Notion’s lost years, its near collapse during Covid, staying small to move fast, the joy and suffering of building horizontal, more | Ivan Zhao (CEO and co-founder)

The way you describe the earlier years of Notion, you described the first three to four years as the lost years. We try many different versions. The first version, okay, everybody can make and create their software. So let's just build a developer tool that's so easy. then more people can do that. We'll try that like couple years and learn that actually most people just don't care. The our realization is actually let's hide our vision, which is everybody can create their software in the form factor that people do care. So what kind of tool do people use every day? Productivity software. People don't want to eat the broccoli, but people like sugar. So give them the sugar. What other elements do you think are key to you finding something that actually ended up working? What is up building a product or business? One user you want revenue, that's a product business. And building for something you want the world to have is building for your value. You have some taste, you have some aesthetic. There are different energy. You need to create a balance. Too much of yourself, then there's no users.

You're just doing our project. And too much for business, you're getting a commodity. The way you think about notion, it's almost like a philosophy of how to work and be versus just a productivity tool. And so I'm just curious how you think about the relationship between tools and human potential. Tools are extensions of us, and once they extense us. Once we shape them, once we bring them to to world, they can come back to shape us. Today my guest is Ivan Zhao. Ivan is the co-founder and CEO of Notion.

Ivan is a really unique and also a deeply philosophical founder. Who doesn't do a lot of podcasts. So I'm really excited to share a glimpse into how he built one of the most beloved and most popular products in the world. We talk about the first three to four years of Notion that he describes as the lost years. How he was able to get into a great school in China by winning a programming contest, the joy and suffering of building a successful horizontal product.

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