How Notion leveraged community to build a $10B business | Camille Ricketts (Notion, First Round Capital)
Camille Ricketts began her career in journalism, at the Wall Street Journal, in 2006. In 2010 she joined Tesla, where she worked in communications alongside Elon Musk. She transitioned into marketing and became the Head of Content and Marketing at First Round Capital and then went on to become the very first marketing hire at Notion. In today’s episode, we dig into community-led growth—what it is, and when and how to pursue it. We get super-specific on how Notion championed their most loyal users and built a passionate community, and the incredible outcome it had for the company’s growth. We also talk about how to create great content, and how content can drive growth for your business and brand. Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Google, Overcast, and YouTube. — Find the transcript for this episode and all past episodes at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/episodes/. Today’s transcript will be live by 8 a.m. PT. — Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast: • Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments: https://www.geteppo.com/ • Flatfile—A CSV importer that says yes instead of error: mismatch: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny • Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny — Where to find Camille: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/camillericketts • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camillericketts/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — People referenced: • Ivan Zhao: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanhzhao/ • Simon Last: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-last-41404140/ • Lexie Barnhorn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexisbarnhorn/ • Ben Lang: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmlang/ • Claire Butler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairetbutler/ • Jessi Craige Shikman at First Round: https://firstround.com/person/jessi-craige-shikman/ • Brett Berson at First Round: https://firstround.com/person/brett-berson/ • Josh Kopelman at First Round: https://firstround.com/person/josh-kopelman/#mystory • Shaun Young on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunyou/ • David Pierce at The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/authors/david-pierce Additionally, Camille would love to shout out Nate Martins and Andrea Lim, who ran Notion’s content program: • Nate Martins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nate-martins/ • Andrea Lim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawlim/ Content and companies referenced: • Community & Content Resources: https://tinyurl.com/yrxbb542 • Station F: https://stationf.co/ • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Canva: https://www.canva.com/ • Stripe: https://stripe.com/ • Stripe Atlas: https://stripe.com/atlas • Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ • Jobs to be done framework: https://jobs-to-be-done.com/jobs-to-be-done-a-framework-for-customer-needs-c883cbf61c90 • The Only App You Need for Work-Life Productivity: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-only-app-you-need-for-work-life-productivity-1521640800 • Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/ Referenced in lightning round: • Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning So Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It: https://www.amazon.com/Obviously-Awesome-Product-Positioning-Customers/dp/1999023005 • April Dunford on Lenny’s podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/april-dunford-on-product-positioning-segmentation-and-optimizing-your-sales-process/ • April Dunford’s guest post in Lenny’s newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/positioning • Harry Stebbings’s podcast, 20VC: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/podcast/ • Lenny on 20VC: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/lenny-rachitsky/ • Tár: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14444726/ • Fleishman Is in Trouble: https://www.hulu.com/series/fleishman-is-in-trouble-710e51f8-3387-404d-8b07-e7c9b766d11c • Notion: https://www.notion.so/ • Arc: https://arc.net/ • Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/ • Cron: https://cron.com/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Camille’s background (05:43) What it was like working with Elon Musk (07:38) Working at Notion in the early days (12:16) What is community-led growth? (15:48) How Notion measured the impact of marketing efforts (16:35) The most successful community efforts at Notion (18:24) Why metrics aren’t always necessary for community growth (19:52) When it makes sense to invest in community-led growth (21:34) How creators make money using Notion (23:12) The Ambassador Program and Champions Program at Notion (27:20) Why founders should consider investing in community and delay monetizing some features (31:03) Companies that have done well in building community (32:54) How to determine the level of community engagement appropriate for your company to invest in (34:00) Using Camille’s 2x2 grid to implement community (36:42) How to launch an ambassador program (41:22) Advice for founders who want to build community (47:17) How Lenny got his first 500 newsletter subscribers (48:58) Examples of Camille’s most impactful content marketing (51:20) Content-market fit: how to determine the needs of your reader (53:37) Content categories and the time it takes to create top-notch content (57:02) The future of comms and how the press helped Notion grow (1:01:35) Lightning round — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. |
Key phrases
Older messages
The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher)
Thursday, December 8, 2022
Listen now (99 min) | Madhavan Ramanujam is a senior partner at Simon-Kucher, where he works with tier-one tech companies like Uber, Asana, and LinkedIn to help them develop their pricing and
How to activate your investor network
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Examples and tactics for getting the most out of your investors
How to hit revenue targets in a recession | Sahil Mansuri (Bravado)
Sunday, December 4, 2022
Listen now (87 min) | Sahil Mansuri is the CEO of Bravado, the world's largest online sales community. Sahil is passionate about sales, and his experience dates all the way back to 2008, working
The ultimate guide to SEO | Ethan Smith (Graphite)
Thursday, December 1, 2022
Listen now (91 min) | Ethan Smith is the CEO of Graphite, a boutique growth agency that's helped companies like MasterClass, Thumbtack, Robinhood, Medium, and Honey develop and execute their SEO
Lenny’s Newsletter Holiday Gift Guide 2022
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
The items below are products that I've used and found to be amazing, along with a bunch sprinkled in that I discovered through this killer Twitter thread.
You Might Also Like
10words: Top picks from this week
Friday, April 19, 2024
Today's projects: Spheria • Narration Box • OnTheFly • AnyCheese • Dumbbe • HASTY • lockrScan • IdeaAize • Mailmo • ProSolvio • GigHunterBot • WeekToDo 10words Discover new apps and startups in 10
[Replay] Building a million dollar beauty brand
Friday, April 19, 2024
Free summit replay extended Hey - great news! We've extended the summit replay for 24 more hours. Watch it here free >> And, I want to highlight one of the inspiring founders, Alicia Scott.
Put it on paper
Friday, April 19, 2024
In case you missed it, here is the full recording of the 668 person workshop I co-hosted yesterday "how to build products of the future". It's completely free to watch here. Put it on
7 prompts for your B2B company’s next LinkedIn post
Friday, April 19, 2024
Plus, tips, news & Buffer updates for your social media journey Image Hey folks 👋🏾 It's been an interesting week in social, with the launch of TikTok Notes (their take on a photo + text
Challenges of Offering an API — The Bootstrapped Founder 313
Friday, April 19, 2024
When you sell access to an API, what should you keep in mind? How would you protect your data but still make it easy to use?
12 hours to go! 🐣
Friday, April 19, 2024
Catch the super early bird rates before they expire! View this email in your browser. 1200 x 380 (Desktop & Tablet) (8) Hey there, There are just 12 hours to go before Summit Summit ticket prices
Why I Switched My Blog to Ghost (and Why You Might Love It Too)
Friday, April 19, 2024
Tired of slow, clunky blogging platforms? I was too! Find out how Ghost changed my blogging life (and my company!), and why it might be the upgrade you need. Salehin Khan Salehin Khan Why I Switched My
Latvia's startup financing gets creative
Friday, April 19, 2024
We visit Riga to explore Latvia's tech scene, layoffs at Stability AI and why climate tech's latest phase will be built on debt. View in browser Notion flagship logo final Good morning there,
How Meta is paving the way for synthetic social networks
Friday, April 19, 2024
Five ways of thinking about Llama 3, its latest large language model Platformer Platformer How Meta is paving the way for synthetic social networks By Casey Newton • 18 Apr 2024 View in browser View in
SaaSHub Weekly - Apr 18
Thursday, April 18, 2024
SaaSHub Weekly - Apr 18 Featured and useful products Ant Design logo Ant Design An enterprise-class UI design language and React implementation with a set of high-quality React components, one of best