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This week, I sit down with Ben Lang, one of the first employees at Notion, the founder of next play and an active angel investor. In our conversation, Ben talked about:
Founding a mapping software with his father
Creating the Hummus Day as a side project
Discovering Notion on Product Hunt and launching notion-pages.com
Joining Notion after emailing Ivan Zhao and flying to SF to meet the team
Developing the template gallery and the ambassador program
Notion's unique startup culture and traditions that made it great
Transitioning to Angel Investing and starting as an apprentice
His investment thesis, sourcing mechanism, and support to founders
Listen now on 🟢Spotify or 🟣Apple Podcast.
3 learnings from this episode:
🌱 Look for organic trends and support them
As Ben described, many of Notion's community initiatives started by observing what was already happening organically among users. Before taking action, the team at Notion paid close attention to how their users were interacting with the product and with each other. What happens next is a great playbook in growing communities.
Once Notion identified these organic trends, they didn't try to replace them – they supported them. As Ben put it:
"We would see these trends and things happening inside the community and just try to support them and put a framework around it to help drive more."
With organic activities flourishing, Notion's next step was to provide structure and support. They created programs that formalized existing activities like:
Ambassador Program
Influencer Marketing
Campus Program
Certifications
Today Notion has 35M users.
🚀Ship things quickly
In Ben's words:
"I always optimize for the quickest, most efficient way to get something done.”
But why does it matter?
"Anytime something takes longer than my attention span would hold, I wouldn't end up shipping it.”
It reduces the risk of not shipping at all and it allows for faster feedback and iteration loops with your users. As Ben puts it
"Don't get stuck in the middle, you got to get to the end."
🤝Early-stage investments are bets on people
Ben loves investing very early. For him, traction doesn’t matter as much. What he looks for are “killers”. In his own words:
“I don't think there's any recipe. To me, it fits when I meet someone and I'm like, wow, this person is a killer. I just feel like can sell me on anything, they clearly have the patience to work on something for the next 10 years, they are working hard. When I meet someone like this, I’m like: I want to give them money. I want to be involved!”
Where to find Ben:
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmlang/
🔗 next play: https://nextplayso.substack.com/
🔗 Substack:
Where to find me:
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugorauch/
🔗 Newsletter: https://explorepodcast.substack.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
02:28 Early Career and Side Projects
02:55 The Hummus Day Story
05:37 Founding MapMe with Family
09:47 Joining Notion: From User to Employee
18:59 Building Community at Notion
26:14 Transition to Angel Investing
36:49 Advice for Founders and Investors
39:08 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Leading community at Notion and angel investing - Ben Lang (next play, Notion)