Camille Ricketts: joining Notion as first marketing hire, editing First Round Review, and becoming Partner at XYZ Venture Capital

Camille Ricketts is Partner & Head of Marketing at XYZ Venture Capital, where she invests in product-led growth companies, creator tools, and more. Prior, she was the first marketing hire at Notion, where she helped build out its global brand, strategy, and team. With deep roots in content marketing in particular, she was the first Editor of First Round Review for First Round Capital, managed communications for Tesla Motors, and started as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. She has her BA in history, but truly majored in The Stanford Daily.Thank you to our sponsor Notion. Get 6 months free of Notion with unlimited AI when you apply at notion.com/startups, select next play in the drop-down partner list and enter code nextplay at the end of the form.

In this episode we talk about:

* 2:27 - serendipitous moments at First Round lead to joining Notion as first marketing leader

* 3:50 - interview process for Notion in the early days

* 6:50 - goal setting in marketing at First Round vs Notion

* 8:00 - learning about patience at Notion

* 11:25 - highlights from the Notion journey

* 15:00 - the life story tradition at Notion

* 16:24 - what leaving Notion was like to go off and explore

* 19:17 - setting your team up for success when leaving a company

* 21:30 - taking time off to be present, travel, angel invest

* 24:01 - going back to work, ways to approach exploring new opportunities

* 28:15 - from journalism scoops to joining Tesla early

* 35:30 - how magical serendipity can be in your career

* 37:00 - going from marketing to venture capital as an investor at XYZ

Follow Camille on Twitter and Linkedin.

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Huge thanks to ⁠⁠Alex Banaga⁠⁠ for designing our thumbnails.