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

why should somebody come to Ben Lang for money today I think I'm I'm just like a builder at heart I have a lot of empathy for people who are starting companies and and I think a lot of the things that

I'm working on on my own are things that can be pretty helpful um whether it's finding co-founders recruiting Talent uh getting early users thinking about how to build your community like those are

just things that I spend a lot of time on personally and and you know I just hope to be like a good service provider on my end as an investor super excited to welcome to invested my

old friend Ben Lang it's hard to call him an old friend because Ben is still super young but we know each other a long time which we'll get into as soon Ben why don't you tell everybody who you

are sure uh I'm Ben I'm living in Tel Aviv with my wife I grew up in the US in the Bay Area and New York uh I went to Ras for for high school I moved here

afterwards and was in the military been working in tech for for a while now and um you know proud proud Zionist proud Jew how did you get yourself into Tech I started when I was in high school

selling stuff on eBay I think my grandfather gave me some of his camera equipment to sell and I got really into it I started putting ads on Craigslist and flyers like on on the street saying hey I'll sell your stuff for you this is

when selling stuff was really difficult still yeah it wasn't it wasn't so simple like to you didn't you know you didn't you could just like put something on Facebook Marketplace so started just helping people with that and taking a cut and trying to scale that and did you

do the Box shipping too did you box it up and take it to the post office yeah oh yeah for sure I was doing that in my bedroom I was selling like Collectibles and and uh electronics and you know

taking care of all the shipping I was doing this like after uh after school every day in my in my in my little bedroom and did you make money at it yeah I mean you know it was like it's probably better than what I could have

been the alternative of uh Mo Lawns yeah exactly yeah I did I did dog walking before at a certain point I think this was like a little more profitable was also more interesting because I you know I had to learn how to Market myself and get

customers from dog walker to eBay seller it's quite the career path all right but bring everybody up to date and what you're doing now so yeah sure um well so I spent the past

five years working at at notion uh notion is a productivity tool companies and individuals use it for for project management notes tasks uh I joined when

it was about 15 people uh pretty small company in in the Bay Area I was working remote most of the time from New York and then and then Israel as well uh and

um uh had a really incredible time there working on community marketing what was your role I mean be specific we'll talk more about that what your role I mean we called it head of community but I think I think it meant a lot of things because

I got to work on all kinds of things over the years um but really a lot of a lot of what we what I thought about and the team that I built there was how we could kind of support our user base to

help expand and grow notion help people teach notion and you know just help us grow faster and why did you leave why' I leave um mostly because I wanted to spend more time in Israel and it didn't

you know as the company grew it was about 600 people we didn't we didn't really have a presence in in Israel and you know it just made it more and more challenging to manage the team and uh I I kind of had to make had to make a decision at a certain point to

prioritize you know living living here and what are you doing now now I'm mostly doing Angel Investing uh I I've been doing that for a few years now I

started off helping out a Founder with his Angel Investing um a guy an incredible guy I think we both know named Clark I did that for for a few years and uh then I started investing a

bit on my own uh did that for for a few years and uh and and and I raised a little micro fund about a year ago um so now I'm mostly investing out of that good now that we've gotten almost all of

your biography almost almost uh can we tell everyone how we met yeah definitely so how do we meet B I think we met uh I'm trying to remember what the the

sequence of events with like this Facebook post was I think you had posted like a challenge about creating a a map of Israeli startups and then I saw that

I think I built it I think I I was in the Army at that point and uh I thought it was a great idea I think you were before the Army still maybe I don't

remember exactly and uh uh and and so yeah we I published it and uh I think it got some good traction and and then we met up and I remember you gave me like a case of wine right I remember you

underaged right the prize I offered for whoever could build a map his visual map of Israeli startups was a case of wine and I brought the wine maker the Vint nerd to come and give it yam Cohen from

Tiny Winery and he came and made this presentation and uh without being too cheesy I'm not sure you you were shaving yet it's very give me it's very possible I think my dad appreciated the wine more

than me he's he's French and he knows good wine I probably had not had a couple of one in my life at that point yeah but I think that's how we met it was like one of these random things and then I discovered at the time that it

wasn't just kind of this mapping project you had you had some project around humus so why you tell one about humus yeah I I think at that point I was really into like building side projects

that was kind of my my hobby at a certain point I was in the Army which was obviously most of my time I was in intelligence but I think like when I had time off I was just hacking away at these like different side projects and

so I I I organized a hackathon I think it was I think it was the first one in Israel actually we called it Innovation Israel and uh the idea was uh to for people to work on projects that could

like show Israel in a different light uh this is really when hackathons were like just getting started I think this was like 2011 there wer there had not been a lot of hackathons at that point and uh and so a bunch of people worked on

incredible projects um and I I wanted to work on my own personal project so I I had like just recently come across this thing called Nella day this holiday and I thought like oh this is so cool like you know we should have our own version

of this so obviously you know lumus is the equivalent of that uh so I uh I I bought kum.com and uh built a little you know simple website I made up a day May

May 13th and uh and then it just you know a month later it just went viral like on its own I didn't I I I honestly just forgot about it but it just went viral what does it mean went viral like how's that happened uh I think someone sent it out in like a vegan newsletter

and then from there it just started to go viral on Twitter and these different celebrties started sharing it and uh and then every year since it's just become this real thing like if you search kistan Google like it looks like a real

thing it's just a totally arbitrary day with no nothing behind it and what is the ritual practice on homus day people I mean on the website it says like eat humus for breakfast or lunch or dinner

or I think all the above and you know share share photos and that's what people do I mean the cool the cool thing I think over the years has been seeing like all these different humus events happening festivals so like I think

multiple years now in Dubai there's been these massive like kumus festivals in Dubai on May 13th on May 13th yeah yeah and uh uh and there's all these articles

like in GQ and Cosmopolitan on like how to eat kumus and um even I think a year or two ago there was like a tour of uh the best kumus places in Gaza and like just so like it has so much reach now

which is which has been really cool to see is there is there a Hallmark card I don't think so no but it's on all those websites like National day naal calendar day like there's a ton of these websites

that keep track of every single possible holiday it's on all of them and like when you think back about like okay this was like a hackathon uh project

joke and now it's everywhere how how do you think about that do you say what a weird world we're living in do you say wow I made a de in

the world of you say wow uh this is incredible like what do you tell yourself I me Mom GQ like what do you say no I I I honestly I just for me it's like it's just a good reminder like that

you can you can make an impact like it pretty easily like I think I think you you know it's not some I think a lot of people think it's it's a lot harder to like make an impact and you know requires years and

years of of effort and this was like a two-hour project right and I think I think uh for me it's just always a good reminder that's why I always tell people like you know you if you kind of do something creative think of come up with your own Niche whatever it might be like

you can really really do something impactful did you trademark H day no I didn't but I had a really interesting story with that I actually got into a pretty big fight with Sabra over it cuz

they they sponsored it for for a few years what do you mean what do you mean they sponsored it they would sponsor it to like to be like the official sponsor of kumus on the on the website and they

would do these events in in Union Square all these like crazy kumus uh Festival like crazy Kus events and uh after a few years they asked me if they they could

buy it and uh and they I I kind of felt like they low balled me so I I said no and then the year after they came out with national kumus day on the same day and I had called it International kumus

Day so then they they started releasing all these PR you know PR releases saying like it's it's national kumus day now and uh and I I'd been calling it International humus day so we kind of

got into a little spat over that and I think they stopped doing it recently but uh but it was not you know it wasn't a great feeling them trying to like hijack uh hum's day from me and they backed down yeah they backed down recently and

what happens when you like violate the trademark people like tomato or there isn't quite a trademark so uh I don't I don't I don't think I

could really trademark a a food holiday and I also have never really spent enough time looking into it so if you Sugg what's next forus day international humus day is it like what's I mean I spend maybe like two hours a year on it

so there's not like too much going into it it feels like there's an opportunity here though like you imagine an international humus Festival on the boardwalking Tel Aviv or yeah there's I mean shook in Jerusalem and usually most

restaurants like will they'll host events and they'll they'll like they'll give out promo codes which which is which is cool um I I think it would be really something I always thought about would be that would be really cool is like bringing people together from

different backgrounds to you know to eat Kum day and kind of create dialogue for for people who you know who normally probably wouldn't be wouldn't be talking I think it's like two months from to I think there's an opportunity here at this time in the Middle East and you can

bring a lot of people together to what they call white pus together you know with the pet there or something like that or or the like onion slice yeah hey if if if Nathan's can do the hot dog eating contest you can do the homus

Eating Contest you can just imagine what that looks like I think it's do well so so you're on it if you got it a month in haathon two months from now there should be something else yeah you're right

you're right this is the Year this is the year for the big humus eat off yeah Dubai Abu Dhabi

lebanes from God we bring everyone in I I mean I would love that I would love that thank so what are you doing about it okay okay yeah you're right I'm inspired all right so from you know

making like a hard turn from humus to notion I I what I really want to dig into I guess humus is one way to build community but I want you to tell me about the job being head of community at

at notion I think this is important uh for a couple of reasons one is uh buying traffic or buying ads what they call

demand generation marketing uh online seems to be running its course for a variety of reasons on Google and Facebook and it feels like there's a lot of interest in community buildings a go

to market strategies so take me from the beginning of your time at notion yeah on being head of community yeah so I I mean I think the one of the interesting parts

of joining notion was like I actually join notion Without Really applying or having like a job or there being a job description so I I had actually come across notion on on product hunt pretty

early on and um I I tried it out a few times I thought it was really cool I think it took four maybe four or five times for it to click and I tweeted my my notion setup and a lot of people thought it was pretty neat and asked me

if they could if I could share more pages for my notion and uh and so uh and people started sharing theirs as well so another one of these little side projects I I built a website where people could share how they were using

notion and this was before notion had like a template Gallery before they had templates and uh and I I posted that it was called notion pages.com on product on product hunt it got a good amount of

traction and started to get 20 30,000 visits a month and uh I I was having so much fun I started buying more notion domains I bought all things notion.com notion forb bus.com I started a Facebook

group for notion users I started helping people on board to notion like it was just something I became really passionate about because I I thought I could improve people's lives if by by helping them uh get on to notion uh and

uh that's actually how I met the team I I I at some point emailed the founder as like hey like what are your plans with the API and we just started chatting and I like I told them I would you know do you want do you want to hang out like I'll be in San Francisco next week I

wasn't going to actually be in San Francisco and they were like sure like come by for for tea and uh and so I booked a trip and uh I I went there and I met Camille rickets who had just left

first round she she had started first round review uh their blog and I uh I I uh so I met her on her second day at work and she uh and so we

we were you know we were chatting and and and I think maybe the next day I started working with her on oce's templa gallery and that basically evolved into me joining the company um so there was

no like real interview process or or you know uh job application process it really just happened very organically because I I really loved notion and it seemed like there were great ways to work together and so the first two

things I worked on were one uh Notions template Gallery where we started to crowdsource templates that people were building through notion and uh the second thing was building out an ambass

program because we our our hypothesis was if there were people like me out there who were crazy enough to spend this much time evangelizing notion there must be other people out there who wanted to do similar things and so I found a few people someone in Japan

someone in Korea who were doing similar things and we started to build out this uh this program to enable and Empower people to to spread ocean give you some more details on the ambassador program I think it's super important and it's just

an incredible story right which is you were doing this and there someone in Korea doing this some in Japan doing this and you happen to find them and now they turn to Ambassador so really dig in on the Ambassador PR yeah so our

basically what we thought was if we could if we could find a few of these people and bring them together and kind of have them Inspire each other and and also give them the full backing of from Notions team that we could try to we

could probably make this something that we could keep replicating and continue to bring on more people like this and just Empower more and more people to become evangelists for an ocean um so it started off with a few people and I

really just spent a lot of my early time in Ocean just talking to these people becoming friends with that figuring out like what could we do to support them what were you trying to get them to do

so these people on their own were some someone some of them had been organizing notion events some of them had been writing books about notion some of them had started YouTube channels about notion a whole bunch of different things

there anything basically to do with either talking about notion like spreading notion or teaching notion those were like the two kind of themes that we saw and uh and so as these

people kind of you know progressed we we started to see more and more people getting excited about notion wanting to the similar something similar like in their own language or in in their country and and so we actually like

maybe a month into it we just put out a form on noi's Twitter and and asked people like hey would you want to be an ambassador for notion and and at that point notion was starting to get pretty pretty hot and um I think a couple

hundred people applied so I just kind of went through this form and just looked for people who seem to like be the most passionate about notion some of them from like new regions maybe where we didn't have ambassadors yet and we built

a program to help kind of En help enable them and Empower them and feel you know special what were some of the details of the program that made them feel special or empowered like we would um so no one

no one really had access to like Notions team at that point it was you know if you wanted if you had to if you want if you had any questions you would have to reach out through support and um so so people uh so what we did was we didn't

we did we would do like amas with our team with our with the founders for example and people were really excited about that which I sure was great product feedback also for the yeah totally totally um but this is totally new to notion like doing something like

this um we would uh we' give them early access to new features we were building uh we would uh we would send them swag which was something we had you know we had never done before so we were like making swag for the first time and people felt like you know really excited

to you know to be a part of it um so we were constantly just thinking about ways that we could we you didn't pay them though no we never we didn't pay anyone to do that yeah yeah I think that's an important thing that people kind of lose sight of is that there's people really passionate about products and think I

got to pay them or you I got to find influencer and pay them but if you build a good enough product and you can include people in the community such that they give you feedback and they feel emboldened and power and part of

something that's bigger than the S they actually do a lot of work just out of the passion yeah totally I'm curious have you seen any companies do really well with this I think riseup in our portfolio is doing a really really good

job of this they have uh I don't know how many ambassadors at this point but just people who love the product love being able to finish the month out uh on the plus side of their Bank account rather the minus side of their bank

account um and they've become passionate evangelists they do media for us they reach out I think there's for some of them some incentives um but you know just being a part of something and being

an ambassador for Financial Health and financial Wellness has become uh a big one we have one at our company now sequence it seems to be Brewing uh also

Wix had something similar with designers when I was on the board there U Appo templates and and a few other things so yeah I've seen it work before but I think there's a small number of

companies who do this extremely well notion obviously is is is one of them and so you created templates at notion and then you made it a template Gallery

as an as an employee of notion why was that so important I think I mean it was so important because notion as a product it it was like a it gave you a blank slate so people would arrive at notion and ask themselves like what do I do

with this yeah so we started notion started providing templates early on but at a certain point we realized well people using notion could create you know an infinite amount of templates that we would never be able to create

ourselves so once we made that connection we were able to essentially give no like prospective notion users opportunity to to to try any any type of use case that was was interesting to

them I mean now there's probably tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of templates out there so um at this point also like because it's been you know a few years now uh when you search for you know for all kinds of use cases you'll

you'll you'll hit like a ocean template which which is pretty powerful for for SEO did people get paid for the templates so at early on no at a certain point people actually started charging

for templates themselves and so they would they would put the template access on a gumroad page let's say and people would have to pay 10 bucks to get access to that link and then they'd be able to duplicate that that became actually it's

like entirely or organically it became a massive massive thing there's people now earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year I actually just like a few weeks ago I met someone in Singapore who is uh

22 he started when he was 19 started with no audience and he started just tweeting about about notion early on uh when he was when he was actually uh uh

in the military in Singapore now he has 300,000 followers on Twitter 400,000 on Tik Tok and 400,000 on Instagram and he's making probably like3 $40,000 a month just from selling notion templates

he built an entire audience around them so this whole like ecos template website though no from on gumro or he he distributes it like through himself like through his platform through oce

platform all kinds of places but um but he's built an he's basically rode that wave to build like an you know incredible business at and he's 22 now amazing remind you like of being an eBay seller huh reminds you of being an eBay

seller when you were in high school I mean I I wish I had been uh selling notion templates I think that's much more exciting higher margin business than selling uh Collectibles yeah that's incredible what do you think makes the community stick it notion like why why

are people so passionate why are they why are they so part of this community because it's vibrant yeah I think I I think at the end of the day like the product is is you know what what makes it possible I think partial part of it

is is that notion you can use notion for anything there's just you know an infinite amount of use cases so there's there's kind of always something to talk about there's always different use cases to talk about templates to talk about um

it's also like it's a it's it can be a challenging product to use so people always have questions people always want to help other people um so it kind of creates this opportunity to like have just have a lot of dialogue around

around notion I think for like products that are just much more more uh you know constrained and less use cases they just not you don't really have like an opportunity to do that so I think notion was kind of Lucky and that like the product really en that that kind of

flies in the face of I think typical product thinking which make it as easy to use as possible make it as right this is notion is not easy to use I'm not a good user of notion I'll speak for myself yeah uh it's too complicated for

me yeah and uh but yet because of that kind of blank canvas thing people have turned up what also strikes me is that Excel doesn't have a template Community for the most part there are kind of

things out there but there's no like business or business community in the same kind of easy mix and match way that there is for for notion yeah so I think something we we would always talk about

is like the the Ikea effect you know when you when you go to Ikea and you you buy the the pieces you have to bring it home and and build it yourself right so it's like I'm not that competent at that either so some people don't like that some people like that and I think people

people who do like that like they actually probably they like that product on the day much more than if they just bought it uh you know pre-made because now they like they actually invested time they invested effort in learning how to build it and you know maybe Lego

is another good example Lego might be a little easier and you know actually thank you yeah yeah so taking the time to actually build something is is you know it can be rewarding so if you could like I think notion kind of took that

and and you know brought that concept into software and why is it different why are notion and Excel so different in that way there's no Community around Excel really yeah I mean there are like Excel influencers I've seen people on

Tik Tok and other places you know making who have pretty large audiences doing that I think we used to call those people like investment banker trainers yeah yeah

yeah I I mean I think uh Excel I guess Excel just doesn't have I don't know you know it's it also just doesn't have like the you know the

the brand the story The doesn't really have anything that like right like who is going to want to kind of create that around like a Microsoft product I I think it's kind of just missing the like so what's the story what's this why why is notion different than Microsoft other

than the fact that Microsoft's been around for 50 years well what makes notion what's what's the story I mean I think Bey beyond the product notion Notions brand like the the playfulness

the um the Aesthetics like I think all of those things kind of come together to create something that people really uh people it just really resonates like when I when I meet people either they they don't get notion or they love

notion right like there's kind of no in between it's good to have haters too because yeah Ian it means you buildt something that like people you know people actually care about and or or

they don't uh so so I I think I think you you know the people people have this like emotional connection with ocean like that's what I felt when I started using it also early on I just felt this like emotional connection I felt like I

could visualize my brain the the Aesthetics like just really worked for me and and and I think people are just excited to like spend you know connect around that whereas like in Excel you're just you don't really feel that like

it's just a does mean you can visualize your brain that well so for me like my use case of notion early on was just kind of putting all my notes and and

thoughts into like this this notion database that's that's how I used it early on so I felt like I was able to finally visualize my brain inside of inside of notion so I think for you know

that people use it people use it for whatever they want it was just that was the specific use case that got me really excited about it what would you have used if you didn't have notion what I I had been using uh Wonder list before

that they were required by Microsoft and shut down uh and uh I think I tried Evernote a few times it never worked for me yeah for me neither I tried Evernote also what subscription that worked for

me yeah so no was like the first time like a productivity app really like really really worked well for me I use Google Docs and mic and uh Mac notes that's it that's

my simple yeah yeah I I mean I think it's whatever works for you I mean I know a lot of people that that that's what works for them and like should I try notion again should I go back to that I think I my partner everyone here

uses it all everyone used it like I'm the Lite I don't think you can like force yourself to use something if it doesn't work for you I I I appreciate that yeah I definitely think if like Apple notes works for you then like you

know just just stick with that like it's it it's we need to remember things I'm trying to figure out what what I should I mean what how do you use how do you keep your Apple notes organized do you have any way to do that no I'm very

disorganized you ever seen my desk I organize it in my head I don't like use digital tools to organize my that's impressive you until I forget things but you know my my brain doesn't

work in an organized fashion I don't think yeah yeah I I not for me cuz I'm too disorganized it it might be hard I mean it could if you if it like clicked for you it might potentially change your

life and you might look back and be like how did I live this way before but if it doesn't you might not be able to force it so there's definitely a learning curve though so if you haven't like spent a few hours really trying to learn it which which I know is a lot of time

you might you just might not get it there's a learning curve uhhuh all right not GNA happen I don't know I don't know so founder comes to

you today and says uh I got this product I want to build a community around it you

say I you ask what do I ask I I usually like to understand like what people's what what they're the people using it think about it like what is it doing for

people what is it meaning like I I don't like the idea of just creating Community for the sake of creating Community I think I think it's very hard to like force it I think if you do it like an inauthentic way it's it's just not so it needs to Bubble Up you need to see signs

of it first exactly around the I think I think that's the most important thing so so I I I would rather lean into like understanding you know from people already using the product like what

excites them are they is there are there any signs are there any are there any signals showing that people like want to actually talk about this they want to spend their time they want to teach people they want to connect around it are there like shared interests and values between the people using the

product like that that to me is what I would look for I think it's I I mean I think it's also like totally on a company by company basis like there's no so before you have a product in the wild

you probably can't start thinking about a community strategy because you need to see if it kind of bubbles up organically I think if it's like if it's based around a product I think I think that that's probably what you need to do

again I think there are ways to to just create Community around things that aren't necessarily product based like I worked with a company a few years back that was pre-product that was selling to it leaders and we were we were just

trying to get to as many it leaders as possible to to to to get their feedback on the on the you know coming product and so um you know I I I had the same challenge like there was no product yet

so what are people going to connect around and so um I just what I did was I spent a bunch of time talking to different it leaders asking them like hey what what excites you like where do you spend your time uh what you know

what where do you connect with other it leaders and I I something I hit on hit on then was that it leaders really liked like um talking about like products they were using they liked they liked kind of

the kind of like similar to product on liked discovering new things new tools they were into they were into that so what I did was I I I hired a contractor and we we built a uh kind of like a

product hunt but just for it people and we called it it kit and uh and we I curated like this the initial list of products from these it leaders I had spoken to and I added them on the website and we added like a little

upvote function and and through that because uh it went viral in a bunch of like it communities we were able to capture like a couple thousand email addresses from from it people and this is again this is like pre-product so but

but the another day it was it was same idea it was just like talking to these it leaders and understanding like what you know what what are these like shared interests shared values things that connect them and kind of building something for them and providing a

service to them and just to be clear when you say talk to them you mean actually talk to them not text message or email yeah no I mean like just hanging out on on Zoom grabbing coffee like that that's that's what I mean hanging out on Zoom the same as grabbing

coffee I mean it's just it's it's it's easier I it's not it's definitely not but if you don't if you don't have a choice other the notion who are the other great kind of community companies that you've seen out there I think figma

is definitely one of one of the top ones I I've always been super impressed with them I think they've done an incredible incredible job um other than

them who else I got to think about other ones interesting nothing comes to mind quickly that's interesting I I mean I'm I'm trying to think of like really like

top top tier ones Beyond I I always look at figma as like an incredible incredible example for that um I haven't seen as much in Israel that's like kind of at

that level um I mean there were definitely there were definitely I think companies doing interesting stuff in like the crypto space at a certain point I think because I'd always felt very you know community community

oriented find it interesting you mentioned product hunt a bunch of times in this conversation what what is about product hunt that works you like product hunt right I yeah I just I mean for me it's just a that's a community that I

feel really connected to because it's it's a community for early adopters and people building stuff and like that's just kind of what I that's partially what I like to do so it's just this

place I I end up going to and spend spend a lot of time all right so you made this kind of transition from being an underage Drinker to a soldier to a

community guy at nocean and now you're an angel investor full-time why why um I I I I guess I I

realized over the past few years like I really enjoyed the early days of of building startups that's to me was like it's just the most exciting part and I felt like a lot of things i' had been

doing could could add value to you know to early stage companies um so I I also at the same time outside of Angel Investing I had been working on some of

my own stuff so uh for for a while now I've been organizing these gatherings for people who are exploring what's next this originally started as on De uh

which was thing that Eric torberg in the US was was organizing product hunt right uh I think I don't know if he was a Founder I think he was like early employee at product hunt so he had been organizing these dinners in San

Francisco and I started doing them in Tel Aviv with with a friend Rafael uzan uh over on aadam not too far from here and uh we it was kind of the same concept which was bringing people

together who were exploring what they wanted to do next people who were uh maybe like Founders who had sold their companies and weren't sure what they wanted to do uh operators wanted to start things and weren't sure or wanted

to join their next thing um so I I'd actually been kind of building this out for a while now and I I renamed it to uh next play um so now it's it's at nextplay doso and uh and so it's it's

what's been really cool about that is just people um I mean this we have this really incredible database that's been growing of people who are like at this phase of exploring what they want to do

next and uh and so I think it's just really incredible also an incredible Community uh has a lot of potential um and hopefully can like support the companies I'm investing in as

well how hard was it to write your first Angel check how hard was it um I well the way I did it I guess the way I broke into it was was that I was helping out a

Founder uh with his Angel Investing and uh and so I guess you know I I didn't really have to to wor I didn't have to take the risk early on I think I mean when people ask me about breaking and

Angel Investing I usually tell them like I think I think that's a great route like trying to become you know an apprentice for someone and just you know avoid avoid the risk of losing too much money early on uh so I did that for for

a few years and so he he was kind of making like the decisions on on his end and I was just kind of just observing and learning what he was doing at a certain point I I started kind of to invest in some of those companies as

well um so I think I think if I had just kind of gone in straight into it without doing that it would have been a lot harder because I really I really just wouldn't have had any idea what I was doing um so I found that to be pretty

pretty helpful in in terms of breaking in what was your first investment uh first investment was do you remember your first girlfriend no just Kidd what was your

first investment uh I don't you remember your wife's name it might yeah it might have been it might I'm trying to remember exactly I remember like a some of I'm not sure if

it was like the first one or after a few but it was uh there was one in Israel called land they were doing fractional real estate investing yeah I remember them yeah so I think that was maybe one of the first ones that I

did where' that go where did that go uh they're they're they've bought I think a few hundred buildings now and and they they built this app where you where um they're now taking care of like the rent

and uh the whole rent process and then you as a you as like an investor can um can buy shares and in uh in in houses yeah um which is you it's pretty cool they're it's I think the you know it's

been an interesting environment for them as like interest rates have changed but but I think also you know what I what I really liked about them early on was seeing like people in their Facebook group were just getting super excited

about what they were doing and there was just a lot of a lot of that kind of early these early signs of EX you know excitement or you know around having a community if that would come to you again today now that you've done this

for a few years would you make the investment I I also really I was a huge fan of isai the the founder I also liked him yeah and so I think just based on that I would have done it for sure yeah

yeah how many Investments have you made to date uh I probably made around 50 or 60 50 what's the best company in the portfolio probably deal you an angel

there like way at the beginning not at the beginning but uh I think like two rounds in why should somebody come to Ben Lang for money today your how big is your angel fund six million six million

pretty small yeah first one I was involv in was seven yeah great yeah so why why should someone come to men for money today I think I think I'm I'm just like

a builder at heart and so I I really kind of I I have a lot of empathy for people who are starting companies and and uh and and I think a lot of the things that I'm working on on my own can

can can are things that can be pretty helpful um whether it's finding co-founders recruiting Talent uh getting early users thinking about how to build your community like uh those those are

just things that I spend a lot of time on personally and and you know I just hope to be like a good service provider on my end as an investor you said you're a builder um I always say that I'm

unimpeded by any management experience I've never really built anything other than a fun I I couldn't start a tech startup if if I was the last guy to do it um is

it hard to go from being the Builder to being kind of the coach or advisor or investor I yeah I think so I'm still trying to understand what that exactly

looks like like it it for me at least to see what what type you know how I feel about that kind of work I know they're they're they're very different that that's partially why I I find myself

kind of trying to build things on the side that can kind of provide value to the you know to the companies I'm investing in and make me a better a better investor hopefully I I I think I will like always have that itch of like

creating and and building and so I'm trying to like merge those two worlds together I'm not sure exactly what that what that looks like yet and what are you building the side now U so I think I mentioned before like this this this

thing called next play yeah um so I'm I'm actually taking a lot of what I did at notion and and applying it here so we have we have these uh I I I brought these hosts in other cities now who are

hosting nextplay Gatherings as well so we're we're setting them up now in Berlin and London and Paris and uh in Austin and Boston and so it's becoming

this this larger thing where it's I think hopefully it can become like the place that people go when they're exploring what they want to do what they want to do next whether it's joining something starting something um so that that's something I'm really excited

about I think there's just a lot of value to be unlocked from it and also something people just don't people people don't know really where to go for that today it's like founder dating on steroids yeah but not just for Founders even for people who want to become

operators and like they they want to discover like what the next best thing to do is but it's it's really hard so it's a very it's a very challenging place to be when you're not sure what you want to do when you're you know when you want to leave when you when you want

to figure figure out what's next it's it's just it's hard and you're not at all these dinners so how do you kind of collect the feedback the information Etc uh well now I'm like trying to build out this host network of people who are

they're all we're all using like the same database and uh and and and just getting more people to uh to kind of to to take this model and apply it there I

love that yeah I love it what what is your advantage as a venture capitalist like to still me the Ben Lang Advantage I don't think have we done a deal

together yet we hav't right um I'm not sure not either I might have done some when I was originally investing with Clark there might have been some that he did w with you I should buy you another

case of wine if you bring me an investment I would love to now you can drink it yeah yeah you share a nice dinner with a bottle of wine with your wife now sounds great married yeah okay

so there still for me the Ben laying Advantage um I'll say it differently you and I are competing on a deal why are you going to be me well so I don't I don't think I'm

going to compete with people on deals no no you're you're going to compete on deals and you're going to compete with me so okay well I'm part of my strategy is I'm doing very small checks so I'm not I'm not trying to I'm not leading

any rounds I'm I'm I'm the kind of person that just kind of joins in and you know don't don't don't be differential just you know okay no it is it is part of my strategy so I I I

ideally I want to be the kind of person that like uh you know does I don't I don't take up too much room and uh and you don't want to be competitive I I just don't at least right now with my

setup I don't think I can be because I'm not going to be leading around I I can you know I'm going to be someone who's adding in an extra 100K to a round all right there's 25 100K there's $100,000 left in the round you and I are

competing tell me why you going to beat me why am I'm going to beat you I think I'm I guess because I'm uh because I'm a small shop you know I'm I'm I'm doing this said because you're younger that

was just I'm doing this I'm doing this alone so I I think I can uh given the kind of the things I'm working on and and the areas I can I can I can help out um I'm able to be like

super super proactive super gener I can say all those same words you got be come on be specific I mean I will I would love to you want the younger generation to beat you this is

good you need to tell me why you're going to beat me now yeah tell the founder okay let's make pretend that roner Eric over here is a founder and you got to pitch them give me the last

$100,000 of deal yeah I um I mean I would my hope is that having having done this a few times like having been a part of building companies and really being on the ground I can I can bring kind of

you know on I I can bring that that type of insight and and really help out with that so one you're an entrepreneur and I'm not keep going yeah um two I think I think this this network that I'm

building next play I think I'm I will hopefully be able to recruit early hires and and even you know find co-founders when needed and I I I I think I really think there has potential to be something really huge and an incredible

asset and okay to be a part of my network of people called next play yeah isenberg doesn't have that one keep going uh

three uh I'm I mean I'm I'm I'm just getting started so I mean I'm super I'm super hungry eber's old keep going

yeah uh oh gosh you lost the deal buddy yeah I lost it okay no no keep going I mean I'm just hoping you were find your pitch in real time yeah well I've

never really that's the thing I I haven't been in a position to compete over how you get into deal into deal yeah like why' The Bu us to take your money you speak French right you speak French right I remember that right yeah

I speak French I mean I I had been friends with Alex for a long time before and uh at some point I had sent a bunch of customer intros for him I spent a

Shabbat with his family in uh in in quesaria and just you know I I mean I I I could have gotten in much earlier I just wasn't Angel Investing at that point um so I I think it was just like

you know I was just there to you know to be to be helpful before even like trying to invest you didn't mention any of that in your pitch which is I I delivered customers before I invested yeah and I'm

good at hanging out at the Shabbat table and drinking wine with people and speaking French I didn't I didn't know that those are all advantages I didn't know that goes into the pitch well certainly getting customers probably goes into the pitch you deliver early customers that works might me if you Des

if you delivered that what what is what is your pitch I would love to hear I'm old no I mean I've been doing this for a long time yeah uh I have reach at this

point I think I can persuade Executives not just early employees but Executives to uh join your company and if you need an investor Network for your follow on rounds I have enough a track record and

capability to get there i' still go with youth maybe but I'm just my friendship is not good how often do you lose a deal

or against anyone I think I most often lose deals I don't see which is is kind of okay right now but um I don't know I think I think you don't know how many deals you actually lose MH because many

of them don't ever get to see you uh which will make this conversation fun because it's like head-to-head competition but I'd have you in my deals I think you'd add some value okay if I could figure out who needed community

help in particular that would be super value but you told me I can't figure that out until the products launched yeah I mean I think you can you you know I think ideally there was some

hypothesis around that will be like a big part of you know about a big part of the company's play like it sounds like sequence doesn't necess have that yet but ideally you know that's something somewhere they want to go I've spoken to

them before yeah I know you have yeah you like it uh yeah yeah I like it you're not sure I I wasn't like super excited about I didn't I didn't end up investing but we're going to tell

sequence guys that now they have extra motivation be successful yeah Ben was skeptical and he's not sure he can build a community around this there's one forming in uh in uh Discord pretty

significant one yeah I saw yeah what do you think about Discord as a community place to form Community versus kind of forming it organically or Facebook groups is a place to form Community how

do you think about that I I don't really think about like the platform too much I think I mean I always think if it's happening organically and people are kind of building it on their own like I

think that's that's definitely the most exciting thing to see so if people if if you have a company if you have a startup and people have launched a Facebook group or something without you even doing that like that like by all means

just put put as much you can behind that I think instead of forcing people to come somewhere you mentioned earlier that you uh we in the Army I mentioned Shabbat cly you know you wanted to live

in Israel so you have to make a decision about leaving nocean this is clearly important to you've also posted pictures online of yourself in uniform and and fing uh

Flores you got any push back on that like you're a pretty public Persona at this point that commun notion um I didn't get too much push back on that I mean I've definitely

blocked people on Twitter and who hasn't at this point yeah it's like a normal I mean I think it's like a just a normal a normal thing I I I wasn't like so public about it I think before October 7th but

I think I think now like I try to you know I I just I wanted people to know where I stand yeah I guess if you get lucky you get blocked by Paul Graham yeah have you blocked rle I've never responded to him I just I actually just

blocked him instead I don't want to see his stuff yeah you could get blocked by polar gra yeah I I but I don't think I've been yet but maybe after this podcast that will be I don't know I I I

just tell people just I mean I think just block him first like I don't yeah maybe that's better yeah I think you know between your uh next player tilby Collective whatever it is you'll you'll

have your own Community that's as powerful as YC and and Gary tan is doing a great job over there yeah he's incredible y 10 is incredible we we definitely agree on that yeah um I think he's been ahead of a lot of things and

what he's doing in San Francisco is also incredibly inspiring yeah do you think it's going to work I hope it's going to work that's actually a good question so you've been like in San Francisco and New York and Tel Aviv what's the best

place to build a startup today what's the best place to build a startup I I mean I think they're you know they're they're very different I mean I'm obviously biased and I if you can live in in in in Israel and in Tel Aviv or wherever I I I will I will obvious

obviously say that um you know I think I think uh if you don't have opportunity to live in live in Israel um I would I would probably still say San Francisco just because I

think the I still think like the talent Network there is pretty pretty unmatched AG I I think people like to say New York has it but but honestly it doesn't feel like like from the startups that I've met it doesn't feel like they're able to

recruit the same caliber of people which is interesting right yeah although you know when I started this business there was nothing in New York it was like a desert now it's it's hopping yeah yeah

especially if you're Israeli you have to kind of you know be byoc New York is better cuz you save 6 hours of travel and 3 hours of time difference yeah you find that also yeah for sure yeah for

for Israelis for sure I think uh I mean it seemed also like during during uh Co a lot of people moved to New York and and you know wanted to stay there from I'm saying folks from like the bay area but I I I I feel like recently now it

seems at least in my my circles a lot of people have actually moved back to San Francisco and uhst yeah yeah postco and and also just seems it still seems like with the you know the whole AI hype like

there's just a lot more going on in San Francisco than than there is New York San Francisco New York Tel Aviv what about your perspective has changed

since October 7th I mean I think I feel more conviction about about living in in Israel I think it's you know more more important than ever I'm I'm also passionate about getting people to to to

to move to Israel I actually just a few weeks ago met met up with uh Novo Network which I think you started and uh I was just so impressed by like all these talented people who moved here

from all over the world I I never met people who moved here from so many of the countries that were represented so I was super inspired Mexico chile Argentina there someone from New Zealand I didn't even know there were Jews in

New Zealand yeah yeah so I I mean I would like whatever I can do to help get more talented people to move here I I I think it's like the most important thing could be so make the pitch right now

live if you are listening to this podcast here's why you should move to Israel to join the Tech Community or start a company B langang I mean the there's just there's the I think the

vibrancy in in the te Community here is is is pretty pretty incredible like there's just there's so much opportunity um I think the the salaries are pretty much on par now with with a lot of other

you know places in the US and uh you're not really there there's no downgrade to your lifestyle and uh that the talent here is incredible you you can still learn from people from in a lot of different ways I just I I feel like if

you have the if you have the opp if you have the ability to live here and and work in Tech like there's just there's no no reason not to all all the infrastructure infrastructure here is is available here that you that you'll need

no reason not to is like here yeah here's why you should go ahead try again okay why you should uh I I mean I think

being around people who you're able to to be open with uh people you don't have to be afraid to share your opinions being around like-minded people with

similar Val vales uh also just incredible Talent uh you know unmatched Israeli tenacity uh you know having

having being able to have an incredible lifestyle here good weather uh good food uh being able to be a Jew here openly like it's there's just I think it's I think it's the best place in the world

to live and uh and you know you have you have everything like there's just there's nothing like it like I te up a softball question for you to say humus and San Francisco is not good no

disrespect to Orange humus but it's like the best humus no that's true for sure I you celebrate like like humus day from it's kind of origin Hub look I I mean I

think I think generally speaking the food here is are so much better like the quality of food here is so much better than in in almost every yeah yeah for sure now you did a mapped in Israel and

Corona Crush yeah is that the beer or the or the virus is that that that is the Faceook Group Corona Crush like what do we name it after yeah what's it for oh the the virus yeah yeah right what

was it about that was a because there's another reason to move so I still want to hear your pitch oh to to to meet someone yeah exactly so what is Corona Crush okay I want to hear your pitch after though well mean a second but first tell us what Corona crush is

Corona Crush uh during during Co a few friends and I we started a Facebook group for people to uh to post about their friends that were single uh Jewish

people and it it it went pretty viral it now has about 25,000 people in it and I as far as we know at least 100 people have gotten married through it but we think a lot more than that at this point were they social distancing as part of

this or this was how you broke the social distancing without people tell you people were dating on Zoom at that point that was that was the normal thing you weren't meeting in person for for like you know a few months this is when there were lockdowns I think though in

Israel people were actually meeting in person you think yeah well there was like there were like a few weeks where like you couldn't leave your house you know like I that was kind of when we started it because we felt like this is you know we need to help people right

and people uh people were looking for entertainment people were spending a lot more time online it it just it was I think it was good timing for that speaking of the differ Francisco and Israel like yeah do

you have any couples in San Francisco from coron Crush unlikely because they were social distancing for much longer probably right Israel was kind of I got you I met on Cor Crush online but you know whatever down the block is Tel Aviv

nobody's watching or I don't care if anyone's watching yeah yeah that's true how many of those H couples were in Israel I don't know I don't know the breakdown but majority you say uh Pro probably majority yeah yeah

because you need a place where you want to break the rules yeah so that's my pitch ready yeah let's hear your pitch that's my pitch if you want to innovate you need to be able to break the rules

Israelis are very good at breaking the rules in fact nobody's even sure there are any rules in this country the laws and the rules are kind of suggestions not enforcement and with all these new

models coming around AI Etc they kind of cross-pollination to build a polical AI in places that no one thought about before because there are no rules is going to be unique to Israel and I think this is a unique time in history to be

able to disrupt many traditional Industries uh using AI here in Israel and to do multidisiplinary science out of Israel that will create foundational Innovation because again nobody believes

that any rules exist and we're looking at something now in the bio area the guy who invented it is not a biologist he's a software engineer was at Wick but he said I can do this and they said you

don't know anything about biology he says aha that's a feature not a bug and that's I think part of you know what happens here and the same way people got married during Corona CR when people were supposedly social

distancing um you'll kind of also break through some of the this is the pitch for Founders to move to Israel yeah and you know White's a great place to join a tech company it's exciting it's different and I think post October 7th

what Israel's proved is that civic responsibility and resilience are the Hallmarks of this society and uh I think in the 21st century where we have big leadership problems political leadership

problems globally um the societies that have the most civilian responsibility and civilian resilience will be winners and I think Israel is going to be a uh

winner yeah totally to finish up with a couple of questions since we got through Corona Crush now H it's amazing by the way you've got like the whole thing you know you can meet your spouse in Corona

Crush you can then have a humus wedding and uh then you can start a startup and be mapped in Israel this is that's my pitch now for why let me in the deal

so I finally gave you your P like come on man and uh so given those three accomplishments already right plus had a community at notion you know in 90 years when you're 100 Andy how do you want to

be remembered how do I want to be remembered I don't think that that far ahead I I mean I I would love to

continue to back incredible incredible Founders and just be you know a great service provider and whatever I can and whatever ways I can and and you know really add value um and you know

hopefully can like scale that over time um I would love to to help bring more people to Israel and and you know make this a you know uh an incredible place

for you know for for Jews to live um I uh yeah I all right at the ripe old age of 30 yeah what is the most valuable

lesson that you've learned that you want to impart to the listeners most valuable lesson I think I think just like taking a shot I I I think I think I've done

that like enough times to realize a lot of these times it it didn't work and uh but but a few of the times it did work and I think I think people are like often times just afraid of like taking a

shot and you know whatever it might be if it's like starting something if it's sending a cold email just reaching out like I think really like that that's the difference between people who like I think do something interesting and

people just kind of aren't able to to break out like just being able to take take a shot somewhere I think by the way that is a great place to end the conversation because I think that's true about you you just keep taking shots and

some of them working and some of them don't and it's reminiscent of the big song from the play Hamilton and uh I think uh there's a lot about you IM you or 17 or something like that where hey

I'll try this I'll try that and something sticks and let me be bold enough and and reach out to the guys at notion because I'm just interested in this um I think that's great advice to

anyone so Ben thanks for coming on uh if you enjoyed the podcast please R Us five stars on Spotify ople podcasts or wherever else you listen and if you want to learn more about Ben Lang you can

find him on LinkedIn uh Ben Lang and on X BN Ln Ben thanks for coming on thanks for having me next drink is on me sounds

great