Leading community at Notion and angel investing - Ben Lang (next play, Notion)

Welcome to this new episode of Explore and thank you for your continuous support. If you want to support the show you can give a 5 stars review ✨ on Spotify/Apple podcast.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 foundersListen now on 🟢Spotify or 🟣Apple Podcast.3 learnings from this episode:🌱 Look for organic trends and support themAs 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* CertificationsToday Notion has 35M users.🚀Ship things quicklyIn 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 peopleBen 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: Ben Lang 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 Projects02:55 The Hummus Day Story05:37 Founding MapMe with Family09:47 Joining Notion: From User to Employee18:59 Building Community at Notion26:14 Transition to Angel Investing36:49 Advice for Founders and Investors39:08 Conclusion and Final Thoughts This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit climateventuresvco2.substack.com