Inside Notion: From 2016 to Now Into a $343 million business
Startup Type:
Headquarter: San Francisco, USA
Current Status: Active (private; profitable as of 2020)
Founders: Ivan Zhao, Simon Last
Founded Year: 2016
Investors: Index Ventures, Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital
Funding Raised: $343 million
What Is the business model of Notion?
All-in-one productivity software blending note-taking, documents, databases, and project management in a flexible workspace, using a freemium model for individuals and paid plans for teams
How Notion got started?
Zhao and Last founded Notion in 2016 aiming to create an operating system for work, after an initial failure and reboot. They rebuilt Notion as a highly customizable tool that gained traction in the tech and creative communities
what growth strategy has Notion followed?
Cultivated a passionate user base through community engagement and word-of-mouth, particularly among startups and students, and relied on viral online content (templates, use-case videos) to grow to millions of users with minimal traditional marketing
what are the top products/features of Notion
Notion workspace app, Notion Templates gallery, Notion AI assistant
what was the biggest challenge faced by Notion?
Competing with entrenched tools while trying to be a jack-of-all-trades without overwhelming users, also experienced an extended outage in 2020 and needed to reassure users about reliability