Camille Ricketts

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 • Francisco Cruz-Mendoza: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franciscocrz/ • Emma Yee Yick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmayeeyick/  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/ 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Camille Ricketts

First Marketing Hire

NotionFirst Round Capital

In today's episode we talk to two expert storytellers in startupland — who also happen to be Ryan's good friends. Carmel DeAmicis is an editor (aka word wiz) at Figma, a company that's reinventing how people design software and which recently announced a $40M round led by Sequoia. Prior to joining Figma, Ryan met Carmel when she was a reporter at Pando. She was the first journalist to write about Product Hunt and later went on to join GigaOM and Recode. Camille Ricketts is another friend and veteran storyteller. She recently joined Notion, a hot startup building an all-in-one workspace for your notes, docs, and to-dos. Prior to joining Notion she spent nearly five years at First Round, starting and leading their content and marketing efforts. You've likely read one or many of her First Round Review articles. Earlier in her career she was a reporter at Wall Street Journal and VentureBeat and also worked at Tesla, Kiva, and the White House. In this episode we talk about: How to tell the story of your startup. Both Camille and Carmel are former reporters and they share some of the secrets they've honed over the years on what to do and what not to do when it comes to crafting the narrative around your company. How Carmel and Camille ended up in their respective jobs at Figma and Notion, why it's important to take time between jobs to find the right role, and how to leverage your network to find out what a company is really like on the inside. The wild, weird, wonderful world of TikTok, and why the constraints it imposes generate such creativity. Carmel talks about opening up the app to check it out for the first time and ending up staying up until three in the morning watching TikToks. We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Big thanks to FreshBooks, Bubble, and Dipsea for their support. 😸 Quotes from This Episode “It’s easy to tell a story about a company that just comes out as a collection of features but the better way to tell the story is to emphasize the outcomes that your audience actually wants.” — Camille “At Notion, they have pictures of Engelbart. At Figma, they threw a party on a Sunday on the exact 50th anniversary of the famous 'Mother of All Demos.'” — Carmel [In thinking about which company to join next] “You go through this conversion funnel where you maximize activity at the top of the funnel by emailing anyone who might have an idea for you, and then you winnow it down.” — Camille Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode Figma — Styles, prototyping and design at scale. Notion — Increase your team intelligence. Superhuman — The best email experience ever made. TikTok — A creative music video clip maker.

Camille Ricketts

First Marketing Hire

NotionFirst Round Capital

Carmel DeAmicis

Former Editor

FigmaPando

This week Camille Ricketts (Editor, First Round Review) and Rob Hayes (Partner, First Round Capital) join us from bustling 500 Startups HQ. We chat about new messaging apps like Snowball, products kids use, and a fun little site to troll your friends. Enjoy. Products mentioned: - Snowball (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/snowball) - All your messages in one place (on Android) - Slack (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/slack) - Be less busy. Real-time messaging, archiving & search. - Goji (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/goji) - The Keyboard for Fun - Swipe (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/swipe-2) - See the photos & videos your friends won't post on Facebook - Ringly (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/ringly) - Fashionable wearables. Rings connected to your phone. - Sproutling (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/sproutling) - Grow happy families - Signul (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/signul) - The world's first personal beacon system - BloomThat (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/bloomthat) - Ridiculously fast flowers - Bacon Lover's Feast (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/bacon-lover-s-feast) - Monthly bacon delivery - Luxe Valet (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/luxe-valet) - On-demand valet parking - Instagram (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/instagram-6-0) - Simple way to capture and share the world's moments - Remind (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/remind) - Teacher-student-parent communication - TD4W (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/td4w) - A party in your pants - Ethan (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/ethan) - A messaging app for messaging Ethan - SHRTURL (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/shrturl) - Edit any webpage. Get short URL. Troll your friends!

Camille Ricketts

First Marketing Hire

NotionFirst Round Capital

Rob Hayes

Partner

First Round Capital