Thread by @ivanhzhao

Last week, @NotionHQ passed 100M users!

I found the photo I took after we reached 1000 users.

And I still recall the day when we passed 1M in 2020 right before covid.

I feel grateful, introspective. Looking back, there's so much learning, yet much remains unchanged...

1/n

In our early years, we were rather lost.

We started in 2013, but it wasn't until 2018 w/ Notion 2.0 @ProductHunt launch that we saw signs of traction.

We had no business sense, struggled with building a horizontal tool. Notion almost died (thanks for the bridge, mom!)

2/n

We rebuilt Notion 4 times in those "lost years."

In one version you'd press a key to x-ray all blocks (what were we thinking?!)

In one, we had the right product, but wrong tech stack, so @simonlast & I went to Japan to rewrite (hence our main git repo is "notion-next")

3/n

Eventually we learned. But I am glad we didn't cave and change our mission.

Notion is built on the 70s’ vision that software can "augment human intellect”.

It’s amusing that our original pitch deck still describes the company we are building today!

4/n
notion.notion.site/Notion-Seed-Pi…

Here's a slide from a recent all-hands.

1B+ people live and work in either MSFT or Google suite (no real alternatives), and a sea of SaaS fragmentations (too rigid, too uncreative)

The world needs a "LEGOs for software" and @NotionHQ is here to build that!

5/n

With our LEGO blocks, a community of non-programmers now sell tools built on Notion (some made $1M in 2023!)

We dreamed this in the original pitch deck, but I wasn't sure it would come true.

It's coming together (more soon), just instead of 15 month it took 10 years 😅

6/n

Besides mission, our love for craft hasn't changed.

We tried 30 shades of warm whites for our office wall (that's @akothari painting)

We couldn't find merch we love, so we made our own work jackets

We care about craft & beauty, and we want to bring them to this world.

7/n

And after some hard lessons on building at scale (story for another time), our product craft is re-accelerating!

@NotionHQ hasn’t shipped this well ever: 7+ releases this summer—answering our community's asks fast, with a quality we can be proud of!


8/n

https://x.com/ivanhzhao/status/1803066729226011123

We do all of this because we don’t just want to build a piece of software.

We want to build something that’s great, according to our values. Something that the next generation don’t just have to use, but LOVE.

To quote Jobs, “put something back to the humanity”

9/n

Most importantly, I feel grateful this is not just my life's work—but many people's at @NotionHQ

People like @sliminality, @jitl, Rob have gone through the highs & lows over the last 5+ years to make this real. (Rob built our Android app, security, IT, and now infra!)

10/n

Today, we are grateful that @NotionHQ might have touched & helped 100M of you in your work and lives.

An ode to the computing pioneers: software can augment human intellect.

An ode to the craft: software can and should be beautiful!

Looking ahead to 1B :–)