🚀 Takeoff #44: Pivoting our Newsletter!

We are pivoting our newsletter a bit to make it more insightful for all of you product folks. Speaking of pivots, check out today's piece on Notion's growth, post their pivot!

Jun 11, 2023

The story of Notion is one of unwavering determination, a well-crafted user experience, and continuous innovation. Facing near-death in 2015, the founders, Ivan Zhao, and Simon Last, embarked on a journey to rebuild their app from scratch. Here is a quick dissection of what worked in their favour:

The Unyielding Spirit: Never Giving Up

Despite encountering significant challenges, the founders of Notion refused to give up. With their original tech stack causing constant crashes and their funds dwindling, they faced a crucial decision. They chose to sublet their office and relocate to Kyoto, where they immersed themselves in coding, driven by their unwavering belief in the product's potential.

A Game-Changing Product Hunt Launch

In the midst of their rebuilding efforts, Notion 1.0 was ready to make its mark. In 2016, the founders strategically launched their product on Product Hunt, an influential platform for tech enthusiasts. They also got Naval Ravikant (an early investor in Notion) to tweet about their launch to his audience and the response was phenomenal, as Notion quickly gained attention and positive reviews. The surge in visibility propelled Notion to new heights, creating a buzz that would continue to grow. Two years later, in 2018, tech columnist David wrote a praiseworthy review of Notion 2.0 in The Wallstreet Journal which further got a lot of people hooked to Notion.

Community-led Growth

The Notion subreddit community boasts 280,000 subscribers, surpassing both Slack and Zoom in terms of engagement. Notion's global appeal is evident with its Korean language Facebook group of over 30,000 members and an Arabic-focused group with 50,000-plus members. These thriving communities have played a crucial role in driving Notion's remarkable growth.

Product-led Growth

Notion's freemium model and product-led growth have been pivotal to its success. By offering essential features for free, it attracts a wide user base and creates a viral effect through satisfied users sharing their experiences. This organic growth eliminates the need for extensive marketing and drives the adoption of premium plans, fuelling Notion's continued expansion.

From Modularity to Modernity: Evolving Features

Notion's initial solution focused on modularity, inspired by the founder's vision of a flexible workspace. However, they didn't stop there. Over time, Notion introduced modern features such as tables, databases, analytics, and AI writing assistant expanding its capabilities to meet the evolving needs of its users. These enhancements empowered individuals and teams to track projects, manage data, and gain valuable insights within a single platform.

🎙️The Airtribe Podcast

Episode 3, Part 1 of 🎙️The Airtribe Podcast is out now with Prasun Jain, Sr. Director of Product at Razorpay. He sat down with Navneet to talk about product management, leadership, and what “greatness” is. 👌

Check it out now:

💁‍♂️ Product Jargon of the Week

RICE Framework

The RICE framework is like a math equation that helps product managers decide which ideas are the best to work on first. "R" stands for "reach," which means how many people will use the idea. "I" stands for "impact," which means how much the idea will help those people. "C" stands for "confidence," which means how sure the product managers are that the idea will work. "E" stands for "effort," which means how much work it will take to make the idea happen.

🤔 What are the mistakes you must avoid as a new product manager?

Anit Basu Thakur, Product Manager at Dunzo, recently did a free masterclass with us on the mistakes to avoid as an early PM. His insights were based on his personal experience and people thoroughly enjoyed it! Check out the masterclass below. 👇

😁 Popular Opinion

That’s all for today, folks! We hope you enjoyed this refreshed version of our newsletter. 🤗

Until next week, keep learning and growing! 👋