How Notion Grew From Near-Death to 100 Million Users
How Notion grew from a struggling startup into a 100M-user company through Product Hunt, templates, community, creators, freemium, and bottom-up team adoption
Notion started in 2013.
For years, it struggled.
The first product was hard to understand. Its technology was unstable. The company was running out of money.
Ivan Zhao and Simon Last let most of the team go, moved from San Francisco to Kyoto, and rebuilt the product.
Notion says it rebuilt itself four times during those early years.
Then Notion 2.0 launched in 2018.
That was the turning point.
By 2024, Notion had passed 100 million users.
Notion did not get there through one viral campaign.
Its growth came from several systems working together:
- It made a complicated product feel familiar.
- Product Hunt gave it an early audience.
- Templates solved the blank-page problem.
- Power users taught other people how to use the product.
- Notion turned those users into a global community.
- Creators made tutorials and templates.
- Free personal use brought millions of people into the product.
- Those individuals brought Notion into their companies.
The core growth loop looked like this:
Users built things in Notion → shared them → new people discovered Notion → copied those workflows → became users → built and shared things of their own.
That is the simplest explanation of how Notion grew.
Notion's growth in one minute
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Ivan Zhao and Simon Last started Notion |
| 2015 | The company was running low on money and had not found product-market fit |
| 2015–2016 | Zhao and Last moved to Kyoto and rebuilt the product |
| 2016 | Notion 1.0 became Product Hunt's top product of August |
| 2018 | Notion 2.0 launched and the company began seeing real traction |
| 2019 | Notion made its personal plan free for eligible students and educators |
| 2020 | Personal use became free with unlimited content |
| 2020 | Korean became Notion's first localized language |
| 2021–2023 | Community, creators, templates, startups, and team adoption kept growing |
| 2023 | Nearly 11M people made 51M template duplications in one year |
| 2023 | More than 80,000 startups were using Notion's startup program |
| 2024 | Notion passed 100M users |
| 2026 | A private employee share sale valued Notion at $11B |
1. Notion almost failed because the first product was too complicated
The original idea behind Notion was much bigger than note-taking.
Zhao was inspired by early computing researchers who believed ordinary people should be able to build their own software.
So the first version of Notion tried to let non-programmers create software.
The idea was ambitious.
But the product was hard to use.
Most people did not wake up wanting to build an app.
They wanted to write a document.
Plan a project.
Run a team.
Keep track of information.
Notion was asking users to understand the machinery before they could solve the problem.
Zhao later described the lesson simply:
"Nobody wakes up wanting to make software."
The team needed a more familiar starting point.
So Notion put its software-building power underneath something almost everyone understood:
a document.
A page could start as a note.
Then it could become:
- a wiki
- a task list
- a database
- a project tracker
- a CRM
- a company knowledge base
The underlying idea had not changed much.
The entrance had.
That product decision made everything that came later possible.
2. Moving to Kyoto gave Notion another chance
By 2015, Notion was running out of money.
Its small team was too expensive to keep while rebuilding the product.
Zhao and Last let the rest of the team go, sublet their office and apartments in San Francisco, and moved to Kyoto.
The move has become part of Notion's startup story.
But it was mainly about survival.
Living in Kyoto was cheaper.
That gave the founders more time to rebuild.
They spent months coding and designing.
Zhao's mother also lent the company $150,000 to help keep it alive.
Notion later described this period as its "lost years."
It rebuilt the product four times.
This matters because Notion's growth story did not begin with a marketing hack.
It began with refusing to scale the wrong product.
3. Product Hunt gave Notion its first real distribution
Notion 1.0 launched on Product Hunt in August 2016.
It became the platform's top product of the month and later won a Golden Kitty award.
At the time, the company still needed customers, feedback, and attention badly.
Product Hunt gave it all three.
But Notion had not yet found its full growth engine.
The bigger turning point came in 2018.
Notion 2.0 launched with a much clearer product.
It combined:
- documents
- databases
- tasks
- wikis
- different database views
inside one workspace.
A database could appear as a table, board, list, or calendar.
Now people could use Notion for many different jobs without needing to understand how to build software.
Zhao later wrote that although Notion started in 2013, 2018 was when the company first saw real signs of traction.
Product Hunt worked especially well because its audience matched Notion.
It was full of:
- founders
- designers
- developers
- startup employees
- productivity enthusiasts
- people willing to try new software
These were also the people most likely to customize Notion and show it to other people.
Product Hunt gave Notion its first push.
The product did the rest.
4. Templates solved Notion's biggest onboarding problem
Notion had a problem created by its biggest strength.
It could do almost anything.
That meant a new user could open Notion and have no idea what to do.
The blank page was intimidating.
Templates fixed this.
Instead of teaching users about databases, properties, filters, relations, and views first, Notion could show them a finished result.
Want a company wiki?
Duplicate one.
Want a content calendar?
Duplicate one.
Want a CRM?
Duplicate one.
Want a student planner?
Duplicate one.
Want a project tracker?
Duplicate one.
Users could get value first and learn how the system worked later.
Notion co-founder Akshay Kothari later called templates a "game changer."
Templates shortened the distance between signing up and understanding why Notion was useful.
But they soon became much more than onboarding.
5. Templates became a growth engine
A Notion template could leave Notion and travel around the internet.
Someone could build a useful workspace and share it on:
- X
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Gumroad
- Etsy
- a blog
- a newsletter
- a personal website
Another person could discover the template and duplicate the whole thing into their own Notion account.
That made every good template several things at once:
product demo + onboarding tool + shareable content + acquisition channel
Notion did not have to create every use case itself.
Its users did.
This created a simple loop:
More users → more templates → more content → more ways to discover Notion → more users
The numbers became huge.
In 2023, Notion said that during the previous year:
- nearly 11 million people had duplicated templates
- users had made 51 million template duplications
- Notion's official gallery had grown from around 600 templates to more than 5,000
Templates eventually became a business too.
Some creators started earning money by selling Notion templates.
Now they had their own reason to promote Notion.
If more people used Notion, the market for their products became larger.
Notion had created a distribution channel where its users could benefit from growing the platform.
6. Templates also created an SEO loop
Templates had another advantage.
They matched things people were already searching for.
For example:
- project management template
- content calendar template
- student planner
- habit tracker
- weekly planner
- meeting notes template
- CRM template
- product roadmap template
A template page can rank for one of these searches.
Then it can show the visitor exactly what Notion can do.
This creates another loop:
Google search → template page → product demo → duplicate template → new Notion user
A normal blog post might explain project management.
A Notion template lets someone start managing a project immediately.
The content and the product are connected.
That makes template SEO especially powerful.
7. Notion found its community before it created one
One of the most important things about Notion's community is that Notion did not create it from zero.
Users were already doing the work.
They were:
- sharing setups
- answering questions
- making tutorials
- creating templates
- running Facebook groups
- starting communities
- organizing local events
Ben Lang was one of those people.
Lang discovered Notion through its 2018 launch.
He became a power user.
He shared Notion online, created templates, started a Facebook group, helped other users, and built a website where people could share Notion pages.
Eventually, Notion hired him.
That became a pattern for the company's community strategy.
Instead of asking:
"How do we create a community?"
Notion could ask:
"Who already loves the product, and how can we help them do more?"
8. Notion turned superfans into a global distribution network
Notion began organizing some of its most active users into formal programs.
Its Ambassador program brought together people who were already teaching and promoting Notion.
Notion gave them things such as:
- access to the company
- early product previews
- ways to send feedback
- event support
- recognition
- connections with other power users
But it did not tightly control everything they created.
Ambassadors started:
- local communities
- workshops
- YouTube channels
- newsletters
- templates
- events
- courses
Notion later built programs for students, workplace champions, creators, and consultants too.
Instead of hiring a huge team to explain every possible use case in every country, Notion let experienced users teach other users.
Community helped at several stages:
acquisition → onboarding → support → retention → expansion
That is much more valuable than simply having an active Discord or Facebook group.
9. Creators made Notion visible everywhere
YouTube became another important part of Notion's growth.
Notion noticed that productivity creators were already using the product.
Instead of asking creators to read a generic sponsorship script, Notion could have them show how they really used it.
A creator might make a video about:
- planning YouTube videos
- organizing university notes
- building a content calendar
- managing a startup
- tracking habits
- running a team
- creating a personal dashboard
Every creator showed a different use case.
That was possible because Notion was so flexible.
One creator could present it as a study app.
Another could use it as a CRM.
Another could use it as a company wiki.
Another could build a personal productivity system.
This gave Notion thousands of different stories.
TikTok later expanded the same loop.
Students shared:
- study dashboards
- planners
- aesthetic workspaces
- habit trackers
- productivity systems
Notion became easy to discover even if someone was not searching for "Notion."
They might simply be searching for a better way to study or organize their life.
10. Free personal use made every growth loop stronger
On May 19, 2020, Notion removed the old limit on how much content an individual could create on the free plan.
Before then, users eventually had to pay to keep adding content.
After the change, individuals could keep unlimited content for free.
This made every other growth channel work better.
Someone could:
- watch a YouTube video
- see a template on X
- find a Notion page through Google
- hear about Notion from a friend
- see a study setup on TikTok
- sign up
- start using it for free
There was almost no friction.
That helped Notion turn attention into users.
It also created the start of its business growth loop.
11. Students became long-term distribution
Notion made its personal plan free for eligible university students and educators in 2019.
Students were a natural audience.
They needed:
- notes
- calendars
- reading lists
- project trackers
- planners
- databases
They also liked sharing how they organized their lives.
That made students strong distributors.
"How I organize my university life in Notion" became its own type of content on YouTube and TikTok.
There was another advantage.
Students graduate.
A person who learns Notion at university may later join a startup or company.
When they do, they already know the product.
They may introduce it to their new team.
Notion could acquire someone as a free student user years before that person became part of a paid company account.
12. Startups became another distribution channel
Startups were also adopting Notion naturally.
By late 2019, a large share of recent Y Combinator companies were already using the product.
Notion leaned into that behavior.
It built Notion for Startups and partnered with:
- accelerators
- venture firms
- startup communities
- technology companies
Instead of convincing one startup at a time, Notion could work with organizations that already had relationships with hundreds or thousands of startups.
The program became large.
By 2023, Notion said more than 80,000 startups were using Notion through the program.
This followed the same pattern as community and templates.
Notion found something that was already working.
Then it gave it more fuel.
13. Individual users carried Notion into companies
This may be the most important part of Notion's business model.
A person starts using Notion alone.
Maybe they use it for:
- notes
- personal projects
- university
- content planning
- a side project
Then they share a page with somebody else.
Now two people are using Notion.
Then they bring it into work.
A team starts using it for meeting notes.
Then project planning.
Then documentation.
Then the company wiki.
Then more teams join.
Eventually the company needs:
- better permissions
- administration
- security
- team management
- enterprise controls
Now Notion can charge the business.
Akshay Kothari has described the model as B2C2B.
It looks like this:
consumer → collaboration → business
The free product creates familiarity.
Collaboration creates distribution.
Team adoption creates revenue.
This is why a free user can still be extremely valuable.
They may become the person who brings Notion into a 100-person company later.
14. International communities formed before Notion localized
Notion's early audience was global even though the product was mostly in English.
South Korea is a good example.
Before Notion officially launched in Korean, local users had already:
- written books about Notion
- created tutorials
- hosted workshops
- built communities
When Notion launched its Korean version in August 2020, the company said Korean users had already written four textbooks about the product.
That is a strong sign of product love.
Notion did not enter South Korea and try to create demand from scratch.
Demand was already there.
Notion followed it.
This created another useful pattern:
Users appear → community forms → local content grows → company invests in localization
That is much safer than entering a market with paid ads before knowing if people care.
15. Support helped Notion improve the product
Notion's early team stayed unusually close to users.
When Akshay Kothari joined the company as its ninth employee, he spent months answering around 100 support tickets per day.
Support requests were tagged.
The team could see which problems appeared most often.
Engineers could read the conversations related to the features they were working on.
This turned support into product research.
The loop looked like this:
More users → more feedback → better product → happier users → more word of mouth → more users
This became harder to maintain as Notion grew.
But it helped the company learn quickly in its early years.
16. Notion did not depend on paid acquisition early
Notion eventually built a larger marketing team.
But paid acquisition was not the main reason it became popular.
Its early growth came from:
- word of mouth
- Product Hunt
- templates
- community
- creators
- influencers
- startups
- students
- collaboration
The important difference is that these channels were connected to the product.
A creator showed a real workspace.
A template could be copied.
A user could invite a teammate.
A startup could expand usage across the company.
Marketing was not separate from usage.
Using Notion often created the next opportunity for someone else to discover it.
That is why its organic growth could compound.
The five growth loops behind Notion
The easiest way to understand Notion's growth is not as a list of channels.
It is a set of loops.
Growth loop 1: Templates
User builds something useful → turns it into a template → shares it → somebody duplicates it → new Notion user
The new user can eventually create templates too.
Growth loop 2: Creators
Creator uses Notion → publishes a tutorial or workflow → content gets views → people try Notion → bigger Notion audience makes more Notion content valuable
The creator and Notion both benefit.
Growth loop 3: Community
Power user loves Notion → helps other users → builds reputation or a business → creates more Notion content → more people learn the product
Notion helps the strongest users do more.
Growth loop 4: Collaboration
Individual uses Notion → shares a page → collaborator joins → workspace grows → more people join
Normal product usage creates distribution.
Growth loop 5: B2C2B
Person learns Notion for free → brings it into work → team adopts it → company expands usage → company pays
Free personal adoption feeds paid business adoption.
Why these loops worked together
Each part of Notion's growth made another part stronger.
Templates made Notion easier to learn.
That produced more active users.
Some active users became power users.
Power users created better templates.
Some became creators.
Creators made tutorials.
Those tutorials brought in new users.
Some of those users invited coworkers.
Teams expanded.
More people learned Notion.
Some of them became creators too.
Then the cycle started again.
The complete growth engine looked like this:
Product → creation → sharing → discovery → activation → collaboration → paid expansion → more users
This is why it is misleading to say Notion grew because of Product Hunt.
Or TikTok.
Or community.
Or templates.
All of them helped.
What made Notion unusual was how well they worked together.
Where Notion is today
By 2024, Notion said it had passed 100 million users.
The company described this as total users, not monthly active users.
Its business has also continued moving further into teams, enterprises, and AI.
In January 2026, Notion announced that GIC, Sequoia, and Index had purchased roughly $270 million of shares from current and former employees at an $11 billion valuation.
The deal was a secondary share sale.
That means the $270 million went to shareholders selling stock rather than becoming new operating capital for Notion.
The company is now very different from the small startup that nearly ran out of money a decade earlier.
But the core growth system is still easy to see:
- flexible building blocks
- templates
- creators
- community
- free individual adoption
- collaboration
- expansion into teams
What startups can learn from Notion
1. Fix the product before trying to scale distribution
Notion rebuilt itself four times.
More marketing would not have fixed the first product.
If people do not understand or want the product, sending more traffic will not solve the problem.
2. Make the first use case easy to understand
Notion's original vision was abstract.
Documents gave users a familiar way into that vision.
Start with something people already understand.
Let them discover the deeper power later.
3. Show the finished result
Templates let users start with something useful.
They did not have to understand every feature first.
Sometimes the best onboarding is simply showing users what good looks like.
4. Watch what your best users already do
Notion users were already:
- making templates
- publishing tutorials
- starting communities
- running workshops
Notion did not invent those behaviors.
It amplified them.
Your next growth channel may already exist among your best users.
5. Give users something worth sharing
Notion naturally produces things people can show other people.
A dashboard.
A wiki.
A planner.
A CRM.
A template.
That makes word of mouth easier.
Ask:
What does someone create with our product that they would naturally want to show another person?
6. Align growth with user incentives
Template creators could make money.
YouTubers could get views.
Consultants could build businesses.
Ambassadors could build reputations and communities.
When Notion grew, they could benefit too.
That is much stronger than asking users to promote a product just because the company wants more signups.
7. Let free users become future business users
Not every free user needs to pay immediately.
A free user can:
- invite other people
- create content
- share templates
- recommend the product
- introduce it at work
For a collaborative product, distribution can be more valuable than immediate revenue.
The real reason Notion grew
You could describe Notion's strategy as product-led growth.
Or community-led growth.
Or creator-led growth.
All are partly right.
But none explains the whole company.
Notion built a flexible product.
Templates made that flexibility easier to understand.
Users customized it.
Creators showed other people what they had built.
Community helped people learn.
Free access removed the barrier to trying it.
Sharing introduced more users.
Individual adoption spread into companies.
Each layer made the next one stronger.
That is the real Notion growth strategy:
Make the product useful to one person, give that person something worth sharing, and make it easy for the next person to start.
Do that millions of times and growth compounds.
Frequently asked questions
How did Notion grow?
Notion grew through a combination of product-led growth, Product Hunt, templates, community, creators, freemium, startup partnerships, and bottom-up team adoption.
Its strongest growth loops let existing users expose new people to Notion by sharing pages, templates, workflows, and content.
When did Notion start growing?
Notion was founded in 2013, but Ivan Zhao says the company did not see clear signs of traction until the launch of Notion 2.0 in 2018.
How many users does Notion have?
Notion announced in 2024 that it had passed 100 million users.
The company described the number as total users, not monthly active users.
How did Product Hunt help Notion grow?
Product Hunt gave Notion access to an early audience of founders, designers, developers, and startup workers who were unusually likely to experiment with the product.
Notion 1.0 became Product Hunt's top product of August 2016, while the 2018 Notion 2.0 launch marked the beginning of meaningful traction.
How did templates help Notion grow?
Templates solved Notion's blank-page problem.
Instead of building a workspace from scratch, users could duplicate a finished setup.
Templates also became shareable content that creators could distribute through search, social media, marketplaces, and their own audiences.
In the year before June 2023, nearly 11 million people made 51 million template duplications.
How did Notion use community-led growth?
Notion found people who were already creating templates, tutorials, events, and communities around the product.
It supported those users through programs such as Ambassadors rather than trying to control everything itself.
Those users then helped teach and acquire more users.
How did Notion use creators?
Notion worked with creators who could show real workflows.
Creators made videos about studying, productivity, startups, content planning, project management, and dozens of other use cases.
Every new use case gave another audience a reason to discover Notion.
Why did Notion make personal use free?
Free personal use reduced the friction between discovering Notion and trying it.
Those users could later invite collaborators or introduce Notion to their workplace, creating a path from free individual adoption to paid teams.
What is Notion's B2C2B growth model?
Someone starts using Notion as an individual.
They begin collaborating with other people.
Eventually the product spreads into a company.
The company then pays for team or enterprise features.
The path is:
consumer → collaboration → business
What is Notion worth?
A private employee tender announced in January 2026 valued Notion at $11 billion.
Around $270 million of shares were purchased from current and former employees.
Sources
-
Notion — 100 Million of You
https://www.notion.com/blog/100-million-of-you -
Sequoia Capital — Notion CEO Ivan Zhao: Augmenting Human Intellect
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Figma — 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/ -
Product Hunt — Notion Launches
https://www.producthunt.com/products/notion/launches -
Unusual Ventures — Notion's Product-Market Fit Journey
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