How to Win at the Mental Game of Entrepreneurship with Noah Kagan (E102)

Bio:

Noah is the Chief Sumo at Sumo.com where they help eCommerce retailers grow their email lists. Previously Noah was employee #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint, and worked at Intel.

Sponsors:

Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – eCommerce Automation

Links:

https://sumo.com/https://okdork.com/https://appsumo.comhttps://twitter.com/noahkaganhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/noahkagan

Transcription:

Charles:                        00:00                In
this episode of the business of eCommerce. I talk with Noah Kagan. This is the
business of eCommerce, episode one Oh two, welcome to the business V commerce,
the show that helps eCommerce retailers start, launch and grow their eCommerce
business. I'm your host, Charles [inaudible] and I'm here today with Noah Kagan.
Noah is the chief [email protected] where they help eCommerce retailers grow their
email list. Previously Noah was employee number 30 of Facebook, number four at
mint, and also worked at Intel. He's an expert in marketing and growth hacking
and just like myself, he loves eating tacos. So, Hey Noah, how are you doing
today?

Noah:                           00:42                Today,
today was actually a really good day. I did boxing the morning, floating float
tank. We talked a little bit about Noah just getting into the office.

Charles:                        00:51                Yeah.
And so the float tank is you float in the darkness, right? Complete in this
tank.

Noah:                           00:56                Yeah.
So I actually, it sounds strange when you say it to like your parent or
probably someone listening. It's like you get butt naked in a room and you get
in a box, kind of like seems like a coffin and then it's quiet and you're
floating on basically super salty water for an hour.

Charles:                        01:11                And
when you, you pay money for this. So people, yeah, if you don't use this
concept you're like, yeah and I pay to do all this.

Noah:                           01:16                You
know it's funny you say that. So it's 75 bucks for an hour. I mean maybe it's
different. You can get them on Groupon actually if you're looking for it, get
up, go look up Groupon if you want to do a first time. But I actually thought
about my handyman and a handyman working on the house yesterday and I was like,
yeah, it was him and it was like his apprentice, his cousin. And I was thinking
about them in the, in the float and I was like, they must think this is so
good. I swear this is so fricking weird. Like I was just imagining them being
like, hold on, you paid what you pay us in a few hours. You pay to sit in water
and do nothing. And do not. Yeah.

Charles:                        01:53                Yes.
Yeah. It's a very, all these things are very tough to explain to other people
why you pay to do nothing. I feel like that's kind of partially like the mental
game, entrepreneurship in all of us, right? Where you're like so busy
throughout the day and you literally have to then pay to not be busy, which
just seems bizarrely counter-intuitive.

Noah:                           02:13                Well
I think that's actually a common problem with most business owners trying to
grow. And what I mean by that is that there's this balance of like, I want to
do everything myself or should I hire someone else to go do it and then what's
worth the money? Yup. Like I was talking with a young entrepreneur yesterday
over dinner and it's like, yeah, I'm going to do all these things myself. And I
was like, right, well let me know how it goes. You don't really see most like,
you know, restaurant owners or eCommerce store owners or Amazon, Jenn Bazell st
pack boxes.

Charles:                        02:41                Yeah.
But, but at the beginning, how do you get around? Cause I didn't see people go
the other way. Right. There's folks said kind of when they're starting off,