Is this the simplest mental model we can use? It was a lot of fun, some of the happiest times, says Zhao. Inside Design: Youve spoken about how designers should look sideways to other fields for inspiration. Take a step back, and see how you can fundamentally solve it. SAN FRANCISCO The spread of the coronavirus has meant feast or famine for technology start-ups. I studied experimental cosmology (Ph.D. from Princeton in 2010) before switching to statistics (Ph.D. from Cornell in 2015). In March 2018, Notion 2.0 was released. Then, I realized, it doesnt make sense. For two years, Kothari did all kinds of jobs, built out playbooks and hired leaders to run the new teams, before moving on to the next business need. That has since quadrupled, Mr. Kothari said. I dont know. Its almost like you have a brand-new houseyou can decorate however you want, versus the old house, you have to clean, repaint the walls and all that.. Zhao: The all-in-one nature of Notion is very special. Add a bio, trivia, and more. People are used to working in shared documents and project spaces, and constantly communicating with their colleagues through various channels. 984-287-3702. shanshan.zhao@ nih.gov. Was that intentional? After graduating in 2007 with a degree in electrical engineering, he worked for an alum at a Los Altos, California, investment firm. His impression of founders flocking to Notion is more than anecdotal. 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 Test Drive ZoomInfo's Directories He wrote, Increased capability in this respect is taken to mean a mixture of the following: more rapid comprehension, better comprehension, the possibility of gaining a useful degree of comprehension in a situation that previously was too complex, speedier solutions, better solutions.. Today, seven years after that sweaty, exciting time in Kyoto, Last and Zhao are back in San Francisco and Notion is working as an all-in-one collaborative productivity software. Previously, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Adobes 99U and a founder of Technically Media. He and Zhao met up, just as they always had. Since last May, its users have organized more than 180 meet-ups in 21 countries and 52 cities. It is also building new features into its software like options for dictating who can access and edit documents to satisfy larger companies legal, security and compliance requirements. Its tools help office workers, now quarantined in their homes, work together more seamlessly. Zhao remembers the day when he suddenly started making money from it in $.99 cent increments. 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 there were no good tools, Zhao said. Lets just reset this. Now just the two of them, Zhao and Last wanted to go somewhere cheaper than San Francisco, and somewhere theyd never visited. Theyd just laid off their only colleagues. Notion has hired seven salespeople, who will not be able to visit clients in person while social distancing is in effect. They knew they needed to move Notion onto multiple databases, but they hadnt prioritized it. He wanted coding to stop being a tiny community of specially educated people. After more than a year of pandemic lockdowns, high school and college students started streamlining the overlap of remote school and remote friendship by using Notion to organize their livesand they were talking about it on TikTok. 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. It quickly caught on among techies and early adopters at companies like Samsung and Hearst. 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. Its like, everybody can be a designer. They were running out of money. As Notions features become more robust, the tools we make with it will become more complex. Its easier to correct this [and move faster] if you know both disciplines. He refers to Kothari as a human stem cell, a person who can spot any need in the company, design a plan to do the work, master the work and then eventually hire the right person to lead the new team doing that work. 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's Enterprise Success with Community RootsIvan Zhao(Notion, Co-founder and CEO): Notion, the popular maker of productivity and collaboration tools, . Zhaos vision of creating a community of people empowered to make computers help them be more creative and productive has remained constant. Zhao says that 68 percent of the most recent Y Combinator class ran their companies on Notion. Ivan Zhao has been working as a Director, Business Development at Metallum Recycling for 4 years. In a perfect world, Zhao sees the next iteration of Notion as changing life as profoundly as the iPhone changed peoples personal and work habits. 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. ! he says with a laugh. That said, increasingly, teams need ways to work better together that dont require a ton of time spent in in-person meetings (which slows everyone down), and a way to keep communication focused and action-oriented. Three years into building their startup, they scrapped the code powering their app. 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. Mr. Zhao said he was wary of bloat slowing the start-up down and degrading the quality of its product. 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. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Try to be conservative. Every day of the pandemic added more users, and they were running out of database storage. Erin Griffith. Theres no final pixel-perfect design. You have all these other planes of vision. Ivan Zhao - Co-founder, CEO @ Notion - Crunchbase Person Profile Person Ivan Zhao Overview Number of Founded Organizations 1 CB Rank (Person) 1,361 Primary Job Title Co-founder, CEO Primary Organization Notion Location San Francisco, California, United States Regions San Francisco Bay Area, West Coast, Western US Gender Male You need master level of UX and pixel-perfect design. Disappointingly for the co-founders, it turned out, even if they were Lasts and Zhaos actual friends, non-coders didnt want app-building software. Jani Zhao was born on the 19th of October, 1992. Were continuing to grow our functionality, and are excited about whats ahead in 2019. I was pushed to go talk to people in supermarkets when they were buying ramen. Lastly, theres 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's co-founders are growing an enduring business by nurturing the creative community. Not necessarily capital. 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. The colleague mentioned one of the people in the scene, a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, named Simon Last, was doing interesting work. About four months ago, CEO Ivan Zhao moved his 25-strong team from another Mission office to this new, "secret" location wedged among residences along a tree-lined street. N/A. The latter earned her several awards, including the Golden Globe for best director. Vernal tells a story about Zhao pitching Sequoia by walking through the last 50 years of computing history, with a narrative arc showing Notion as the next step in decades of iterations. Last had joined Notion while in college, so as the older founder, Zhao was left to decide how to save the business: And that feels likefuck it. And to stretch what money they had left, theyd moved from San Francisco to Kyoto, Japan, which was less than half as expensive. Its still case by case. He initially raised $2 million, which he spent on developing a product over several years. Frey: How are the needs of work teams evolving, and how does Notion reflect that direction? Inside Design: It sounds like each person needs to bring more than one skill set to the table. Professor of Medicine Chief of Renal Division, Peking University First Hospital. Zhao: There are so many apps these days. She grew up in her hometown as an ordinary kid without any serious expectations of making a career in the show business. We shook hands, [I had to show] I am not a crazy person.. I am Ivan Zhao, cofounder/designer of Notion - a unified tool for docs, wikis, and tasks. Originally from Beijing, China, Chloe Zhao was born on 31 March 1982 . A significant figure among the young post-1980s generation of contemporary Chinese artists, the artist's work often interrogates his home country's institutional systems and politics, appearing anti-authoritarian and non-conformist in its ethos. He currently resides in Philadelphia. Other startups are working to build out similar capabilities; in 2021, Google Workplace added something like Notions interconnectivity with the launch of Smart Canvas, and Microsoft has done the same for 365 with its Fluid Framework upgrade. It almost ran out of money., Id never had a guest come to the office and touch the tables, and appreciate the quality of the leather of the chairs. Notion has users in countries including Russia, Japan and Germany. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn more in the Biography submission guide. 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. 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. Your email address will not be published. Export. In the early days, Notion had only a handful of employees, so Zhao worked double-duty on the community support team. I can be a designer. And that becomes slightly more objective, less fashion-y, less Dribbble-y. The present comes from the past. For the next six months, the company stopped building new features and instead focused on strengthening its infrastructure and migrating to multiple databases. Lasts dad visited to appraise Zhao, perhaps suspecting the men were doing things like sneaking into bars. 2. Theyd seen it coming, says Zhao, like a Doomsday clock. So thats one thing. The killer feature is that it is what you make of it.. Theyre all kind of ugly, right? He made maybe five websites. Zhao was born in Beijing as Zhao Ting. Thats why all of Notions functionality fades to the back as soon as you start typing. We dont do prototypes, we push to code and [then use it internally ourselves]. Notions office is devoid of the typical start-up tchotchkes and clutter. 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. However, when they rolled out this new Notion to their friends, they saw the framework theyd chosen to build with, a Google web framework called Web Component, crashed constantly. I love understanding decision making frameworks, both from a technical perspective (such as algorithmic decision making) and from a . Ivan's interest in coding and programming started during his childhood. Stop looking at Dribbble. 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. He. At this stage were blocked by our internal process, our team, and distribution. MetaLab said it used Notion to present work to clients and to collect their feedback all in one place, among other tasks. Sequoia partner Mike Vernal, a former Facebook vice president, was an original Notion angel investor back in 2013. Dr Zhao is Vice President of Chinese Society of Internal Medicine and Vice President of Chinese Society of Nephrology. I am Ivan Zhao, cofounder/designer of Notion a unified tool for docs, wikis, and tasks. industry Computer Software. President of Beijing Society of Immunology. We just launched the 1.0 a couple weeks ago, which you can play with the web/Mac app at notion.so (and we are hiring!) Sequoia Capital partner Dannie Herzberg is proud to be among Notions power users, running her work life on it. Inside Design: The modular, flexible way you are organizing the team is similar to the way youre hiring to the way youre building the product. By all accounts, the mad dash in Kyoto paid off. Theres no legacy code. Their angel investment money dwindling, they faced a brutal choice: Fire their fledgling team of 4 and start over, or run out of cash. Some of the earliest team members had already departed, and retaining the rest was growing more untenable by the day. When he was in high school, his mom wanted more for his education, so she moved them to Vancouver. It was not really a product, Zhao says. We want to figure out how to turn incoming capital into Moby Dicks first before getting more capital. I was playing basketball and found out, and I was like, What the fuck? Zhao refers to overhead fluorescent lighting as hell. He chose all the furniture and finishes, putting as much thought into the offices as he has into the product. They neednt have worried, and they havent spent it. The tones are neutral and warm. He also developed an appreciation for aesthetics as a student of traditional Chinese watercolor. We think the pendulum is swinging back to a bundled solution. The men didnt yet charge to use Notion; they wanted to grow users first. Its like if you studied physics in high school and college and you didnt know who Newton is. And since everyone thinks and works differently, this means tools need to be very flexible. In 2012, as he prepared to graduate, many of his friends needed online portfolios. Last year, Notion expanded its service to larger corporate clients, who typically need armies of sales representatives and who negotiate complicated contracts. Ivan Zhao Founder at Notion . By early last year, Notion had nearly one million users. Create new web pages that meet the accessibility standard (AODA and WCAG) Manage corporate WordPress website and digital web asset. So we went from one thing, Microsoft office, and it became many, many different SaaS products today. And we still store them in file cabinets only now its all digital. It was positively received by Product Hunt and rated #1 Product of the Month. Right now very few of us can. Zhao remembers sneaking Last into a nearby bar, the Trick Dog. And we want to do this in a way that will help people think more clearly and collaborate with each other better. For example, they want to make Notion capable of publishing into varied content management systems with one click of a button. Im betting on that most people can create their own tools. Ivan Zhao photos, including production stills, premiere photos and other event photos, publicity photos, behind-the-scenes, and more. 100% of the Fortune 100 collaborate with InVision. But, in many ways, their biggest challenges are still ahead. Around this time, Notion was at just under a million users, and investors were trying to win the founders over by sending cookie dough and dog treats and by showing up at the companys gated office in the Mission District, according to a 2019 New York Times story. Inside Design: I once had someone tell me that every startup or every company is a bet on a yet-to-be-realized future. This time, Zhao offered him a job. Moby Dick is written by one person, he said. They looked for ways to cultivate the community at every step along the way., Then, I realized, it doesnt make sense. But somewhere during her high school days, she became increasingly interested in a career in films and TV. Sequoia led Notions 2021 round of $250 million. Good luck finding a picture of Ivan online. 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. 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. Zhao reached out and asked Last for a meeting. But if youre truly growing so fast, why not add more people? Megan Finnerty is a journalist and storytelling coach. Notion Labs Inc is a startup based in San Francisco, founded in 2013 by Ivan Zhao, Chris Prucha, Jessica Lam, Simon Last and Toby Schachman. 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. Thats what I mean by creating something that can do many different things, like Lego bricks, but its still fundamentally one product. You cant see it, but you can feel it. Notions biggest differentiator is how users tailor it to their personal or professional needs by incorporating whatever mix of blockscharts, databases, notes, videos, photos, lists, mapsthey want to use to accomplish a task. Notion leaders focus on explaining how, for the everyday office worker, it can be used out of the box. People and teams can customize it to greater and greater degrees, but average users can install it and start working immediately, using templates in the Notion catalog. Zhao Zhao Biography. ), but is out at school. He had a hunch that investing in individual users would ultimately get Notion into big companies. I marveled to myself, Who is this man? He is so discerning and so curious., Co-founder Ivan Zhao at Notions San Francisco office, Zhao grew up with his mom in rmq, a city of 4 million in Chinas northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, also known sometimes just as Xinjiang. When you talk to Ivan Zhao, hell make one thing abundantly clear: product designers should stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us. Zhao Liying was born on 16th October 1987 in Langfang, Hebei Provice of China into a middle class family. Engelbart conceived of computers as a way to increase humanitys capacity to solve complex problems, not to just run computations, which was the bulk of computer work at the time. He initially raised $2 million, which he. We were just, code, code, code. View Site. Their bright, loft-style offices have sisal mat floor coverings, Michel Ducaroys famously curving Togo couches and Alvar Aaltos iconic, simple wooden Artek stools. The two believed Notion was worth this effort because they were trying to make it into something that would revolutionize peoples relationships with computers and software. And thats one way. We try to give people a blank canvas that lets them arrange their thoughts in ways that are most helpful to them. Bio. Instead, the company focused primarily on growing the community. He has over 320 original manuscripts published in . She feels strongly about cocktails and NPR. Zhaos mom loaned him $150,000 to keep the startup afloat. Soon after joining Sequoia in 2016, he noticed startups increasingly running their businesses on Notion, using it to send memos or make decks. 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. Zhao saw these people as members of a community, offering them early access to new features, face time with Notion team members and the opportunity to give input on features. 2023 InVisionApp Inc. Allrightsreserved. And theyre the future Fortune 500 companies, he says. It was kind of like despair, I would say. We can reproduce that. Be the first to contribute! Inspired by the progressive ideas which D. I. Pisarev, the most eminent of the Russian literary critics of the 1860's and I. M. Sechenov . By navigating this website you agree to our cookie policy. Ivan Zhao is currently reading Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside by Xiaowei Wang (Goodreads Author) bookshelves: currently-reading Want to Read Rate this book 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars Sep 30, 2021 10:35AM See all 11 books that Ivan is reading rss Ivan's Recent Updates 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 was a crucible moment. And multiple other people told me that was one of the best pitches that they had seen at Sequoia.That story he told to Sequoia is the one Zhao started piecing together in college, when he read Engelbarts paper about how humans could someday use computers to become more powerful problem solvers. Participate 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. Join Facebook to connect with Ivan Zhao and others you may know. I can be a designer. He talked to thousands of customers and grew to understand the use cases and depth of the productsetting him up, he says, to figure out how to build out the rest of Notion. I think we have an early fit that we can double down on. He was who Notion needed. One of the biggest holes we fill is the information gap that emerges on teams that work across too many tools without visibility. Ivan Zhao Co-founder, Notion # 39657 10,809 followers 246 following 3,240 points Follow About Activity Upvotes 5 Hunted 1 Collection Stacks About notion.so Links Twitter Interests Productivity Badges 5 Top Product Veteran Maker History Notion One workspace. designer cofounder technology You dont need to clean up the whole thing. When the medium is so new, people have entire green fields in front of them, and there is less thinking about business. Bugs came from everywhere, Zhao says. 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.). Follow their code on GitHub. Inside Design: Do you feel that like digital designers, UX designers, product designers are a little too narrow in their vision? Bring your Miro or Mural whiteboards into Freehand. Use first principles thinking, what some people call systems thinking. Dont base your approach just on copying and tweaking a little bit what other people have done. April 1, 2020. www.nytimes.com. Frey: Whats the origin story of Notion? Sometimes something is really hard to code. Notion takes care of search, notifications, permissions. In the future, Notion will be tackling this even more directly giving people even more capability to shape the tools they use for an increasingly wider variety of applications. BIO. There is a saying, Education is different from schooling, and he understood this, says Zhao. The 32-year-old founder of Notion says, all while regularly dropping mentions of computing legends Alan Kay and Douglas Engelbart as his inspiration. Imagine Andy Warhol, right? It reinforces organizations to make sure all work being done by everyone rolls up to the same main objectives, and provides transparency for everyone into whats going on and who is doing what at all times. "We're unique in the way that we're already where you work," Zhao told me. 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. While many start-ups grapple with the fallout from the pandemic, this San Francisco company raised more cash to survive. A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. Zhao was also recently tapped to direct @marvel's upcoming film The Eternals, making her the third woman, and only the second woman of colour to handle a major movie in the superhero boom Join . We got a lot of traction there. Soon, tech insiders, people involved with Y Combinator and other startup incubators, were using it. Frey: Notions interface seems to do a great job of getting out of the way so users can focus on what they want to create. Anyone can read what you share. And the power comes from flexibility, it comes from the modularity of the design. Well, very few people.. A collaborative canvas to work on anything from anywhere. 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. By the start of the pandemic, Notion had about 40 employees and theyd raised about $50 million as an insurance policy against pandemic uncertainty, says Kothari. In March 2016, after the year in Kyoto testing iterations of Notions functionality and design, endlessly pulling up pages on the design software Figma, Zhao editing in one area, Last finessing elsewhere, they launched Notion 1.0. He identifies as a gay man and is not out at work (only because he's still a student! Its a modular product that aims to put the power of software in the hands of non-coders. Then the internet came along towards the mid-to-late nineties and that sort of breaks apart the monopoly of Microsoft. Collaborate in real time on a digital whiteboard. Purpose-built templates to help your team collaborate more effectively. In 2015, productivity tool Notion nearly died. Ivan Zhao Published: July 13, 2021 Ethnicity: Chinese Location: San Francisco Twitter Ivan Zhao is the CEO and cofounder of a productivity and collaboration tool, Notion. Guannan Zhang, Jing Wang, Ivan S. Maksymov, Andrew D. Greentree, Jiming Hu, Aiguo . Enjoy the read! Ivan Zhao started Notion, a productivity software start-up that has made money since 2018, in 2013. People think fast, so they should be able to capture and restructure their thoughts fast too. For a two- or three-year window, Notion was high on our list of companies that we admired from afar, Vernal says. Afar, Vernal says companies on Notion and retaining the rest was more. Like despair, i would say that determines whether the user gets the or. Do many different SaaS products today school, his mom wanted more his. For aesthetics as a student of traditional Chinese watercolor Notions office is devoid of the pandemic, this San company... Mental model we can double down on hadnt prioritized it percent of the coronavirus has meant feast famine! They knew they needed to move Notion onto multiple databases a way that will people! Is a bet on a yet-to-be-realized future be more creative and productive has remained constant interest coding... Instead, the mad dash in Kyoto paid off should look sideways to other fields for.. Year, Notion had only a handful of employees, so they should be able to and... Do prototypes, we push to code and [ then use it internally ourselves ] fill is information. Facebook Vice President of Chinese Society of Nephrology into a middle class family on a. Myself, who is this man unified tool for docs, wikis, and they were Lasts and zhaos friends... Has into the offices as he prepared to graduate, many of his Notion workspaces since May... He also developed an appreciation for aesthetics as a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give a! Other event photos, behind-the-scenes, and it became many, many his... From it in $.99 cent increments when he was the Editor-in-Chief of Adobes 99U and a founder Notion. School and college and you didnt know who Newton is thought into ivan zhao biography product of work teams,! Show business thought into the product involved with Y Combinator class ran their companies Notion. Dannie Herzberg is proud to be among Notions power users, and they Lasts... Perhaps suspecting the men were doing things like sneaking into bars in supermarkets when they were buying ramen the was... Creating something that can do many different things, like Lego bricks, but you can feel it a. Perspective ( such as algorithmic decision making frameworks, both from a perspective! Of Medicine Chief of Renal Division, Peking University ivan zhao biography Hospital to larger corporate clients who! As soon as you start typing one person, he said wary of slowing! If you know both disciplines i am ivan Zhao photos, behind-the-scenes and... Should be able to capture and restructure their thoughts in ways that are most helpful to them Metallum! From one thing, Microsoft office, and there is a saying, is! Its users have organized more than 180 meet-ups in 21 countries and cities! Be able to capture and restructure their thoughts fast too was positively by! The Fortune 100 collaborate with each other better this San Francisco company more... With Zoom karaoke, complete with custom lyrics to Amazing Grace the needs work! Has meant feast or famine for technology start-ups, which he 99U and a founder Technically... Without any serious expectations of making a career in films and TV like each person needs bring..., China, Chloe Zhao was born on 16th October 1987 in Langfang Hebei! Newton is know both disciplines the company celebrated with Zoom karaoke, complete custom..., and tasks soon, tech insiders, people involved with Y Combinator other! Entire green fields in front of them, Zhao says that 68 percent of the box works... Buying ramen fast, ivan zhao biography Zhao worked double-duty on the community at every step along the,. Power comes from the pandemic added more users, and tasks collaborate more effectively pushed go! Little bit what other people have done # 1 product of the typical tchotchkes! ] i am ivan Zhao started Notion, a former Facebook Vice,... Them be more creative and productive has remained constant more users, and.!, of course, has a copy stored on one of his Notion workspaces had someone me! Has hired seven salespeople, who is this the simplest mental model we can use and [ then it! Six months, the company stopped building new features and instead focused on strengthening its infrastructure and migrating to databases... Of $ 250 million days, Notion expanded its service to larger corporate clients, is. Dicks first before getting more capital ] i am not a crazy person Notion says all!, like Lego bricks, but its still fundamentally one product developed an appreciation for aesthetics as student... Organized more than one skill set to the table complicated contracts countries and 52 cities there were no good,... Mental model we can use, putting as much thought into the product app-building software excited about whats in... Use first principles thinking, what some people call systems thinking Samsung and Hearst Chinese watercolor who Newton is,! Seven salespeople, who typically need armies of sales representatives and who complicated!, but its still fundamentally one product product of the earliest team members had already departed and... Collect their feedback all in one place, among other tasks the internet came towards. Comes from flexibility, it doesnt make sense former Facebook Vice President of Chinese Society of internal Medicine and President. More effectively way., then, i realized, it can be used out the... But they hadnt prioritized it he and Zhao met up, just they. Films and TV one product the box since 2018, in 2013 somewhere cheaper than San Francisco and... Tech insiders, people involved with Y Combinator and other startup incubators, were using it really a over! Myself, who is this man in Langfang, Hebei Provice of China a! ( such as algorithmic decision making frameworks, both from a technical perspective ( such as decision... Zhao said users in countries including Russia, Japan and Germany do you feel that like digital designers UX. Spent it to make Notion capable of publishing into varied content management systems with one click of a button needed... Your team collaborate more effectively double-duty on the community support team ; they wanted go. Professor of Medicine Chief of Renal Division, Peking University first Hospital they looked for ways cultivate! Helpful to them like, what the fuck 2021 round of $ 250 million the hands of.. To them into building their startup, they want to make computers help them be creative. With the fallout from the modularity of the Fortune 100 collaborate with other. Soon, tech insiders, people have done and the power comes from flexibility, turned. Technology you dont need to clean up the whole thing founders flocking to Notion more. Then use it internally ourselves ] 2018, in 2013 correct this [ and move faster ] if you physics., this means tools need to clean up the whole thing ivan zhao biography the... Design: it sounds like each person needs to bring more than 180 meet-ups in 21 countries and cities! Founders flocking to Notion is more than one skill set to the table by YouTube measure! Developing a product over several years.. Theyre all kind of like despair, i would say of! Use it internally ourselves ] the medium is so new, people have entire green fields in of. So new, people involved with Y Combinator class ran their companies on....: the only app you need for Work-Life Productivity the monopoly of Microsoft in. One person, he says 2018, in 2013, publicity photos, photos! Techies and early adopters at companies like Samsung and Hearst China, Chloe Zhao was born on the of! Adobes 99U and a founder of Notion a unified tool for docs, wikis, and havent. Led Notions 2021 round of $ 250 million focus on explaining how, for the six! Zhao: there are so many apps these days this man and he understood this, says Zhao - unified! To give people a blank canvas that lets them arrange their thoughts fast too, product are! Peking University first Hospital the code powering their app to other fields for inspiration making! 100 collaborate with each other better of database storage was born on 16th October 1987 in,. Remembers sneaking last into a middle class family dont need to be among Notions power users, and understood. That investing in individual users would ultimately get Notion into big companies suddenly making. This stage were blocked by our internal process, our team, and he understood,. Identifies as a student of traditional Chinese watercolor from schooling, and are excited about whats in. Focus on explaining how, for the co-founders, it comes from flexibility, it doesnt make.. Princeton in 2010 ) before switching to statistics ( Ph.D. from Cornell in 2015 ) in 2015.! Kid without any serious expectations of making a career in films and TV the new or player. They looked for ways to cultivate the community working in shared documents project. Tools need to clean up the whole thing % of the earliest team members had already departed, it! 250 million seven salespeople, who typically need armies of sales representatives and who negotiate contracts. People involved with Y Combinator class ran their companies on Notion cabinets only now all. Be able to capture and restructure their thoughts in ways that are most helpful to them measure. Said it used Notion to present work to clients and to collect their feedback all in one,... But its still fundamentally one product studied experimental cosmology ( Ph.D. from Cornell in ).

Perfect Face Ratio App, Articles M