How Facebook’s #30 Employee Quickly Built 4 Businesses and Gained 40 Pounds with Weight Training
Noah Kagan was #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint.com, and is the Chief Sumo (founder) at SumoMe, which offers free tools to help grow website traffic. To keep things extra spicy, he’s become a taco connoisseur and created 4 separate products that have generated more than 7 figures.
This podcast conversation is about all of the tools and tricks he uses to do it all.
Noah was my co-teacher in the “Starting a Business” episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment, which is now the #1 TV season across all of iTunes. In the episode, we help a novice entrepreneur named Cindy to develop and launch her business in a single week. See all the details here, and be sure to watch the bonus hour of behind-the-scenes footage.
But back to the current podcast…
Noah and I cover a ton, including his favorite tools, apps, books, routines, and more. It ranges from apps for preventing distractions, to how he blocks out time every Tuesday for learning, to how he gained 40 pounds of (mostly) muscle in the last six months or so.
If you loved the resource-rich business interviews with Ramit Sethi and Tracy DiNunzio, you’ll love this one.
In this episode, Noah offers a prize: he will fly one person to Austin, Texas to be mentored by him for a day.
All you have to do is this:
Listen to the instructions in the podcast. It’s about building your email list, whether brand new or pre-existing.
Leave a comment on this blog post no later than: 11:59 p.m. PDT on Wed, May 13, 2015. No extensions. As always, you must be 18 years of age or older, void where prohibited, any taxes are your responsibility, no minotaurs, don’t lie, don’t cause headaches, etc. Noah and his magic elves will choose a winner by May 23rd.
The comment must include:
1) #NOAH at the very top of the comment (instruction IQ test)
2) Your results, whether you grew from 0 to 100 emails, 1,000 to 100,000, or 100,000 to… you get the idea. It’s about improvement, not just raw size. But proof helps, m’kay?
3) The most important lesson you learned in the process
—
Got it? Now, here’s the interview, chock full of tools, cursing, and sexual innuendo…


If you can’t see the above, here are other ways to listen:
Listen to it on iTunes.
Stream it here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as”.
This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens (AG), my all-in-one nutritional insurance policy. It’s a whole food-derived greens powder that I’ve used since 2008 or so to cover my bases in a busy world. If I need to skip meals or eat sub-optimal food, AG allows me to worry less. For travel, I take pouches with me to prevent fatigue. For a limited time, you can try AG at 50% off! Click here. It ain’t cheap, but I find it totally worth it.
This podcast is also brought to you by 99Designs, the world’s largest marketplace of graphic designers. Did you know I used 99Designs to rapid prototype the cover for The 4-Hour Body? Here are some of the impressive results.
QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: Are you afraid of doing the “coffee challenge” that Noah describes? If so, why? If not, please do it and share the results in the comments. Feel free to share any other experiences with “comfort challenges” like those in The 4-Hour Workweek.
Scroll below for all show notes…
Enjoy!
Subscribe to The Tim Ferriss Show on iTunes.
Non-iTunes RSS feed
Links from the Episode
SumoMe: website, Twitter, Facebook
Noah’s blog
Peter Thiel
Alfred App
Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator
Schedule Once ($99 a year option)
Andrew Warner
Followup.cc
Perch.co
Myfitnesspal.com
Quest protein bars
Tuft and Needle
My Pillow
Parachute bedding
Steve Pavlina
Tucker Max
Monthly 1K
Darren Rowse
Shane Snow
Taco Deli
Gary Halbert Letters
Kopywriting Kourse
Draft
Hemingway
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out – Richard Feynman
Mybodytutor.com
Coach.me
Stickk.com
Dietbet.com
Withings Scale
The Online Coach – the SHUL workout
Pavel Tsatsouline
Travis Brewer
Email1k.com/tim
RAD Roller
Evan Williams Bourbon
Charlie Hoehn
Videofruit.com
Nutribullet
Datpiff.com
Travis Scott
Wale
Promise Ring
Books Mentioned
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
The Sales Acceleration Formula
Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!
Show Notes
Noah’s ad for living in Austin, TX [1:39]
Noah’s favorite tools he’s using right now [6:26]
Noah’s health/fitness routine [13:43]
Noah’s mattress and bedding recommendations [17:08]
Why Noah organizes his dollar bills in his wallet [25:14]
What the coffee challenge is [30:54]
The 3 most important (but undervalued) things people should spend more time learning [45:43]
What REALLY changed the game for Noah in his writing style [47:59]
Why Noah blocks out 2 hours every Tuesday morning just for learning [58:54]
Noah’s tips for adding muscle [1:03:01]
Noah’s business rules [1:17:00]
Noah’s challenge to build your email list (prize included) [1:27:00]
How to get a custom email address added to your Gmail [1:33:30]
