Noah Kagan, Chief Sumo at Sumo, AppSumo and KingSumo
Noah Kagan, creator of Sumo, AppSumo, and King Sumo
We sat down with Noah this week to discuss how he manages three successful businesses, okdork.com and his love for tacos and travel.
Noah Kagan is helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses with different marketing tools ranging from driving traffic and conversion to optimizing email campaigns. He also gives business advice and shares words of wisdom through his personal website okdork.com. Much like other self-employed beings, Noah worked for other companies like Facebook, Mint, and Intel before making his way into the world of entrepreneurship.
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How did he make the jump from employee to founder?
Interestingly enough, it was a few misfortunes that drove Noah to start his own company. “Sumo started because I kept getting fired… It was a combination of that and my love for promoting great things” His journey started on Reddit with a company called Imgur (you might’ve heard of them before if you’re a lover of gifs and memes) He reached out to the founder offering to buy his software at a discounted rate in turn for promoting it on Reddit. Through a successful turn of events, Noah surpassed his goals for selling the product. Naturally, Noah decided to run with his passion for promotion and create a suite of products that help business owners promote themselves.
He attributes his success to setting goals, having fun at work, and making the most of his time. Having fun at work was always the goal for Noah when starting his own business.
As a digital nomad, Noah gets to implement his love for travel while still being able to run his businesses on the go, "I think people aren't meant to live in one place - They're meant to roam." Every year he spends a month living in a new place, and just earlier in the year spent a month living in Barcelona and is on to California next.
"I think people aren't meant to live in one place, they're meant to roam."
- Noah Kagan, founder of Sumo, AppSumo, and King Sumo when discussing his upcoming move.
It’s easy to feel busy but not be getting the results you’re wanting out of life, your business, etc. Noah combats this by saying “we’re all busy, some people are just doing more.” He sets realistic goals for himself then makes sure his time is spent working towards that goal. He likes to use the analogy of a map when planning out his goals. He sets his destination as the end goal and makes a “route” on how he’s going to get there rather than just seeing where the road takes him. Noah also believes in using your time to do the things you love. He was able to turn his passion into a career and in turn, help others doing the same thing. When reflecting on his business Noah agrees it all comes down to one simple thing, ”Life is short, we’re all just trying to do something worthwhile.”
So how else does Noah spend his time?
Whether working on his business or traveling the world, you can catch Noah doing one thing in particular - Eating tacos. Noah might be the biggest taco-lover to walk the face of the earth. His love for tacos is even featured on his website with tiny taco icons used to navigate the site (taco-bout an obsession). Tacodeli is his go-to spot for tacos and he even jokes that clients can pay him in Tacodeli gift cards.
If you’re ready to step up your marketing game, get some business advice for your next venture or debate over who has the best tacos in ATX, Noah is your guy.
Keep up with Noah by clicking here!
Inspirational! Love this article…and Noah 😍
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