Startup Corner #15: Notion is a thesis
Lessons from the quiet conviction behind how Notion builds, works, and sees the world
Hey friends,
I recently read an article by Notion on how its own teams uses Notion.
I highly recommend you check it out: https://www.notion.com/blog/how-notion-uses-notion.
Reading this got me thinking:
Notion, as it turns out, is not just a tool. It’s a choice. A taste. Almost a philosophy.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize: Notion’s success isn’t just about blocks and docs and templates.
It’s about how they’ve decided to exist — as a product, a team, and a brand — and what that can teach other founders about playing a long, focused game.
There’s something kind of radical about the way Notion operates.
It’s opinionated.
Calm.
It doesn’t shout.
It just is — quietly and consistently itself.
That’s rare in tech, where the default is often louder, faster, more.
Notion seems to say: we’ll go deep, not wide.
We’ll build the way we want to work.
And if you want to work this way too, cool — come join us.
And clearly, people have.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think Notion won because it “built a better note-taking app.”
I think it won because it took a point of view on how people want to think, collaborate, and structure information in a world full of noise.
The product didn’t just serve a function — it offered a way of working.
That’s a much harder thing to copy.
From a startup perspective, this raises some interesting questions.
What does it mean to build a product that’s also a belief system?
How do you scale without losing your quirkiness?
How do you stay useful without becoming everything to everyone?
Most startups start with clear constraints — limited time, limited people, limited scope.
But as you grow, the gravitational pull of feature creep gets stronger.
Everyone wants you to be more things for more people.
What’s impressive about Notion is how disciplined they’ve been in saying: this is the framework we believe in — we’ll improve it, expand it, support it — but we won’t fracture it.
And that kind of conviction creates something very sticky.
Because users don’t just adopt the product — they internalize the philosophy.
There’s also something to be said for how Notion works internally — they run almost entirely inside Notion.
Product specs, hiring trackers, onboarding guides, content calendars.
All inside the product. Not as a performative “we eat our own dog food” gesture, but because the tool actually shapes how they think and operate.
That’s the dream, right?
To build something that’s not just useful, but native to your team’s rhythm.
Something that reflects how you want to work — not how some SaaS category says you’re supposed to.
It reminds me that tools aren’t neutral.
They push you toward certain behaviors.
And the best tools — like the best teams — are intentional about that push.
So here’s where my head’s at:
If we are building a product right now, instead of just asking “what does it do?”
Can we ask:
What rhythm does this product create?
What assumptions is it making about how people want to work?
What would it look like if we lived inside our product, too?
Notion didn’t win by being more “robust” than Google Docs.
It won by creating a space that felt spacious.
Flexible.
Personal.
It feels like a place you build inside, not just a tool you click through.
That’s design as worldview.
And maybe most importantly — Notion didn’t rush.
It’s tempting in startup land to try to go from MVP to category killer in 12 months. But Notion took its time. They rebuilt, rewrote, and waited until the product felt right before chasing growth. They didn’t optimize for distribution first. They optimized for conviction.
And when people found it? They told others. Not because of an ad campaign, but because the product felt like something worth sharing.
It didn’t just work.
It felt like a better way to work.
That’s the bar. And that’s the lesson for me.
— RB
Startup Corner