Sally Kohn: Who were the folks in notion maybe that you've learned the most from or had an outsized impact on you? She says Camille Ricketts, Francisco and Emma have taught her a lot. Kohn: One of the things I've been so impressed by at notion has been the talent bar. The people at notion are just truly best in craft at what they do," she adds.
Our guest today is Ben Lang, Head of Community at Notion.
Since joining the company in 2019, Ben has had his hand in several high-impact projects at Notion that has grown its tight-knit community of passionate Notion evangelists into millions of users today.
But before he was doing this as a full-time job, Ben was already spreading his love for Notion in his free time as a voracious product user. After discovering the tool on Product Hunt, he became obsessed. He got on the company’s radar after launching his own Notion template gallery on Product Hunt and joined as one of the first 15 employees.
In our conversation today, we focus on the nuts and bolts of building a global community that drives user growth. Ben shares tactical advice on:
- Tackling community organically from the bottom-up, and why you shouldn’t go top-down
- What companies are best suited to a centralized vs. decentralized community approach
- Partnering with YouTubers and other creators
- His advice to founders on finding your own first community hire
You can follow Ben on Twitter at @benln. You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @firstround and @brettberson.