The Author of 'Million Dollar Weekend' Says This Is the Only Difference Between You and the Many 'Very, Very Dumb People' Making a Lot of Money "They just started, and eventually they got somewhere."

Noah Kagan was the 30th employee at Facebook, the fourth employee at mint.com, and has started many successful businesses of his own. Now, his company AppSumo does nearly $100 million in annual revenue. Along the journey, he says he's discovered something: Success isn't about long-term dreams; it's about immediate action. His new book Million Dollar Weekend lays out a plan for just that. He explains.

People often say they want to start a business, but they don't have an idea.

I think ideas are bullshit.

That's a hot take.

Ideas are bullshit! There's so many articles out there with business ideas, so how come more people haven't become millionaires? The reality is, the idea isn't the problem. The person is afraid — that's the problem. They're not prepared to ask people to be their customer, or to be their employee, or to give them feedback. Instead of thinking about ideas, think about problems. Get excited about problems you can solve for people.

You can do this in a weekend?

Entrepreneurship is a skill that's developed. The more you practice it, the better it gets. If you're thinking about a business, what are the things you can do right now? Let's say you're good at email marketing. Is there one person you can contact right now and say, "I went through your emails. Here's three things you could change. Want to be one of my first customers?"

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You just need to be comfortable doing it.

That's the fundamentals of business. All the billionaires I've interviewed or worked for — a lot of them say the best skill is sales. And what is sales? It's an ask. In my book, I teach the famous "coffee challenge"...

This is where you go to a coffee shop and ask for a discount on the coffee, right?

Yes. It's about asking, getting rejected, and realizing rejection's not so bad. Then you ask again. And again. As you keep doing this, you keep getting better, until you eventually find a problem that people are excited to give you money for, and you're on your million-dollar path.

What if you're comfortable pitching, but worried about pitching the same people over and over?

Number one, I call it the "survey-to-sale" method. Communicate with people through a survey, ask them about themselves, and learn the problems they have. If you can help solve their problem, aren't they excited to give you money for helping?

If you're concerned about annoying people, don't bother all of them. Just talk to some. If you have a 100-person email list, get on the phone or send a sale to 10 of them. If all 10 buy, great. Roll it out to more. If they don't, try something else.

It seems like your message is: Don't get caught up in what you need later, because there's a lot to do now.

The reality is, there's a lot of really dumb people making a lot of money. Very, very dumb. These people are no better than you. The only difference is that they just started, and eventually they got there. You should realize that, "Huh, I can do this, too." You don't need any investor, you don't need any cofounder, you just need a weekend and the willingness to face yourself.

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