Pause right now and guess what ARR Notion hit before they hired a salesperson 🤯 #startup #founder #saas #productmanager #productmanagement startup advice podcast, crazy startup stories, notion origin story, startup growth hacking, saas startup sales
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. — Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-notion-leveraged-community-to — 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://camnotes.notion.site/Community-Content-Resources-f18fb1db2d094ec2a4140a7737fae362 • 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/ Find all lightning round references at https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-notion-leveraged-community-to-build-a-10b-business-camille-ricketts-notion-first-round-capital — 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.
#founder #ceo #startup #notion
#productivity #developer #notion #ceo #founder
Ivan Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Notion. Ivan shares the untold story of Notion, from nearly running out of database space during Covid to finding product-market fit after several “lost years,” and the hard-won lessons along the way. What you’ll learn: 1. Why you sometimes need to “hide your vision” behind something people actually want—what Ivan calls “sugar-coating the broccoli” 2. How Ivan and his co-founder persevered through multiple product resets and complete code rewrites 3. Why Notion prioritized systems over headcount, keeping the team small and focused even at scale 4. Why Ivan believes in craft and values as the foundation for product development, balancing technical excellence with aesthetic sensibility 5. The surprising story of how Notion nearly collapsed during Covid when their single database almost ran out of space with only weeks to spare 6. Community-led growth tactics 7. Ivan’s unique journey from a small town in China 8. Much more — Brought to you by: • Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments: https://www.geteppo.com/ • Airtable ProductCentral—Launch to new heights with a unified system for product development: https://www.airtable.com/lenny • Sinch—Build messaging, email, and calling into your product: https://sinch.com/lenny Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-notion-ivan-zhao Where to find Ivan Zhao: • X: https://x.com/ivanhzhao • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanhzhao/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Ivan Zhao (04:41) Ivan’s early life and education (07:46) Discovering the vision for Notion (10:49) The lost years of Notion (13:56) Rebuilding and perseverance (17:14) Layoffs and company morale (18:53) Advice for startup founders (25:08) Product-market fit (29:56) Staying lean and efficient (34:27) Creating a unique office culture (37:20) Craft and values: the foundation of Notion’s philosophy (38:44) Navigating tradeoffs in product and business building (41:24) Leadership and personal growth (49:11) Challenges and crises: lessons from Notion’s journey (51:08) Building horizontal software: joys and pains (01:02:40) Philosophy of tools and human potential (01:06:17) Lightning round and final thoughts Referenced: • Ürümqi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi • Notion: https://www.notion.com/ • SpongeBob SquarePants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpongeBob_SquarePants • Augmenting Human Intellect: https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Engelbart/Engelbart_AugmentIntellect.html • Alan Kay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Kay • Ted Nelson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson • Steve Jobs on Why Computers Are Like a Bicycle for the Mind (1990): https://www.themarginalian.org/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle-for-the-mind-1990/ • Xerox Alto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto • React: https://react.dev/ • Simon Last on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-last-41404140/ • Magna-Tiles: https://www.magnatiles.com/ • Design on a deadline: How Notion pulled itself back from the brink of failure: https://www.figma.com/blog/design-on-a-deadline-how-notion-pulled-itself-back-from-the-brink-of-failure/ • Bryan Johnson on X: https://x.com/bryan_johnson • Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook • Smalltalk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk#: • Lisp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language) • DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/ • Shana Fisher: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/shana-fisher • LAMY 2000 fountain pens: https://www.jetpens.com/LAMY-2000-Fountain-Pens/ • Macintosh 128K: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K • Toshiba rice cooker: https://www.toshiba-lifestyle.com/us/cooking-appliances/rice-cooker • Transistor radio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio • Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira • Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ • HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/ • Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com/ • Misattributed McLuhan quote: https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/we-shape-our-tools-and-thereafter-our-tools-shape-us/ • Phin Barnes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phineasbarnes/ • Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/ • Pablo Picasso quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/629531-good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal#:~ Recommended book: • The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: https://www.amazon.com/Romance-Three-Kingdoms-Luo-Guanzhong/dp/024133277X Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.