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Notion seems to be one of those companies going wide before they go deep. By my count, they want to be a: * Todo list / task manager / long-term planner *

Notion seems to be one of those companies going wide before they go deep. By my count, they want to be a: * Todo list / task manager / long-term planner * Blogging/publishing platform * Internal wiki * Note-taking app One of the more cynical takes I've heard is that this is the result of an incredible product sense without the necessary direction to support it. Regardless of the reason, they seem to be releasing features without a coherent narrative of how they grow the company's placement and who their target user is. Previous companies which have done this (e.g. Evernote) grow really quickly with a lot of user-love and then stagnated in growth without a clear sense of what to do next. With all that said, I'm a happy notion user, so maybe they're onto something... I wonder if internally they have that sense of direction (e.g. they want to compete head-on with Monday) and, if so, how scoped it is (e.g. do they want to replace ALL internal tools / do they think that's tractable)?

tmpz22 6y ago
They've raised $68.2m they no longer have the option to make a really great product that follows the unix philosophy. They have to do anything they can to attract enterprise customers which is where the real investment-justifying money will be, and for the most part that means having an infinite list of features at a competitive price. Granted, for selling out to VC they've still done a good job with design and product. But they have one path through their self-imposed blizzard and the footprints leading the way are clearly marked "Evernote".
- tomasreimers 6y ago
  Yes, and I believe a lot of startup advice is to do one thing well (serving a specific market) before trying to branch out. Or are you saying they're trying to throws things at a wall to see what sticks with enterprise customers?
  - tmpz22 6y ago
    On paper they've already done the whole MVP/product-fit phase and are using the money to fast-forward into $100m-$1B ARR territory. This thread is talking about a relatively minor update as part of that phase, and leading people to point out the various flaws in their product with the corollary that they aren't really worth $100m-$1b territory in the first place. Then again who knows, surveymonkey is an example of a company that nobody thought would "get there" and yet they did.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  Equating Notion to Unix - I don’t follow. In what sense? Unix philosophy is hardly relatable to Notion. For one, I can’t stand their frivolous design - emojis everywhere.
  - evanpw 6y ago
    Unix philosophy meaning tools that do one thing
    - tmpz22 6y ago
      By my definition in a platform/product sense unix philosophy = not trying to do all the things and being happy about it. But yeah, same idea basically.
- jitl 6y ago
  Notion inherits more from the “cathedral” philosophy (Xerox PARC) than the “bazaar” philosophy (AT&T Bell Labs). Read more here: https://www.notion.so/about https://www.notion.so/about
7ewis 6y ago
I do love Notion, I think it's a great tool - but it almost does _too_ much. I spent ages trying to build out a To Do list, added different views, filters, an inbox for it, categories etc. then ended up giving up and just using their out of the box kanban style board in exactly the same way I'd use Trello. I suppose it's on me, the user, to learn how to use all these different features properly but then that's more investment than I have time for, for a To Do app. Similarly with say Tasker for example on Android, you can literally automate anything on your phone yet I rarely use it for anything. I don't think I would outright say too many features are a bad thing... but are they?
- bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
  I think too many features can absolutely be a bad thing. By allowing everything, you have to cycle through every possible solution to a problem to settle on the best one. With a more limited/focused feature set, landing on the best solution -- even when it doesn't quite match up to what you'd choose in the feature-rich environment -- is much easier. This difference can add up a lot over time, making a simpler tool easier to use because it takes less cognitive effort to find optimal solutions.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> Previous companies which have done this (e.g. Evernote) grow really quickly with a lot of user-love and then stagnated in growth without a clear sense of what to do next. Evernote is one of those tools that I really wanted to like, but actually using it was an endless stream of disappointments. They're always reaching so far to implement grand features that the core functionality was constantly buggy. I'm sure they've improved since I last used it years ago, but I gave up before they could stabilize it. Dropbox is another example of a tool that started out nearly perfect in its simplicity and laser-like focus on doing a few things well, but continues to get worse and worse with each additional layer of features. I was so much happier with Dropbox when it integrated transparently into my filesystem instead of trying to force their UI into everything. Now, even clicking the button to open the Dropbox folder launches a customized Dropbox file browser UI instead of just taking me to my Dropbox folder.
- slightwinder 6y ago
  > Now, even clicking the button to open the Dropbox folder launches a customized Dropbox file browser UI instead of just taking me to my Dropbox folder. Just use your regular filemanager? All the new features are just additional, on top of the core-functionality, which BTW is still top-notch and stable as ever. As long as this does not change, who cares with what they attract new customers.

tmpz22 6y ago

They've raised $68.2m they no longer have the option to make a really great product that follows the unix philosophy. They have to do anything they can to attract enterprise customers which is where the real investment-justifying money will be, and for the most part that means having an infinite list of features at a competitive price. Granted, for selling out to VC they've still done a good job with design and product. But they have one path through their self-imposed blizzard and the footprints leading the way are clearly marked "Evernote".

tomasreimers 6y ago
Yes, and I believe a lot of startup advice is to do one thing well (serving a specific market) before trying to branch out. Or are you saying they're trying to throws things at a wall to see what sticks with enterprise customers?
- tmpz22 6y ago
  On paper they've already done the whole MVP/product-fit phase and are using the money to fast-forward into $100m-$1B ARR territory. This thread is talking about a relatively minor update as part of that phase, and leading people to point out the various flaws in their product with the corollary that they aren't really worth $100m-$1b territory in the first place. Then again who knows, surveymonkey is an example of a company that nobody thought would "get there" and yet they did.
systemvoltage 6y ago
Equating Notion to Unix - I don’t follow. In what sense? Unix philosophy is hardly relatable to Notion. For one, I can’t stand their frivolous design - emojis everywhere.
- evanpw 6y ago
  Unix philosophy meaning tools that do one thing
  - tmpz22 6y ago
    By my definition in a platform/product sense unix philosophy = not trying to do all the things and being happy about it. But yeah, same idea basically.
jitl 6y ago
Notion inherits more from the “cathedral” philosophy (Xerox PARC) than the “bazaar” philosophy (AT&T Bell Labs). Read more here: https://www.notion.so/about https://www.notion.so/about

7ewis 6y ago

I do love Notion, I think it's a great tool - but it almost does _too_ much. I spent ages trying to build out a To Do list, added different views, filters, an inbox for it, categories etc. then ended up giving up and just using their out of the box kanban style board in exactly the same way I'd use Trello. I suppose it's on me, the user, to learn how to use all these different features properly but then that's more investment than I have time for, for a To Do app. Similarly with say Tasker for example on Android, you can literally automate anything on your phone yet I rarely use it for anything. I don't think I would outright say too many features are a bad thing... but are they?

bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
I think too many features can absolutely be a bad thing. By allowing everything, you have to cycle through every possible solution to a problem to settle on the best one. With a more limited/focused feature set, landing on the best solution -- even when it doesn't quite match up to what you'd choose in the feature-rich environment -- is much easier. This difference can add up a lot over time, making a simpler tool easier to use because it takes less cognitive effort to find optimal solutions.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> Previous companies which have done this (e.g. Evernote) grow really quickly with a lot of user-love and then stagnated in growth without a clear sense of what to do next. Evernote is one of those tools that I really wanted to like, but actually using it was an endless stream of disappointments. They're always reaching so far to implement grand features that the core functionality was constantly buggy. I'm sure they've improved since I last used it years ago, but I gave up before they could stabilize it. Dropbox is another example of a tool that started out nearly perfect in its simplicity and laser-like focus on doing a few things well, but continues to get worse and worse with each additional layer of features. I was so much happier with Dropbox when it integrated transparently into my filesystem instead of trying to force their UI into everything. Now, even clicking the button to open the Dropbox folder launches a customized Dropbox file browser UI instead of just taking me to my Dropbox folder.

slightwinder 6y ago
> Now, even clicking the button to open the Dropbox folder launches a customized Dropbox file browser UI instead of just taking me to my Dropbox folder. Just use your regular filemanager? All the new features are just additional, on top of the core-functionality, which BTW is still top-notch and stable as ever. As long as this does not change, who cares with what they attract new customers.