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)
Ivan Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Notion. Ivan shares the untold story of Notion, from nearly running out of database space during Covid to finding product-market fit after several “lost years,” and the hard-won lessons along the way.
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What you’ll learn:
- Why you sometimes need to “hide your vision” behind something people actually want—what Ivan calls “sugar-coating the broccoli”
- How Ivan and his co-founder persevered through multiple product resets and complete code rewrites
- Why Notion prioritized systems over headcount, keeping the team small and focused even at scale
- Why Ivan believes in craft and values as the foundation for product development, balancing technical excellence with aesthetic sensibility
- The surprising story of how Notion nearly collapsed during Covid when their single database almost ran out of space with only weeks to spare
- Community-led growth tactics
- Ivan’s unique journey from a small town in China
- Much more
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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-notion-ivan-zhao
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Where to find Ivan Zhao:
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Where to find Lenny:
- Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
- X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Ivan Zhao
(04:41) Ivan’s early life and education
(07:46) Discovering the vision for Notion
(10:49) The lost years of Notion
(13:56) Rebuilding and perseverance
(17:14) Layoffs and company morale
(18:53) Advice for startup founders
(25:08) Product-market fit
(29:56) Staying lean and efficient
(34:27) Creating a unique office culture
(37:20) Craft and values: the foundation of Notion’s philosophy
(38:44) Navigating tradeoffs in product and business building
(41:24) Leadership and personal growth
(49:11) Challenges and crises: lessons from Notion’s journey
(51:08) Building horizontal software: joys and pains
(01:02:40) Philosophy of tools and human potential
(01:06:17) Lightning round and final thoughts
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Referenced:
- Ürümqi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi
- Notion: https://www.notion.com/
- SpongeBob SquarePants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpongeBob_SquarePants
- Augmenting Human Intellect: https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Engelbart/Engelbart_AugmentIntellect.html
- Alan Kay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Kay
- Ted Nelson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson
- Steve Jobs on Why Computers Are Like a Bicycle for the Mind (1990): https://www.themarginalian.org/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle-for-the-mind-1990/
- Xerox Alto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto
- React: https://react.dev/
- Simon Last on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-last-41404140/
- Magna-Tiles: https://www.magnatiles.com/
- Design on a deadline: How Notion pulled itself back from the brink of failure: https://www.figma.com/blog/design-on-a-deadline-how-notion-pulled-itself-back-from-the-brink-of-failure/
- Bryan Johnson on X: https://x.com/bryan_johnson
- Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook
- Smalltalk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk#:
- Lisp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language)
- DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/
- Shana Fisher: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/shana-fisher
- LAMY 2000 fountain pens: https://www.jetpens.com/LAMY-2000-Fountain-Pens/
- Macintosh 128K: https:
