Notion pulled itself back from the brink of failure (2019)
In 2018, Notion faced near-failure with low revenue, a dwindling user base, and runway of only a few months. The team made a desperate pivot, drastically simplifying their product and focusing on a smaller, more targeted use case. This shift, combined with a renewed focus on design and user experience, eventually revived the company and led to its eventual success.
Background
- Notion is a popular all-in-one workspace app that blends note-taking, project management, wikis, and databases. It competes with tools like Confluence, Evernote, and Monday.com.
- In its early years (around 2016–2018), Notion struggled financially and technically. The company nearly ran out of money, had performance issues with its custom-built block-based editor, and considered shutting down.
- The "brink of failure" story refers to how the small team chose to ignore investor pressure to pivot to an enterprise-only model, instead doubling down on improving performance, simplifying pricing, and targeting individual users and small teams. This bet eventually paid off, leading to viral growth.
- Co-founders Ivan Zhao and Simon Last made key technical rewrites (including rebuilding the editor in a new framework) and operational changes that saved the company.
- The article is a first-person account written by Zhao in 2019, recounting the near-death experience and the lessons learned about focus, product quality, and customer obsession.