Afford Anything

  • Start Here
    • About
    • Media
    • Questions?
  • Blog
    • Binge
  • Podcast
    • Binge
    • Sponsors
  • TV
  • Explore
    • Travel
    • Store
    • Start a Blog

Tag: noah kagan

December 2, 2019By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#228: What I Learned from Losing $170 Million, with Noah Kagan

In November 2005, when Noah Kagan was 24, he was hired as Employee #30 at Facebook.

At the time, Facebook was a one-year-old company with only a few million users. The company was growing rapidly, adding 50,000 new users per day.

Noah joined the team as product manager. He made a base salary of $60,000 plus 0.1 percent of ownership, equivalent to 20,000 shares.

His stock options would have been worth $170 million if he’d cashed out in 2014, he says.

But he didn’t see a dime.

In June 2006, merely 9 months after he started working at Facebook, Noah got fired. Instead of making $170 million, he made zero.

He fell into a deep depression for a year. Then he rescued himself by starting his own company.

He became a serial entrepreneur. He tried his hand at a lot of things — including developing Facebook games, selling discount cards, creating a payment processor in the gaming space — but he’s best known for his two most successful companies.

In 2010 he started a company, AppSumo, which offers daily deals on software for small businesses. It’s like Groupon for online entrepreneurs. By 2012, AppSumo was grossing $4 million per year in revenue, with annual net profits of $500,000.

Yet Noah wasn’t fulfilled. So he pivoted. He offloaded the day-to-day management of the company to a colleague, and in 2015 he started a sister company, Sumo.com, which develops marketing tools for websites and online businesses.

In today’s episode, Noah and I discuss reflections on business, money and life.

Enjoy!

Keep reading...

Most Popular

What if We Quit Setting Goals? (Seriously?)
I Don’t Know How to Invest and I’m Afraid of Making Expensive Mistakes
The Incredible Power of 10x Thinking
I Tracked My Time in 15-Minute Increments for a Week. The Results are Embarrassing.
How Much is Enough?
Mini-Retirements, Semi-Retirement, Early Retirement — What’s the Most Awesome Lifestyle?
  • Binge
  • Questions?
  • Media
Join 51,277+ subscribers who get free email updates.

© 2018 Afford Anything. Designed By Wilnau Design. Built by Zach Swinehart. Disclosure

© Copyright 2011 – 2019 Afford Anything. All Rights Reserved.

Website by Zach Swinehart.

  • Start Here
    • About
    • Media
    • Questions?
  • Blog
    • Binge
  • Podcast
    • Binge
    • Sponsors
  • TV
  • Explore
    • Travel
    • Store
    • Start a Blog

Afford Anything

  • Start Here
    • About
    • Media
    • Questions?
  • Blog
    • Binge
  • Podcast
    • Binge
    • Sponsors
  • TV
  • Explore
    • Travel
    • Store
    • Start a Blog