Noah Kagan Quotes

"Go see if your weaknesses are hindering you at your job...Fix them or move to another position. Also, constantly ask yourself, "how can I make the company more valuable?" You do that and you will never get fired."

The Idea Generators So let’s open the net wide and get down to generating ideas . . . I mean problems! Here’s what the process of coming up with a million-dollar business idea does NOT look like: Getting on TikTok or YouTube and mindlessly copying whatever the influencers say is working for them Getting struck with the perfect vision for a genius new product Meditating, following your passion, and brainstorming Following any other woo-woo method that promises inspiration in a box Here’s what the actual process looks like: What’s the most painful (aka valuable) problem you can solve for people . . . That you also have passion for and/or unique expertise in . . . For the largest niche possible that you belong to and understand . . . Simple enough, but takes some light and fun brainwork. Remember to focus on your Zone of Influence here (your existing community): the 150 followers you have on TikTok, the 200 in your local Taco Aficionados group, the 300 in the WhatsApp group for your mountain biking club (not to mention the 143,000 in the subreddit r/mountainbiking). 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. Now it’s your turn. Use the following four challenges to come up with at least ten potentially profitable ideas:

Show me an experimenter, and over the long run, I’ll show you a future winner. — Shaan Puri

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! Most people: Overthink first, act later. Every successful entrepreneur: Act first, figure it out later.

The thing is, 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.

To come up with your unique viewpoint, ask yourself a few questions: What is something everyone thinks is true — but you think is wrong? What is something nobody in your target market is talking about — but should be? What are the biggest mistakes people in your market are making — but are totally blind to? Ultimately, 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.

How can you accessorize the product (for example, stickers for an iPhone) or sell a service to those people (teaching someone how to use an iPhone)? It’s easier to sell to a large group of people who’ve already spent money on a product or service. Some ideas could be: Customizing Nike shoes. Video game tutorial for an Xbox game. Teaching computer novices how to use a MacBook.

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.

Then I remind myself of Rejection Goals: “This is going to suck. Let me aim to get at least twenty-five rejections.” That

YouTube is simply the best way I’ve ever seen to grow an audience — and an audience of quality — for free.

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.

PRO TIP: When in doubt, solve your own problems. If you are willing to pay for a solution, it’s likely others are, too. And at least you’ll have one happy customer — yourself.

The BEST way to get famous is make amazing stuff. That’s it.

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. After all, there are a ton of top-rated MBA programs, $10 Udemy courses, free YouTube videos, and entrepreneurship how-to books — so why wouldn’t you learn all you could? That’s got to be a whole lot safer, and 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!

The goal here is to document what YOU do, not what you think everyone else should do. When you position yourself as someone who is on a journey and document your process and your progress, you become relatable, and that is what audiences long for. Some of my most popular videos feature me failing, often. It’s fascinating that people want to see what’s really going on, not the highlight reel we think they want.