In 2005, he started working for Facebook as a product manager
A 41-year-old techie has revealed how he started his own company after being fired from Facebook, and now earns approximately $3.3 million (Rs 274,319,265) a year. Noah Kagan, CEO and Co-founder of Appsumo.com, recently featured on CNBC Make It'sMillennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend, and save their money.
Mr Kagan, who lives in the US, and is the son of Israeli immigrant parents, said he always dreamed of being rich and knew that the pathway to riches ran through the world of tech. “My dream was Microsoft. If I could be around Bill Gates, who at the time was iconic … that's the path that I wanted to follow,” he said.
In 2005, he started working for Facebook as a product manager but was fired a year later after he leaked company information to the press at Coachella.
''I was shocked. I'm 24 years old and working on what I believe is the most important thing on the planet. I lived in a house with six other Facebook people a mile away. So it was my entire, frankly, existence,'' he said.
Looking back, he admits that the firing was not only justified but also put him on a path to where he ultimately wanted to be. ''It's a good experience to get fired and realize, you might want to take control of your destiny and be an entrepreneur, and you have that option to do what you want to do,'' he said.
After being fired, he ran conferences for aspiring entrepreneurs, taught English in South Korea, and picked up consulting work for Silicon Valley tech firms. In 2008, he thought it was the right time to give full-time entrepreneurship a shot.
Using his experience with working with Facebook, and other tech giants such as Intel and Mint.com, he then started his discount software website AppSumo in in 2010. Mr Kagan revealed that it only took a couple of days for the plan to come together. He didn't pay himself in the first year in charge, but as the company started to flourish, he began taking a portion of the profits as an annual bonus.
Last year, the company generated about $80 million in revenue and reported more than $7 million in profit.
''The way I have always done my salary is that I pay myself relatively low. Historically, it's been around $200,000 in annual salary. And at the end of the year, after we have paid the team after we have taken everyone out for an all-expenses-paid vacation, and done other distributions to people in the company, then I take a profit share. Last year, I took a $3 million profit share for my salary,'' he told CNBC Make It.
''One of the best parts of being an entrepreneur is that you don't have to wake up to an alarm,'' Mr Kagan said, adding that he doesn't want to ever retire.
In addition to his AppSumo business, Mr Kagan operates a YouTube channel and manages five rental properties. He also recently published his book, 'Million Dollar Weekend', which teaches people how to build the ''business of their dreams''.