Notion: The greatest bundle in the making

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Aug 23, 2020

Notion a singular tool that handles all your work outside email and Slack.
-Ivan Zhao

This is how the notion was pitched. If you would have been part of the tech community you would have definitely run into Notion at one point or the other. It is one of the products that has been in a rage since its initial & subsequent launch for almost 4 years now.

The first version of Notion was launched in 2016 after that it had a second launch in 2018 with a major upgrade. Notion is one of the tools that has made inroads in all kinds of workflows of most tech companies resulting in the replacement of many traditional software. The ease of use has made the adoption possible in all the departments of the companies and hence made the company-wide adoption possible. With basic knowledge of using a computer, you can build up tools that would help you in your day to day work. Let's dive into what makes the above possible.

Understanding Notion

The power of notion comes largely from the way it allows you to arrange & perform operations on your information using different tools. It has all the major methods of arranging information covered. Many of the tools out there have a very opinionated way of storing and showcasing information. For example, CRMs like Zoho allow you to store the client-related information in a structure that has to remain the same for all the clients.

Notion provides a flexible way of arranging & operating on information by providing different types of blocks. These blocks are the fundamentals units of notion. There are close to 39 different types of blocks. The blocks are divided into the following types:

Basic Blocks: Handles basic data types & formats
Inline Blocks: Provides ways for linking and other special functions.
Database Blocks: Provides ways of showcasing data and provide structuring to the data
Media Blocks: Provides ways to embed media or attach files
Embed Blocks: Provides ways to embed artefacts from different applications
Advanced Blocks: Provides ways to navigate, replicate & more miscellaneous features

You can have a look at all of them here.

The blocks are very easy to create. You can just use the '/' to popup the menu from which you can choose which block to create. Once created the block could be modified easily. Another powerful aspect of blocks is that they are really easy to move amongst each other. Which enables free flow creation at first with a subsequent organization to achieve the desired result & look. This flexibility removes the friction that you usually face when starting to create something new. It allows you to just go out and create what comes in your mind without having the complete picture in your mind. Also being easy to manipulate allows you to iterate easily and end up with the best possible outcome. I have found that my approach to writing in notion gets more structured, I try to make contents in the block so that it becomes easy to edit it in the future by moving the blocks around.

The next level of the fundamental building block of notion is pages. Pages act like a blank canvas on which you could add any number of blocks to create what you need. This leads to unprecedented freedom. It allows you to achieve personalized and polished results very easily. Configuring software to your requirements has never been so easy. The interface of the whole application is inviting. The beautiful white page has something that appeals to your inner creator and makes you want to fill them with something which gives you joy. The combination of pages & blocks has led to the creation of lots of templates for different use cases.

Notion has been able to achieve what many software have not been able to. It has got a large number of features without getting complicated and all of the features still being accessible.

Why is it the greatest bundle?

The permutation & combinations of blocks and pages lead to a large number of possibilities, which of course was intended. The possibilities get further expanded by the set of functionalities that are provided on the top of blocks. For example, the table block provides roll-up functions which allow you to do basic functions like taking sum of the data in a column.

The potential use cases that notion could cover is based on the possible combinations of blocks & the functionalities available on them. This has led to a lot of bundling. Here are few of the applications they have been able to bundle till now

Note Taking
Basic Spreadsheet
Basic Task Management System
Basic CRM
Basic PPT
Basic Landing Pages
Basic Websites
Project Management
Calendar
Kanban Boards
Wiki
More use cases: https://www.notion.so/Notion-Template-Gallery-181e961aeb5c4ee6915307c0dfd5156d

Why were they successful?

Notion has been able to solve the cold start problem really well. The set of starter templates is just great.

Having this template gets the user up and running quickly and also gives them an idea about the possibilities. People have created a lot of templates for multiple use cases. Also, it is being used by people to have their own websites as seen in the examples below:

Most of the bundled application started by solving a particular use case. The spreadsheet is one of the most famous bundles which started by solving the use case of adding or subtracting rows or columns. With time features started being added on it and it evolved into a massive application which could solve many different use cases. On the other hand, Notion was built ground up with the purpose of bundling.

The romantic goal is: Can we make tools that allow people to use computers like a new medium? Can we give that to non-programmers? - Ivan Zhao

This approach has led them to think deeply about the application and finally come up with the design which would facilitate their goal into the future.

Also, the application allows you to start from a blank canvas which lets you design which is suitable for your workflow. And if it gets too overwhelming you could always pick up a template which is very close to your particular use case and build on top of them.

And on top of all the above, the application does a fantastic job with the UI/UX. It is really hard to make a bad page on Notion. The blocks make it attractive without having to put in much effort. Once you see how beautiful your creation comes out to be you want to keep coming back to the application to create more and more.

What’s in the future?

I think that more and more bundling would happen as the number of blocks and the functions that are possible for them keeps increasing. We are already seeing projects like https://indify.co/ which are extending the widgets that are available on the application. With Notion API opening up in the future lots of features would be built by the strong community and the bundle would become bigger and bigger.

I do wonder though that will there be a time when unbundling would be needed due to the large size of the bundle!

Here are some good reads on Notion

https://thelist.space/19057487/lists/e58ed11f-3dee-46f3-84ea-32ecd7e72fd0

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