Microsoft Office did that in the 90s. People use Notion in place of note-taking apps, collaboration services or writing software, and they pay a monthly fee of $4 to $20 each for extra features like more security and storage. Then from there, the tool that people used to think and work is Microsoft Office and it was one monolithic tool, maybe with a suite of different programs. (Today, Ravikant has slightly less than a bazillion, at 1.9 million.) Zhao Zhao is an artist who works across media, incorporating objects, performance, video, and painting into his practice. It shared a bathroom with a coffee shop, so Last would go in the coffee shop and come out via the bathroom into the bar. In the right hands, using Notion feels for non-developers like finally gaining the superpowers of a developer who can set up their own custom software. It set itself apart from competitorswhich also include Dropbox, Atlassian and Oraclethrough a growing set of clever, built-for-purpose templates such as to-do lists, product roadmaps and client databases. Get the Notion Mastery Course*: https://bit.ly/3rNMSRD Discover Notion here: https://bit.ly/3Ammn9B Get Notion templates from Easlo: https://gum. building products to help people at Intus Care, Loftium, and Mojotech. A328 David P Rall Building. Those early ideas are really pure. Software is a lot like that. Transformative collaboration for all the work you do. Zhaos early insights about what makes software ubiquitousthe ability to help people solve everyday life or work problems as easily and intuitively as a document editoris now a key selling point. Nobody knows how to learn how to do them properly. He has over 320 original manuscripts published in . 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. He had a hunch that investing in individual users would ultimately get Notion into big companies. In 2012, as he prepared to graduate, many of his friends needed online portfolios. Inside Design: Youve hired four product designers. Today, billions of us use computers, yet only 0.34 percent of the global population are software developers. In this interview, we talked about the early days of building Notion and creating a community of passionate users, how he uses Notion in his personal life, the influence of Alan Kay and Douglas Engelbart on Notion's design, and much more. Location. Related Investments Aliases N/A. Zhao was trying to make good on ideas that he describes as romantic, ones developed by his idols: tech pioneers Alan Kay, Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart. While many are cutting staff and slashing costs as they reel from the outbreaks fallout, others have experienced a surge in demand. I love understanding decision making frameworks, both from a technical perspective (such as algorithmic decision making) and from a . Anyone can read what you share. Growth has been rapid since the 2021 investments. I am Ivan Zhao, cofounder/designer of Notion a unified tool for docs, wikis, and tasks. The capital is not going to add another Moby Dick directly. Only those who can code, and sometimes not even them. Thats useful. Add a bio, trivia, and more. Ivan Zaho is a Founder at Notion based in San Francisco, California. A brand-new code base is always happy. Its great that people believe in the company and believe in me. The team was only about eight people, but he had just the person in mind to call to help them grow into their next phase. Within three years, Kothari had sold Pulse to LinkedIn for $90 million, and Zhao had started Notion. Zhao had cold-emailed Herzberg, saying he was a fan of how Slack built its product and brand, and, impressed by the energy in the email, she invited him to drop by the office. Be the first to contribute! Sequoia partner Mike Vernal, a former Facebook vice president, was an original Notion angel investor back in 2013. In 2013, Zhao and Last raised about $2 million from angel investorsa mix of friends, family and friends of friends. The product with the most votes in 24 hours earns additional promotion, as well as international tech-community hype. Even though he had started Notion to help humans use computers for more than word processing, he realized this new version would have to be just that, only built with some flexible tool-making capabilities layered incloser to, he imagined, the kind of software his idols had once envisioned. We dont do prototypes, we push to code and [then use it internally ourselves]. She starred alongside Joana Solnado and Margarida Vilanova in the 2009 television series Sentimentos. That kickstarted our product on Product Hunt. making investments at Van Wickle Ventures and Dorm Room Fund. Theres a short history of this (and how it influenced Notion) here. Notion wants to challenge this status quo. In another move toward ubiquity, Notion launched the beta version of its public API in 2021, enabling developers to connect Notion to payment systems and customer relationship managers, further rooting it in a workplace software ecosystem. The romantic goal is: Can we make tools that allow people to use computers like a new medium? Their plan involved asking the famed entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant, who had invested in Notion early, to wake up at midnight, when the new days list opened, and to tweet to his followers to vote for Notion on Product Hunt. Notion is also profitable. The 20-somethings didnt mind the drudgery or the lack of personal space. What was your inspiration or motivation for thinking around this? She feels strongly about cocktails and NPR. Keep your work, cut your costs. I thought it was the single best pitch Id ever seen in my time here, a work of art, he says. I wonder what does it take for every company, every team, every student to run on Notion? Someone with little experience can quickly customize using modules like linked databases, task boards, customer queries, and wiki pages. Were all using tools that proscribe very specific workflows that rarely match the way we wish we could think, learn and work. Notion, Maker of Collaboration Software, Raises $50 Million. Inside Design: I once had someone tell me that every startup or every company is a bet on a yet-to-be-realized future. I argue thats the only way to solve a problem. At its most basic, Notion enables people to use just one interface to make, edit and customize documents; to manage projects; to create information-sharing wikis; and to design all kinds of charts and tables. And thats one way. It was a crucible moment. N/A. All unified, it keeps your teams together, and keeps your thoughts together. Megan was part of the team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism; and her methods have helped more than 7,000 people tell stories in front of more than 100,000 people. Zhao: Teams are increasingly tech-savvy, with things like shortcuts and working collaboratively becoming second nature. Follow their code on GitHub. Theres no legacy code. Because the investments we made there allowed us to build Notion in a way that it could serve the teenagers using Notion for their use cases all the way to big enterprises using it.. Menu. As he readied Notion for a 2.0 version, Zhao would also reply to users directly on Twitter, building community there by showing that real people were behind the product. When the work was done, the company celebrated with Zoom karaoke, complete with custom lyrics to Amazing Grace. Zhao, of course, has a copy stored on one of his Notion workspaces. "We . So Im saying, and Im seeing, and Im hoping that were in this pendulum swing from one product, Microsoft Office, to too many SaaS products. In 2015, Notion co-founders Simon Last and Ivan Zhao had removed from their lives anything that wasn't writing code and eating noodles. The killer feature is that it is what you make of it.. A lot of our functionality has been designed in service to that. The computing pioneers thought everybody would make their own tools, make their own software, Zhao says, returning to a favorite idea. Just dream of a piece of software, and you should just be able to build that using Notion., I thought it was the single best pitch Id ever seen in my time here, a work of art. You need master level of UX and pixel-perfect design. The site was down for four nerve-wracking hours. ivzhao has one repository available. Three years into building their startup, they scrapped the code powering their app. I want Notion, or a company like Notion, to catch that wave. And Notions mission is about software tool-making. Even if those tools just look like black-and-not-quite-white document editors at first. Jani Zhao was born on the 19th of October, 1992. Previously, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Adobes 99U and a founder of Technically Media. We recently interviewed him to learn the origin story of Notion, and to get his take on the evolving nature of work . We got a lot of traction there. Soon, tech insiders, people involved with Y Combinator and other startup incubators, were using it. And I was like, This sounds amazing,, The investments we made there allowed us to build Notion in a way that it could serve the teenagers using Notion for their use cases all the way to big enterprises using it., In the next 5 to 10 years, Notion could be the front-end infrastructure for the world. This topic is getting popular again. In March 2018, Notion 2.0 was released. Welcome to my tiny corner of the internet where I'm probably tinkering with random software and tools, climbing up walls or buildings, or eating my way through a city. As the world pivoted to remote work, signups grew. Then, on New Years Day in 2021, as Notion workers were relaxing at home, Kothari and Zhao started getting alerts saying Notion had crashed. You can be a designer. Is this the simplest mental model we can use? When you hire the fifth, what will you be you looking for? Well, very few people.. Sequoia led Notions 2021 round of $250 million. And we did all sorts of really wonky projects. He graduated in cognitive science and fine arts and worked at a software company named Inkling, before establishing Notion. With more people working remotely now and turning to such products, new customer sign-ups hit a new high for Notion in recent weeks. To make Notion more competitive, the company recently acquired the calendaring company Cron, the software-building company Flowdash, and the cloud integration and workflow automation platform Automate.io. Your email address will not be published. The headline read: The Only App You Need for Work-Life Productivity. The article called the updated version a rare renaissance app. This new version featured new project management capabilities and relational databases, the kinds of everyday tables and spreadsheets that power countless projects and companies. Purpose-built templates to help your team collaborate more effectively. Competition to tell a compelling story to big companies is fierce. As Notions features become more robust, the tools we make with it will become more complex. Good luck finding a picture of Ivan online. Notion gives you a birds eye view of everything your team is working on and then lets you drill down into the smallest details if and when you want. And if thats the goal, were still really early with that. This is what Im going to do. Theres nothing else that has more leverage to use my skill set than to help people to use their computer beyond just a typewriter., They found a small group of really die-hard fans that carried the product with them. Zhao: Weve heard from a number of people that Notions very minimalist, lightweight feel encourages people to write more even if its just jotting down ideas. For a two- or three-year window, Notion was high on our list of companies that we admired from afar, Vernal says. In a moment of uncertainty, Mr. Kothari said, financing is a signal of stability, which is important for us.. It would be futile and foolhardy to try to compete with Microsoft and Google in a top-down way, to build a similar product and sell against them, says Vernal. When you look there you can only see a little bit in front of you. Zhao: The all-in-one nature of Notion is very special. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates they copied Xerox PARC. His first job was six months of answering support-desk tickets. The present comes from the past. MetaLab said it used Notion to present work to clients and to collect their feedback all in one place, among other tasks. The 32-year-old founder of Notion says, all while regularly dropping mentions of computing legends Alan Kay and Douglas Engelbart as his inspiration. 1988-1991 - Team Leader with Centro-Svilluppo Materiali (Centre for Materials Development). They did this, Zhao says, by building relationships with power users. Ram Shriram, a venture capitalist who invested in Notion in 2013, said that at many businesses, a lot of the products we use were designed in the 1990s. There is room for new workplace tools that take advantage of the internet and other advances so people can collaborate and have the most up-to-date data while they work, he said. And there were no good tools, Zhao said. In the early days, 40 years ago, when personal computing started, the lines were blurry. Zhao, 39, consolidated her domination of the category . Notions innovation was letting users configure views of those databases in customizable ways, so different people could see the same information presented in different ways. Participate Per Vulture, she grew up as "a rebellious child and a poor student," but her father become a top executive at successful steel company Shougang Group. Zhao reached out and asked Last for a meeting. Come on! The 32-year-old founder of Notion says, all while regularly dropping mentions of computing legends Alan Kay and Douglas Engelbart as his inspiration. Zhaos vision of creating a community of people empowered to make computers help them be more creative and productive has remained constant. Study some history of computing stuff or pioneers of the seventies or sixties. In 2015, Notion co-founders Simon Last and Ivan Zhao had removed from their lives anything that wasnt writing code and eating noodles. Its like, everybody can be a designer. Ivan Zhao Make-Up Department + Add or change photo on IMDbPro Contribute to IMDb. Read More Contact Ivan Zaho's Phone Number and Email Last Update 1/12/2023 1:37 AM Email i***@makenotion.com Engage via Email Contact Number Engage via Phone Mobile Number Engage via Mobile Company Notion Address A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. Zhao: Yes, absolutely. 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. Nearly all people now relied on computers to help them do all kinds of things, yet most couldnt write their own code. Today, with tens of thousands of templates circulating, Notion reflects that when millions of people are empowered to make their own online tools, they mostly design trackers, project management tools and elaborate tables. And he has a bazillion Twitter followers, says Zhao. When he was in high school, his mom wanted more for his education, so she moved them to Vancouver. Frey: What has changed in the nature of work that has created the need for a tool like Notion? See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro Youre really left with a completely blank, fresh space designed to feel like a breath of fresh air and spacious opportunity to think deeply. All Artists in the art world listed by Artprice.com starting with AAA - ABA, complete index. The latter earned her several awards, including the Golden Globe for best director. He also developed an appreciation for aesthetics as a student of traditional Chinese watercolor. Notion AI Nov 2022 Notion for Students Sep 2019 Notion Template Gallery Apr 2019 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 youve been using, and work alongside your team in the same spot, and. And now the pendulum is swinging back towards something more bundled up again. Instead, the company focused primarily on growing the community. To give you some background, our goal with Notion is to create the general purpose work tool for a post-file, post-MS Office world Kothari said he thought it had a beautiful, clean design, and he happened to be looking for a designer. industry Computer Software. I studied experimental cosmology (Ph.D. from Princeton in 2010) before switching to statistics (Ph.D. from Cornell in 2015). Dr Ivan SEAH Yu Jun . The key to healthy culture and productivity is over-communication and true understanding of what everyone is working on and why its important. It was positively received by Product Hunt and rated #1 Product of the Month. Adding another person doesnt necessarily give you a higher-quality Moby Dick. It doesnt even necessarily make it faster.. Zhaos mom loaned him $150,000 to keep the startup afloat. But if youre truly growing so fast, why not add more people? And then the web-first application came. We started with Notion 1.0, which was all about docs and notes, and then introduced 2.0 with databases in the spring of 2018. Zhao remembers sneaking Last into a nearby bar, the Trick Dog. One of the biggest holes we fill is the information gap that emerges on teams that work across too many tools without visibility. It was really popular in the 90s, but somehow people forgot that idea for a couple of decades. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 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!. About Ziyu(Ivan) Zhao. President of Beijing Society of Immunology. Every day of the pandemic added more users, and they were running out of database storage. Financing is a signal of stability, which is important for us, said Akshay Kothari, Notions head of operations. Inside Design: As the founder, how close does this version of Notion match the one in your mind? While many start-ups grapple with the fallout from the pandemic, this San Francisco company raised more cash to survive. People are used to working in shared documents and project spaces, and constantly communicating with their colleagues through various channels. Take a step back, and see how you can fundamentally solve it. And that becomes slightly more objective, less fashion-y, less Dribbble-y. Metallum Recycling is part of the HR & Staffing industry, and located in North Carolina, United States. Theyd just laid off their only colleagues. People think fast, so they should be able to capture and restructure their thoughts fast too. We want to figure out how to turn incoming capital into Moby Dicks first before getting more capital. Support-Desk tickets adding another person doesnt necessarily give you a higher-quality Moby Dick key to healthy and... 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