In the vast ocean of business literature, it’s easy to drown in the monotony. Many of these books, while well-intentioned, can often lull you into a state of inertia rather than sparking the fire of innovation. However, there’s one that stands out from the crowd - Noah Kagan’s “Million Dollar Weekend”
As a white-collar employee, I’ve come to realize that reading books can
sometimes become a sophisticated form of procrastination. We convince ourselves
that we’re gaining invaluable insights, but in reality, we’re just delaying the
leap into action.
This is where Noah Kagan’s “Million Dollar Weekend” flips the script. Kagan
understands the entrepreneurial mindset and the pitfalls of over-preparation.
His book is a breath of fresh air in the business genre, cutting through the
fluff and providing a practical guide to real action.
In the upcoming sections, I’ll share some insightful quotes from the book
that have the potential to transform your entrepreneurial journey.
Million Dollar Weekend
Dedicated to everyone willing to take a chance on
themselves call these three steps the Million Dollar Weekend process:
- Find a problem people are having that you can solve.
- Craft an irresistible solution whose million-dollar-plus potential is backed by simple market research.
- Spend NO MONEY to quickly validate whether your idea is the real deal (or not) by preselling it before you build it.
That’s what I call 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).
Looking back on the early years of your life, it’s
easy to think of “scary” things that became not so scary as soon as you tried them.
Remember the first time you tried to ride a bike? Hold your breath underwater?
Climb a tree? Walk? The messiness of such trial and error may seem
uncomfortable now, but the days when we weren’t afraid to leap into the mud and
dirty up our hands were when we learned the fastest (and had the most fun!).
Leaping is all that matters. The most courageous
creators just leap more—in spite of their fear—and successful creation
eventually follows. If you trace back every big company to its beginning, it
all started with a leap into the unknown and a tiny little experiment:
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
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
There are two mistakes one can make along the road to
truth . . . not going all the way, and not starting.
Show me an experimenter, and over the long run, I’ll
show you a future winner.
—Shaan Puri
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. 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.
That’s where 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.
PRO TIP: Don’t base your happiness or your self-worth
on being the smartest, the most successful, the richest. Being so focused on
the end results sets you up for a major fall because there’s ALWAYS going to be
someone who’s smarter, more successful, or richer—and every time you see that
you’ve fallen short, it will eat away at your motivation. 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.
That’s the wonderful thing about experimentation—every
experiment has within it the potential of unforeseen rewards that can change
your life.
But first you’ve got to start.
CHALLENGE
The Dollar Challenge.
Ask someone you know for a dollar investment in you
and your future business—one measly dollar!
This is YOUR spark. Once you do this, you realize the
power of starting and the simplicity of business: starting, asking, iterating.
I’ve seen thousands of lives changed by this simple and powerful exercise.
Tell them in exchange, they’ll get regular updates and
a front-row seat to the process of building a business from scratch, warts and
all—like a member of your personal board of directors. Sure, it’s an
insignificant amount, yet jumping right in and asking for it—from family,
friends, colleagues—is an oh-shit starting-and-asking experience that will get
your heart racing.
This is the script I’ve seen work best:
Hey [first name]
I’m reading this book Million Dollar Weekend and they told me I need to get $1 from someone.
You’re the first person I thought of, and it would mean a lot to have your support.
Can you send me $1 right now?
[your name]
Oh no, I’m on the hook for this, you’ll think. Good!
Feel that fear and do it anyway. As my guy Ralph Waldo Emerson likes to say:
“Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.”
Every day, people in my audience post pictures of
their first dollar with pride. It’s a symbolic game-changer for anyone who’s
been sitting on the sidelines wishing they had their own business. And while
you’re at it, ask me, too! Here’s my venmo/cash app @noahkagan or
paypal@okdork.com. I may even say yes.
Post and tag me @noahkagan, #thedollarchallenge. I may
repost you.
Most people: Overthink first, act later.
Every successful entrepreneur: Act first, figure it out
later.
Any analysis ahead of action is purely speculation.
You really do not understand something until you’ve done it. Rather than trying
to plan your way into the confidence to act, just start acting.
So how do you instill this habit if it doesn’t come
naturally?
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.
Every moment of every day, I push myself—and everyone
around me—to live up to NOW, Not How.
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?
You may not need a grand purpose to start (though if
you have one, awesome!), but it’s also true that if you commit to nothing,
you’ll be distracted by everything. The Freedom Number helps us not get lost in
abstraction or complexity; it reminds us the mechanics of business are simple.
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! It was suddenly
clear to me why my dad was never afraid to ask anyone anything—and why he
pushed for a hundred rejections a week: the upside of asking is unlimited and
the downside is minimal.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease,
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.
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.
Intentionally developing your Ask muscle is a REQUIREMENT
for entrepreneurial success.
The father of Spanx founder Sara Blakely would ask her
and her brother nightly: “What did you guys fail at this week?”
Remember, you could be eleven noes away from making
your first million, but if you stop at the tenth rejection, you will have
failed.
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.
PRO TIP: Be persistent. I want you to believe that
almost every no you get can eventually become a yes. Persistence will reveal
that most noes are actually a “not now.”
PRO TIP: Follow Up! Follow Up! Follow Up! Studies show
that if you initially get a no, your follow-up ask is TWICE as likely to get a
yes.
If you believe your product or service can fulfill a
true need, it’s your moral obligation to sell it.
—Zig Ziglar
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. The best way to overcome your fear in the long term is with short-term
games of rejection.
Remember: This challenge is designed for you to get
rejected! The point is to experience failure and get past it. Once you start
getting a few rejections, you’ll realize it’s not as bad as you think. This is
a powerful step in you creating your million-dollar business.
Enjoy the fear. Ask!
Steve Jobs said, “You have to start with the customer
experience and work backwards.”
Here are four questions to get you going:
What is one thing this morning that irritated me?
What is one thing on my to-do list that’s been there
over a week?
What is one thing that I regularly fail to do well?
What is one thing I wanted to buy recently only to
find out that no one made it?
I make it a habit to always keep a notebook close by
and jot down things that bother me.
Don’t worry if you think your ideas suck or are too
hard. The real value is learning to create, assess, and validate ideas.
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.
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?
The hard part is not choosing which business idea. The
hard part is getting customers. And that’s where you’ll focus first.
The real goal here is less which idea is golden and
more putting in the reps of checking market size before we validate later. If
your first idea passes the million-dollar opportunity test, perfect. Proceed to
the next chapter.
If not, then move on to your next idea and run it
through the same assessment. Don’t get in your own way, wondering which idea is
best.
Pick one business idea.
Make sure it’s a million-dollar opportunity.
Confirm your business idea is profitable.
If you’re still stuck on how to do this and don’t just
want to choose the first idea on the list, then start with the problem that is
most exciting for you to solve yourself.
Validation is finding three customers in forty-eight
hours who will give you money for your idea.
Find three customers in forty-eight hours who will
give you money for your idea.
Validation is a conversation. Not a sales pitch, but a
chat to learn about the customer, see if you can help them and if they’ll
actually pay you.
The big takeaway is this: Almost every business idea
is guaranteed to fail on the first try. Instagram started as a bourbon app.
Slack started as a gaming app. Keep validating. Turn rejection into
improvements. Feedback is gold.
Keep talking and listening to your customers so you
can find out what they need.
Validation.
Your challenge is to get at least three paying
customers within forty-eight hours.
“What’s your unique angle in thirty seconds or less?”
In other words, why would anyone care to read his newsletter?
I know that sounds harsh, but that’s the first
question you have to answer before you put yourself into the public sphere.
Look at what he did in those four sentences:
He defines who he is,
Why you should trust him,
What he is passionate about, and
What unique thing this prepares him to do for you.
Take a minute, and as Ben has done, write out a pitch
in your journal describing your special sauce.
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.
If I’ve learned anything from the thousands of videos
I have created for YouTube, it is that people don’t want to be lectured at by
an all-knowing guru—they want to tag along with a guide.
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.
Having a bond that leads people to open your
emails—not the size of the list—is where the power of email lies.
You can set up one like Julien’s for free with
SendFox.com (a service I helped build).
There are also other services like Mailchimp.com,
Webflow.com, and ConvertKit.com to create landing pages.
Go to MillionDollarWeekend.com to see more landing
page examples.
When you add your landing page to your email and your
social bios, you can measure the traffic and conversion rate you get from these
mentions with Bitly.com or Linktree.com, website address shorteners that track
clicks.
If people like your stuff, they want more.
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. Frankly, everyone in your audience matters forever, but
especially at the beginning, 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.
Second, with the Connection Email, you’re explicitly
asking them to connect with you on social media, by following you on Instagram,
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and so on.
Finally, the Content Email is where you give them a
piece of great content—a blog post like Chris Von Wilpert’s, a video, or the
invite to an event.
If you’re an interior designer, this is where you
might show them your work and get them excited.
The Law of 100
A crazy study from the University of Florida.
Photography professor Jerry Uelsmann split his
photography into two groups: the Quantity group and the Quality group.
The Quantity group had to take 100 pictures to get an
A grade by the end of the semester, and the Quality group could turn in just
one photo by the end of the semester—but it had to be perfect to get the A.
Can you guess what happened?
The Quantity group kicked the Quality group’s ass—in
terms of quality!
Why?
The Quantity group experimented more! They took tons
of photos, learned from their mistakes each time, spent more time in the
darkroom, and they got better with time.
That’s what the Law of 100 is about.
It’s simple: Whatever you put yourself to, do it 100
times before you even THINK of stopping. This stops you from succumbing 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.
For me with my podcast, I wanted to get 100,000
downloads an episode, so when I only got to 30,000 downloads, I was discouraged
and gave up completely—after just 50 tries. What’s wild is (a) if I was getting
30,000 downloads today, it would be a top podcast; and (b) since I’ve restarted
and committed, I’m at 7,500 downloads an episode. A painful but valuable
lesson.
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.
The key is to set up a system that helps you get your
100 reps done without thinking about the results.
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.
The Law of 100 is about the power of consistency—the
only way to get to greatness.
Be specific. One of the most common mistakes I see
from entrepreneurs when they set goals is they say they want “more.” More
revenue, more traffic, more downloads. But how much and by when?
Once you have a goal and a time frame, you can break
down your goal into a timeline of smaller targets. Besides making your goals
feel more achievable, having a timeline is crazy motivating because you get to
tick off smaller wins on the way to achieving your overall target.
WORK BACKWARDS FROM YOUR GOAL!
That’s why for an entrepreneur it’s important to have
a lazy mindset. If something’s too hard and not working after a good try? Give
up and move on!
Double down on the experiments that work the best.
Kill the experiments that don’t meet expectations.
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.
There’s no wrong dream.
Entrepreneurship is your chance to build your work
around your life, not be swallowed up by it. The problem is, as an entrepreneur
and maybe a spouse or parent as well, you have a ton of stuff pulling at you
from moment to moment. That constant chaos keeps you from consistently winning
your days. It is one of the greatest impediments to achieving fun and
fulfillment. When you can’t focus, you lose control.
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
—Benjamin Franklin
Show me YOUR calendar and I’ll tell you what’s most
important to you.
Great entrepreneurs have great entrepreneurial
communities. There’s no such thing as self-made. Everyone is team-made.
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.
Your life is shaped by your willingness to face your
fears. Remember, just keep going no matter what.
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.
To experiment, experiment, experiment. To fail, fail,
fail. Until you succeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment