Million Dollar Weekend

Author:: Noah Kagan

Highlights

• ordinary people start profitable businesses every single day. You don’t have to be rich, brilliant, or super experienced. But you do have excuses that have held you back in the past. Never again. (Location 221)
  • Note: Steve jobs the world was built by people no smarter than you

New highlights added 2024-02-02 at 11:31 AM

• “I have too many ideas.” Choose the three you think will be the most fun to work with. In chapter 4, you’ll learn how to use market research and a One-Minute Business Model to determine which of your three ideas has the most potential. (Location 227)

• “Starting a business is risky. I’m nervous about quitting my job.” Risky is spending your life at a job you hate, with people you don’t like, working on problems you don’t care about. Don’t quit your day job. Leverage the Million Dollar Weekend process (chapter 5) in the early mornings, evenings, and weekends. Once you’ve validated an idea, and you’re pulling in enough to cover your minimum monthly expenses—aka the Freedom Number—then you can quit. I’ve done that twice. (Location 230)

• “I’ve started a few different businesses. They do okay and then I lose interest.” D’oh. Any one of those businesses could have been what you wanted. Not starting and not finishing both come from a similar set of fears (covered in chapter 1). You will also learn the Law of 100 to help you push past resistance when you feel like quitting. (Location 234)

• “But how will it scale?” This phrase stops you from getting your first customer. Keep it simple and easy for yourself. Don’t think about scaling, focus on starting. Then we’ll discuss scaling your business in the chapters in Part 3: Grow It. (Location 238)

• need to read more books, do more research, and be totally prepared before I can really start.” You will never feel 100 percent ready to start. You just need to start. Don’t buy another book or watch another video until you’ve worked through THIS process and started your million-dollar business. I got you. Action time (chapter 1)! (Location 244)

• “I need a technical cofounder to implement AI/VR/AR/the latest technology.” No, you need to make money first. Your customers don’t want more software, they just want solutions (chapter 3). Focus on that. There are affordable ways of validating a biz without any code. (Location 255)

• I call these three steps the Million Dollar Weekend process: 1. Find a problem people are having that you can solve. 2. Craft an irresistible solution whose million-dollar-plus potential is backed by simple market research. 3. Spend NO MONEY to quickly validate whether your idea is the real deal (or not) by preselling it before you build it. (Location 262)

• for every Michael, Jennifer, and Daniel, there were a thousand wantrepreneurs in my social media feeds who could never get started. (Location 271)

• the best way to learn what we need to know—and become who we want to be—is by just getting started. Small EXPERIMENTS, repeated over time, are the recipe for transformation in business, and life. (Location 281)

  • Note: Small experiments that scale

• FEAR OF ASKING. Soon after starting, the fear of rejection emerges. (Location 283)

• you’ll never sell a thing if you can’t face another person and ask for what you want. Whether you want them to buy what you’re selling or help in another way, you have to be able to ask in order to get. (Location 284)

  • Note: If you dont ask you dont get

• Once you reframe rejection as something desirable, the act of asking becomes a power all its own. (Location 286)

New highlights added 2024-02-02 at 3:49 PM

• From now on, everything you do in this book, and after, should be viewed as an experiment. (Location 289)

• This has been a profound shift for people who worry that “starting a business” is this big daunting thing. Experiments are supposed to fail. And should they fail, you just take what you’ve learned and try again a little bit differently. (Location 289)

• Creator’s Courage. I believe everyone is born with this courage, and for those who have lost it, this book will help you rediscover the ability to come up with ideas (starting) and have the courage to try them out (asking). (Location 298)

• Apple: Started as two guys who tried to build a computer kit that you can carry Facebook: Started as a weekend project similar to Hot or Not for college students Tesla: Started as a prototype of an electric car to convince car companies to go electric Google: Started off as a research project Airbnb: Started off in a weekend as a place to crash in someone’s living room during conferences (Location 305)

• Most people never pick up the phone, most people never ask. And that’s what separates, sometimes, the people that do things from the people that just dream about them. You gotta act. And you gotta be willing to fail. —Steve Jobs (Location 313)

• Business is just a never-ending cycle of starting and trying new things, asking whether people will pay for those things, and then trying it again based on what you’ve learned. If you’re afraid to start or ask, you can’t experiment. And if you can’t experiment, you can’t do business. (Location 315)

• The most powerful growth tool today for solopreneurs is a system of content creation, audience building, and email marketing. (Location 344)

  • Note: Its all content

• Just Fu**ing Start Begin Before You Are Ready (Location 381)

• I was beginning to see that to live well as an entrepreneur, I just needed to stop thinking so much and go get busy. That meant starting small, starting fast, and not worrying about what I didn’t know. I became an expert at taking leaps. (Location 462)

• Being unafraid to start new things meant that, unlike most people, I was constantly conducting experiments in my personal and professional lives, in both big and small ways. (Location 464)

  • Note: I start alot of things. Even new friendships

• I found my superpower, which taught me a lesson I want to pass on to you: focus above all else on being a starter, an experimenter, a learner. (Location 466)

• Defining yourself by the things you do each day (the process) will get you to where you want to be quicker and more joyfully than measuring yourself against others. (Location 470)

• fully embrace what I call the NOW, Not How Habit. (Location 501)

• When most people decide they want to start a business, their first intuition is to learn more—read a book, take a course, seek out advice—and then take action after having carefully considered all the facts. (Location 502)

  • Note: Research procrastination

• it probably makes you a lot less likely to fail, right? Wrong. Overthinking seems like the “smart” way to launch, but it’s far less effective. Super-successful people do the opposite—they take action first, get real feedback, and learn from that, which is a million times more valuable than any book or course. And quicker! (Location 506)

  • Note: Overthinking kills feedback opportunities

• Use the motto NOW, Not How. PRO TIP: Next time you are overthinking and not taking action, tell yourself to prioritize taking action NOW and don’t worry about the HOW. After you do this ONCE, you quickly get momentum and it becomes easier and more natural. (Location 512)

• Power comes when you automatically implement NOW, Not How in everything you do. So no more negotiating with yourself. You’re just a doer. Say it to yourself: NOW, Not How. (Location 521)

  • Note: When something is important - its now. Not how.

• the Freedom Number hit on the precisely right ingredients for motivating a serial starter. My number was 100 percent attainable, and the value I attached to reaching it—freedom!—was infinite, a relationship that was so motivating to me it always gave me confidence and served as an anchor in times of uncertainty. (Location 553)

  • Note: Do the target monthly income freedom number

• Many struggle to make their first dollar because they are so focused on how to make their first million. Focusing on an attainable Freedom Number—even better, just dollar number one—will change the way you think: What can YOU do in your business to make money this week? Today? Right now? (Location 561)

New highlights added 2024-02-02 at 6:18 PM

• “Love rejections! Collect them like treasure! Set rejection goals. I shoot for a hundred rejections each week, because if you work that hard to get so many noes, my little Noah’le, in them you will find a few yeses, too.” (Location 585)

• Love rejections?! Set rejection goals?! My dad reframed rejection as something desirable—so you feel good when you get it. He was saying aim for rejection! (Location 588)

• why he pushed for a hundred rejections a week: the upside of asking is unlimited and the downside is minimal. (Location 590)

• “What’s the worst that can happen?” he’d say whenever I cringed at someone turning him down. “So they said no. Who cares! And the upside of making sales is unlimited.” (Location 591)

• My mom knew this all too well. She always told me, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” and let’s just say she taught me how to squeak. (Location 601)

  • Note: Ask and you will get

• most people don’t ask for what they want. They wish for it, they make “suggestions” and drop hints, they hope. But the simple fact of business is that only by asking do you receive what you want. No ASK? No GET. That applies to every part of life. Seriously, every part. (Location 605)

  • Note: If you dont ask you dont get

• Getting money is not a matter of literally getting it. It’s a matter of RECEIVING IT, which can happen only after one asks for it. (Location 620)

• From that point forward I became an asking machine, and it’s the thing that’s produced more of my success than anything else. That’s why, in this chapter, you’re going to learn to stare down the fear of rejection that keeps most people from developing that ever-crucial Ask muscle. (Location 622)

• Getting money is not a matter of literally getting it. It’s a matter of RECEIVING IT, which can happen only after one asks for it. (Location 627)

• The illusion of eventual pain that you associate with taking that risk—what if you’re judged or look foolish or it doesn’t work?—is a straitjacket on your potential. Removing the jacket—stepping forward into the uncertainty with that first ASK (Location 628)

• I remind myself I’m going to die eventually and none of this really matters. (Location 639)

• And on top of that, would any of these people come to my funeral? No! Which is a pretty effective way to lessen the impact their rejection has on my emotions. (Location 640)

  • Note: Would these people come to my funeral?

• Remember, you could be eleven noes away from making your first million, but if you stop at the tenth rejection, you will have failed. (Location 652)

• The trick is to desensitize yourself to the pain by repeatedly exposing yourself to it. Embrace the discomfort—actively seeking it out—and use it as your compass. (Location 653)

• Always Be Asking (Location 654)

• Who is the type of person that starts a million-dollar business? The type of person who asks for what they want. If you want a new job at a new company, you have to ASK for it. (Location 655)

New highlights added 2024-02-05 at 4:46 PM

• Follow Up! Follow Up! Follow Up! Studies show that if you initially get a no,3 your follow-up ask is TWICE as likely to get a yes. (Location 668)

• At AppSumo.com, almost 50 percent of our sales come from our follow-up emails. Think about that. What a great example that follow-ups are as powerful as your first touch point. (Location 670)

• I use followup.cc for email and Siri very often to remember follow-ups. (Location 672)

  • Note: Tactic

• PRO TIP: Selling is helping. If you believe your product or service improves the lives of your customers, sales is just education. You’re helping people out. Reframing selling/asking as helping makes it exciting to offer your consulting or window-washing services or provide someone with delicious cookies. Once you accept that truth, asking becomes loads easier and feels much more like a communal gift than a selfish desire. (Location 673)

• Just do it! No overthinking; just action. Ask for 10 percent off your coffee. As I’ve seen in those that have done it, getting that hit of Creator’s Courage will help you hit your rejection goals and unlock asking’s unlimited upside. (Location 728)

• Asking is a muscle, and this challenge is the gym. Learning to ask is just like building any new habit. Start small and increase slowly. (Location 730)

• at our lowest point, we were broke and my desperation kicked in: What was our biggest problem and did others share it? Was there a solution we were capable of creating quickly? (Location 770)

  • Note: scratch your own itch

• It is deadly to build a business without first verifying that there are paying customers. (Location 780)

• when it comes to generating business ideas, customers come first. Before the product or service. Even before the idea. To build a business, you need someone to sell to. (Location 789)

• the first step in the three-part Million Dollar Weekend process, in which you’ll learn to sell ideas to a small early adopter group before you’ve built the product (or spent a cent) in order to validate that there is a market that will pay. Repeat, fast and cheap, until it hits. Experiment, experiment, experiment—BOOM! (Location 804)

• I didn’t want to do another business where my product was a nice-to-have (a vitamin)—I wanted to be a must-have (a painkiller). (Location 812)

• PRO TIP: Look for something working in one category and bring it to another. One of the largest drivers of AppSumo’s email list was giveaways. We realized this only after seeing a giveaway in a women’s fashion online site and trying it out ourselves. Sign up for and observe companies outside of your target market for inspiration. (Location 820)

• Don’t let doubt from another dissuade you from finding out the truth. The only opinion that matters is your customer’s. Your job, as a Customer First entrepreneur, is to listen to the problem your customers want solved, create a solution to it, and validate that they’ll pay for it. No one else’s. (Location 835)

  • Note: Dont listen to no. Proove no for yourself

• Here’s exactly what I sent him: SUBJECT: Promoting Imgur on Reddit TO: Alan Schaff FROM: Noah Kagan Hey Alan Huge fan of Imgur and love using your product all the time. We are launching a deal site and wanted to promote your Imgur Pro. Think we can sell 200+ of it for you at no cost or work for you. You free Friday to chat on AIM at 5pm PT? Noah Kagan (Location 840)

  • Note: Amazinbg pitch script

• creating a fully functional site for the deal would have cost money and time, so here’s where it gets interesting: (Location 858)

• found a $12 an hour developer from Pakistan to help me add a PayPal button to a web page. That was 4 hours of work, and I did everything else on my own. Total time to build AppSumo.com: 48 hours. Total cost to build AppSumo.com: $50. (Location 859)

  • Note: Do most of the heavy lifting yourself. When you hit a tech roadblock hire a freelancer

• The first dollar is always the sweetest. It’s momentum. It’s possibility. It’s fear getting its ass kicked. (Location 865)

  • Note: Validation is worth the sweat

• PRO TIP: Focus on Zero to $1. Get that first dollar. That will create your momentum and build your belief in what you’re working on. Every company I started began with just one customer. Scaling comes later. (Location 866)

  • Note: Focus on step 1. Day 1. Now not how.

• MVP is an important idea, but it leaves out something crucial: the customers. Who are you actually going to sell your minimum viable product to? And what if they don’t want the minimum? What if they’re willing to try something only from a full-fledged company with a name brand? Good luck iterating on your MVP without customers. (Location 873)

  • Note: This is a challenge

• The problem with MVPs and older entrepreneurial approaches is, we get so fixated on what we want to make that we lose sight of the people who want it. (Location 877)

  • Note: Customer first and leads always

• I call this the Founder First mentality, in which entrepreneurs focus on their own experience (Yay, I get to build something!) instead of Customer First. (Location 878)

  • Note: Customer first. Not founder first. Ask first.

• you have an idea for a dog-walking app. How would you go about doing it? Here’s the way most people—most wantrepreneurs—would do it: (Location 882)

  • Note: This is hilarious. I feel seen. And hurt.

• Now we are going to use a Customer First Approach to explore our idea for a dog-walking app: 1. Call or text three people right now who have dogs and ask them to pay you to walk their dog. 2. Turns out none of these dog owners have problems walking their dog. You discover their real problem is finding dog sitters when they’re traveling. 3. Ask for their next travel dates and have them pay you a deposit. They pay: jackpot! (Location 893)

New highlights added 2024-02-08 at 3:32 PM

• seasoned entrepreneurs almost always find and create opportunities within the context of who they are, what they know, and especially who they know. (Location 917)

• the business validation process begins with potential customers in the entrepreneur’s orbit. Actual people with names. Tribes you belong to or are interested in, most of whom are already self-organized online. People you know how to reach, today. (Location 918)

New highlights added 2024-02-09 at 11:04 PM

• CHALLENGE Top three groups. Let’s write out your top three groups to target. Who do you have easy access to that you’d be EXCITED to help? This can be your neighbors, colleagues, religious friends, golf buddies, cooking friends, etc. (Location 932)

• The better you understand your target group, the better you can speak to them. (Location 935)

  • Note: Target/message fit. Matt Lerner

• Note how this process prioritizes communication with people, through starting (taking the first iteration of your solution straight to customers) and asking (engaging them in a conversation to determine how your solution can best fix their problem). (Location 936)

• Business creation should always be a conversation! (Location 938)

• Nearly every impulse we have is to be tight with our ideas by doing more research, going off alone to build the perfect product—anything and everything to avoid the discomfort of asking for money. This is the validation shortcut. You have to learn to fight through this impulse. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it. (Location 938)

• Become a Problem Seeker The best entrepreneurs are the most dissatisfied. They’re always thinking of how things can be better. Your frustrations—and the frustrations of others—are your business opportunities. (Location 941)

  • Note: Seek better problems. Use search tools. Identify trends and build fast

• Great ideas come from being a problem seeker. Analyze frustrations in your day, including the things that bother you at home, waste your time on your commute to work, or online. (Location 943)

• The crucial first step toward entrepreneurship is to study your own unhappiness and to think of solutions (aka business opportunities) for you to sell. (Location 949)

• built AppSumo because I couldn’t find great discounts on the best business apps; our team built SumoMe because we needed a tool to grow our email list; we launched TidyCal.com because we were tired of monthly subscriptions of competitors; and there’s more. (Location 960)

• The Idea Generators (Location 966)

• Your job as a problem seeker is to go to a community of yours. You can access all the idea challenges and more examples at MillionDollarWeekend.com. (Location 977)

• Use the following four challenges to come up with at least ten potentially profitable ideas: (Location 979)

• Here are four questions to get you going: 1. What is one thing this morning that irritated me? 2. What is one thing on my to-do list that’s been there over a week? 3. What is one thing that I regularly fail to do well? 4. What is one thing I wanted to buy recently only to find out that no one made it? (Location 989)

• Idea: You can pick a vertical where people can give you requirements and you find whatever they are looking for. (Location 998)

• Idea: Interior designers are for rich people. This business would be much simpler (and less expensive): I send someone a photo of my place, giving my preferences, and they put together a Pinterest page of suggestions for me. (Location 1002)

• Idea: Meetup is good for groups, but it’d be nice if some person or website could connect me with individuals to join me on these activities. Lately I’ve been wanting new activity partners for things I’m doing. The website or service would be similar to Meetup but more on the individual level. (Location 1005)

• CHALLENGE Solve your own problems. Use the questions to find three ideas. Write those down in your MDW Journal. (Location 1008)

• CHALLENGE Bestsellers are your best friends. Write down two accessorizing ideas in your MDW Journal. (Location 1017)

• Remember: This is just an exercise. That means anything goes—you have my blessing to write down all the bad, crazy, and nonsense ideas that come into your mind. DO NOT EDIT YOURSELF. Do not think, But how could that work? Just write as many down as you can. We’ll whittle them down later. (Location 1019)

• One of my favorite ways to find ideas is by studying the marketplaces where people are TRYING to spend money. Your potential customers are everywhere already asking in public for solutions (Location 1022)

• Marketplaces on Craigslist, Etsy, or Facebook have millions of people each day wanting to pay to have their problems solved. (Location 1025)

• look for frequent requests on Craigslist gigs from people actively searching for someone to give their money to in exchange for particular services. (Location 1026)

• Check completed listings on eBay. This allows you to see how well certain products are selling. (Location 1027)

• Search Engine Queries (Location 1033)

• work backwards from a problem people want solved (a query) toward a solution they may be willing to pay for. (Location 1035)

  • Note: Use ahrefs

• Evaluate the most popular questions (or lack thereof) and see if you can create a product or service around those requests. To figure out which questions are more likely to result in a successful business, ask yourself: Is the potential solution a vitamin (a nice-to-have) or a painkiller (a must-have)? (Location 1039)

• I also use Reddit.com as a gold mine for business ideas. It is one of the largest message boards online. Go to the r/SomebodyMakeThis subreddit where people are ACTIVELY offering up ideas and look for the first two things that interest you. (Location 1041)

• CHALLENGE Search engine queries. Use search engine questions and Reddit forums to find two more ideas. Write them in your MDW Journal. (Location 1047)

• choose the ones you believe will be easiest to implement—and that you (and ideally other customers) would be thrilled to spend money on. That’s it! (Location 1056)

• Don’t worry if you think your ideas suck or are too hard. The real value is learning to create, assess, and validate ideas. In the next chapter, you’ll learn how to determine whether you have a million-dollar opportunity on your hands. (Location 1057)

• “Is this a million-dollar opportunity?” You’ll research the market to find out. (Location 1083)

  • Note: Research effectively

• “What’s my model?” You’ll create a simple budget by sketching out revenue, cost, and profit, so you know how many units you’ll need to sell and for how much to make $1 million. (Location 1084)

  • Note: How will i scale to TAM?

• “What if it turns out it’s not going to work?” You’ll pivot and evolve: You’ll use customer feedback to adjust the variables of the business (pricing, model, offer, category—all that) into something bigger and better. (Location 1086)

  • Note: What are the altitude markers to pull the parachute?

• You have limited resources to pursue the ideas you believe are winners. And if you’re going to work hard either way, might as well work on the idea with the most upside. (Location 1088)

  • Note: Business and lifestyle design to optimise for asymmetric upside

• Step 1. Find $1 Million Worth of Customers (Location 1092)

• You, dear reader, are a surfer. What you’re selling—the product or service—is your surfboard. The market is the wave, and the wave is what matters most. Even if you’re a great surfer with an amazing board, you will still fail if you don’t have a good wave to ride. (Location 1092)

  • Note: Find the best wave and selling trend

• A tidal wave would be ideal, but any good big wave is just fine. Now, don’t think that finding a great wave means you have to be in Hot New Tech. You can find awesome waves everywhere. If you are in the midst of a big underserved lawn-care market, then landscaping is a Big Wave Business—seriously! (Location 1095)

• A good wave isn’t about being cool; it’s about having customers. What I’m saying here is that your job is not to create demand for something that seems exciting, it’s to find existing demand and satisfy it. (Location 1111)

• In order to have a million-dollar business, you need a million-dollar opportunity. It’s that simple. Thing is, how do you prove you have one? (Location 1127)

• There are two key questions to answer to make sure it’s a million-dollar opportunity: (Location 1132)

• Is the overall market dying, flat, or growing? You want flat or ideally growing! (Location 1133)

• Is this a million-dollar opportunity? To figure that out, we have to know the number of potential customers and the price of your product. (Location 1134)

  • Note: Use tools to find TAM. Validate with traffic and lead gen

• Is the market growing or dying? Search Google Trends (Location 1140)

• How many potential customers are there? I’d highly recommend using Facebook Ads to research your market size. Facebook is pretty much the entire world, and what’s phenomenal is that they actually let you type in the keyword of whatever business category you’re thinking about and see the approximate audience size. You can also use the Facebook Ads Library to see every single active ad running on Facebook for your keyword and location, which is super helpful for uncovering competitors and getting ideas for your own marketing efforts. (Location 1144)

• Step 2. Is This a Million-Dollar Opportunity? (Location 1160)

• Here are the major things you’re looking for: Pick a price point you think will be ideal for your customer. Multiply that by the number of ideal customers. Does that equal at least a million dollars? Yes or no? Simple! (Location 1164)

• Now let’s evaluate that on our beard oil idea: Google Trends: Flat with some growth Size of market: 2,500,000 people Cost of your product: $50 Total Value: $125,000,000 Million-dollar idea? YES! (Location 1166)

• Look, this is a SUPER-simple way to evaluate a million-dollar opportunity. Don’t be a wantrepreneur and waste time calculating revenue to the exact cent or fretting about the optimal price point. (Location 1168)

• Step 3. The One-Minute Business Model (Location 1182)

• let’s see what it would take to generate your own $1 million in profit. Revenue – Cost = Profit. These determine if you can make your first million dollars. (Location 1184)

• Revenue (all the money you make) – Cost (how much it costs to make it) = Profit (what you get to take home) (Location 1187)

• It’s not always so simple. Sometimes you’ll be playing with the numbers and realize you’ll need to rethink some aspects of the business, as I did early on in the jerky challenge. (Location 1205)

• After accepting the challenge from my business students and spending around three minutes deciding to call it Sumo Jerky after everybody vetoed noahsajerk.com, I was on the StairMaster at the gym talking to my colleague Anton, discussing how easy this would be when I started the next morning. (Location 1206)

• How do I do bigger deals per transaction? What about a subscription service? (Location 1223)

• If I could sell subscriptions, I could dramatically cut the number of sales I needed to make. If they were all three-month subscriptions, I’d need to sell only 67. And six-month? Only 33. (Location 1224)

• PRO TIP: When you’re launching a business, always ask yourself: is this going to be a one-off purchase, something customers buy here and there when they want to consume it, or can you make it a monthly recurring sale? (Location 1228)

• It’s always better to be in the reorder business. —John Paul Jones DeJoria, founder of Paul Mitchell and Patrón Spirits (Location 1231)

• Step 4. Pivot and Evolve—Your Revenue Dials Almost every successful business had to pivot or change course along the way. (Location 1233)

• Here are the six Revenue Dials you can use: (Location 1240)

• 1. Average order value: Increase the amount someone purchases. (Location 1241)

• Frequency: Increase how often someone will buy your service. (Location 1242)

• 3. Price point: Increase or decrease your price point to affect total sales. (Location 1243)
• 4. Customer type: Approach a more lucrative/wealthier customer segment. (Location 1245)
• 5. Product line: Add additional products to make the business more attractive to start. (Location 1246)
• 6. Add-on services: If you’re selling a product like cookies, can you offer a service like setting up birthday parties or cooking at the person’s home? (Location 1247)

• The Million-Dollar Opportunity Challenge For the challenge of this chapter, we’re going to see whether your idea is a million-dollar opportunity. (Location 1253)

• Now which business idea to pick? The first one on your list! (Location 1254)

• The hard part is not choosing which business idea. The hard part is getting customers. And that’s where you’ll focus first. (Location 1255)

• The real goal here is less which idea is golden and more putting in the reps of checking market size before we validate later. (Location 1256)

• Don’t get in your own way, wondering which idea is best. 1. Pick one business idea. 2. Make sure it’s a million-dollar opportunity. 3. Confirm your business idea is profitable. (Location 1258)

• start with the problem that is most exciting for you to solve yourself. (Location 1263)

• check the market size: VIEW FULL DESCRIPTION If your idea is worth pursuing, now we have to make sure it’s profitable. (Location 1265)

• Calculate your profit: VIEW FULL DESCRIPTION (Location 1267)

• Then let’s see if YOU can make a million dollars doing this business: VIEW FULL DESCRIPTION (Location 1269)

New highlights added 2024-02-13 at 7:54 AM

• This process saves you the time from working on ideas with little potential. (Location 1274)

• use this on a few of your ideas to compare the opportunities. Your dream may not be making a million dollars. This exercise helps you recognize your likelihood of succeeding to whatever Freedom Number you want! (Location 1274)

• Validation is finding three customers in forty-eight hours who will give you money for your idea. (Location 1301)

• I’ve used the Validation process for every business venture I’ve started—including Sumo Jerky. (Location 1302)

• Every potential business idea can be instantly verified, like your own magic wand. (Location 1304)

• benefits of Validation are immediate and critical: 1. You don’t waste time. 2. You save money. 3. You find out if you can actually get customers for your idea. 4. You get money up front. 5. You light a fire under your butt to get moving. And by saving time and money, Validation will ultimately allow you to test as many of your ideas as possible. (Location 1305)

• Theoretically you can test fifty-two ideas per year—COMFORTABLY—but that’s not necessary because this method will likely take you only three to five weekends at most before you strike gold! (Location 1311)

• The Golden Rule of Validation Much like the Validation process my Monthly1K students made me use for Sumo Jerky, to validate, I turn to the Golden Rule of Validation: Find three customers in forty-eight hours who will give you money for your idea. (Location 1313)

• You’re allowed only forty-eight hours. Limitations breed creativity. Having a tight time limit will cut off the doubting wantrepreneur inside you and force you to iterate fast and be creative until you find something that works. (Location 1317)

• Get your first three customers. Your first customer is a friend, the second customer is someone in your family, but your third customer is HARD. You think this is easy? Then get three customers. Don’t worry about building a business, we are ONLY validating your idea. And if it’s this hard now, it’ll ONLY get harder. (Location 1319)

• Collect money up front. The promise of payment is not validation. That’s polite rejection. Getting customers to hand over their dollars makes it real. But you need to get real money, from real people. Services like PayPal, Stripe, Cash App, and Venmo make collecting it easy these days. (Location 1321)

• Direct Preselling My favorite way to validate the market for a product is to make real contact with real people, tell them what I’m selling, ask for money, and see how they react. (Location 1327)

• Your Dream Ten List for Preselling (Location 1354)

• create the first ten people you’re going to contact for preselling. Your aim is to determine which ones are likely to be the easiest to be your ideal customers. (Location 1355)

• create a spreadsheet with ten rows. These are going to be your Dream Ten prospects: ideal people you want to validate your business idea with. (Location 1357)

• Go after markets and businesses where you have influence so it’s easier to succeed. (Location 1369)

  • Note: And create influence via becoming a kpi

• with your Dream Ten, I really recommend you turn the ask into an exploratory conversation, to allow for more learning. (Location 1380)

• These people really know you and they’ll be happy to give you time, so use it to extract what most excites them about your product or not so you can tweak it. (Location 1381)

• It’s crucial to really listen and write down their problems, because you’re looking for the pain they’re feeling and how valuable it would be for them to give you money. (Location 1392)

• PRO TIP: Presenting your offer as a comparison can make it easier for your customer to understand. “We are like X but Y.” For example, we are like your competitor but twice as cheap. Research shows we better understand the world when something is presented as a contrast with something else. (Location 1406)

• When you validate, you have to get comfortable with potentially selling a product before you’ve actually made it. Clearly explain when it will be delivered. Because people are fine with giving you money in advance, as long as you set clear expectations. (Location 1413)

New highlights added 2024-02-14 at 10:23 PM

• PRO TIP: Always follow up by sending an email to your first customers asking for feedback. Feedback is a gift you can continually use to improve yourself and your business. (Location 1418)

• every rejection is an opportunity; you can use it to take a deep dive into customer problems. Remember the Rejection Goals from chapter 2. Rejections are TREASURE. (Location 1422)

• 1. “Why not?” It’s really easy to get scared from attacking this one head-on, because what happens if their criticism is right? But that’s exactly what you want to know! (Location 1428)
• 2. “Who is one person you know who would really like this?” Always, always, always ask for a referral! Be specific about what kind of referral and use a number; this makes it highly effective. (Location 1430)
• 3. “What would make this a no-brainer for you?” If they don’t want your product, maybe they’d want something related to it. If they don’t want to pay for your (Location 1432)
• 4. “What would you pay for that?” One of the hardest things in a startup is setting prices. Getting potential customers to say what they’d pay is pure gold! (Location 1434)

• Almost every business idea is guaranteed to fail on the first try. (Location 1460)

• Instagram started as1 a bourbon app. Slack started as2 a gaming app. Keep validating. Turn rejection into improvements. Feedback is gold. (Location 1460)

• PRO TIP: Active communications—calls and texts—work a lot better than passive ones, like posting on Facebook or Twitter and waiting for replies. Try to Direct Message (DM) people, or whatever enables you to get the fastest response time possible. (Location 1466)

  • Note: Direct and personal is more effective than passive scale
• 2. Marketplaces A classic way to validate your product is to use marketplaces—sites like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Reddit, or whatever you have locally. (Location 1469)
  • Note: This is directly from 1k course

• The point is, I didn’t try to find a manufacturer. I didn’t make a website. I didn’t try to test the disc. I just said, “Will anyone actually give me money for this?” And people did. I sold twenty of them and got an online manufacturer to make them and shipped them to customers. (Location 1484)

• Another good technique involves posting on social media where you have an audience of people. (Location 1486)

  • Note: Create an audience first
• 3. Landing Pages One really popular approach is to set up a simple landing page using a cheap or free service. Currently Instapage, Unbounce, and ClickFunnels are popular landing page tools. Find the latest landing page tools at MillionDollarWeekend.com. (Location 1493)
  • Note: Make a landing page with ai tools

• Then they run a bunch of ads to send people to the site and see if people actually will enter an email address to get on the mailing list, or even preorder the product. (Location 1495)

• My recommendation for you is if you feel you have to do this, limit your work to forty-eight hours so you won’t spend a bunch of time fruitlessly playing with your ads and landing pages or wasting money. (Location 1498)

• If you go this route, don’t overthink the design, the name, the language, the ads, or any of that. Just focus on seeing if you can get people to buy your product! (Location 1511)

• CHALLENGE Validation. Your challenge is to get at least three paying customers within forty-eight hours. (Location 1513)

  • Note: This is noahs 1k

• Social Media Is for Growth … How to create your inner circle of a hundred true fans (shout-out, Kevin Kelly, for the inspiration) in thirty days, choose the right platform for you, and keep it growing with your unfair advantage. (Location 1536)

• Email Is for Profit. How to lead this audience into your ATM—your email list—so that you can convert them from an audience to customers. (Location 1538)

• “Of course you were able to raise such a crazy amount,” I hear you responding, my dear reader. “You have a huge audience!” But here’s the remarkable thing: when I went down the list of 102 names of people who donated to Bo Bikes Bama, I recognized nearly every name! I had interacted with these people. I’d given them business advice. I occasionally just said, “You’re doing great, keep going.” (Location 1571)

  • Note: Your closest circle will help you the most. Nurture them

• marketing guru Seth Godin calls2 your “smallest viable audience” or what Wired magazine3 cofounder Kevin Kelly has called “1,000 true fans”—all built by connecting with people whose particular challenges and interests overlapped with my particular skills and passions. (Location 1575)

  • Note: Reach out to people who know you first. Then expand your reach. Content in parallel to testing and validating

• The lifetime value, not to mention the lifelong joy, generated by a community of 100 high-value, attentive fans who know, like, and trust you will dwarf whatever short-term satisfaction you may get from having 10,000 low-value, inattentive followers. (Location 1579)

  • Note: Quality with conversion beats quantity

• A community who already knows you, who follows you, who is rooting for you is one of the most powerful forces in business, and it’s created through generosity. Adding value without expectation. Helping them with their journey without asking for an immediate return. (Location 1583)

• I’ve spent twenty years giving out free content to people through OkDork and AppSumo. So when I finally said, “Hey, I’m raising money for charity. Do you guys want to contribute?” it was easy for me to ask, and saying yes was a no-brainer for my community. It takes time to build a real audience. (Location 1586)

  • Note: It takes years of consistant output. But now. Not how

• The network of people who helped make my success possible were built by putting myself out there, building my businesses in public, failures and all. For instance, Seth Godin responded to one of my blog posts, enabling me to meet him (my marketing idol). And I got the Mint job because of building in public. (Location 1591)

  • Note: Build in public. Learn in public. Leave learning exhaust and build friend magnets

• Name drop alert: Because I kept putting myself out there, I also met Tim Ferriss, Andrew Chen, Mike Posner, Bo Jackson, James Clear, Ryan Holiday, Firefox co-creator Blake Ross, bestselling author Ramit Sethi, and even my coauthor, Tahl Raz. Meeting people like this is one of the best things in life. (Location 1593)

• I’ve never deliberately “built a personal brand.” I was always just myself. I liked sharing. I was honest and transparent. People get hooked on CHARACTERS. People do business with REAL PEOPLE. Especially those who feel like a friend. (Location 1595)

• he wanted my advice on starting a newsletter. He thought his problem was that he didn’t know the process. But the mechanics come down to figuring out how to embrace and amplify your uniqueness in a way that attracts people to become friends and customers. (Location 1610)

  • Note: Friendcatchers
• 1. He defines who he is, 2. Why you should trust him, 3. What he is passionate about, and 4. What unique thing this prepares him to do for you. (Location 1620)
  • Note: This is your unique big pitch

• The key principle is to start right now to build your audience and then move them to your email list (Location 1679)

• Update your bio. Choose your one platform, and using the unique angle pitch you wrote out before, clean up and rewrite your profile/bio on that platform to reflect who you are and how you help your ideal customer. Here’s my bio: Chief Sumo at @AppSumo. 30 at Facebook. Helping entrepreneurs at Okdork.com. (Location 1684)

• Ali uses what I call the Content Circle Framework. The basic idea is to start with specific topics for a tiny circle to build raving fans, then slowly expand your circle of content to influence larger groups of people. (Location 1699)

• Here are the three steps: 1. Core Circle: Start with a very narrow audience. Ali started with the medical school exams for British people. Your niche within a niche can be the most obscure thing imaginable, as long as it makes you and your audience pas sionate. (Location 1701)

  • Note: This would be pkm, note making and journalling.
• 2. Medium Circle: As you move bigger, your content should overlap somewhat with what concerns your Core Circle, but it should appeal to a broader audience. Ali started talking about studying and productivity in general, since that’s required for all students. (Location 1704)
  • Note: Expand to book notes for entrepreneurs. Synthesis of research, new mental models and startup process
• 3. Large Circle: Here you go for the largest audience possible that’s still related. Some of Ali’s most watched videos are about his salary—made possible by his medical video fame—or the latest Apple product—which he uses to increase productivity. All the circles should still include your core audience but keep expanding your circle of influence. (Location 1706)

• What is something everyone thinks is true—but you think is wrong? (Location 1731)

• What is something nobody in your target market is talking about—but should be? (Location 1731)

• What are the biggest mistakes people in your market are making—but are totally blind to? (Location 1732)

• your audience wants to learn something from you that’s relevant, useful, and surprising. And they want to do that by going on a journey with you. (Location 1733)

• CHALLENGE Create your own Content Circle. Think back to your validation days: Who are the customers you want to appeal to and what’s the outcome you can create content for? What’s the unique point of view in your content they’d be excited to hear about? Formula = Outcome you’ll deliver + the target market Core Circle: Medium Circle: Large Circle: (Location 1734)

• people don’t want to be lectured at by an all-knowing guru—they want to tag along with a guide. (Location 1741)

• The cool thing with becoming your audience’s guide is it makes them want to interact with you. (Location 1753)

• Getting your audience involved helps them feel like an integral part of the show, which boosts the chances they’ll engage with your videos, which pushes your content up the rankings—and attracts even more subscribers. (Location 1756)

• The actual monetary offer wasn’t any better than the offers I put in my earlier emails. The big difference was the copy. It was an authentic person on the page, struggling, telling jokes, laughing, and teaching. And … My email list loved the new me. We made $9,563 in profit in twenty-four hours! By putting personality into the email, we made nearly a hundred times more money! (Location 1791)

• All it took was a bad joke and a hundred times increase in revenue to make me rethink how I communicated with my email list. The email was FUN. It wasn’t pure utility. Sales have repeatedly been shown to go UP when the people selling are enjoying themselves. (Location 1825)

• Neville’s email changed all of that. It gave me permission to make who I am a part of how I market and sell. More important, it opened my eyes to the singular power of email. I now could see how social media, telling stories, and email could create a really large business. (Location 1832)

• Honestly, the number one regret of just about every entrepreneur I know is this: “I wish I started my email list sooner.” Don’t be that person. Email marketing needs to be your new best friend. (Location 1867)

• A healthy email list has3 a 20 percent open rate. Target that. Having a bond that leads people to open your emails—not the size of the list—is where the power of email lies. (Location 1880)

• Julien Marion, a Monthly1K student, did a landing page for his business Sleep Sumo, helping people sleep better. (Location 1886)

New highlights added 2024-02-16 at 6:49 PM

• within two weeks, his email list grew from 0 to over 1,000 subscribers! Just putting out a great free piece of content and incentivizing the readers with a Lead Magnet (the free growth hacks spreadsheet for those who signed up) worked! (Location 1944)

• Using a Lead Magnet gives people an incentive to join your email list vs. just asking people to sign up. (Location 1954)

  • Note: Russel brunson and alex hormozi

• four examples of Lead Magnets I use: (Location 1957)

  • Note: Guides, bookes, calculator, templates

• A checklist that can be used to properly perform something I explained in a video. (Location 1957)

• A template for determining, say, a business’s profit margin. (Location 1958)

• An advanced guide that goes further into the details of a subject of one of my videos. (Location 1959)

• A unique book that provides substantial value but is offered for free. For me, it is 11 Side Hustle Ideas to Make $500/Day from Your Phone. (Location 1959)

• YouTuber Nick True at Mapped Out Money,5 who makes video tutorials that teach the best practices for using the personal budgeting software YNAB, found that he gets the highest sign-up rates when he offers a checklist that relates to the video. His followers really like having a resource that they can use to put his advice into practice. (Location 1963)

• Jess Dante of Love and London runs a YouTube channel helping viewers plan their trips to London by suggesting lesser-known restaurants and stores to visit. Her superstar opt-in6 incentive is a free London 101 Guide with everything a first-time visitor needs to know. It’s been downloaded more than 45,000 times. (Location 1967)

• CHALLENGE Create a Lead Magnet. It’s time to create your first Lead Magnet using the process we’ve just outlined above. You can use your piece of content from the previous chapter as a base or start something new. Don’t spend more than two hours on the first iteration. If you want to turn it into a big thing later on, great. But start SMALL. Go to MillionDollarWeekend.com to get Lead Magnet templates! (See what I did there?) (Location 1973)

• Set Up Your Cash Register What’s your first action after you read a really great book? You go look for other books by that author. Right? Point is, if people like your stuff, they want more. (Location 1978)

  • Note: CTA for people finding more if your work

• set up an autoresponder and hit them up right away. And better yet, send them your BEST stuff so you know they’ll have a great experience when they’re dining at the email restaurant of you. (Location 1983)

  • Note: Create email onboarding flows

• I recommend SendFox.com, but you can use Mailchimp.com or ConvertKit.com as well. (Location 1988)

• every time someone joins my list, I ask one question in my Welcome Email: “What could I write to provide value to you?” (Location 2006)

  • Note: On first interaction create an informal survey for feedback

• A MAJOR thing here is one-by-one marketing. This is personally engaging with each new subscriber. When you’re starting out, every single person matters. (Location 2007)

• you should respond to every single new subscriber. I STILL do this for nearly every single email and did for most of my YouTube comments. (Location 2009)

  • Note: Make time to respond to early subscribers. Keep them engaged and hooked. You will stand out

• I always advise sending your best Content Email (free course, best articles or videos, content most useful for your audience, etc.) in the beginning. The reason is simple. For each subscriber, open rates usually start high, then decline after a few emails. So show subscribers your best work to minimize that decline. (Location 2015)

• CHALLENGE Set up an autoresponder. I happen to think7 SendFox.com (I helped build it) is pretty darned good, but there are a bunch of others that I recommend, like ConvertKit.com and Mailchimp.com. Go to MillionDollarWeekend.com for a free tutorial and templates you can copy for yourself. (Location 2018)

• Whatever you put yourself to, do it 100 times before you even THINK of stopping. This stops you from succumbing12 to what Seth Godin calls “the dip,” the moment in a long slog between starting and when mastery sets in where you start hating the work and you want to quit. (Location 2041)

  • Note: Law of 100

• Lean in and commit to 100 reps. (Think of this as doing reps and practicing as opposed to failing or succeeding.) This changes your mindset and makes it much easier to sustain forward motion when things get tough. (Location 2047)

• The key is to set up a system that helps you get your 100 reps done without thinking about the results. (Location 2049)

  • Note: Dont think about the lagging indicators. Focus on your tiny habits, micro actions and output

• The solution to all the doubt that will inevitably creep up on you is to commit to your first 100—whatever it is for you—with complete disregard for your results. (Location 2050)

  • Note: Your first 100 videos will suck

• If you want to start a YouTube channel, publish 100 videos. (Location 2051)

• If you’re doing a newsletter, write 100 emails. (Location 2051)

• If you’re starting a new hobby like chess or guitar, practice for 100 days. (Location 2052)

• If you’re creating a business, directly pitch 100 customers. (Location 2052)

• For the first 100, it’s about your doing it, rather than anyone else’s liking it. (Location 2054)

• The lesson here is to do today what you need in order to reach your end goal. Step by step. Session by session. Video by video and email by email. With each iteration, you keep improving, a little bit. (Location 2056)

• The Law of 100 is about the power of consistency—the only way to get to greatness. (Location 2057)

• CHALLENGE The Law of 100. Commit to doing 100 emails, posts, or whatever action will move you closer to your goals. To live up to your commitment, use the Law of 100 Grid below to track your progress—and don’t break the chain! (Location 2058)

• Here are my five exact questions to create your own marketing plan (and if you want to see the original Mint marketing plan, go to Million DollarWeekend.com): 1. What is your one goal for this year? 2. Who exactly is your customer and where can you find them? 3. What is one marketing activity you can double down on? 4. How can you delight your first 100 customers? 5. If you HAD to double your business with no money in thirty days, what would you do? (Location 2077)

• Set a single hyper-focused exact goal. (Location 2090)

• A laser focus on the outcome and strict prioritizing drove the company to where it is today. (Location 2095)

  • Note: Facebook getting to 1 billion users

• you need to set a goal. That means choosing a number. For AppSumo in the beginning, the goal was 100,000 email addresses. (Location 2097)

• We noticed that if we could grow that number, everything else grew, too. (Location 2098)

  • Note: What is your north star metric?

• Before you paddle quickly in the wrong direction, we MUST quickly try different marketing experiments to figure out which ones we can double down on. The best way to do this is by using an Experiment-Based Marketing list to plan and track your marketing strategies. (Location 2124)

  • Note: Create a tactical experiment marketing list

• we worked backwards from his goal to determine how many he wanted to sell to get to $4,000 a month. Goal. (Location 2138)

• $4,000 profit a month The glasses sell for $60 a pair with shipping He makes $24 per pair sold $4,000/$24 = 166 glasses sold each month Basically, 5 to 6 pairs of glasses a day (Location 2140)

  • Note: Using your freedom number, work backwards to figure out sales

• can’t stress how important this is, so I’ll repeat it again: WORK BACKWARDS FROM YOUR GOAL! (Location 2143)

• we created a list of every rock-climbing store offline and online in Canada. 1. Search Google for “rock climbing Vancouver” or search “rock climbing” on Yelp. 2A. Go to websites listed and get the owner’s name (if possible), email, and phone number. OR 2B. Hire someone on Fiverr.com or Craigslist to go through every listing and add them on a sheet. (Location 2156)

  • Note: Outsource boring list building

• CHALLENGE Who’s your customer? Describe to me who your ideal customer is. The MORE specific the better. Think about their gender, age, location, and anything else that makes them unique. (Location 2203)

• where can you find more of these ideal customers? Look where you found your previous ones and ask your existing customers! (Location 2205)

• Here’s the exact message I still send to people to this day: Hey Maria, Thank you so much for being a customer. Where’s the one specific place you’d expect to learn about my product? (Location 2206)

• CHALLENGE Where are your customers? Now list at least five places your customers are and how many sales in thirty days you think you can get from them. (Location 2240)

• Find what works and double down on it; find what doesn’t work and kill it. (Location 2245)

  • Note: Growth marketing golden rule

• CHALLENGE What marketing strategies can I double down on? Let’s update your original marketing experiments sheet with actual sales. This should make it obvious which experiments to double down on and which ones to kill. (Location 2265)

• Make Your First 100 Customers Happier How would you double your business if you COULD NOT get any new customers? (Location 2271)

  • Note: Retention and upselling

• “What is one thing we can do today that will make you twice as happy with us?” (Location 2298)

• CHALLENGE Make your customers happy. Ask one customer: “What is one thing I can do today that will make you twice as happy with us?” TLDR of Growth In your MDW journal, answer these five questions: 1. What is your one goal for this year? 2. Who exactly is your customer and where can you find them? 3. What is one marketing activity you can double down on? 4. How can you delight your first 100 customers? 5. If you HAD to double your business with no money in thirty days, what would you do? (Location 2304)

• I’ve learned this: the first step to getting all you want in the world is allowing yourself to want it—and facing the fears necessary to be able to get what you want. (Location 2354)

• CHALLENGE Let’s share your story of success to help others. Just as you learned from Daniel, your words can inspire someone else. Send an email to noah@MillionDollarWeekend.com or post on social media and tag me @noahkagan with how you’ve improved your life. I’ll share it on MillionDollarWeek end.com. The fact you’re reading and taking action is leading you in the right direction. (Location 2371)

• Dream Year Checklist Imagine your best year ever. Close your eyes. Picture eating Chipotle with all the guacamole you want, you’re making your Freedom Number, you spend half your day researching plants ’cause you love it, and you get to live in multiple places. Your dreams can become reality only if you think about what you really want. (Location 2388)

  • Note: Create a dream year from your dreamline and cost it out to tmi

• CHALLENGE Write out your Dream Year. Make the checklist detailed and specific. (Location 2413)

• CHALLENGE Find one person to send your yearly goals to. This can be someone who invested $1 in you early on, a friend … anyone you trust to check in with you regularly and challenge you on your BS as they help you follow through on your promises. (Location 2437)

• CHALLENGE Yearly goals list. Use the four categories to flush out your yearly goals. (Location 2441)

  • Note: Use life categories

• Show me YOUR calendar and I’ll tell you what’s most important to you. Since we’ve created your goals, we now take those items and place them in your calendar every week. (Location 2453)

• Here’s my calendaring system: Put everything in a Category. Assign a Color Code to your categories. Schedule with color your key weekly priorities. Perform a weekly Sunday accountability (p)review. I’m not telling you how to spend your time—instead, I’m giving you the systems to make sure you’re allocating time toward your goals. (Location 2455)

• PRO TIP: Front-load your priorities, meaning if your main goal is YouTube, focus on it earlier in the week to make sure you’re getting done what matters most. I get tired as the week goes on, so I put my most important tasks on Monday and Tuesday. (Location 2470)

  • Note: Front load the most important things. Eat the frog first

New highlights added 2024-02-16 at 10:33 PM

• How do I pick what to actually do each week? Every Sunday, I spend fifteen minutes looking over the past week and setting my tasks for the next one. This is your chance to revisit your yearly goals and choose activities each week to move you closer toward your goals. (Location 2478)

  • Note: Sunday weekly reviews

• How do I know if these tasks are moving me in the right direction of my goal? During my Sunday review I also take my previous Sunday’s goals and see how I did against them. This is my chance to evaluate if it moved the needle toward my yearly goal. It’s not to judge or shame yourself, but to keep yourself accountable and continually improve. (Location 2481)

  • Note: Leading indicators and actions taken. Measure and manage your weekly output

• How can I double down on activities that move me toward my goals? Whichever activities you love or help you with your goals, put those on repeat. My motto: The more things that are on repeat, the better. If every Monday and Thursday you do three hours of YouTube work starting at one p.m., it becomes habitual. And every Tuesday night I go biking; it’s automatic. If the important tasks are automatically added, you free up your brain to focus on the more complex issues that give you energy and move you toward your goals. (Location 2486)

  • Note: Build tiny habits into your schedule

• Never Entrepreneur Alone Ninety percent of my net worth comes from meeting people. (Location 2492)

  • Note: ai wont replace friends and human connection

• Great entrepreneurs have great entrepreneurial communities. There’s no such thing as self-made. Everyone is team-made. (Location 2498)

• You’re going to get frustrated and lonely as an entrepreneur. That comes with the title, so you’ve GOT TO HAVE the right group around you—other entrepreneurs who get the unique path you’re walking. Especially starting out solo, you need to create your own social infrastructure for support, partnership, learning, and accountability. (Location 2499)

  • Note: Create social infrastructure around you. Friendship magnets map content will reveal opportunities. Sieze them!

• Get an Accountability Buddy We make better choices and work harder when someone else is observing our behavior. Researchers call it the Hawthorne effect. I call it my number one productivity hack. (Location 2503)

  • Note: Spotlight your activity and behaviour

• There’s just something about a little external pressure that helps to keep us honest and on the right track. That’s why every Sunday for the past ten years I’ve sent my friend Adam Gilbert my Sunday (P)review email outlining everything I said I’d do last week, how much of it I accomplished, and everything I want to do in the week ahead. (Location 2505)

  • Note: Find a friend like this

• Find someone you respect, probably a peer working toward similar goals, and establish this Sunday ritual to help each other on your journeys. Your buddy is there to support you and celebrate the small victories. (Location 2524)

  • Note: Ask PJ if he wants to do this with mr. Or Matteo. Or Spaniel

• This person must reply and hold you accountable. If they never reply or don’t call you out when you don’t follow through, you need to find a better person. (Location 2525)

• CHALLENGE Accountability buddy. My accountability buddy is: Find one person to send your weekly goals to. For the past ten years, I’ve worked with Adam Gilbert from mybodytutor.com every week on my yearly goals. Accountability is a superpower. (Location 2528)

• Target Prefluencers I always make an effort to connect with ambitious people BEFORE they make it. It’s so much easier to connect with them, help each other, and build actual relationships. (Location 2533)

  • Note: Find people early in their journey and connect.

• Remember, it’s not about where they are today as much as where you think they are going: I still reach out to ambitious people all the time. A few years ago, I contacted Harry Dry from Marketing Examples, a young kid from England. I loved what he was doing with his newsletter, offering great marketing case studies and copywriting tips. (Location 2538)

  • Note: Harry Dry!

• Today, Harry has 100,0001 subscribers on his email list, 30,000 LinkedIn followers,2 and 140,000 on Twitter.3 He’s doing epic! And we’re friends! It would have been harder to connect now, but I got him as a Prefluencer, so it was simple. Just like with Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss. (Location 2542)

• three principles to help you find Prefluencers: 1. Who’s doing work you’re impressed by? 2. AND who doesn’t have a ton of attention and is likely to reply? 3. AND what can you do to help this person? (Location 2547)

• CHALLENGE Connect with a Prefluencer. The easiest way to connect with anyone is to compliment them first WITHOUT asking for anything in return. The Prefluencer I’m reaching out to: Send this message: Hey [first name], LOVING what you’re putting out. [Insert specifically what you liked or how it impacted your life] Keep going! [Your Name] From here, the person will likely respond and you can open up a dialogue to talk about working together or helping each other in the future. Spam is sending a message asking for something, whereas connecting and building relationships like the above script is just sending a compliment without any expectations. (Location 2550)

• Andrew wanted to find people ten times better than him. To build his network, Andrew set a goal: “Meet five new people per day for my first six months in the Bay Area.” (Location 2562)

  • Note: Set a benchmark for meeting people. Connect them.

• His strategy amounted to persistently reaching out, following up, and asking for referrals. After meeting someone new, Andrew would send them a thank-you email. In it, he would include: Highlights from the chat he found interesting Follow-ups and to-dos Request to meet more people (Location 2566)

• Hi Noah, Quick thanks for meeting with me. You = awesome. Here are 3 epic lessons I took away from our chat: Look into haptics—great opportunity for biz growth (you mentioned it as the next billion-dollar industry … damn!) “To be successful, you need to start with things that DON’T scale” ⭠ Great quote you mentioned Companies to watch for are Mutual Mobile, Onnit, and Backlinko Super grateful. I’m curious: Are there 1– 2 other people you believe I should meet? Thanks again, Andrew (Location 2570)

  • Note: Template thank you email

• When he got a new list of people to meet, Andrew would send an intro email with three key points: Short blurb about himself Value he could provide (that is to say, what’s in it for them?) Why he was excited to meet them He’d send this to everyone he was introduced to—personalizing to the entrepreneur or VIP he wanted to meet. And you can do the same. (Location 2575)

• Telling someone why you are interesting, how you can help, and why you want to meet works like gangbusters. If you fail to include these points for the person you’re reaching out to, expect to be ignored. (Location 2578)

  • Note: Tell people why you're interesting and interested. Don't assume they care

• SUBJECT: Steve Smith told me about you [your subject line needs to grab the reader with your strongest hook, in this case a mutual connection] Hi Bob, Hope you’re doing awesome this Tuesday morning! My good friend Steve Smith said you’re his 1 pick of someone I should meet next. Plus, I love your blog—especially the article on how to make it big in SF [be detailed to elevate the compliment]. I’ve been experimenting with Meetup.com events thanks to your inspiration. [must be a truthful statement] Love to talk with you about how to do marketing for your business. [your “gift”] How’s next Tuesday at 10 am at Coupa cafe for you? Or whatever is most convenient for you. [The more specific your call to action, the better] I’d also be happy to feature you in an upcoming blog post on my site, which has about 2,000 monthly readers. [more value for the person] Thanks, Andrew P.S. About me: Just moved to SF, recently hung out with Marc Andreessen, Mitch Kapor, and more. [social proof] (Location 2581)

• CHALLENGE Ask your friends for one referral. 1. Tell me the first person that comes to mind. Who’s the most impressive friend you know? 2. Send this message to that friend: (Location 2591)

• You learned the power of starting now, you overcame your fear of asking, you figured out million-dollar opportunities and how to validate them quickly, you learned social for growth and email for profit, you mastered marketing, and then you learned how to figure out your dreams and accomplish them with amazing people. What’s next? (Location 2601)

• your life is shaped by your willingness to face your fears. Remember, just keep going no matter what. (Location 2620)

  • Note: Face your fears and overcome the welling emotions. This too shall pass.

• You have to define what success is for your life and not worry what others think. Million Dollar Weekend empowers you to create the life YOU want to live. And you get fifty-two chances to do it this year. (Location 2621)

• Achieving your dreams comes down to one question: How many times are you willing to get back up after falling down? Entrepreneurship is nothing more than the ability to come up with ideas and the courage to try them out. (Location 2623)

• To experiment, experiment, experiment. To fail, fail, fail. Until you succeed. (Location 2624)

• Just start. And then … start again. (Location 2625)