Community-led Growth: The Story of Notion and Its $10 Billion Growth Engine

Notion is a note-taking, task management, and database tool that has exploded in popularity in recent years. It now has over 30 million users, including individuals, teams, and businesses of all sizes. It is currently valued at $10 billion with 95% organic traffic. That’s huge.

Having this huge organic traffic is itself an achievement, but how exactly they have achieved it? In today’s newsletter, we will discuss the factors behind Notion’s most effective and successful growth engine: Community-led Growth—what it is, and when and how to pursue it.

What Is Community-led Growth?

Community-led growth is a model that uses the power of community to acquire, retain, and engage customers. CLG companies focus on building and nurturing communities of users and customers who are passionate about their products and services.

It has been gaining traction in recent years. This is due in part to the rise of social media and other online platforms, which have made it easier for businesses to connect with and build communities.

Sounds very easy, right? But I think this is one of the most difficult growth models. Not many companies have cracked it, but Notion did.

How Notion Built Community

The reason for Notion’s vibrant community is due to two people: Camille Ricketts (Head of Marketing) and Ben Long (Head of Community).

For Notion, it all started very organic and natural.

In the early days, we saw people on Twitter and Reddit sharing tips and providing support to other users. With a small marketing team, it was clear that this would be a way for us to amplify Notion.

— Camille

The organic engagement on these platforms caught the eye of Camille, and she thought of going all-in to create a more formal community.

At that time, Ben, as a die-hard fan of Notion, had a website where people could share Notion templates; he also had a Facebook group where Notion enthusiasts interacted with each other.

His efforts caught the attention of Camille, and she wanted him to run the Notion community right away, and then Ben joined Notion as the Head of Community. Camille described him as “the most formidable figure on social media when it came to the Notion community- he knew everybody.”

Ben's first step was to establish an Ambassador program. For this, he started finding people who had the same craze for Notion - as he had (creating templates and sharing with others).

The only trait to become an ambassador is to be passionate about Notion. (And they should also have a community-building experience)

They (Ambassadors) are people who are really just passionate about the product. So it's not transactional. They're people who love building with Notion. They love sharing what they've built in order to help others.

— Camille

The Ambassadors program is a volunteer program, so people who are jumping into this have a genuine love for the product. They did provide support to these ambassadors to create online courses teaching Notion, which, in turn, spreads the word about Notion and brings more users.

They also get early access to new features, and Notion’s product team gets their feedback to improve the feature before releasing it to all users.

Apart from the Ambassadors program, Notion has built localized communities (with the help of these ambassadors), for instance, Notion Vietnam has 200k+ members.

r/Notion, started by ambassadors now has 300k+ members, and those ambassadors still manage this subreddit.

Notion’s massive growth engine was fueled by the Notion community, and it created a super viral loop for its “Templates.”

We’re now seeing people sell Notion templates. Not only does that mean they’re super fans of our product, but it also means they’re promoting it for their own businesses.

—Ben

Notion is a PLG company fueled by a very active community. The community multiplies and accelerates its PLG strategy.

Now, apart from the Ambassadors program, Ben and his team also created the Champions Program.So what is the Champions Program?

Champions are the biggest Notion fans inside of companies. They bring Notion in, set up workspaces, help their teammates succeed, and much more.

We wondered if the same DNA that existed among consumers for the most part in the ambassadors could work for folks who were inside of our customer companies.

And so we launched another community, another Slack instance for folks who were the most passionate or the most avid users of Notion inside of our customer companies, which has become just a wonderful channel for customer success.

—Camille

After the Champions program, Notion also created a Campus Leader program. A program looking for university students who love Notion and want to share + teach Notion.

Today, Notion Ambassadors and Campus Leaders host about 30 in-person events a month. And overall, 60 events per month are happening if we include webinars too.

This is how the Notion community keeps on growing. Notion's community provides users with a place to get help and support, and it also gives them a chance to learn from other users and share their own tips and tricks.

Putting It All Together

Starting from the Ambassadors program to Champions and then to Interest-based groups, Notion has tried to serve and include all their power users to at least view or be a part of one of the community channels.

So, if you are not into the programs (and you are into marketing), you can view their Marketing Facebook group or maybe the ADHD Notion Facebook group. These community groups are for every segment of the audience.

It is important to note that Notion's community-led growth strategy is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The specific steps that Notion took to create its community may not be right for every company.

However, Notion's success story shows that community-led growth can be a powerful way to grow a business.

Is Community the Right Approach for Every Product?

First of all, don’t expect a community to have an instant impact on your metric, and don’t attach ROIs with communities. Notion does not have a direct measurable KPI to see its community's effectiveness.

I found to be the most instructive was net new visitors to the Notion website. So month over month, how many new people who had never been there before were motivated enough to come and actually learn about the product.

— Camille

As a founder, don’t start building community for the sake of Notion’s success. First, try to find an engaging audience and then leverage those users to create groups.

When building a community, it's important to understand what kind of community is right for your product at any given time.

Camille created a two-by-two matrix that considers whether you have hit product market fit or are still exploring it, as well as whether your product is strongly enterprise or strongly consumer.

• Pre-Product Market Fit x Enterprise: Start Customer Advisory Boards
• Pre-Product Market Fit x B2C: Start Focus Groups
• Post-Product Market Fit x Enterprise: Start Consultants & Champions
• Post-Product Market Fit x B2C: Start Ambassadors & Creators

Having a strong community can be incredibly valuable for freemium products, especially if the product has an aspect of sharing, such as templates or workspaces that people want to showcase.

Community is something that’s so hard to build and so easy to lose. —Ben

If you’ve got something to add, I’d love to hear it.

Thank you so much for reading today.

Until next time.

*— Ahsen*✌️

Also published here