. So the answer was clearly no. 

Default to NO. 

As a people pleaser, I always try to make people happy. So when I first started working with Noah, I naturally said yes to everything. “Sure I can do that” even when I knew it would take a while and might not even be aligned to our goal. This was dumb.

But having our clear goal in mind, I soon was able to push back and start saying NO. That’s when I began to become most valuable. Counterintuitively, it was by me becoming a NO man. Not a yes man (or woman). 

No TikTok. No random collab with an author trying to push their book. Like a finger-waving helicopter mom, I started embracing my new favorite word. 

I soon discovered the real “magic” of productivity is just focusing on the few critical drivers and ignoring everything else. 

What’s working and how can we do more of it? 

It’s amazing how much we like to overcomplicate things when really it can be so simple. 

When I first started I’d look for new random things. Then Noah would ask “what’s already working?” 

This can be for us or others. Even better is learning from a completely different niche and applying it to our work. For example, Yoga with Adriene is a huge YouTube channel with 10M subscribers. Her most popular video ever is not for expert yogis. Instead, it’s “Yoga for Complete Beginners.”

Hmm interesting. What can we learn from this? What if we catered toward the beginner in business? So rather than scaling a business, we could talk about “business ideas”… 

So we tried it and people loved it. We then doubled down and did more. And it turned out to be one of our MOST popular series.

So find what’s working. Then do WAY more of it. 

Feedback is a gift. 

Noah is constantly asking people for feedback and using it immediately. 

One random Tuesday the beginning of covid, he Facetimed me at midnight. He was hyped about an idea to host a huge variety show for charity and wanted to get my take. We talked it out and then conferenced in his friend Jordan Harbinger to see what he thought. 

Other times, I’ll get a slack message from Noah saying “feedback?” during a podcast interview with a guest.

We also have a quarterly calendar invite to give feedback to each other. But our rule is to also give real-time feedback along the way. No sense in having to wait until the end of the quarter to learn. 

The biggest thing is having a culture of open feedback and radical transparency. Nothing is off-limits because we both want to get better. Feedback is the gift that makes us better. 

Face discomfort. 

Okay this one sounds crazy, but there’s a valuable lesson behind it. 

He coined the “Coffee Challenge” where you ask for 10% off the next time you buy a coffee. 

And the airport “Newspaper Challenge” where you ask a random stranger at the airport to have the newspaper that they are reading. Yes, like the one right out of their hand. (Haha this makes me cringe just thinking about it.)

But when you actually do the challenge you quickly see it wasn’t that bad. And makes you wonder where else we might be holding back. 

One time I was at his house and he had a speedo laying out. I asked him about it and he said a girl was coming over to swim later and he thought about wearing it… but then wasn’t comfortable with it. So that’s when he knew he HAD to wear it — to follow and face the discomfort. Love that example and it’s always stuck with me. 

Make it fun. 

Working with Noah, it’s rare not to literally LOL in meetings. He always goes for the joke, even when it’s ridiculous. (Ha I won’t repeat here, but the 🍆 is a common emoji for excitement).

It shows up in his podcast interviews and just being around him for a few minutes. He unabashedly speaks his mind and isn’t afraid to “go there” with jokes. 

It’s refreshing to be around. 

He always says to make it fun. What’s the point of any of this if we’re not having fun? 

Moving Forward

What a ride it’s been over the last two years. These seven lessons were most impactful for me:

  1. Now not how
  2. Test then invest
  3. One goal 
  4. Default to NO
  5. What’s working? 
  6. Feedback is a gift
  7. Face discomfort
  8. Make it fun

And in reality, there have been many others. But my BIGGEST takeaway and lesson for you… is to find the people that light you up — and go learn from them. 

No permission is needed. Just action. 

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