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

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. 

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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 

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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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CREDITS

Executive Producer: Erica Marom 

Producer: Sofi Levak

Video and Editing: Ron Baranov

Music and Art: Uri Ar 

Design: Rony Karadi