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Camille Ricketts (Notion, First Round Capital)11 December 2022

How Notion leveraged community to build a $10B business

5Frameworks
15Insights

Frameworks in this episode

Entrepreneurship5 steps

Community as an Economy

Help your fans make a living from your product and their income becomes your distribution

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Marketing5 steps

Content Market Fit

Treat content like a product: pick an audience, find their pain, and ship a painkiller

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Marketing6 steps

The Ambassador Program Blueprint

Recruit the already-vocal, pay them in access not cash, and grow the cohort deliberately slowly

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Marketing4 steps

The Atomic Unit of Sharing Test

Decide whether community-led growth will work for you before spending a dollar on it

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Strategy4 steps

The Community Form-Factor Matrix

A two-by-two that tells you which kind of community to build given your PMF and buyer

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Hot Take· 3

Hot Take18:30

Don't measure community to death at the start

Camille's number-one recommendation for suspected community-driven growth is to not make metrics the be-all-end-all early. Notion didn't measure community concretely until years in, because organic scale was already visible in geographic expansion and survey responses — and cutting off organic fervor over unmeasured ROI is one of the worst mistakes you can make.

  • Notion didn't measure community concretely until roughly a year before the interview.
  • Organic signals (where they expanded, how people said they discovered Notion) were enough early on.
  • Killing organic momentum because you can't yet measure ROI is a serious error.

“one of my number one recommendations for anybody who suspects the community could be a big growth driver is to not make metrics the be-all…”

Camille Ricketts · 18:30
#community#metrics#growth#roi
Hot Take42:30

The contrarian case for growing your community slowly

Camille's contrarian advice is to deliberately not grow a community too big too fast. Notion used a light application process and inducted roughly 20 ambassadors per month so newcomers could be welcomed organically. Ironically, a huge community (e.g. 5,000 members) goes muted because people feel they're addressing an anonymous auditorium.

  • Notion capped ambassador induction at ~20 people per month to protect the feel.
  • A light application process just gauged interest, not exclusivity.
  • Very large communities go quiet — people won't speak into a faceless auditorium.
  • Lenny saw the same healthy-slow-growth effect in his paid newsletter Slack (~10,000 members).

“if you grow to something like, you know, oh, we have 5,000 ambassadors which feels like really good to say like on a website, the…”

Camille Ricketts · 44:00
#community#growth#contrarian#notion
Hot Take1:00:00

Founders shouldn't set themselves a social-media quota

On how much a founder should tweet, Camille says it comes down to personality and authenticity — lean into what feels natural. A big mistake is giving yourself a quota of scintillating things to post each week; even Notion's main accounts got more traction being reserved and posting only when they had something of value.

  • Founder social presence should follow personality and what feels authentic.
  • Setting a posting quota is one of the biggest social-media mistakes.
  • Notion's accounts saw more traction being reserved and waiting for real value.
  • Founder styles vary widely — from Elon's direct presence to Ivan Zhao's under-the-radar approach.

“one of the biggest mistakes you can make on social media is giving yourself a quota that you have to hit”

Camille Ricketts · 1:00:30

“We've just seen so much more traction even from like the main Notion accounts when we're a little bit more reserved and we wait until…”

Camille Ricketts · 1:00:30
#social-media#founders#authenticity

Explainer· 4

Explainer13:00

What community-led growth actually means

Camille cuts through the buzz to define community-led growth concretely: it's when your community drives so much ubiquity and name recognition that it de-risks you as a choice and lets you move upmarket into the enterprise. People hearing about Notion through many channels made larger companies comfortable buying more seats.

  • Community-led growth = using community-driven ubiquity to move upmarket into the enterprise.
  • Multiple exposures (social, podcasts, friends, billboards) de-risk the buying decision.
  • The same effect powered analogous companies like Figma.

“it's when your community helps you achieve such ubiquity and such name recognition that it actually allows you to start moving up market into the…”

Camille Ricketts · 13:00
#community-led-growth#enterprise#marketing#notion
Explainer20:00

The 'atomic unit of sharing' that makes community work

Community works best when your product creates something people want to share because it expresses something about themselves. At Notion that was templates and workspaces; showing off a creation signals you're organized, well-versed, and self-expressive — the same aspirational dynamic that powers Figma and Canva.

  • Community pays off when the product generates shareable, identity-expressing artifacts.
  • At Notion the atomic unit of sharing was templates and workspaces.
  • Sharing a creation is aspirational: it signals mastery, organization, and self-expression.

“I think that community lends itself particularly well if you have something that your product creates that people want to share because it exhibits something…”

Camille Ricketts · 20:30
#community#product#sharing#notion
Explainer23:00

Ambassadors vs champions: two Notion communities

Ambassadors are non-transactional external fans who love building and sharing with Notion; the program started in 2019 with just 20 of the most vocal social-media users. Champions are the most avid users inside customer companies, gathered in a separate Slack that gives customer success a direct channel. Over time the biggest draw wasn't perks but the dense friendships members formed with each other.

  • Ambassadors are passionate, non-paid external advocates who love building and sharing.
  • Champions are power users inside customer companies, aiding customer success and expansion.
  • The initial ambassador base was 20 of the most vocal users on Twitter and other platforms.
  • Members increasingly stayed for peer bonds and mutual help, not just early feature access.

“They're people who are really just passionate about the product. So it's not transactional.”

Camille Ricketts · 24:30
#community#ambassadors#champions#notion
Explainer51:30

Content market fit: treat content like a product

Just as you chase product market fit, Camille argues you must chase content market fit — approaching content the way you'd approach a product. Start with your audience: who they are, what they need to get promoted, what they need to avoid failure, and what causes them anxiety, then build a content product that genuinely addresses it.

  • Content should be built like a product, starting from the audience's real needs.
  • Ask what your audience needs to get promoted, avoid failure, and reduce anxiety.
  • The goal is a content product that delivers genuine value to that specific audience.

“the way that you think about product market fit, you have to think about content market fit.”

Camille Ricketts · 51:30
#content-marketing#audience#strategy

Story· 4

Story06:30

What Camille learned sitting next to Elon Musk at early Tesla

Camille was head of PR at early Tesla before the Model S launched, sitting to Elon's right to keep him armed with data for press. Her biggest takeaway was Elon's ability to convey the emotional quality of a mission, enlisting hearts and minds around the electric-vehicle revolution and space travel.

  • The role demanded being extremely on-point and well-versed in every topic that could come up.
  • Elon's standout talent was painting an emotional picture of the vision he was chasing.
  • Conveying the emotional quality of a mission is what wins hearts and minds.

“was painting an emotional picture of the vision that he was really going after and being able to convey the emotional quality of the mission…”

Camille Ricketts · 06:30
#leadership#storytelling#tesla#vision
Story10:00

Notion's massive 2021 outage and the resilience lesson

On the first day back from holidays in January 2021, Notion had a massive outage, with panicked users flooding Twitter and Reddit. The scramble showed how central Notion had become, but the real takeaway was that a great product has more built-in resilience than you fear in the moment.

  • The outage was an all-hands-on-deck scramble on roughly January 3rd, 2021.
  • The community rallied, sending hugs and telling others to give the team a break.
  • Users almost always come back to an awesome product, even after a long outage.

“truly there's more resilience built into the system than you might think.”

Camille Ricketts · 11:30
#community#product#resilience#notion
Story21:30

The creator who made $35,000 in 4 months selling one template

Camille recounts hearing, around mid-2021, of a creator who made about $35,000 in four months selling a single Notion template — a story that became common thereafter. Notion invested in guides, networks, and connections so community members could build real businesses, and many consultants who came up through the community now employ dozens of people and drive enterprise adoption.

  • One creator made ~$35,000 in 4 months from a single template; that became a common story.
  • Notion nurtured multiple monetization routes (templates, consulting, courses) early.
  • Consultants who rose through the community now employ dozens and feed the enterprise motion.
  • Tying someone's income to Notion is the ultimate evangelism incentive.

“we heard of one creator who had made like $35,000 in 4 months selling one template.”

Camille Ricketts · 22:00
#community#creators#monetization#notion
Story57:30

Why comms still matters: the WSJ story that was Notion's big break

Against the 'go direct' narrative, Camille remains a believer in comms and press as rare, credible megaphones. She points to David Pierce's Wall Street Journal piece calling Notion the one work-life productivity app you'll ever need — a demonstrable inflection point — and notes Product Hunt was Notion's other big break.

  • Press offers reach plus a stamp of credibility that owned media alone can't match.
  • David Pierce's WSJ story was a demonstrable turning point for Notion's growth.
  • Product Hunt was Notion's other major break, for launches and for template discovery.
  • Portfolio companies that landed mission-telling stories saw big gains in discovery and recruiting.

“published a story that said this is the one work life productivity app that you'll ever need. And that was Notion's big break.”

Camille Ricketts · 58:30
#pr#comms#content-marketing#notion

Takeaway· 4

Takeaway14:00

Aim for discovery, not just awareness

Camille prefers 'discovery' over 'awareness' because discovery implies intent — the moment someone has heard enough that they actively take the step to learn more. That intent-to-explore was where the brand team wanted to focus its work.

  • Awareness is passive; discovery involves intent to find out more.
  • Discovery happens after enough repeated exposure or intrigue to act.
  • The brand team optimized for motivating that active step.

“I love using the word discovery cuz I think that that is even a little bit like a step further than awareness.”

Camille Ricketts · 14:00
#brand#discovery#marketing
Takeaway15:00

The one brand metric that mattered: net new visitors

When teams struggle to measure brand and awareness, Camille found net new visitors to the Notion website — month-over-month first-time visitors — the single most instructive metric. It was the brand team's core responsibility across community, content, and awareness campaigns.

  • Net new visitors = how many people who'd never visited were motivated to come learn about the product.
  • It was the shared KPI for the brand, community, and content team.
  • Influencer efforts (run by Lexi Barnhorn) were highly measurable and traceable directly to site traffic.

“the one that I found to be the most instructive was net new visitors to the Notion website.”

Camille Ricketts · 15:00
#metrics#brand#kpi#growth
Takeaway52:30

Make your content a painkiller, not a vitamin

Applying the vitamin-versus-painkiller dichotomy to content, Camille says painkillers always win. Great content solves real pain — reducing confusion, or making people feel less alone. A core First Round Review job was helping operators share failures so others felt normalized and less alone in their struggles.

  • Painkiller content beats vitamin content every time.
  • Content can relieve confusion or make people feel less alone.
  • First Round Review normalized operators' failures to reassure readers.
  • There are emotional jobs-to-be-done, not just utilitarian ones.

“there's the vitamin versus painkiller sort of dichotomy, and painkillers always win.”

Camille Ricketts · 52:30
#content-marketing#jobs-to-be-done#audience
Takeaway54:30

Great posts take ~8 hours to write — and time correlates with results

A First Round Review post took roughly 8 hours to write, on top of all the interview prep and mining of tactical gems. Lenny's median post takes about 10 hours, and he finds a strong correlation between time invested and how well a post performs — most people neither have the time nor realize the bar is that high.

  • Writing a First Round post alone took about 8 hours, after extensive prep.
  • Lenny's median post takes roughly 10 hours to write.
  • Time invested strongly correlates with how well a post performs.
  • The internet's content bar is so high that beating the noise simply takes time.

“it would take like 8 hours to just write the thing.”

Camille Ricketts · 54:30

“I find this really strong correlation between the time it takes me to write a post and how well it does.”

Lenny · 55:30
#content-marketing#writing#quality