Notion | First Round
Notion
Imagine if documents worked more like software.
Today, Notion is a multi-billion dollar productivity company with over 100M users. The team is building an all-in-one workspace where you can write, plan and collaborate with your team — with an added boost from AI.
Wind the clock back to 2013, however, and things looked a bit different. We were taken with Ivan’s “imagine if” from the very beginning, writing the biggest check in their 2013 $2M seed round. But like every startup, there were several bumps in the road.
Here’s what we think founders should study from their story:
Founders: Ivan Zhao, Simon Last, Akshay Kothari
Initial Partnership: Seed
Categories: Enterprise / AI / Consumer
Partner: Josh Kopelman
Location: SF Bay Area
Notion
Founders: Ivan Zhao, Simon Last, Akshay Kothari
Initial Partnership: Seed
Categories: Enterprise / AI / Consumer
Partner: Josh Kopelman
Location: SF Bay Area
The Founder Story
Ivan, Simon & Akshay on the journey to building internet-powered paper
This Forbes cover story chronicles Notion’s path, focusing on how they got an early start on building AI into the product.
Pitch deck
Summer 2013
Don't shy away from a conceptual pitch
Ivan’s pitch for Notion was unlike anything First Round partner Josh Kopelman had ever experienced. Instead of discussing potential competitors like Microsoft Word or Google Docs, they spent an hour diving into the open form factor of paper — and how software could be similar.
Summer 2015
Start again. And again.
But two years after that seed round, Notion was running on fumes, struggling to build and position a horizontal tool. Ivan and Simon rebuilt the product four times, even laying off all their employees and moving to Japan to rewrite their tech stack. “Figuring out how to hide computing power in productivity software took us three or four years,” says Ivan.
How Notion pulled itself back from the brink
We started in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2018 with Notion 2.0 ProductHunt launch that we saw signs of traction.
Ivan Zhao
Notion Co-Founder
Notion's Product Hunt launch history
Watch Akshay interview his co-founders
SUMMER 2018
Stay in the support tickets
After joining as COO, now co-founder Akshay Kothari spent six months answering support tickets. “Ivan made me turn on my push notifications for Intercom to build intuition. My phone was buzzing every three seconds with new customer tickets coming in,” says Akshay.
WINTER 2021
“Just go viral” is not a strategy.
The company’s servers crashed after “How I use Notion” videos went viral on TikTok. While Notion relied heavily on organic marketing and product-led growth, what seemed like effortless growth was, in fact, quite effortful behind the scenes.
Get their marketing playbook here
Winter 2019
Chase customers, not funding
Notion was still only a 12-person team in 2019. Now under 700 employees, Ivan’s “How can you try to have the minimal number of building blocks?” philosophy still guides the product, the company, and their fundraising strategy. Here’s Akshay Kothari’s advice for founders: “There’s so much money being sloshed around right now, especially for AI startups. You can take the money (with minimum dilution), but then don’t feel the urgency to spend it all. Don’t chase the next round — chase customers instead.”
“An ode to the computing pioneers: software can augment human intellect. An ode to the craft: software can and should be beautiful.”
- Ivan Zhao, Notion Co-Founder
2023
Keep craft at the center
The team tested 30 different shades of warm white for their office walls. They custom-designed their own work jackets when they couldn't find merch they loved. Even today, Ivan personally selects all the office furniture. This attention to detail is baked into every aspect of how they build, from endlessly tweaking the typography of the marketing site, to coming up with v10 of the company values.