This documentary is broken into three parts and will tell a story all about the notion team and what they're currently working on
We spent a week with them at the start of April and here's our story
The productivity software space has always been diverse
There are countless applications that can solve all of your work and life woes but not one tool to attempt to solve them all
tools like Evernote todoist Trello have been veterans of the field our North Stars and productivity space and
Is even more software coming out that will assist you in lots of different situations in work in life like habit trackers time trackers
Communication tools document managers cloud storage and so much more and there's no sign of its slowing down
Like all great spaces software has to adapt
Becoming smarter more fine-tuned and ready to meet our growing list of needs
We're also looking at for it to automate mundane steps in our packed days
And now a new player in town has rumbled this very field
When I started investing time into learning map the best productivity software out there
I never knew what this space would reveal back in 2011 there was regular players and a sense of unification
For me and lots of people there wasn't really much further to go
Absent softwares would strive to solve your woes through organized pre-built experiences
These would help us and information and come back for it. Later
The space and rules have now be flipped on their head
It is reverting back to an open-plan
Thanks to a desire to customize and design your own dream software a new
Entrant has joined a space one that I've been speaking and talking about for a while now and you've probably guessed it, right?
Notion are based in San Francisco and they aim to be an all-in-one workspace that you're looking for
The tool itself claims to combine the use of applications like Trello Evernote Google Docs confluence and more in one wholesome experience
And this app hasn't disappointed with over 1 million users since their seed funding
It's on a rocket path to popularity
So our start was early we woke up at about 3:30 a.m
And we headed to our airport to get the correct flights all on time now
it was my first trip to the US and I was very excited because I've been a fan of
The Bay Area for many years, although not even being there
I was traveling with my good buddy Joel when we first met it was Trello day conference back in
2018 and he joined me for this adventure over to the team
Our first stop on the trip was the notion offices on day one
We were greeted by the team and got to know them now their offices feel
Very much, like being inside the notion software. It's really well lit in their friendly open and comes with a sense of artistic
minimalism that adapts to each area they have
Light jazzy music lying the backgrounds with sofas and relaxing areas to chill out
It had a real ambience to it that I can imagine many people would like to work in our
First interview started with Ivan the co-founder of notion Hennessy notion is really about software tool making
I'm a programmer
I know how to call since I was fairly young and
I went to college and made friends with a lot of people major in fine arts. And
By the time they need to graduate they need to make their portfolio websites
And I'm the only nerd in the circle who know how to do that
we talked to him a little bit about
Notion and their startup story and what inspired him to kick things off and from that moment
I really start thinking so I at that time I really okay. Let me build a web page builder
So my friends can start building their websites and and from working on that web page builder problem longer and longer
You I realize that it's really not about just what pages is a really about software in general. Right most people
Unless you know how to code program. You can't really modify
The tools you use every day right from there. I really want to like I just got obsessed with the problem
Like let's create a meta tool
So let every one programmer none program to create their own software so it gotta be so easy to use and so flexible
So anybody can customize and create tools that work exactly the way they want their business me?
Ivan currently spends much of his time steering notion in the right direction as a business
So the team are based in the Mission District an artistic neighbourhood with plenty of up-and-coming startups in and around it
The team are a small team at the moment with 30 or more right eye developers programmers designers
And of course marketing and sales
We grabbed five minutes with some of these chirpy faces within the team and first up was lily and David
Now many people recognize Lily's name because she is their support and community
Manager along with David who many will know as the voice of Twitter
Now these are the traps behind the support tickets and at the moment obviously notion is very new things
So they're getting a lot of requests
Tagging
Trading that
They handle between
400 to 500 support messages a day, which is absolutely crazy
They're very passionate about the service and Lily is the office dog's owner
a
Small little fellow called fig now fig is blind and he was absolutely adorable
I remember sending a photo to my sister and she instantly fell in love with them and
How would you best describe the team culture I mean you guys are so like to be around
It's great. And how would you go about describing that to someone new?
I mean, we're pretty tight-knit team like when I joined just a few months ago. I think I was higher number 10
We're still pretty small to this day
I mean we go on trips together twice a year we go out to lunch together at least once a week
So it's like a pretty intimate culture and at the same time like if you walk around the opposite 3 p.m
Like we're all pretty quiet. We all never met
very focused but
You walk around the opposite lunchtime, and we're all chatting about, you know, various nerdy things
You have kind of similar interests and art and culture and just thought provoking questions
Now, of course the team have been working mainly on notion
But akshay the CEO of notion previously worked at LinkedIn and brings a lot of experience to the role
From his vast experience. He understands notion is heading into the future of productivity
Means
Well, so I think primarily I have known Ivan and Simon for a really long time I was lucky when I saw
Pulse to LinkedIn back in 2013. I
Notion was actually my first investment. I was just trying to invest in startups and notion ended up being of course company and invested in
invested finally because of
you know, I win this vision of
Rising to making in the world
Yeah
The simple idea where you know you and I need to know how to corn to build the next generation
Software or the next generation for so from taking your socks off at the entrance to the relaxed
Lunches the notion team also in passionate about the product and use it in their day-to-day life
Yeah actually have a bunch of different workspaces for different people
One that I have is I actually live with my wife and
In our
Here in San Francisco, and we have a workspace for we tracked it to be everything at home
Down to like who's cooking do streaming? Who's?
doing groceries
What are the house rules?
When are people travel me who are house calendar?
Who's stopped like who's coming our works and it's actually like made our life so much more organized. Yeah
I have to like I have to force everyone in the home to use the ocean for that use kids. Yeah
but now that everybody's using it it feels like it's this thing of so
Yeah
and
one of the many reasons people falling in love with notion is the focus on design and
Product and at the moment the experience of using notion is calm liberating and totally flexible
Now chant one of the programmers at notion very much strives to deliver the best inside for notion users to do something else
I haven't asked something kind of work created
and so I quit and
Getting really in debt explorable explanations. Yeah
Watching all these prep victor videos and stuff and I was building this markdown editor for building explorable
and
I showed it to a friend who introduced me to another friend who told me about notion. Mmm, and then
So, yeah, so I just email live and actually and later that day I met up with them we've got coffee and
Yeah, I mean basically notion was kind of a much more polished version of what I was trying to build yeah and
Yeah, I mean I met the I didn't Simon they were both like
Really into all the same things that I was into. Yeah, they are all the same idea as Oliver ideas
Yeah, and uh, yeah, it's kind of like a perfect opportunity for kind of my side project to be with my job
Notion hasn't just caught the attention of day-to-day users. It is impressed teams around the world a few that we got to visit