It quickly caught on among techies and early adopters at companies like Samsung and Hearst. In this way, Notion lets you capitalize on all of your institutional history and knowledge to keep doing new, exciting things. While many are cutting staff and slashing costs as they reel from the outbreak’s fallout, others have experienced a surge in demand. It will be better because it won’t have to serve the agenda of the great evil overlord Salesforce, it will serve you. Special Guest: Ivan Zhao. We want Notion to be as light and simple as you want to be, with the power to do complex things only if and when you want to. It will be interesting to see how this new fight between Airtable, Notion, and Coda plays out. “Financing is a signal of stability, which is important for us,” said Akshay Kothari, Notion’s head of operations. Frey: What’s your vision for how tools can help people to create and express their ideas better? “‘Moby Dick’ is written by one person,” he said. There’s a short history of this (and how it influenced Notion) here. We wanted to create a space that was as distraction-free as humanly possible. Since last May, its users have organized more than 180 meet-ups in 21 countries and 52 cities. Notion a singular tool that handles all your work outside email and Slack. The start-up is now in a tricky stage of building on its growth with more established customers. The app can be accessed via most web browsers. It's largely just learning via making – listening to what people want, and fitting the things we want around it. MetaLab said it used Notion to present work to clients and to collect their feedback all in one place, among other tasks. Ivan Zhao started Notion, a productivity software start-up that has made money since 2018, in 2013. In its own words, Notion was built to bring together many of the tools/functionality we use at work to one place, reducing the number of … The key to healthy culture and productivity is over-communication and true understanding of what everyone is working on and why it’s important. That’s why all of Notion’s functionality fades to the back as soon as you start typing. While many start-ups grapple with the fallout from the pandemic, this San Francisco company raised more cash to survive. Even as the company has grown stateside, though — at this point, CEO Ivan Zhao said, every week is Notion's biggest week of growth ever — it's boomed even faster internationally. People can dive into notes from other people’s meetings, or search for past campaigns to understand how to create a new one, just to name a couple of examples. The fund-raising was completed in 36 hours last week after the virus pushed Ivan Zhao, Notion’s founder and chief executive, and Akshay Kothari, Notion’s chief operating officer, to rethink their previous position of not relying too much on venture capital. Ivan has 2 jobs listed on their profile. Prior to joining LinkedIn, Kothari had previously sold Pulse News to the professional social network company for $90 million in 2013. More in Internet and Social. It was started by Ivan Zhao, and is headquartered in San Francisco. INFORMATION SHEET. Your first encounter with Notion will be perplexing. It seemed wrong that only a few people with the ability to code could build websites and other software tools. — so you can easily build and stack them however you want to solve your problems your own way (made easier with drag and drop, etc.). Notion has intended to make the personal plan free since last year, said Ivan Zhao, Notion’s CEO. India's Richest It also introduced a new price-point of $4 per month aimed at personal users. We also built in mechanisms like drag and drop so it’s easy and intuitive to rearrange your thoughts once they are “down on paper,” so to speak. Notion started in 2012 as Canopy Technologies. Notion had previously been valued at $800 million. Frey: How are the needs of work teams evolving, and how does Notion reflect that direction? Zhao: Teams are increasingly tech-savvy, with things like shortcuts and working collaboratively becoming second nature. Ivan Zhao: Tools that let you work the way your brain works. The company declined to disclose its revenue, but said it had made money since 2018. On Wednesday, Notion said it raised $50 million from Index Ventures and other investors that valued it at $2 billion. And we want to do this in a way that will help people think more clearly and collaborate with each other better. Frey: How does Notion help individuals and teams to manage their tasks and projects better? The company claims to be an all-in-one workspace for note-taking , knowledge and data management, project and task management . Liked by Ivan Zhao. People eager to work there have gone to surprising lengths for attention — one recently sent a package of cupcakes decorated with his own face and the words “Hire me!”. Notion does this in a couple of ways: 1) It brings all your work into one space so you can close all the many apps and tabs you’ve been using, and work alongside your team in the same spot, and. -Ivan Zhao. Whitepages people search is the most trusted directory. People think fast, so they should be able to capture and restructure their thoughts fast too. Zhao: Yes, absolutely. A designer by training, Ivan founded the company in 2016 to make it possible for everyone in the world to create the tools they need without knowing how to code. Chuck Frey: If you had to summarize what Notion is and what it represents in 10 words or less, how would you describe it? Notionist: Your source for tips and education for this powerful productivity tool, Notion Made Simple: A “must” learning investment for success with this tool, How Valentin Perez amplifies his creativity with Notion, Notion boosts user productivity 20-30%, survey shows, 10 ways you can use Notion to be wickedly creative, Ivan Zhao reflects on the thinking behind Notion. View phone numbers, addresses, public records, background check reports and possible arrest records for Ivan Zhao. Ivan Zhao reflects on the thinking behind Notion Chuck Frey April 20, 2019 Interviews No Comments Ivan Zhao, the founder of Notion, has created a tool that is remarkably unique: It helps users gain clarity and be more productive in their work – yet each one can design a unique workspace that’s tailored to his or her needs. Lastly, there’s a lot of transparency that comes from storing all your knowledge, information and work in one place that your entire team can see and access. Notion has users in countries including Russia, Japan and Germany. Quip’s mission is to be your living document, the next logical step in the iteration o… Different good or different bad? “A lot of people are moving from Evernote to Notion,” says Ivan Zhao, Notion’s co-founder and CEO. Notion has hired seven salespeople, who will not be able to visit clients in person while social distancing is in effect. When people have all their essential work tools in one place and are able to work there seamlessly together with their team, they get more done, they save a huge amount of time, their thinking is more clear and consistent, and project work flows more smoothly. Notion gives you a bird’s eye view of everything your team is working on and then lets you drill down into the smallest details if and when you want. Notion is for notes, tasks, wikis, and databases. We’ve been able to eliminate a lot of meetings at Notion, for instance, because these discussions take place in a clear way inside the product right next to the work in question. Last year, Notion expanded its service to larger corporate clients, who typically need armies of sales representatives and who negotiate complicated contracts. That said, increasingly, teams need ways to work better together that don’t require a ton of time spent in in-person meetings (which slows everyone down), and a way to keep communication focused and action-oriented. Bartender ... Ivan Zhao Founder at Notion. So that’s one thing. Ivan Zhao is Co-founder and CEO of Notion, the all-in-one workspace for notes, documents, wikis, projects, and collaboration. This made Notion significantly more affordable than Evernote, which at that time cost $70 per year. Mr. Zhao started Notion after graduating from the University of British Columbia and working at Inkling, a document-sharing start-up in San Francisco. It serves as an all-in-one workspace for note-taking, task management, and project management. Notion addresses both by making communication in the product more about utility — allowing people to collaborate on the same pages at the same time, and to have very targeted asynchronous conversations about specific work (using comments and discussions). “Adding another person doesn’t necessarily give you a higher-quality ‘Moby Dick.’ It doesn’t even necessarily make it faster.”. But the company delayed it amid a surge in usage related to … Frey: Notion’s interface seems to do a great job of “getting out of the way” so users can focus on what they want to create. Join now to see all activity Experience. The app blends everyday work apps into one. In enterprise software alone, people use a whole portfolio of software tools, and most of them have very narrow use cases. Zhao: We’ve heard from a number of people that Notion’s very minimalist, lightweight feel encourages people to write more — even if it’s just jotting down ideas. Required fields are marked *. Akshay Kothari: [Notion co-founders Ivan Zhao and Simon Last] started Notion six years ago and that’s when I invested. So they called Sarah Cannon, an investor at Index Ventures who had been courting Notion for over a year. Notion is a collaboration platform with modified markdown support that integrates kanban boards, tasks, wikis, and databases. About this Episode On Monday, we'll be interviewing Ivan Zhao, co-founder at Notion all about his story and vision. How did it come to be? By early last year, Notion had nearly one million users. Was that intentional? More in Internet and Social. Ivan's Twitter: follow him Notion: Get it here Learn Notion from Scratch: here On 6th May, we have Todoist CEO Amir ready to interview - stay tuned! Notion is a note-taking and collaboration application for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases. “It’s not trying to be everything to everyone,” Justin Watt, MetaLab’s director of operations and marketing, said of the software. You’re not sure but it is definitely different. In 2016, Mr. Zhao borrowed $150,000 from his mother to keep the start-up afloat. View Ivan Zhao’s profile on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional community. Frey: What has changed in the nature of work that has created the need for a tool like Notion? Listen to Tools They Use episodes free, on demand. Background Checks Notion is emblematic of the kind of technology start-up that may be in a position to survive the shakeout in Silicon Valley. Product Hunt describes Notion as the new Quip. Only those who can code, and sometimes not even them. The ambition of Zhao and his team at Notion can’t be contained in any single decade. We try to give people a blank canvas that lets them arrange their thoughts in ways that are most helpful to them. This is how the notion was pitched. That traction attracted venture capitalists and others who wanted to invest in Notion last year. Ivan Zhao started Notion, a productivity software start-up that has made money since 2018, in 2013. Ivan Zhao, the founder of Notion, has created a tool that is remarkably unique: It helps users gain clarity and be more productive in their work – yet each one can design a unique workspace that’s tailored to his or her needs. Notion had previously been valued at $800 million. Zhao: In college, I did freelance work for friends who wanted to build their own websites, and I saw a couple of things. 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