-Hi everybody!
-It's really interesting I mean if you look at Richard Branson
start over 400 companies right and what I understand about his day-to-day is he
has two assistants running his day and he really doesn't he worked for maybe
four hours or so and he's just done so he's become this master delegator right
and sounds like that's kind of what you're moving towards now and you know I
have to wonder too what's your what's your end goal with all this stuff
-Well I think everyone what it's not no one watching cares about me except my
mom and she'll watch--Hey mom!--everyone cares about
themselves so the end goal I think what everyone need to think about is like
what did they really want and is this really aligned for helping them get it
because what I've noticed is like for the first few months this year I was
focused on my podcast and my YouTube channel--Noah Kagan Presents
-Really good one
-What you have to realize is that like let's say people
watching like my goal is to make a bunch of money let's just assume you have a
lot of money do you want to go to work tomorrow and then they're like no we're
f***ing sucks okay so you're not going to sit at home all day though so how do
you just create that lifestyle now how do you work on problems that even if
you're a billionaire or you're poor you would just continue on I think there's
something fascinating if if you want to pattern match like the most successful
people in the world like everyone knows the top ten you know
Gates and Buffett and Zuckerberg and you know Ellison or whoever else these guys
are I think what's kind of really fascinating about the people I admire is
that they're still working so many people are like well if I got rich I
could stop working and I could go travel and do all this shit but the people who
are the richest don't have to work at ever in their life, the next thousand
years of their family don't have to work
but they're still doing it
-Because it's fun
-It's fun! It's the fun and they have
some purpose around it
and so I think that's something that like to admire like alright look think
about how do you just find problems that never end that no matter how much money
no matter how much there's not and I think when you're having a business if
you have a vision like that, that's how you recruit people yeah that's
actually how you get the best you like hey we're going to fucking Mars b****es
like that is a fucking strong vision that other people want to be a part of a
vision and so for me I love helping small businesses grow I don't want to
help them--I don't have this arbitrary goal of a million
I don't have a goal of like I want to like help all the Earth I don't care but
the products and companies that I admire I either want to promote them with
app Sumo give them the tools with Sumo.com
or maybe something else in the future
but that's really what I enjoy like finding great things and
making sure the world knows about them
-Got it
-And so yeah I don't probably have to
work as much anymore I can maybe move to India and live forever there or Thailand
or some of these places and most people you if you actually have a low burn rate
you could live in almost anywhere forever and not have to work too much
but I like working and I want to work on this stuff in some way or capacity
probably until I die or maybe I'll live forever.
-Love it and so how does we just
talk about Noah Kagan for instance listen to the podcast it's really good
also his YouTube channel as well so you're doing all this content how does
this tie into everything that you're doing right now.
-I don't think it does so
here's what I think is helpful for everybody else and what I've noticed is
that I started adding a bunch of things to my plate over the year and so as you
grow a company when your individual when there's four of us around this table
here it's very easy to move quickly Thomas do this Eric do that Teresa go do
that and it's like boom boom boom everything happens quickly and then as
you multiply that to 40 or 400 or 4,000 the complexity happens and it slows down
and so what I've done is that four days a week I only focus on Sumo.com that's
all I do it's 80-20 by the way four is 80% and Friday is one day a week which
is 20% of your grade.
So it makes it really simple four
days a week hardcore Sumo.com anything for sumos before days a week that's it
and on Friday and it gets you know Friday is my experimental day
so YouTube podcasts OkDork anything that I'm experimenting with and what's
fasinating about that what I've noticed is that because I can do experimental thing
where there's no risk meaning that I'm not losing anyone's job and I can fuck
around and I could try things that are more risky I can then bring that back
into Sumo so a lot of the people that I've worked with as like consultants or
trials on OkayDork I've brought into Sumo and a lot of things that like hey
YouTube here's ways that we should be building our videos alright I just
fucked around a lot and now I could bring that into Sumo and so I think with
companies what you have to realize is that there's there certain processes
everyone's got this process and way that they do things it's very hard to adjust
that so I think you need to create some space for like failure like create
allocated time that you can go do things that may or may not work that you can
then bring back into the machine so your Friday's are completely blocked off for
just you yeah it's more like I don't feel guilty I still feel a little guilt
and I gotta lie but it's mostly like Friday is a day where I'm like I can
experiment with things in a very quick manner and then anything that works I
can bring it back into the company got it because like if I jeopardize this
stuff like hey let's just not blog for these few weeks and like
not do some of this stuff that could potentially cost people's job and
something that so it's better to do it like and I can also move quickly and
then when that things works I know that I can then loop it into the bigger thing
you you've hired a really good up-and-coming marketer and and you
managed to convince him to move from China here and like how do you say how
do you go about doing that there's some tenacity that's in there it goes into your
heritage and all that but go.
-Yeah well I think here's if you actually look at my
career I don't think I'm gifted I wasn't in gate I'm not the smartest person.
-Me neither.
-You're Asian you're like naturally great
I have a tiger mom we all do I guess
I think what I've been what I've done well in my career is a few different
things but I think specifically I've looked I've hired the right people and
here's the thing with hiring there's not a person listening or watching that's
not could be like you know I know you're great people I know are everyone fucking
knows it some of these cliche things like build a great team I don't know
give value we all think that bullshit stuff but in reality I think a lot of my
successes is attributed that I was like spent a lot of time looking for amazing
people and like truly amazing people because it really like you know we
talked about 80-20 it's even in hiring at companies there's really only gonna
be a few people that are you're like who would I take with them to my next thing
and those are ones they're gonna make all the difference so I would say with
like with mint.com I found this guy named Viet who was this up-and-comer
writing personal finance I really loved his stuff and I basically was like what
would it take for you to come work with me
and he is the reason I think mint content-wise did so well not me I just
recognized that he was the one and I helped guide him a little bit and help
structure it but it was him with our content team we have great writers and
with Chris I saw his writing publicly and I was like all right let's work
together as a trial so we did a project together and I was like what would it
take for you to come from China starting on Monday to come work together. He's like
here's what he's like well I wouldn't do it I wouldn't what would it take this
okay I'll give it to you.
-What would it take where's that coming from
what would it take I feel like that's that's some negotiation thing you know
-I'm actually a horrible negotiator so here I'll teach everyone how to
negotiate it's very very simple number one tell the other person you suck in
negotiating that's exactly my--I always do this I
suck at negotiating that's how I started off then I say what do you want like
what would it take for you to get what you want they say that that's their just
Venn diagram then I say all right well here's my world and as long as it fits
within my frame I just what they want.
-So practical
-I had people, there's so many fucking books about how to start businesses and like negotiating
all the stuff I'm like just get what they want and then you as long as you
get what you want you're happy.
-Yeah as long as both sides are happy right
-Yeah I mean with salary it's seen its ears someone salaries for Sumo.com and
appSumo we have a budget let's say our budget for developer really just a
hundred thousand dollars we hire developer we say hey how much do you
want for your salary so that you'll be really happy
I want one hundred ten thousand okay close enough fine you get it and then
they go fucking awesome like when I worked at mint.com I remember I was 25
years old and now a hundred thousand is not a lot anymore now these kids are
fucking like ungrateful but to me it's still a lot of money and like I was 25
and they're like we're gonna pay you a hundred thousand dollars and I've just
never forgotten the feeling of like one I thought how stupid they are I thought
they're so stupid or giving you so much money but two I remember because they
thought I was better than I was it made me perform better than I thought I could
-True
-Ooh I hope you recorded that one. But because they were like hey the
bar is here and I only thought of myself here it actually made me keep improving
my influence up to that part there are Kimmie negative stuff which I'm not
gonna get to but like because they set the bar and like we're gonna pay a lot I
was like man I'm great I'm gonna go do great things and that kind of gave me a
little bit more probably confidence to I think do great stuff for me I know so
under here - versus like when you try to negotiate them down and it feels like
they got pummeled to the ground and how motivating is that like I think there's
something and there's a balance in that so there are people that have come and
be like I want 200 thousand to be developer and I'm like you know there's
people like Eric Fernandez who is amazing he's been with us for six years
he's worked his ass off like that I should have whatever he wants he's
proved it and I think there's a little bit of it's a balance it's a bounce but
you can't just do all of it but there's people like a man who run appSumo
a man came in and be like yo I made this in Microsoft I want around that and I
think as a leader of a company or if you're running a company I proactively
raise people all the time so I go to a man to be like you need to get paid more
money we're giving you more like oh okay he never asks and so it's a trade-off
where I don't want him to not want more money like you want people that are
hungry and aggressive but as a company I think you need to be proactively looking
out for the interest of your people and more and more what I've noticed is like
fucki millennial stuff that everyone wine without everyone now that's great
the shitty people there's a bunch of them so don't worry about them but the
greatness options you could go out the door and
walk into the next building and you'd have a great job so dealing with that in
2017 or 2018 and beyond you have to create a new environment for this type
of worker it's not that you have to pamper them because they do want to be
challenged but they want to have the autonomy they want to have some outcome
if it's great outcome not just the bosses get rich anymore they want to
have a somehow come and they want to work on things that are challenging and
ultimately as well you know some purpose of what the hell the company is trying
to do got it couple more things I wanted to talk
about so you have a playbook I can see it's very deliberate about the way you
do things so you look at AB soon when there's a playbook there right Eamonn
was telling me about the cadence that they have where the you know you talk
business you talk personal kind of where you're at and you talk about holding
them accountable you do the same thing here too so you have a playbook and I
think that's interesting because you can duplicate that for every single company
you start in the future can you tell us about that playbook I don't know play we
come come join us and you'll find the playbook I think there's a there's an
interesting thing in business you need you need systems and everyone says it
and I'm always like quite what's the system that they're using like
everyone's looking for some system but I think in business like if you want to
scale or grow you need predictability and so how do you have predictability
you neither need some types of checklists or cysts our process that are
repeatable the only thing with processes is that makes people stupid the process
is good if you wanna work to McDonalds process is not good at a tech company
because it limits the amount of innovation you're gonna be creating cuz
you're like well that's our process why do you follow it I don't know that's
just what we do so the way that I've structured our companies that have works
for me and the way I think about business in general it's very simple
like here's the destinations and here's your car right you could drive here or
you can fly here or you can walk here I'm only telling you my way what's
worked for me and not necessarily what would work for everyone but it's worked
for me multiple times and seems to be doing pretty well number one choose a
very clear objective that's measurable in your business most people I have one
guy who I talk to every week I'm like hey what's your objectives like man is
just to do better how do you know if you're doing better he's like I don't
know I just feel it I'm like okay just feel tell your landlord you feel about
the bills like that like and so I think number one have a very clear objective
of your business right I want to make this much money I want to help this many
customers I want to do this much revenue or whatever it is or there's many email
subscribers of this many views or I want to like hire this many people whatever
it is I don't care and then you just have to like have some plan on
you're gonna get there mm-hmm so let's see you want to get a million dollars
each team has some accountability towards that goal let's say the
marketing team they need to be generating Stormont of revenue now all I
do is say like alright there's $50,000 you have 25 you have 25 mm-hm and then
for the most part I leave the people alone and I check in with them once a
week to make sure they're hitting what do you use to track all that so it's
actually really simple I'll tell you something on a personal of what I do and
what a professional if I do so let's just say for like Facebook marketing you
can talk to Natalia who runs the Facebook answer she has a very clear
goal and every Monday we checking her on her goal and she tells me what's going
well and Wentz is not going well and during the week if she has questions
about it I'm I think of it like a football team or like a professional
sports team this is not I didn't come up this on her I heard from but as a
special protein I am NOT on the field playing Natalia is running the place
maybe it's lacrosse I don't know what you explained I am on the sidelines
being coach if you want me to suggest about how to run plays I can give you
the guidance but if you feel comfortable and as long as you're scoring to the
goal or the touchdown or whatever it is then for the most part you should do a
good job of leaving them alone so Derek Siver's said it well trust but verify
have a clear goal check in with them regularly and basically as long as
they're running and hitting their goals for the most part I think you should
leave people alone and the great people want to be left alone
that's the playbook step one and two huh there's other nuances of the playbook
I mean obviously you have to create I think most people get confused about
marketing and product meaning that they want to have a think they have a
marketing problem but really that no one wants their product mm-hmm like oh why
how do I get help with marketing I'm like well yeah cancel your business
there's no one wants it and jelly and woman how do you know people want it
that's a whole separate the whole separate video I think the other things
that I try to aim for and what I think I've done well with that are two things
number one in business not everything works but what are the things working so
for example with YouTube this is a very easy example in the past year I've put
out maybe 50 different videos all over those 50 videos three have gone popular
so what do you think I'm doing from now on making videos like that so the three
that are gone popular or when I go and interview people that are on YouTube and
we make like a documentary kind of like this mmm that's what works for me and my
audience and our editing our stuff so every other type of video I stopped
doing mmm I was doing these videos about like focusing and empowerment but it
didn't it didn't work and I think what most people do in their businesses is
that they just keep doing all of them instead
saying what's actually working do more of it and what's not working and really
remove that the second part of it is I like predictability I like surprises in
life not in my business I don't want to be surprised in business ever hmm I
don't want hope I don't believe there should be the word hope in business yeah
you don't necessarily have to have like oh let's raise a bunch of money and then
grow really quickly right I think you slow and steady wins the race and you
haven't raised any venture capitalist - right none of them none of them no there
you go so it's not some heritage thing no I
mean I'm not opposed to raising money and that's the separate thing we can get
into baths just in terms of predictability and not having hope and
not having surprises what's an example of that so let's talk about the silicon
marketing I want to know everything coming on the next two weeks and I want
it to be ready and I want to know that these are the types of let's say for a
content we know that our sumo grill studies do really well where we document
how a company does so every other week in the calendar I can see that it's
coming like clockwork and then with emails we know that the emails need to
be set up and so it's more how do you create like a little calendar or like a
checklist so that when we have an email like here's an example
every one of our clickable links in our email needs to be bolded so every single
email we create a new checklist it's like are the links bolded yes you know I
don't want to be surprised if they're if they're bolder or not have we checked
all the links yes or no anyways so the more it's like how do you create a
calendar or checklist or things so that there you basically remove air in your
systems - I think that's definitely something with our marketing that and
our business is part of a playbook that we've done in all of our teams got it
cool and this is all organized like a Google Drive or something yeah it's just
like so sales team we call it the sales Torah the support team they'll store
yeah basically in the sales team support team marketing team you should have very
clear like documents of just like if you were to bring in some what so here's an
easy way for you to think about it for your business if you're bringing someone
today how long would it take for them to ramp up right and most businesses would
probably take a few weeks because I don't have anything documented and I
don't think we're the best-documented don't if you came here like Bobby said
it was great but in most things there should be some type of documentation but
like how do we create our content topic how do we do our promotions and then if
someone can come in here like oh that's exactly how they do it all right I can
just follow that formula got it there you go document your stuff
I was actually just talking about yesterday I came directly from an
off-site our thing for the next year is this process and documentation that's
how important is.
-That was pretty good.
-That was amazing, right.
-That was really good.
-Noah just knows his stuff
I am also Noah, one of the producers on the show here
I'm Noah too
No, this is Bryce.
Eric is going to be back at you with another interview
Right after this, so be sure to subscribe
so you can get the next episode
We've got lots of great interviews
on Leveling Up coming your way
Let us know in the comments what your plan is to Level Up
and be sure to subscribe. We'll catch you in the next one.
-So how do you personally, because you'v'e changed a lot in the past couple of years,
I mean physically, like you are working out a lot more, and things like that
-Yeah how I used to have hair
-Haha yeah so what's going on? How do you grow personally? How do you get better man
it can be education wise or fitness wise.
Growth can come in a lot of different ways
I think growth comes when you start asking yourself am I growing.