Law of 100
Commit to 100 repetitions before judging your potential
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 96%
The Law of 100 is a precommitment device for staying with an activity long enough to develop skill and receive meaningful feedback. First, establish that the direction has some response through a quick test. Then define a countable repetition, such as publishing one video, making one offer, or completing one sales action, and commit to doing it 100 times. Use the repetitions to learn and improve rather than repeating an unchanged mistake. Kagan contrasts this with dabbling, where a person tries too little to know whether the activity could work. He also describes quitting a podcast after 30 to 35 episodes because it had 30,000 downloads rather than his desired 100,000, a decision he later revisited. The method supplies a finish line that survives short-term disappointment while still allowing iteration.
Origin
Kagan discusses the method after describing how people often quit just before progress and how he abandoned an earlier podcast after roughly 30 to 35 episodes. Extracted from The Foundr Podcast.
Core principles
- 01A small sample cannot reveal your potential
- 02Define the commitment before motivation falls
- 03Use repetition to improve rather than merely endure
- 04Validate the direction before committing deeply
How to run it
- 1
Test the direction
Run a small, fast test to see whether the activity produces any meaningful response. Do not use persistence to rescue a direction with no evidence.
Pro tip Match the response signal to the activity, such as sales for an offer or engagement for early content.
- 2
Define one repetition
Specify a unit you can count consistently. Make it based on completed output or outreach rather than time spent thinking.
Watch out A vague commitment is easy to reinterpret when motivation drops.
- 3
Commit to 100
Decide in advance to complete 100 repetitions before making a final judgement. Track the count visibly.
Pro tip Choose a sustainable cadence so the commitment can survive ordinary life.
- 4
Improve through the reps
Review audience, customer, or performance feedback as you continue. Change the execution while preserving the commitment to practise.
Watch out Doing the same ineffective action 100 times is not deliberate practice.
- 5
Judge after evidence
At the end, evaluate skill growth, response, sustainability, and whether you still want the outcome. Continue, change direction, or stop based on that larger sample.
In the wild
Kagan began posting YouTube videos from an iPhone while shirtless at home. He continued publishing and improving until he later worked from a much more expensive home studio, using the contrast to argue that polished output should follow repetitions rather than precede them.
→ Repeated publishing developed the channel and justified later production investment.
Kagan says he stopped a podcast after roughly 30 to 35 episodes because each received about 30,000 downloads rather than the 100,000 he wanted. He later returned to the show and continued for years.
→ The experience became an example of how an arbitrary early benchmark can end a promising practice prematurely.
Common mistakes
Committing before validation
Persistence is expensive when the initial direction has no response. Run a quick test before beginning the full commitment.
Repeating without learning
The count creates consistency, but each repetition should also incorporate feedback and improve execution.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for validated activities where skill, audience, or distribution improves through repeated execution.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for an unvalidated offer that receives no early customer response or carries high per-attempt risk.
From the transcript
“Law of 100 is around how do people stick with things so they can get to the level of success.”
“commit to thew 100 do it 100 times”
From the episode
498: He Lost Millions in Facebook Stock Then Built a $300M Tech Company
Noah Kagan