The Magic All-In-One Productivity Platform Notion
A Comprehensive Deep Dive
Notion is a uniquely flexible and interconnected workspace that has become one of the fastest growing productivity apps in recent years. This comprehensive deep dive will explore what Notion is, how its modular building blocks work and connect, key features for personal and team use cases, and what sets Notion apart from other tools.
What is Notion and How Did It Start?
Launched in 2016, Notion bills itself as an all-in-one workspace for notes, tasks, wikis, databases and collaboration. It combines features from note-taking, project management, documentation, spreadsheets and more in one place.
Notion was founded by Ivan Zhao and Simon Last along with a small team based in San Francisco. Zhao previously created file-sharing service UpNote and worked at file syncing startup Dropbox.
Seeking to create the ultimate productivity software for himself, Zhao was frustrated by having to use separate apps for notes, documents, spreadsheets, project management and more. He aimed to consolidate these functions into one flexible tool.
The first version of Notion launched in beta in 2016. Early adopters needed an invite code to access it. Notion gained traction and funding over the next few years, raising over $67 million from leading investors like Sequoia Capital and First Round.
In 2018, Notion opened up to the public. Growth accelerated thanks to viral interest in the tech community on platforms like Reddit and Product Hunt. Notion passed 1 million users in 2019. As of 2022, Notion has over 10 million users and over 200,000 companies using the platform.