In Depth

Lessons from Notion on building a thriving decentralized community — Ben Lang

Mar 16, 2023

44:27

Episode guests

Ben Lang

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Highlights

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Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Building a strong decentralized community requires focusing on meaningful relationships and empowering community members to spread the love for the brand.

Notion's community-building journey involved hiring passionate individuals, leveraging contractors, and utilizing tools like Swag Up, Tremendous, and Luma for various initiatives.

Deep dives

Building on Trends in the User Base

Notion has consistently identified trends in its user base and built on top of them to empower and encourage its community. This approach has allowed them to create amazing things with Notion and inspire others.

The challenges of measuring the impact of early stage companies

00:54

How to Create a Thriving Virtual Community in Slack

00:43

Notion - Templates and Engaging Early Super Users

02:01

The People at Notion - Who Did You Learn From?

02:50

Introduction

5min

Is Community a B2B Strategy?

4min

How Has the Community Work at Notion Enhanced Your Business?

3min

How Did You Get Started With Notion?

4min

Notion - Templates and Engaging Early Super Users

2min

Are There Specific Questions You Want to Ask People About Notion?

2min

How Did You Get Started on Notions?

2min

Creating a Virtual Community in Slack

3min

Are There Any Slack Rituals or Channels That Might Be of Use to the Ambassadors?

2min

10.

Are You Taking a More Decentralized Approach to Building Out Your Community?

2min

11.

Notion - A New Way to Connect With Influencers

4min

12.

Reverse Engineering - What Are the Core Tenants of Community?

3min

13.

Building a Zero to One Community at Your Company?

3min

14.

Is There a Community Approach to Scaling?

3min

15.

The People at Notion - Who Did You Learn From?

3min

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.

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In Depth

Lessons from Notion on building a thriving decentralized community — Ben Lang

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Building on Trends in the User Base

The Value of Community for Growth

Key Community Programs

Lessons and Tools

The challenges of measuring the impact of early stage companies

How to Create a Thriving Virtual Community in Slack

Notion - Templates and Engaging Early Super Users

The People at Notion - Who Did You Learn From?

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts