This is the most scared I've ever been of AppSumo, of our existence. It really gave me a lot of hate. With Tidy Cal, the same thing is instead of trying to squeeze at a million, why don't you try to squeeze at 100 million? Like, you can literally code businesses on your phone today. It's bonkers. He was very driven not on making money cuz he had a Yahoo offer for a billion. And imagine being 23 and turning down a billion. Today on Billions, I'm sitting down with Noah Kagan, the guy who got fired from Facebook before it was worth a trillion and turned that loss into the biggest comeback story in online business. He went from losing a fortune on paper to building Absumo, a $100 million a year bootstrap empire, all without raising a single dollar of VC money. Noah, thanks a lot for being here. >> Thanks, man. Good to be here. When you joined Facebook, I read that somewhere. That was a long time ago. It was in 2005. >> Your package from what I read was $60,000 and 0.1% of the company. So like 20,000 shares. Today these shares will be worth billions of dollars. Is that something you think a lot about or not at all? >> Not anymore. Um, now that you remind me of it, thanks. >> Sorry for killing the vibe. No, no, no, no. I I think people tend to do well when they have some type of thing to prove. And that that gave me a lot of motivation for decades. >> Nice. >> It really did. It really gave me a lot of hate >> and drive and an opportunity to want to prove myself on my own terms, on my own way. And so, yeah, when I joined, I got 0.1% of the company. And it seemed just obvious to me that they would get to where they are. And it it was it was an amazing learning experience. And it took a lot of time to kind of get over all the money I lost. But I also recognized I guess the way I I internalized it or rationalized it was like I didn't earn it, you know, like yeah, it would have been nice to get a few billion, but I think at the same time it made me want to feel like I have to go create that money myself. >> And I I just took the last year off uh in paternity uh leave for my daughter >> and it was pretty boring. And so, um, my point is, and it was actually really fun. I'm back at work, which we we'll get to later in the story, but my point here is that if I was a billionaire, uh, liquid, you know, what would I be doing, right? Would I take the year off? Would I still be working? You know, I lived like a billionaire, right? So, I I think when people hear billions or they hear these these stories, I think most of the billionaires are probably unhappy, right? Like to get to that level, a lot of times it's a lot of uh sacrifices that are probably not worth it. And you can live like a billionaire, which is private cars, you know, some private jets if you want and and so forth. And I don't know, I just kind of enjoy the the lifestyle that I have, which is back at work, being with my daughter in the morning, daughter in the evening, working during the day. And um I don't think you need to be a billionaire to get there. So I'm I'm kind of grateful back at work and not living a the billionaire year off lifestyle. And you mentioned, you know, that you you joined like really early and from the beginning you knew it was going to be like the the company it is today. Um I think you were employee like number like uh 25 or 30 or something like this. >> Is there any like leadership lessons or stuff you learned that kind of help you like uh build the business you build today? >> Yeah. Yeah. There was it was surprisingly a lot. I mean Mike Mark was you know surrounded by a lot of excellence. You know he was getting advice from Peter Teal. He was getting advice from Mark Andre from the Excel partners from Sean Parker. Uh you know the people around him have all gone on. Dustin Moscowitz went on to do a sauna. Noah Kagan went on to do Absumo. Uh Cleo who's a designer. Aaron like the you know just really amazing people. So part one is he he did a good job putting himself in a place to get advice from the best. So I thought that was first off I didn't really recognize it at the time but it was like oh wow he is surrounded by excellence. Secondly he he was very clear on what he wanted to do. He was very driven not on making money cuz he had a Yahoo offer for a billion and imagine being 23 and turning out a billion. Uh I remember I was there and he's like yeah just turn out a billion dollars. I was like, I'll take it if you don't want it. Um, and so I was impressed that he wasn't just about the money. He he was very clear that I want to connect the entire world and it was just such an a strong vision with conviction that was really powerful to that I've taken into AppSumo which is you know to the first part I try to surround myself with a lot of great advisers part two is you know what's the opportunity what's the future that you're that you're excited about like let's take Absumo like wow there's a lot more software with AI being created like how are people going to get distributed in the future can we help be the place said all software deals get distributed. So his vision was just gigantic and I and a lot of conviction on that. And then I'd say the third thing that he was very good on was focus. And I I think I I came from more of a even at that time I was only I think 22 had a a very very clear bootstrapper mentality. That was always my angle and I was like let's make money. Let's make money. And I remember going to Mark numerous times even though we're you know VC funded. I was like we got to we got to make profit man. Come on let's go like sell tickets or I thought like here's an example. We have a product at AppSumo called Tidycow and you can get paid you can get paid to have meetings with people. So you you create your page and people want to meet you, they pay. And I think right now it's doing like a million dollars a month in GMV in processing. And so what I learned from Mark was a lot of people are like a million dollars a month like what's your cut? It's like zero. He's like okay well take 2%. You know and I think that's the the common approach especially if you're bootstrap because you want to make a business. And I remember Mark's what I appreciated about Mark was his focus was like no I want to grow and once I get to that level of growth then I'm going to then I'm going to squeeze. He called it he's going to create a toll booth. And I with Tidy Cal the same thing is instead of trying to squeeze at a million why don't you try to squeeze at 100 million or a billion. And I just appreciated his focus of like no we're going to focus on growth and later monetization. And it was very singular, you know, it was singular at that time I was there and I think for some time afterwards, it was a singular focus on the amount of people on the site or weekly active users. And so within our business at AppSumo, historically it's been net revenue. So like what's our net revenue target for the year? I think there are some problems with only having one goal, but we have found just focusing on whatever the one thing that you're aiming for to be more effective in and getting there. And do you feel like the from the beginning do you feel it was obvious at Facebook that they would uh start monetization at a very specific point in time? Because following on your point, you know, you can start on Tidal, you could start a monetization at 100 million or at a billion or at 10 billion. But how do you decide, you know, like what number is the right one? >> In some games, there's network effects. So if you try to ch squeeze too early, you lose the growth opportunity because you're focused on that. And some things are zero sum where like if you get all the people like Airbnb, then you could charge fees everywhere. But if you try to charge fees too early, then you don't get all the network or you don't get all uh all the usage. Uh you're going to limit your potential and potentially someone's going to take you out. And so to what Mark did was we had we it used to be called Absumo uh Facebook flyers for some of the old school people there that are listening and it got changed to Facebook advertising which which I helped build and it was there to be clear. We did have ads and it was making money but it wasn't the focus. It was never like hey we have revenue targets. It was never there. Uh it was never the thing. And so the the point being is that what I've taken with AppSumo is like how do you test something to validate it? So I I think if he tried to grow to a billion and had zero monetization idea, I think that would have been a bad approach. But I think he understood in a deeper way in a broader context than I did that hey like I wanted to sell tickets in the Facebook events or groups and sell memberships in groups and things like that and his I think he understood that the there was revenue potential from the advertising and if we had the world connected given that he already has some data insight that ads can work like at the larger scale it's just going to multiply its impact but overfocusing like MySpace did on the monetization uh you know styied it growth and so I I do think especially if you're VC funded it is easier to focus just on growth but I would for all businesses validate in some way where you know I can't tell you how many products I've built uh gu where I've built them didn't really validate there's monetization and then try to go find customers and it was just impossible and I was I begged people I'm like please please use them I'm like dude I'm like it's my brother he won't even use it and so um I I think again the the clarification here just to be very specific is focus on one thing if you it's not monetization now I I would at least understand that there is some monetization available for you versus like waiting till the end of the road. >> Yeah, makes sense. And you mentioned, you know, like uh and I think you've done it like really well, surrounding yourself with uh really smart people. I think the team at AppStreo is uh is great and I think we'll get back to that topic also a bit later but you mentioned about like uh you mentioned mentors and the fact that uh Mark you know had like those uh really good mentors from um either VC funds or entrepreneurs like Peter Teal etc. on your side because you were working with all these early employees at Facebook. Can you still like connect with them, exchange with them or is it like totally like uh something different now? I messaged one of them about a month ago named Cleo. He's like one of the best designers I've ever seen and he replied to me. Uh but I don't keep in touch with a lot of them. You know, I I think I think about it from time to time like we do layoffs at AppSumo like or you let people go. And I remember getting let go and I remember how much I thought about it. And then I realize now that I as I run my own company that the company moves on. >> Everyone just thinks about themselves. >> Yeah. >> You know, and so all those people that were there were like, "Oh, yeah. No, I Yeah, he was a little wild and yeah, I remember that guy." And I'm sure Mark knows who I am. Uh I worked for him, but it they're not thinking about me the way I I thought about them afterwards and how much it changed my life and my trajectory. Uh, and so the advisors or mentors I've gotten since then, it's been more directed. Uh, it's been more problem focused. So like I'm struggling with marketing uh, economics like so we went and hired this guy named Moody who was the CMO of Zapier and paid him like a,000 bucks an hour to work with us. And then it was like, okay, what are other specific areas? Like we had some people stuff like we we grew pretty quickly to 100 plus people. And so we hired the chief people officer of Duolingo, this lady named Christine who's amazing. And so try to have access to the people uh that have done the things that can answer specific problems based on where you're at in business. And you don't have to go to the thousand an hour people. There there's people at $10 an hour or there's a lot more people available that can answer the question you realize. And getting just one mentor is is probably unrealistic unless it's like your your dad or mom. >> It's hard to get people to care, man. Everyone's selfish. Everyone and and that's not a bad thing, but it to get people to take an interest and genuine interest is is tough. >> Yeah, makes sense. And um when you when you launched AppSumo, um so so I think we we touched base on this earlier. Obviously like you you were saying like there's a lot more tools being created especially with AI. AppSumo can become like the distribution for these tools. You you started like with with lifetime deals and there's also like the thing with uh lifetime deals that sometimes you know where people feel that uh it's kind of like um devalues like software. >> Yeah. >> Because software are are usually like bought on on a monthly basis. But how exactly do you balance like u helping new founders while also keeping it like uh sustainable in the in the long run for the business? >> Yeah, we jumped right to it, Giam. I mean, how was it for you? Like how was how was being on Absumo like what made you want to be on Absumo initially? I think it was 2018 2017 >> 2018. We we were we were just getting started. I think I received a message back then from Jeff and uh and you know I was looking at your content at the audience and I was like uh for us it was just an amazing way to uh to have like a huge amount of people give feedback on the product to make like enough money cuz we were bootstrap so a bit of money like to to kind of like get started and really create like a community like to to help us grow and my experience and every time someone asked me about Absumo I mean, it's been it's been amazing to be entirely honest. Like, I mean, I'm not paid to say that, but uh >> No, I know. I got to get you got to >> No, but seriously, like the way the team, you know, like uh worked with uh with me like you invited me to Austin. Uh you invited me actually to your house and you remember that you were not there when I arrived and they were like, "Uh, >> you came later though. I came later." >> Yeah, you came later. But I I always remember there was like a a piece of paper, you know, on the you have to put yourself in my shoes. Like I'm a French guy in Texas where I believe that everyone has guns and they can shoot at you if you enter like the backyard >> and I see like a piece of paper on the on the door that says like feel free to enter like there is actually like you have headphones on on the on the left side that you can use. And then I take the headphones and basically it's it's you speaking to give a tour of the house >> and I and I really enjoyed it. >> That was fun. >> Yeah, that was fun. I made like a little >> my house to the listeners. It's not like I have some crazy mansion. It's, you know, it's a good size nice house. >> It's a nice house, >> but I just thought it'd be fun to have like a little audio tour for when people come over if they want to just like learn about the the rooms and the house. Uh we do all have guns. That is that's that that's a whole separate story. >> Um I I think for you know your audience I'm guessing either wants to be billionaires or wants to be multi-millionaires or or whatever that is. I think what's interesting even just before we got get into the AppSumo story because there's it's jump. It's like fired Facebook. Okay, now you have a a company. Um I I kind of think of it like I was lost in the woods, you know, just trying to find my way, right? which I think is for a lot of people it's like how do I use Lemlist to to try to get more customers or how do I use AppSumo to grow my software business or use some type of platform uh YouTube maybe you know Twitter whatever that is to to grow your businesses and so I just tried a lot of things and I I think I had a lot of anxiety and a lot of frustration a lot of jealousy from abs from Facebook days and it was about it was like 10 years of like trying and trying and some success and some failure and but everything kind of kept leading getting me to a point and what I I encourage more people to do is like especially if you don't have kids, if you don't have like a a wife or a husband, like take way more risk cuz there was no risk then, right? Like I didn't really have anything to lose. And so it was a lot easier to just be like, I don't I can just try whatever stuff. And now that there's a family and there's less time and there's a lifestyle, I'm noticing it's it's different. And in that period, it was awesome. It was hard but awesome at the same time because I tried so many things and you know literally it's the Steve Jobs quote like only when I turned 30 did I realize I could say like oh wow all of these steps in my career from Facebook to I got fired at mint.com and I didn't make millions to doing conference businesses to doing Facebook games to doing payments for Facebook games to doing consulting to doing all these things to eventually get to the problem I was excited about which is promoting software promoting things and so it took all those failures and successes and experience to get to Absumo. So the the biggest thing for people is just take action today, right? Right now, right? Like listen to the show and do the thing on your phone. Like you can literally code businesses on your phone today. It's bonkers. Like I have my friend next to me. He's just coding things on his phone that went live and I was like what a an insane world versus when I started building web businesses. Like I had a literally physical server in Fremont, California to host my website, you know, like that was some old school stuff that now people don't even know what that means. I don't even know what the new stuff is. >> No. What What do you feel is uh I'm curious to know like cuz I'm seeing a lot of people willing to start companies and not actually taking action. So I'm curious to hear your thought like do you feel like there is a certain characteristic or a certain like character of people who actually take action or do you feel it's something that uh you must learn and eventually start doing it cuz I see a lot of people with great ideas but they never you know want to start they never want to take risk. So where do you feel like that come from? You know, we we promote products at AppSumo and one of the things that I spend sadly I spent a lot of time seeing if the founders are serious and we didn't start the business doing lifetime deals. We started I started the business with IMER for one year free one year at a discount and then I did bundles and that's a whole another story. But today when I'm promoting a founder on Absumo I really have to be like is this person serious about a business? And what does that mean? It means that they're not quitting when it's just a little hard. That's really what it means. And what I observe is that some people right now, what's what's amazing versus literally even 5 years ago is that you had 5 years ago, like yourself, you had to be serious to have the website, the online business. Like you couldn't just like vibe code Lemless. Like you had to code it or find a coder. You had to get a design. Then you had to do all this stuff to get it just to the website. And now that's opposite. You can have that in a minute. I literally made like a tidycow clone in a minute. And so what happens then is that if you can do it so quickly, which is amazing. That means there's more cool tools out there. There's more stuff. But who's going to actually stay with it? Who's going to sustain? And I think to your question about uh the people today is it's just as long as you take it seriously and you're trying, it doesn't matter if you fail. As long as you keep trying and try and try, you'll eventually get to someone that works. Actually, that's why even my book, like my my whole book is just about you got to start and you got to ask and then you just stick with those things. You keep going, keep going, keep going eventually. And most people are either playing around like it's just a game, which is like, all right, well, you're not serious. It's just a hobby or they never start, right? Like they they just kind of dabble. They like put a little bit and like, okay. It's like, no, it took me so long to eventually find something that worked. And then once it works, like I it's like finding a wife. Like, are you married, GM? uh not married but in a relationship. >> In a relationship, it's the same thing as in a relationship. I thought once you find a wife, you don't have to do anything anymore. You can get fat. You can be mean. It's like no, I have to do even more now. And I think that parallel is very true for business, which is it takes time to find the right business for you. It takes time to find the right wife. >> And once you find it, it then takes time to kind of keep developing it and improving it. And you know it's available for everyone to do and they just have to take themselves seriously and give themselves a little bit more confidence and belief that they can do it cuz they can. I think it's nice that you have that view on uh on relationship and business that is like uh very close you know cuz I think like um very few people understand that when something is actually fragile in a sense that uh it can break or you know like you can just lose it. It's only when you really believe that something is fragile that you actually like take a lot more care about it. You know, in the same way you have like a a vase from I don't know your great grandmother and that that could break at any time just because you know it can break. You actually like do all these things to to make it work. And I think it's it's very similar when you have a business you know that works or a relationship that works. You you want to keep it and uh and you want to continue because you've struggled so much for so many years that you know how precious it is. And I think it's uh it's pretty valuable. Yeah. >> Yeah. I was thinking about Do you know what fantasy football is? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So there's fantasy football for soccer in America or whatever. I play fantasy football, which is an NFL game >> uh in American football. And I literally, you know, I'm up at at 7 a.m. looking at the players and reading analysis and watching YouTube videos. And then like on Sundays, my wife when the games were playing, a lot of the NFL games are playing, she's like, "Did you lose in fantasy today? Is that why you're mad at Is that why you're mean to me? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, and I'm trying to to to grasp and understand it. And to be clear to the people out there, I don't think there's there's there's like a special person. I think Mark Zuckerberg, who I've worked for, and Bill Gates, who I've met and worked for, uh, Steve Jobs, who I met briefly, didn't work for, they're special. But the reality is everyone else out there is special in some way and can succeed. I I I believe that. And what I talk about fantasy football is that I just take it seriously. And when I lose, it's because I just care. And if people can just take that into their businesses versus like, hey, I launched a vibe code thing. I complained on Reddit with one post and nothing happened. Like that's not you don't care. You don't have the pain that you want something enough. You don't have the hatred or the drive or the motivation. And so I would try to figure out how you can get that. how you can find like a dream or hate and anger whatever it is to motivate these people uh to push them to to be able to get the the lifestyle they want. >> How much do you think it correlates with discipline the seriousness of getting started? >> I think what I would what I would say for myself is twofold two two pieces of advice. One, I have a very annoying mother. I have this like super annoying Jewish mother that is just so annoying about things and I say it in a productive way and her persistence I think rubs off on me. Like she's always bugging me and my wife about things and I love my she's not going to listen to this podcast so I can talk as much honest about her and I I tell her this but she's just so she'll never stop ever. And I think that that genetically there's something in me about that. That's part one. Which if you don't have a Jewish mother, go find an annoying friend that just will never never quit on you. Find it. Find someone who will never quit on you. Like I do have friends that are always being like like I had a friend today. I was on it. He was voicemailing me. He's like, "Dude, I'm talking about things going on AppSumo and the problems we're having." He's like, >> "I know you're going to solve it." I was like, "Are you sure? I don't think I can." He's like, "I know it." I was like, "Wow." Get friends like that. Find people around you that that that think you can do it. And then in terms of discipline, I'll give you advice and I'll give you action. So the advice is I tell myself I tell myself I have like unusually high discipline like I just tell myself that like I say wow you have such a high tolerance for pain you can suffer you you can outdisipline anyone so it's not even that that's true for some reason my script has been written that my discipline is insane and now the question is if other people want discipline which I think is a pretty usable thing, right? Like there's no discipline needed to eat ice cream, right? You don't have to have a discipline. You're like, "Okay." And so what I do is I practice discipline every single day in small things. So here's one. Here's ways that people can build up their discipline uh power and ability. It's a skill. And so if you see something on the ground in your house, pick it up. If you see a dish in the sink and you're about to go to bed, what's the story you want to tell yourself? And I tell myself I have high discipline and I take care of these things. And if you do that with s kind of silly things over and over like I literally before the show I was putting away my shoes in my that my daughter took out and she took out my heart rate monitor. I put that away. I think those are not I think I know those are small little confidence builders that are reinforcing my narrative that I have high discipline and so then it leads to high discipline around when I say I'm going to be on time for the show I come here at 11:00 when I say I'm going to deliver something at work when I say to someone I'm going to follow through like it's more and more uh evidence that that's going to come true. >> Nice. So it's for you it's like how you do one thing is how you do everything pretty much. >> Yeah, sometimes. man most of the time I you know I met Peter Teal I had dinner with him and he's fat you know and then there's like Reed Hoffen who's really really fat and I don't mean that derogatively but I think there's an assumption from people who are not where they want to be or who I don't know if it's envy I wouldn't say it's envy but they assume that some of these people to be Elon Musk and you know to be at these levels that you have to like discipline on your things and all the other stuff and it's like Beard Teal was talking about how he can't stop eating >> >> And so it's like you could still have a lot of success without discipline too. I I think that that's fairly the unsexy thing to say. I think discipline has helped me. But there's also times where like yeah I want to I'm not really desserts I have good discipline but like sometimes I drink and I'm like no let's I'm going to get drunk, you know, and I'm going to drink more. But there's also times like two days ago uh I really wanted this cookie. I said just wait for tomorrow and then you can have a cookie. And then you know what? the next day that yesterday I had the cookie and I was like I'm so proud of you. >> I'm so I look at silly. You're laughing. You're like talking about a cookie. It was a snicker doodle by the way. It was delicious. >> Nice. >> Uh I have a delightful cookie. >> So for me it's sugar is Yeah. >> with sugar. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. >> Oh man. And so you know it's a silly example but you know >> for me that works. That that's a way that I've been able to take pride in following through the things I say I'm going to do and build my confidence in that. >> That's nice. And and when you know like um cuz you started talking about the the early days of Absumo of iterating until you kind of find like uh improve the the business model. I think you grew Absumo to around like uh two or three million a year maybe 4 million a year before you you kind of like uh step down from uh the CO ro like what was the the reasoning behind it and why did you decide to to come back after after a few years? Yeah, it's been it's been an adventure. So, AppSumo is over 15 years old. When we got to around four or five million, I ran I was running the business for about four or five years. And at that point, I was a little frustrated of personally just doing deals. I was like, "Okay, we go, we found a deal, we found a deal." Like, it it just wasn't and and this is the tough part, you know? I think there's times where people like persevere through it. But, by the way, if you don't persevere for it, find someone who will, you know, like you found Charles to run that list. It's not that you're not persevering, but find someone who's hungry that's qualified to to do it at that time. And so at that time, my belief was, and it's still to this day, like Absumo's problem is that we're still having to go find the next deal all the time, whereas like Airbnb the inventory is always there on the marketplace. And so I I went to Aean or we went to Anton and then I we had a big application and and ultimately Aean, we just said like make $100,000 a month and keep the business afloat. and uh just do that for two years with training and stuff. And then I went off to build monthly 1K which was a course and then we went off to build uh sumo.com and so it was an interesting experience. Uh Aean which we kind of left him for dead honestly we left that business for dead you know just really focused on the basics. I think that's you know my my superpower is like this product market fit rapid iteration zero to one and A was really good at doubling down slow and steady uh compounding and so he like improved the marketing improved the affiliate improved the sales team improved the deal type actually aim and his team Jeff and and Omen they invented the lifetime deal like I didn't start with lifetime deal um I think they saw that as a potential they tested it and then that's part of our values test and invest. And so they they launched lifetime deal crushed and that's how everything eventually over probably seven eight years then now became lifetime deals. Um Aean quit in 2020. I was on I was biking across America and then he calls me when I was on my bike and he's like, "Hey, I'm quitting." I was like, "Can you just wait till I finish my bike ride?" He said, "Sure." And then I called one of my two of my adviserss and my adviser is like, "You need to if he wants to quit." It's like you have someone at asleep at the at the steering wheel. They don't want to be there. I think that's true for people at your company. Like someone quit at Absumo last week. Was it Monday or last week or Friday? And it's like, well, they don't want to be there. Great. You know, you want help them find a place they want to be >> and that opens a spot for someone who wants to be there. And so I flew back was in 2020 and it was it's been a rocky four years, four or five years since then. Uh Aiman's still an adviser and then I took a paternity leave in 2024. I took another year off and we've had a lot of problems again in Absumo. Um and so I came back in September to to work through things. What's like uh I I feel right now you have like this uh the Airbnb example. I think you you really like it with the marketplace and the fact that there is a availability and demand that's that's still there and you don't have to chase deals. Is that like how you're thinking about the business right now? And what's like uh keeping you up at night? >> You know, taking a step back, you say the title of your show is billions, which is I mean, I guess today's economy, you have to say trillions. You know, that's your next show. >> In a few years small. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking too small. Sorry. >> Yeah. Yeah. You know, I know I going back to where we started the conversation, Mark thought gigantic. And there's something there where it it really is, and I hear people say this I don't believe it, but now I believe it. It's that it's the same amount of work either way. So, at least work on the thing with the bigger opportunity. That really, it's a cliche thing, but it really is true. And you know, with AppSumo, what we what the bet that I identified early on was that software was going to get big, and it did. So, you know, I bet on the right thing, and that worked out. Um, the the thing that keeps me up at night, I was literally up to 1:00 a.m. is more that the the model that we evolved to isn't as aligned for everyone today. Right. So, this lifetime deal model that we do, which is for people that don't know, we go and find a product like Lemlist, which is an early when they're early stage, and we say, "Hey, you're super early. Let's do a lifetime deal. Normally, you're 20 bucks a month. Let's do $100 or $500 for life and we'll split it 50/50." And so, that was working a lot better when there wasn't AI cost. >> Yeah. >> And that AI cost really only came out three years ago. And the AI stuff has done two parts, which is one, you can't know your costs for the next forever in life. But when you have like a email outreach tool that doesn't cost anything to run, you're like sure for life. Um, so that's one part that we don't we have that's a huge problem. And then the second problem is a company like yours even, which is you have these customers and it was nice to get the money, it was nice to get the feedback, it was nice to get the exposure. You know, a lot of people have a lot of amazing experience on AppSumo, but five, 10 years later, you have these customers that maybe aren't paying you anymore, but are still using the product and you develop the product more. So, you as a partners, even you guys h you're not as incentivized to give them all the new features. You're not. And so, >> yeah, of course, >> you know, every business has competition, right? Ideally, you want a monopoly, right? I like what Peter Teal says. You want a monopoly, like you want to be a utility company or like Airbnb or, you know, Stripe a little bit. Um, and so then you have no competition, but there's there's always competition and there's always, you know, generally you have to evolve. And so that's what we're working through today. And it's stressful as hell. And it's thinking about, you know, we have this business and it's good, but like it's not just a grow. I don't want to grow for grow sake. I want to help partners win. I want to help the customers win. I want to help our business win. And I want to work on these projects where I think I can see a potential where it can get to beyond $100 million. Uh the the money doesn't actually really motivate me as much. Like now that once you get to some amount of money you have that you can live your lifestyle. It's like okay I make a little more a little less. I'm not as excited. Like I want to do work that that I'm proud of that I'm like wow that like we put out this Black Friday bundle with uh Reclaim and Bolt and Hostinger uh Hostinger Emergent and Pika and it was like awesome and it was a lot of work. I was like I'm so proud of that and I think with Absu I am I'm really proud of It was a great bundle sold well. >> And what I'm working towards and what's keeping me up a lot at night and working through with partners and I was on a call with two customers today. uh is how are we you know I don't want to blow up what's working because it's been working for a decade but also is this going to work for the next decade and how do we transition productively right like think about Google like Google you know they still have search that's still like I don't know what percent of the business still a majority but they also have these other bets that have like Gmail and Whimo that have gone on to be pretty significant for them and so it's just trying to balance that with all companies right like all companies have a core business that that works and so do you keep evolving that is there unlimited uh evolution there or is it you know totally new areas I think our core business is still the the answer which is GDM like distributing products is still the most valuable thing like you your company number one thing is all right we want to grow so how do we help more of these companies continually grow and that that's what we're we're solving and something I was thinking um you know when you you reached out to me like a few days ago or last week like to discuss potential partnership etc I was curious cuz I think like um one of your strengths really at Absumo is uh the affiliation part where you actually have like a lot of partners that can help with affiliation and I think for SAS companies it's always like tricky you know like to set up real affiliate program I know for us it took us like quite some time you know to get the partner etc and I feel like um for your business you have basically like um in in a similar way as YC way combinator get like a lot of like startups eventually you know they only invest in the best and from the best that's how they get like such a high return you know down the line versus like other VC funds or whatever on your end I feel it's it's pretty similar like you have you make a lot of bets on company you always believe you know that they're going to be successful and that's what you try to help them do however you know only a few will succeed you know it's a human law of nature like I don't know how we want to call it like Darwinism or whatever, but eventually like for Zeus one, don't you feel like uh that you could leverage what made Abstimo the success it is to find ways, you know, to partner at like a larger scale and on a on a different scale actually. >> Yeah. I mean, I reached out to you guys about that. I I think what we what companies have to understand is where can you win? So for instance like a lot of companies let's say you guys you have an affiliate program and you use probably partner stack or rewardful or you know Tlt or one of these guys it's really interesting to you can you know especially if you're starting a business or running a business you can be discouraged from everything it's very easy to get discouraged what do I mean by that we go I I have been exploring like how do we help you know we launch companies how do we help them launch better and then once they launch like you guys years down the road like how can we continually help you And so I've been going to companies and asking them about their affiliate program because we do have a very effective affiliate program where people get on the Absumo platform. We have thousands of people that make videos and tweets and emails and consultants and uh I go to people about their affiliate program and the interesting thing is that it's never more than 10% or 15% of their revenue and they're never excited or or angry about it. They're always pretty neutral. And I will tell you, I have found it insanely hard to sell neutral. >> Okay? >> It's really hard to sell neutral. And so, you want to find something that people are pissed about or like can't wait to give you that money. And so, we're testing, you know, we're testing uh some affiliate options for people. We're testing different uh deal formats. We're testing building some of our own products to help partners like yourselves grow further. But before we start building a bunch of stuff that no one wants in a day where it's you can build anything now everyone can. It's finding the things that people actually really need help with. And so coming backwards it's like what's the problem? And the problem is people still want distribution. So it's working through okay well what's the best way we can help the people we want to help. I think distribution is definitely like the place you you you're going to want to look at because uh especially with AI as you mentioned so many more like tools coming up and and I think it's going to be key over the years like do you feel like the the quality of your uh of your community or newsletter or subscribers uh how do you maintain like a high quality uh how do you maintain like your channels like what are kind of the the tips you could share around That's uh it's interesting our community at AppSumo. I think there's there's three types of audiences. There's there's one audience which is a lot of them which is serious agencies, marketers, entrepreneurs. Like very serious like they have businesses. They run like I got off a call with a guy named Sean. He runs a design agency in Florida. He comes to get tools so he doesn't have to pay full price. And that's a lot of them. And then we have another category of uh people who are kind of playing around like buy it and play around with it which is you know it happens you know yeah we called them entrepreneurs in the past and then we also have this third category of like collectors so they it's kind of like a trading card it's like a baseball card and they call it investments. So they buy a deal with the hope that the company does really well and then they have this tool that they were able to get as a bet early on and there's an interesting number of them. And so candidly it's been a it's been a a challenge to manage these because we have people who are requesting the most that are never even using the products. Like they'll they'll they'll be like I want this and I'm going to I'm going to rate it so badly. Um whereas like I built AppSumo with the intent of finding a product that someone made that I really want to tell people about and give it to people at a special price for people that are going to use it or you know maybe potentially use it a little later. And so it's been a struggle. Um it's it's definitely in December where we're at like one of the key things I'm I'm working on. And so uh what have we done about it? We basically there's kind of two pieces that we've done. One is moderation. So what are the standards that you know what are the standards that you want to encourage in your community and in your in your business and so we have community guidelines and then we basically wrote bots to enforce our community guidelines. >> Okay. >> Uh and so that's it's been really effective actually because it's like here's our guidelines and now the the AI bot can actually it's just a custom bot we built can enforce it and that's why you see on like Twitter and certain places like people use the real names now. There's a non too, but like every company should say what's the guidelines you want and also when people are using our products like you are leaving comments you can see more about them right how many reviews have they left how long have they been buying this stuff so it gives status >> uh in the community and on the other side of that what I'm spending time on in terms of the the community and the the channel is like who do I want buying the products >> uh and what's the accepted behavior and how do we objectively measure that and so we're looking at data to understand what's acceptable refund rates. Like we have people that refund 88% of products, 90% of products, and we're doing an analysis about what's appropriate of that, right? And it ultimately it's like, yeah, there's revenue there, but what kind of behavior and customer are you really getting in your company? And so, we have a goal of a certain refund rate we're targeting. I think it's around 28%. Uh, which is, I think, pretty high. Uh, it's good because people want to try the products, but also maybe they're they're just trying and buying everything. They're not never serious. And so we're doing analysis then more objectively here to drive like okay these are the kind of categories of everyone now calls them ICPS everyone loves this ICP you know ideal customer profile whatever I call a marketing agency Matt I like real people I don't like acronyms and so who is that person and what how what's their behavior and either you fit the customer we can serve really well and you're within that category and if not like maybe Absumo is not the place for you to be buying things and so it's it's kind It's rewarding and encouraging this behavior and saying setting parameters. I can't I don't want to share all of them. So otherwise they'll get abused. And then the people outside of those parameters, letting them know this is not the place for them anymore. And so we have to be willing to give up short-term revenue for a better long-term business. And right now it feels like you are kind of at I'm not going to say like a crossroad because obviously you have like a business, you know, that's uh very like successful, but at the same time, you know, like uh you're also looking for what's coming next. Is there like anything that you're particularly excited about like for the coming months or like years or projects, you know, where you feel like you really have an edge? Because it seems that you spend a lot of time with your customers trying to understand, you know, like what's something like really painful that you can solve. I I think for any business out there, if you are not texting your customers or Snapchatting or WhatsAppapping your customers, you're losing. I text customers and partners almost every single day. I'm like, "Hey, we're working on this video. what do you think? Hey, did you like this thing? Hey, tell me if you see anything ever single day and it's awesome. It's a cheat code. Like I just spent this morning talking to two customers. Like they'll tell me what they want. Doesn't mean I'm going to just do everything they say. But you know, I think some people, especially if you're in an internet business, you're so you it's so easy to abstract yourself and you want to abstract. The whole goal of an internet business is never to talk to anyone. >> But the adv, you know, that's really the goal, right? It's the goal is like >> don't do any work, get rich. like that's what everyone I think is aiming for and that's that I don't know if that's fully possible but I think the rewarding one is actually talking to the person seeing how you're benefiting them uh and then improving things with with a specific customer in mind and so uh the things that I'm yeah I I I'll be honest like I think Absumo is at a very fragile point I'd say limless you know you have AR and these things so it's it's a little better business model from that perspective but like the way AI is making things easy to create the way things are moving so quickly I think a lot of people just don't know. And so in a world of uncertainty, how do you create stability? And so for us, it's understanding like what's the real problem that everyone's having, which is distribution. So that that problem is still there for you, for tabby, which is a finance tool we're promoting today. Uh for Versel, they're running ads. Bolt, we have a deal with Bolt in one of our bundles. And so what I'm excited about is that if distribution is still like the biggest problem whether you're an indie hacker or you're VC funded uh how can we help you in this really kind of ch fastch changing world. So I think with our core business of software via Absumo um we're we're we're aggressively testing just new deal types. So instead of lifetime deals which is 50 bucks forever can you do 50% off forever? So, it's a lifetime discount, which is actually better aligned for everyone because you're generally going to pay your subscription if you use it. The companies want recurring revenue because they have recurring costs. And then for us, we get a better stable business model providing that distribution. So, that that's one we're testing out and we're testing out other things there to help in this new environment like can we sell credits? Everyone's got credits now and tokens. Can you sell those at a discount or sell that them at a special price and sell them ongoing for people? And so we're aggressively testing that to find out what will really have product market fit because I think so many times people just oh yeah I know like I had success I'll just do it and it'll work. It's like that's not it's never been that way. Uh and then our other bet that I'm excited about which is kind of like a moonshot bet is we have this product I told you tidy cow that's doing about a million dollars a month in in GMV and processing for helping people run their businesses. And so, can we 10x that next year if we actually focused on it? Because right now, we build a bunch of our different products, but what if we just took one and really try to help people grow their own businesses? Like that that's the ultimate thing in a business. If you can make your business how people grow their businesses, like you have a very valuable asset. And so those are the kind of two highle bets. The main focus is AppSumo and then there's a a you know, moonshot team called the originals that that's trying some of our more crazy bets. What I found also interesting when you were mentioning the 50% off like lifetime is that it also like matches uh the kind of customer you want to work with because you were saying that uh you know you have like this uh three kind of people including the one who kind of like uh see deals as baseball cards you know like they they really want to collect them and uh and they're they're going to ask for a lot even though they don't use it with a 50% % off. It's uh it's also something that people will not want to lose long term like they don't want to lose that discount. So if they cancel or if they churn potentially you know like the the deal stops which I think is great you know like you have a lot of um private membership clubs where let's say they they ask you to pay like an entrance fee that is like really high. let's say like I don't know 10k to join the club and then it's like a monthly fee and eventually if you decide to stop and you have to come back you have to pay again that monthly fee like like that monthly setup fee. So yeah I think it's uh I think it's interesting and uh yeah I I don't know if it'll work to be clear we're testing it out without building anything. So we launched one this week which is with nause.io and >> we're just giving out the coupon. So it's just like here's a code and then if that works it was able to do that quickly and so if it works then we can then build out more functionality to to make that easier. But yeah I will I mean candidly this is the most scared I've ever been of AppSumo of our ex of our existence. >> Um you know granted we have distribution right? We have an audience that that cares. We have a brand that's known. We still have a lot of things going for us. So, we're in a very good place, but I can this is where I could kind of see where companies fail, which has been really interesting. And they fail because they get scared and they get timid and then they and they have a legacy business that makes money. And that's where we we are. It's not that. And look, there are some companies that lifetime dealt totally makes sense. Uh, and you see a lot of like WordPress plugins that have lifetime offerings. Totally makes sense. There's almost no cost to them. And maybe there's no more maintenance, but you can understand it. And so it's very hard to go to the next branch when you're holding on to the old branch. And so we're trying to understand how that can look moving forward and then then be clear on the test for it and then act decisively once we have a little better understanding in the next few months. >> I'll be I'll be watching this uh >> I'm watching too. >> Yeah. I mean, I think it's at least I feel proud of myself for being in the arena, for being on the court, for taking >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's a risk, you know? It's it's easier. I mean, it was pretty easy to sit out for a year and, you know, complain. Not complain, but just comment and criticize. And I call it the seagull theory. I don't know if I invent that. Someone did, but seagulls fly in, they complain, and they fly away. And uh the worst. >> Yeah, it's No one likes a seagull. And so, you know, at least I'm I'm I'm I'm with the the team uh trying to be in front and lead. I think about leadership a lot. I think about what is leadership, how do you lead? How do you be effective? How do you get people to go to a direction? How do you stay optimistic? How do you have clarity and get you know, do these things that people are excited to move forward with you? And that's uh you know, I I guess I haven't I don't know if I've ever I haven't felt that in a long time with Absumo. felt like I've, you know, kind of been riding in an autonomous car whereas like you have the team, we got deals that this guy Jeff gets the deals and kind of do it and then I think we're seeing some of the writing on the wall which doesn't mean we have to blow up the what's working but understanding how do we evolve it and do that quickly. And talking about the team and the the leadership, a topic because I know we are like almost out of time. topic I wanted to uh talk to you about is like um you've seen like the the VC rocket ship with big funings now you're like bootstrapping um I'm curious like uh what's your view on stock options or stocks or like how exactly is the company managed on on that site and how do you make sure like to incentivize people enough that you know they they stay in the long run for the company's success. Yeah, I talked to one of our key people and I was like, "Oh, have you looked for jobs recently?" He's like, "Yeah, I I checked out another company." I was like, it's like talking to your wife and she's like, "Yeah, I was look I was texting this other guy." I'm like, "What are you what are you doing?" Um, and on one hand, who was I talking with? I was talking with WAB. I don't know if you know WAB. It's a budgeting software. Very cool guy, Jesse. And a lot of I looked at the people on LinkedIn and it was so impressive. A lot of his people have been there 15 years. And I was like, that's impressive. And on one hand, you could think, okay, he's got a lot of people who don't do anything anymore and they've just been coasting or he's created such a company that they want to be there. And so, everyone's got different motivations. Uh I think in a world of today of AI, it's actually we're going in the opposite direction, which is more companies are bragging what they're doing with fewer people. Like it's actually the the flex now is like we have 35 million RR like you guys and we only have 30 people, right? like that's the the thing people are jealous of. And so I would say it's kind of two parts that I've I've worked on. I'm not probably doing a great part of it, which is just understanding and honestly acknowledging the people you want. That's part one, which is just like like Alona, who's our CMO now. I think, you know, I haven't had a one-on-one with her in a while. I canceled all my one-on- ones cuz we're kind of in a war mode. I was like, I just need to do what's most important right now versus set meetings. And I think she missed just being seen and missed like having a voice. And you know, with anybody who's key in your company, I would talk to them often if you don't want them to not be there and and and understand where they're at and if they have families, what they want to be doing. And and if it's not good for them to be there, then also help them leave. Like we had a guy who's been with me eight years. I've had two guys who've been with me eight years that are leaving this year. And I'm like, "Yeah, I think it's time." Like I I it was probably two years ago it was time but you know we have loyalty and you want them to win. So I think that's one is just really connecting with your key people. I think the second thing is incentives is way undertalked about. Incentives is probably for most people like the probably least under utilized thing in business. Incentives need to keep evolving. So at Absuma with our leadership team we have a lot of incentives on net revenue growth but not on NOI or net operating income. And I'm like looking at NOI all the time. I'm like, "How's our NOI? What's our NOI?" Like, NOI is What are we doing about it? How are we making sure investments are good? And so, you know, salaries, like pricing in businesses should get evaluated regularly. And so, our sales team has disincentives for companies to go out of business, but I don't think they're painful enough. On the other side of that, I don't think they get rewarded enough if a company sells well and stays in business. And so we're redoing our comp model to pay our sales team even more for for products that are selling even better. So I'd say those are the two things around for the key people you have with you. And then how do you know you have a key person? It's very simple. Without you asking are they making things better? That's all you have to look for like did they change something to make it better without permission period. And then the second part is really understanding the incentives like do they have kids? Do they want to try to retire? Are they trying like and you know equity is one way of doing it. I we're I don't know if we'll ever go public. Maybe one day we'll sell. So I think I don't know if that's the best thing to give to someone if it's not true. But understanding you know what incentives are going to motivate them productively to align to the things within your business. I think it's very it's probably should be spent way more time on. >> Did you give equity already to the people in your company or? >> Yeah, we've gone I've gone all over the place with equity in 15 years. So, I started it I started it with just me and my partner and then Andrew Chen got 5%. And then it was mostly just the three of us and then I gave a few other people just a little bit and then at one point we had a phase where I was like, "Okay, we're going to go public. Everyone's going to get some equity and it was just not a it wasn't honest. I don't know if I really wanted to go public. Like I don't I don't do well with the restrictions." >> Um, and so there are people that have equity, but yeah, we haven't been hiring at all. Mostly we've been reducing. Uh, but moving forward, I don't think we would be giving equity. it would be more uh cash compensation. Uh we're also considering like phantom equity. So like hey if we ever sell um you'll get some percent of the sale versus like you know equity is a marriage. They're on the cap table forever. >> So right now you're giving more like uh cash bonuses at the end of the year based on like specific objective and >> yeah just profit share. Normally we've had this year's has been it's been a tough year and I'm not going to fake it and like oh yeah we're crushing trillion dollars like like a lot of these other uh YouTube influencers. Um yeah, normally we have profit share and we we're pretty generous with you know flying people to Mexico the team trip stuff that's on your page. This year has been a tougher year for us to be able to do as much of that as we'd like. But historically it's cash compensations plus team retreats plus you know swag like this is a it's my absumo jacket. Yeah, we have sumo jacket all this >> in partnership with Patagonia. >> Yeah. And like, you know, cool gear that we do. We'll have a little bit of this stuff this year, but not not as historical. And I think the team gets that. And I I appreciate I admire a lot of people that are at our company for how much they care. It's really hard to like It's really hard to to hire that. It's really hard to hire people that like just really want like really wanted to win even when it's tough. Like we've had a tougher year than in a long time. And it's, you know, sometimes when people don't want to be there, it's great. They're like, "Oh, cool. I got an easy job or I'm not really noticed." But the ones that are, you want to be there and then they stick through this is, uh, have a lot of appreciation. I do my best to to try to acknowledge them either just with verbally or seeing them publicly as well as, you know, if we can at the end of the year with some compensation. And how do you find like uh such talent? because I think you've had like uh you've been great at hiring to be honest. Like uh the team I think is is really smart and you kept like some key people for a really long time. So like do you have a specific process to to find this uh >> these great people or is it >> I haven't found I haven't honestly I haven't hired anyone in a while. I'd say all of our best people are homegrown. >> Okay. >> All of our best people started as like junior salesperson, junior marketer and have worked their ways up. I think that's been every time I've hired someone that's like we hired like a $400,000 person that was supposed to be a game changer and it was like after a month I was like and it was just it was honestly >> how much? >> Yeah, it ended up costing us like half a million and the person o and so I think the homegrown thing is one one way to do it. Second thing is trials. Just like try. I think that one has been you could see them. You could see their work. And then third, I would say like just look for people already doing things, you know, look for the people already you're like, I like what this person's doing. And I I found a lot of success with that. And then, you know, maybe lastly, look to your audience when you're hiring. So when we're trying to hire, can I email out to Noah Kagan my email list to nokagen.com or absumo social or absumo mailing list where find people who already kind of get you versus people you have to try to convince about you. It's very hard for you to try to outhire one of these like billion dollar overnight AI companies. It's very hard to try to get those people. And so you're trying to get uh them, you know, not all money ball people, but you're trying to get the people who are a little bit more on the come up because they're you're able to afford them. Uh, and I think they appreciate that and stick with it a little bit longer because of that, too. So, yeah, like with my social media team when I was doing more YouTube, a lot of it was homegrown and it was people that followed me and I I like their stuff or they reached out and I gave them a trial and over time they were able to make six figure fat salaries making YouTube and, you know, social content with me. But it it wasn't that way to start. It was it was trials and projects. No, that's I every I think it's a lot of good advice. I know we're almost like running out of time, so the final question. Um, >> yeah, time time flies. Do you sometimes like uh think of, you know, like 10 years from now, what is like the the one thing I wish I had done that you're not doing right now? And what would that be? Um, I mean, last night I I did think, am I going to regret not spending more time with like my mom or with my my family because I'm working a lot. I'm working hard. And so I I don't think I want every day to be this hard for the next 10 years. I would regret if it was like 9 to5 so intense where like I kind of come downstairs with nothing left. I think that that's definitely what I would regret. Uh I think the other thing that I noticed is not it's not actually in 10 years it's in in one day is that I have noticed my own behavior maybe this is not for everyone but for myself where I create a lot of anxiety around the problems I'm solving and eventually I solve them or people around me help solve them. It's not like only me but I didn't need to make it so stressful to get there. But like right now I'm creating and I think that's also my kind of my my superpower is like I pressure and I I create force and energy to make happen but it's not it's not fun. It's not like oh J. It's like I'm forcing this. And so more and more times I try to remind myself like you're going to solve this. It's going to you're going to get to the the taco or the you know margarita at the end of the road or in France like the baguette. The bet bag betuette's going to be there. >> >> um you're going to get there. So, can we do it? Can you just be take a breath and be mindful of at least, you know, getting to the the destination in a in a relaxing way. So, I definitely I I try to think back on that like you're going to get to this 10 years and like did you want to make it hard to get here or do you want to make it, you know, at least enjoy the journey around it more? >> Do you think about the the stories you're going to be able to tell like uh when you make a decision? Because sometimes for me, you know, when when there's a like hard decision to take, I look at things kind of like and I I look at the option and I'm like, what's going to be like a a fun story to tell whether I choose A or B? You know what I mean? >> Yeah. Um I what I was thinking about is fantasy football. It's like I I know there's it's like it's hard to believe there's so much advice in fantasy sports and like when if you don't get fantasy sports, you think it's it's stupid. So, I understand that. But in fantasy sports, you have each week players. And what I've noticed regarding the future is that it's really hard to work on my next week's game if I don't feel stable and confident in this week's game. And so, in all of our businesses, like I want to get to the 10-year view, but I'm still right now within the world, I'm so focused on like the next month, next three months. And so, it's very hard to kind of start planning and getting ahead for it. I I I would regret around that. I was thinking about this morning like, you know, I think none of us want it to go away. But the reality is like all of us are going to go away in life. And if you look at companies from the year 1900, I think four companies that were the biggest then are still around maybe two. Let's let's like chat GBT that for a sec. I want to see if I'm like full >> Hold on. Let's but no let's let's like do it >> as GPT for a source also cuz I think it's right now it's making up a lot of stuff also. >> Oh really? That's even better. >> All right. Uh I asked how many companies that were top 100 companies in 1900 are still around today. Uh I think it's going to be one or two. So Hans so how many survived? Only nine of these companies remain today. That's actually better than I thought. 9% supposedly banks, railroads, energy, you know, utility companies. Oh, that's kind of interesting. I didn't think I realized that either. It's kind of more utility based businesses. >> But I guess my my thought regarding that to your telling the story, which I think is my mine maybe is a similar way of doing it, which is am I doing it at least the way I want? So, we could fail, but at least did I am I honest with myself like this is what I want to do, right? like I want to try this thing and are you doing it cuz other people are you doing it cuz like you're scared or is it what you really truly think you want to do and if that doesn't work out you know but otherwise like at least I I I I played the game I put in the players as we went to fantasy football I put in the players and did the thing the way I want you know the game I can't always control but at least I want to I want to do it my way and I think I'd regret if I if I didn't approach it uh from that way for the next 10 years. >> Love it. And uh maybe like uh one final word uh one final advice for people listening to the to the show. >> I had a friend when I was 20. He's still a good friend. He wanted to be a billionaire and I think he's worth 100 million now. So I think he's pretty happy at 100 million. And if you look at his career, he had a big vision. He had a big dream. And he did work. and he did work every year and he's, you know, the part that's interesting, maybe good or bad, is he's still working hard today, you know, 15 years later, 20 years later. So, I I do think people think that the rich the nice houses and the fancy cars or private jets or whatever it is. I think what people actually think is that like, oh, that's not for me. Not even that. They think, I can't even get that. And I think the the things I want to leave people with is like, you totally can. It's a it's the thing that's awesome about business and success is that it doesn't discriminate. You don't have to be French. You don't have to be tall. You don't have to be good-looking like Guiam. You don't have to be that and you can still succeed. He's got that that and he's succeeding. God's blessed him. So, I think that that's part one is that it's available for everyone who was willing to do work. And then the second part that's interesting is I would say I was on a call with a guy today and he's on Absumo customer and he's a designer Sean out in Florida and I don't know how much he makes. I didn't get into that. But what I liked about him is that he seemed just content. And I've met a lot of really rich people and I see a lot of these YouTubers and I'm like, these people hate their lives. Hate. No amount of money is going to make them their lives actually satisfying. And so, and I've interviewed billionaires. I've worked for billionaires. You know, I've done pretty well financially. And I think there's something to find out about yourself, which is, you know, how can you find the level of peace and contentment regardless, you know, if you're making billions or you're making millions or hundreds of thousands. And I I think that's that's something to to aim for in our lives. Just find some level of balance of our contentment. Wise words, Noah. Like, thanks a lot for uh for your time and uh and sharing all of this with the audience. Where can uh people like follow you or follow your journey? I know you've been uh >> Yeah, I mean you have a great book also. Thanks. I got million-dollar weekend. It's in French >> uh for the French listeners. >> Nice. >> Um grab the book on podcast I put out once a month on Noah Kagan. And then yeah, check out appsuma.com. Number one site online for software deals. Maybe we'll get Lem list there. Maybe there'll be some little special thing with Lemlist in the next uh month or so. >> Nice. Have a have an awesome day. Thanks for having me, man. >>