Ben Lang on Being Early at Notion, How to Build Community, Angel Investing and Taking Risks Invested by Aleph

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Ben Lang, an early employee at Notion and serial builder. 
Ben is an angel investor, former founder and operator at high-growth startups. He served in IDF Intelligence and went on to co-found Mapme. Later, he joined Spoke, which was acquired by Okta. In 2019, he joined Notion, where he saw the team grow from 15 to 600+. He helped scale the team, build out their Ambassador program, influencer function, Consultants program, user conference, education program, template gallery, and more. Today, he actively makes angel investments (50+ investments so far) and advises a few startups. He is building the next play community to help people discover what’s next with curated opportunities, gatherings, and content. 
Please rate this episode 5 stars wherever you stream your podcasts! 
KEY TOPICS 

[00:00] Intro 

[03:50] How Michael and Ben Met

[05:05] Creating International Hummus Day

[11:05] Starting at Notion and Building the Community

[23:50] Why is Notion Different? 

[25:54] How to Create a Unique Community

[30:15] Getting into Angel Investing

[35:50] Going from Building to Advising 

[37:47] Pitching Yourself as an Investor 

[44:00] The Best Place to Build a Startup 

[47:08] Post Oct 7th: Why Live in Israel? 

[49:50] Creating CoronaCrush 

[53:09] Rapid Fire

RESOURCES
Follow Ben Lang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmlang/ 
Follow Ben Lang on X: https://x.com/benln 
Subscribe to Invested here: https://content.aleph.vc/invested
Learn more about Aleph: aleph.vc 
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For the transcript of this episode, go to content.aleph.vc/podcast-episodes/ben-lang---episode-20
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Follow Michael on Twitter: twitter.com/mikeeisenberg
Follow Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mieisenberg/
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CREDITS
Executive Producer: Erica Marom 
Producer: Sofi Levak
Video and Editing: Ron Baranov
Music and Art: Uri Ar 
Design: Rony Karadi