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Ten years of failures before AppSumo: Noah Kagan's entrepreneur journey
Executive overview
Most entrepreneurs expect a clear path from idea to success. Noah Kagan's first decade was a string of projects that went nowhere, a firing from Facebook, and years of uncertainty.
The pattern that emerges: taking action on curious ideas builds skills and connections that compound — even when the business itself fails. AppSumo was not a eureka moment; it was the residue of 10 years of attempts.
The real education comes from doing, not from working under someone else.
Early projects: following curiosity without a business model
- First business plan (2000): a delivery service matching cash-poor students with wealthy Silicon Valley residents — never executed
- EverSpeed.com (2001): a car enthusiast site built for love, not revenue; established the habit of shipping things
- Come Get Used (2003): a campus book exchange that merged with a rival, ran for 10 years, made no money
- Laptop arbitrage: buying cheap on Craigslist, reselling on eBay — ended after getting scammed
- HFG Consulting: connecting local businesses with student interns; earned ~$10K
- Ninja Card: discount card for campus businesses — first meaningful entrepreneurial win
Intel and Facebook: what corporate jobs actually teach
- Took a job at Intel despite wanting to run his own business — followed peer pressure toward a "should" career path
- Side projects continued throughout: Ninja Card, CollegeUp.org (a niche Craigslist), Entrepreneur27 meetups
- Got hired at Facebook by submitting a cold resume; became fully absorbed in the mission
- Facebook set a benchmark for product excellence and talent density
- Got fired, received no equity; described as "a liability"
The lost years and the recovery
- 2006–2007: unemployed, couch-surfing, embarrassed after publicly championing Facebook
- Taught business in Korea; converted small meetups into a paid conference (CommunityNext) — made money
- Joined Mint.com by repeatedly pitching until founder Aaron hired him; executed the marketing plan successfully
- Continued running side projects while employed
Kickflip and Gambit: the Facebook app era
- Spotted early Facebook platform opening; built sports logo apps with Amazon affiliate links
- Became the top Facebook app developer at the time
- Original goal: $3,500/month to fund remote work in Argentina
- Team threatened to quit unless he committed; fear held him back
- Pivoted from logos to fantasy sports betting; performance declined
- Built Gambit: a payments layer for virtual tokens inside games — performed well
- Same day: sued by competitor OfferPal and banned by Facebook
- Walked away, handing the company to partners, to take a consulting gig
How AppSumo came together
- Consulting for SpeedDate.com while searching for the next idea
- Three observations converged:
- Did not want to be a vendor-dependent platform again — wanted to be essential infrastructure
- Saw MacHeist doing software bundles for Mac
- Noticed a gap: no equivalent for web software
- Launched AppSumo as an experiment; it gained traction quickly
- Business partner Chad framed the choice: double down on AppSumo or stay small with a related brand
- Chose AppSumo; it grew to nearly $100M in revenue over the next decade
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