Note: While reading a book whenever I come across something interesting, I highlight it and later turn those highlights into a blogpost. It is not a complete summary of the book. These are my notes which I intend to go back to later. Let’s start!

Each day a new experiment, a new lesson learned, living for the rush that only possibility can bring, until one day a friend showed me a product in development from an unknown company that was then called My Mint. The founder, Aaron Patzer, had created a tool to help people manage their finances, and the prototype he built blew me away. At the time I was blogging on my site OkDork about personal finance, and I immediately saw that this could be huge.I was so excited about Mint that I told Aaron that I wanted to be his director of marketing. The only problem was, as he pointed out, that I hadn’t done marketing before. So I did what I’ve always done—I just started. I hustled. And with no experience, I created a marketing plan that got 100,000 registered users before the site even launched and 1 million users six months later—which got me a full-time offer: 1 percent of the company and a $100,000 job.

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. New industries. New hobbies. New technologies. New roles. New people. New side hustles. 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.

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. When I want to achieve something, and there’s a version I can do in minutes, I just do it. Here’s an example:Recently an ad agency was pitching our AppSumo team on a new Facebook advertising campaign. My NOW, Not How thought was followed by the dreaded promise of an email recap of everything we’d have to get started (stuff like passwords, adding the agency to our Facebook account, new content needed, and so on). “No, no, let’s do all of that right now,” I said, which took five minutes, saving us twenty-four hours of waiting.I know your inner negotiator may be saying, “That sounds great, but MY idea needs more time.” Stop! Power comes when you automatically implement NOW, Not How in everything you do. So no more negotiating with yourself. You’re just a doer. Say it to yourself: NOW, Not How.

Don’t be afraid to act. Be afraid of living a life that seems more like a résumé than an adventure.

I’ve found a simple mission to hit a monthly revenue number is the most effective form of early motivation.I’ve never harbored any change-the-world/become-a-mega-billionaire dreams. No big hairy audacious goals (which sounds gross anyway). My dreams were of freedom.

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.

As my dad and I entered the tenth local shop that afternoon, I felt my muscles go tight with a full body cringe. He’d just asked to speak to the manager in an Israeli accent as thick as hummus. Sounding identical to Arnold Schwarzenegger.“I don’t get it.” His voice boomed enthusiastically after he was introduced to the store’s boss. “You live in greatest country in world, and you have greatest business in sector, but you still have a crappy copier. Why? I must help you. Here, I gave much better, let me show!”His pitch would be met with a rejection. And then another rejection. Countless rejections. Rinse and repeat. Every. Damn. Day.But then, invariably, inevitably, a hard-won success.This particular day was glorious, though. Absolutely glorious. He sold two copiers in one day! So Dad said let’s go celebrate and grab some burritos!“Why you look so sad, Noah?” he said as we sat down to eat.Although I should have been riding on the adrenaline of my dad’s glorious day, something felt wrong. Despite his ultimate success, the process of getting there felt demoralizing and pointless.I shook my head. “So many noes. No, no, no, no. All day. Doesn’t it make you want to quit?” I asked.My dad replied with something that would change my life:“Love rejections! Collect them like treasure! Set rejection goals. I shoot for a hundred rejections each week, because if you work that hard to get so many noes, my little Noah’le, in them you will find a few yeses, too.” Maybe that’s why he named me NO-ah, to remind me of this daily to keep going.Love rejections?! Set rejection goals?!

The secret to my father’s mastery of selling in a language he barely spoke is one word: chutzpah. It’s the Yiddish word for moxie, nerve, audacity; it’s a determined, give-no-f*cks approach to life. When Israelis say you have chutzpah, they mean you know what you want and go for it. They mean you have endless tenacity. They mean you’ll do what it takes.

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.

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.”My dream when I was in high school was to work at Microsoft. I wanted that more than anything. And so during my junior year at UC Berkeley, I found a recruiter on campus looking for developers, and I said to her, “I’m not an engineer, but I’m in business. Is there any type of internship I could do to work at Microsoft for the summer?”She said there wasn’t, but I followed up with her and kept asking. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. And after the twelfth follow-up, she gave in: “Actually, we have an internship for businesspeople.” I don’t know if it was created for me or not, but I like to think it was. It did lead to a fun lunch at Bill Gates’s house, a story for another time.

Studies show that if you initially get a no, your follow-up ask is TWICE as likely to get a yes.At AppSumo.com, almost 50 percent of our sales come from our follow-up emails. Think about that. What a great example that follow-ups are as powerful as your first touch point. Follow up on the things you really want. I use followup.cc for email and Siri very often to remember follow-ups. You can also use the Snooze feature in Google or just write it down!

Selling is helping. If you believe your product or service improves the lives of your customers, sales is just education. You’re helping people out. Reframing selling/asking as helping makes it exciting to offer your consulting or window-washing services or provide someone with delicious cookies. Once you accept that truth, asking becomes loads easier and feels much more like a communal gift than a selfish desire.

After Disney verbally agreed to use an expanded version of our payment software for their social gaming (“Of course, we’d want something like that”), I was so certain of my brilliant idea that I went ahead and built it. Except six months later and $100,000 spent, they looked at what we delivered, said that however great it was, they didn’t need it right away, and started ghosting me.That’s why, when it comes to generating business ideas, customers come first. Before the product or service. Even before the idea. To build a business, you need someone to sell to.I can’t tell you how many times someone has emailed me saying, “What do you think of this business idea?”My auto-reply? “Have you asked what the customer thinks?”Steve Jobs said, “You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards.”

Working backwards prioritizes access to a group of customers (a group you probably belong to) and focuses on an aspect of a customer’s life that doesn’t work.If you do it this way, you’re assured of nailing the three Ws of business right from the start:

  • Who you are selling to
  • What problem you’re solving
  • Where they are

One night I was thinking about a company called MacHeist that was offering bundles of Mac software at a steep discount. This was a great way for Mac users to get several useful apps at one really low price.And while I love a good deal, I couldn’t stop thinking about how MacHeist had solved the problem of providing companies with customers.Every time MacHeist bundled software and marketed the bundle, it was solving a need of those software companies—customers—and in turn those software companies were doing everything they could in terms of marketing and blogging to make sure the MacHeist bundle was a success.Could I do what MacHeist was doing but for non-Mac software?

PRO TIP: Look for something working in one category and bring it to another. One of the largest drivers of AppSumo’s email list was giveaways. We realized this only after seeing a giveaway in a women’s fashion online site and trying it out ourselves. Sign up for and observe companies outside of your target market for inspiration.

Focus on Zero to $1. Get that first dollar. That will create your momentum and build your belief in what you’re working on. Every company I started began with just one customer. Scaling comes later.

The better you understand your target group, the better you can speak to them. The more specifically you can speak to their problems, the better and easier you can sell (or test products).Prioritize communication with people, through starting (taking the first iteration of your solution straight to customers) and asking (engaging them in a conversation to determine how your solution can best fix their problem). Business creation should always be a conversation!Nearly every impulse we have is to be tight with our ideas by doing more research, going off alone to build the perfect product—anything and everything to avoid the discomfort of asking for money. This is the validation shortcut. You have to learn to fight through this impulse. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.

Use the following four challenges to come up with at least ten potentially profitable ideas:

  1. Solve Your Own Problems Take entrepreneur Shane Heath, a dude who loved coffee, but hated that it made him anxious and jittery. Everyone around him kept saying, “I want to cut down on coffee, too.” But no one was quitting coffee—because there was nothing better to drink!Then Shane went to India and discovered masala chai. Shane loved it: It tasted great and gave him a small caffeine kick. But it didn’t make him feel like a vibrating wreck like coffee did.So Shane invented Mud/Wtr. His Mud is a masala chai coffee replacement with other ingredients for added health benefits.When he walked around with his mug of Mud, people wanted to know what he was drinking. So he made some for his friends—and it got them hooked.That tiny problem of his is now making over $60 million per year!When you intentionally practice problem-spotting, eventually it becomes something your mind just does automatically. It’s become a game to me—a profitable one.

    Still stuck? 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. Below are three of my most recent business opportunities: FIND ME AN X How I thought of it: I spent a ton of time trying to buy a car. About a year. I know! Online research, visiting car dealerships, test drives, on and on. Anyway, I would have paid a pretty penny for someone to hear all my thoughts and preferences, do the research and conversations for me, and produce a short document with the three best choices. Idea: You can pick a vertical where people can give you requirements and you find whatever they are looking for. CHEAP AND REMOTE INTERIOR DESIGN FOR YOUNG SINGLE GUYS How I thought of it: Until I was thirty, I never had my own place, so my furniture has always been a weird collection of IKEA items. Really easy having a cool place when you’re loaded; not so easy, but possible, when your budget is tight.

    Idea: Interior designers are for rich people. This business would be much simpler (and less expensive): I send someone a photo of my place, giving my preferences, and they put together a Pinterest page of suggestions for me. FRIEND/ACTIVITY MATCHMAKER How I thought of it: I love doing paddleboarding and going to the gym, but my friends aren’t always available. Idea: Meetup is good for groups, but it’d be nice if some person or website could connect me with individuals to join me on these activities. Lately I’ve been wanting new activity partners for things I’m doing. The website or service would be similar to Meetup but more on the individual level.

    CHALLENGES

    • Solve your own problems.
    • Use the questions to find three ideas. Write those down in your MDW Journal.

  2. Bestsellers Are Your Best Friends What products are already selling a crap-ton? iPads, iPhones, etc. Basically, any product you’d find on Amazon’s Bestseller list would work here.How can you accessorize the product (for example, stickers for an iPhone) or sell a service to those people (teaching someone how to use an iPhone)?It’s easier to sell to a large group of people who’ve already spent money on a product or service.Some ideas could be:

    • Customizing Nike shoes.
    • Video game tutorial for an Xbox game.
    • Teaching computer novices how to use a MacBook.

      CHALLENGE

    • Bestsellers are your best friends.
    • Write down two accessorizing ideas in your MDW Journal.

PS: Don’t worry if this method doesn’t inspire you to idea glory. Remember: This is just an exercise. That means anything goes—you have my blessing to write down all the bad, crazy, and nonsense ideas that come into your mind. DO NOT EDIT YOURSELF. Do not think, But how could that work? Just write as many down as you can. We’ll whittle them down later.

  1. Marketplaces One of my favorite ways to find ideas is by studying the marketplaces where people are TRYING to spend money. Your potential customers are everywhere already asking in public for solutions—on message boards, in Facebook posts, in tweets, in church groups, on and on!Marketplaces on Craigslist, Etsy, or Facebook have millions of people each day wanting to pay to have their problems solved. So look for frequent requests on Craigslist gigs from people actively searching for someone to give their money to in exchange for particular services.Check completed listings on eBay. This allows you to see how well certain products are selling. It’s also an easy way to measure the sale prices of items and gauge the overall percentage of the market that’s receiving bids.

    CHALLENGE

    • Marketplaces.
    • Visit a marketplace like Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or eBay and write at least one idea for a product or service in your MDW Journal.

  2. Search Engine Queries It’s much easier to sell something when people ALREADY want it. There are 3 billion Google searches every day, giving you a direct line to customers’ thoughts and needs.To access these thoughts, you’ll want to work backwards from a problem people want solved (a query) toward a solution they may be willing to pay for. Done right, this method is so effective that there are now search listening tools that make this even easier (like AnswerThePublic.com, which will find the most googled questions around whatever keyword you input).Try searching for certain questions:“How do I train my cat to use a toilet?”“Best places to travel with a family?”“Where can I rent a bike in Barcelona?”Evaluate the most popular questions (or lack thereof) and see if you can create a product or service around those requests. To figure out which questions are more likely to result in a successful business, ask yourself: Is the potential solution a vitamin (a nice-to-have) or a painkiller (a must-have)?I also use Reddit.com as a gold mine for business ideas. It is one of the largest message boards online. Go to the r/SomebodyMakeThis subreddit where people are ACTIVELY offering up ideas and look for the first two things that interest you.

    CHALLENGE

    • Search engine queries.
    • Use search engine questions and Reddit forums to find two more ideas. Write them in your MDW Journal. You should now have a list of ten ideas, if not many more. You can also use the business idea you asked a friend for in chapter 1.Use the four challenges (solve your own problems, bestsellers, marketplaces, and search engine queries). Write your ten ideas.

Now you’ve got to pick the three best ideas from the ten plus you’ve come up with.There’s never a “perfect” idea. For instance, AppSumo started out selling bundles of web tools and three years later evolved to individual deals, our own custom software, and our own courses. Your idea will evolve over time, just as all businesses do.So here’s what you’re going to do: take your list of ten plus ideas, and eliminate the ones that you’re not excited about.If the top three ideas are screaming, “Me! Me! Me!” your work is done.If you can’t decide, choose the ones you believe will be easiest to implement—and that you (and ideally other customers) would be thrilled to spend money on.

A three-part process to verify that your startup has the potential to be a million-dollar business: You’ll research the market to find out. “What’s my model?” You’ll create a simple budget by sketching out revenue, cost, and profit, so you know how many units you’ll need to sell and for how much to make $1 million.“What if it turns out it’s not going to work?” You’ll pivot and evolve: You’ll use customer feedback to adjust the variables of the business (pricing, model, offer, category—all that) into something bigger and better.

Validation is finding three customers in forty-eight hours who will give you money for your idea.

My favorite way to validate the market for a product is to make real contact with real people, tell them what I’m selling, ask for money, and see how they react. Actively preselling your first few customers is the best way for entrepreneurs to launch a business.My friend Eric booked $8,000 of business in two weeks by knocking on doors and handing people a flyer, saying, “Hey, how’s it goin’? I’m Eric with Foothills Painting. I noticed you had some peeling paint up here on your house, so I wanted to give you a free estimate.”That two-sentence pitch built him a $750,000-a-year business.Or take what happened to Dana, a typical wantrepreneur who enrolled in my Monthly1K course to start a horse-industry business. She turned away from building a costly app and used the preselling method to quickly and cheaply validate instead.

If you’re thinking, Dang, I don’t know ten people who can buy this, then maaaaaaaaybe you should a consider a different business idea. Hoping and praying that a thousand people in the world will magically buy it is living in la-la land, as my father would put it. Go after markets and businesses where you have influence so it’s easier to succeed.

First, Listen. Your job is to get customers talking about their problem.Here are three questions that will help you in this process:

  • What’s the most frustrating thing about what’s currently going on?
  • How would having X make your life better?
  • What do you think that X should cost? Finish with summarizing what the person said. For example, Daniel would say, “So you want an easier way to learn how to use your computer.” PRO TIP: Use what or how questions to encourage a more open dialogue versus why or yes/no questions, which can limit your learning.It’s crucial to really listen and write down their problems, because you’re looking for the pain they’re feeling and how valuable it would be for them to give you money.The bigger the pain, the bigger the opportunity! Next, Options. Now that you’ve uncovered the problem, it’s time to suggest options that can solve their problems—and what they’d pay for it. Here are some examples from Daniel:
  • I’ll sell you a digital course on how to fix your computer.
  • What if I came over and fixed your computer myself? You’re looking for excitement and a willingness to pay. Eye rolls and lower energy from your prospective customer are indicators of low interest. Transition. You know their problem and you know an option to fix it that they are excited about. Now it’s time to transition to the sell.“So you like the idea of me coming over and fixing your computer problem. For $50, I can do it today. Sound good?”

If they pay you, that’s Validation success. Often you can distill your offer down to three parts: Price + Benefit + Time. Strung together, they form an offer sentence.Other examples:

  • For $25, I will teach you how to save an hour a day on your Mac, in just twenty minutes.
  • For $69, I will teach you how to write better in two hours.
  • For $10, I will send you a PDF with ten mind hacks that will change the way you think in ten minutes.
  • For $180, I will provide six months of tasty jerky to your office this week. PRO TIP: Presenting your offer as a comparison can make it easier for your customer to understand. “We are like X but Y.” For example, we are like your competitor but twice as cheap. Research shows we better understand the world when something is presented as a contrast with something else.

There’s a big difference between what people say and what people do. Everyone’s “interested” until they have to pay.That’s why you don’t ask, “Would you be interested?” when you’re validating. I’ve had a lot of people say they’re interested and then not pay.No, you ask for money and ask people to pay immediately.Now a warning: When you validate, you have to get comfortable with potentially selling a product before you’ve actually made it. Clearly explain when it will be delivered. Because people are fine with giving you money in advance, as long as you set clear expectations.Here’s my favorite way to ask for money:“Sign up now while it’s still at a discounted price, x percent of y dollars [and you’ll be grandfathered in at that price forever]. This offer is only good today.” PRO TIP: Always follow up by sending an email to your first customers asking for feedback. Feedback is a gift you can continually use to improve yourself and your business.

When I get shot down while validating, I have a simple four-question script that flips the no into new knowledge, new ideas, and maybe even new customers.

  • “Why not?” It’s really easy to get scared from attacking this one head-on, because what happens if their criticism is right? But that’s exactly what you want to know!
  • “Who is one person you know who would really like this?” Always, always, always ask for a referral! Be specific about what kind of referral and use a number; this makes it highly effective.
  • “What would make this a no-brainer for you?” If they don’t want your product, maybe they’d want something related to it. If they don’t want to pay for your dog care app, what about dog walking? A dog hotel? Dog dating?
  • “What would you pay for that?” One of the hardest things in a startup is setting prices. Getting potential customers to say what they’d pay is pure gold!

I always make an effort to connect with ambitious people BEFORE they make it. It’s so much easier to connect with them, help each other, and build actual relationships.I met Tim in 2007, before he was famous and was trying to promote this book that wasn’t out yet called The 4-Hour Workweek. I met Ramit Sethi while he was still in college and had just started this blog iwillteachyoutoberich.com, which was making $0. And since then we’ve all become good friends—and they helped me in everything I’ve achieved. Remember, it’s not about where they are today as much as where you think they are going: I still reach out to ambitious people all the time. A few years ago, I contacted Harry Dry from Marketing Examples, a young kid from England. I loved what he was doing with his newsletter, offering great marketing case studies and copywriting tips. I love connecting with interesting people like him, and this relationship creates a great opportunity to help each other now and in the future. Connect with no expectations.Today, Harry has 100,000 subscribers on his email list, 30,000 LinkedIn followers, and 140,000 on Twitter. He’s doing epic! And we’re friends! It would have been harder to connect now, but I got him as a Prefluencer, so it was simple. Just like with Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss.

Andrew Chen is one of the most well-known executives in Silicon Valley, a VC partner at Andreessen Horowitz, which specializes in games, AR/VR, metaverse, and other cool stuff.But back in 2007, I was the only person Andrew knew when he moved to the Bay Area as a twenty-three-year-old.When he arrived, Andrew knew he needed to widen his network to achieve his dreams and be successful. As an ambitious twenty-something, Andrew wanted to find people ten times better than him.To build his network, Andrew set a goal: “Meet five new people per day for my first six months in the Bay Area.”In less than a year, Andrew was associated with high-profile people like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (cofounder of Netscape) and entrepreneur Eric Yuan (founder of Zoom). And through that strategy he became a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most respected venture capital firms in the world.His strategy amounted to persistently reaching out, following up, and asking for referrals.After meeting someone new, Andrew would send them a thank-you email. In it, he would include:

  • Highlights from the chat he found interesting
  • Follow-ups and to-dos
  • Request to meet more people.

When he got a new list of people to meet, Andrew would send an intro email with three key points:

  • Short blurb about himself
  • Value he could provide (that is to say, what’s in it for them?)
  • Why he was excited to meet them He’d send this to everyone he was introduced to—personalizing to the entrepreneur or VIP he wanted to meet. And you can do the same.Telling someone why you are interesting, how you can help, and why you want to meet works like gangbusters. If you fail to include these points for the person you’re reaching out to, expect to be ignored.

SUBJECT: Steve Smith told me about you [your subject line needs to grab the reader with your strongest hook, in this case a mutual connection] Hi Bob, Hope you’re doing awesome this Tuesday morning! My good friend Steve Smith said you’re his # 1 pick of someone I should meet next. Plus, I love your blog—especially the article on how to make it big in SF [be detailed to elevate the compliment]. I’ve been experimenting with Meetup.com events thanks to your inspiration. [must be a truthful statement] Love to talk with you about how to do marketing for your business. [your “gift”] How’s next Tuesday at 10 am at Coupa cafe for you? Or whatever is most convenient for you. [The more specific your call to action, the better] I’d also be happy to feature you in an upcoming blog post on my site, which has about 2,000 monthly readers. [more value for the person] Thanks, Andrew P.S. About me: Just moved to SF, recently hung out with Marc Andreessen, Mitch Kapor, and more. [social proof]