In episode 698, Rob Walling interviews Noah Kagan, CEO of AppSumo. They discuss the importance of eliminating distractions, cover strategies that led to growth in Noah’s businesses, and share insights from growing YouTube channels. Noah also shares why he decided to write his new book, Million Dollar Weekend.

Episode Sponsor:

Is your outsourced development team dropping the ball?

Maybe you’ve worked with a team that just couldn't grasp your vision and needed constant oversight because they weren’t thinking strategically. Or maybe you ended up wasting hours micromanaging, often needing to jump on late-night calls across massive time zone differences to get alignment. And in the end, they delivered a sluggish app with a frustrating UI that didn’t come close to the solution you had envisioned. If any of that sounds familiar, you need to reach out to our sponsor - DevSquad.

DevSquad provides an entire development team packed with top talent from Latin America. 

Your elite squad will include between 2 to 6 Full Stack Developers, a technical product manager, plus experts in product strategy, UI/UX design, DevOps, and QA - all working together to make your SaaS Product a success.

You can ramp up an entire product team fast, in your timezone, and at rates 75% cheaper than a comparable US-based team. And with DevSquad, you pay month to month with no long-term contracts. 

Get the committed, responsive development team that your business deserves.  

Visit DevSquad.com/startups and get 10% off the first three months of your engagement.

Topics we cover: 

• 2:38 – Making good decisions, consistently
• 5:47 – Noah’s disappointment in selling Sumo
• 13:20 – Strategies and decisions that led to growth
• 15:46 – Focus on eliminating distractions
• 20:15 – Noah returns as AppSumo CEO
• 23:20 – Making the mistake of not listening to customers
• 26:55 –Growing a YouTube Channel to 1M+ subscribers 
• 35:03 – The role of YouTube content in supporting AppSumo
• 37:11 – Building a million dollar business in a weekend

Links from the Show: 

• Register for MicroConf US in Atlanta, April 2024
• Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan
• Noah Kagan (@noahkagan) | X
• Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin
• Sumo
• AppSumo
• TidyCal
• SendFox
• KingSumo
• Noah’s YouTube Channel

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google