Notion's secret to hiring teams that build great product? The same rigorous focus on craft saved the company
The startup death spiral follows a predictable pattern: churning users, constant crashes, running out of runway. Most companies never escape this vortex. But Notion did something rare – they not only survived, but emerged as a $10 billion company.
Three years into building Notion, co-founders Simon Last and Ivan Zhao made what seemed like a desperate move: they laid off their small team and fled San Francisco for Kyoto, hoping a fresh start in a less-expensive city would save the company.
Conventional wisdom says this is exactly how startups die – cutting your team to zero, torching your codebase, and abandoning Silicon Valley for a city where you don't even speak the language.
But sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong.
Notion’s Kyoto comeback
The language barrier became an unexpected advantage for the founders: "No one there spoke any English, and we didn't speak Japanese. There was nothing to do except code.” This monastic focus let them rebuild their entire product and operating principles.
Fast forward to today: 100 million users. $300M in annual revenue (estimated, 2024). An HQ in San Francisco, and offices in New York, Hyderabad, Dublin, Tokyo, and Seoul.
What’s fascinating isn’t just their turnaround, but how their near-death experience shaped their DNA, particularly in how they build their team. The founders brought back more than just a no-shoes office policy from Kyoto; their hiring principles also seem to have some Japanese influences.
Most tech companies talk about moving fast and breaking things. Notion talks about craft, flow state, and meaningful growth. Ivan is still involved in the hiring process for almost every role, since he sees a direct correlation between the ability to attract and nurture the best talent and his aspiration to build the world’s best products.
Maybe it’s inefficient. But it also points to something deeper about how great companies are built.
Culture as a team contract
As Notion’s CEO, Ivan operates by the phase “Execution eats strategy for lunch, and culture eats execution for lunch.”Many companies treat culture as an afterthought, a list of traits on their website. Notion approaches it like a legal contract – a binding agreement about how work gets done.
“Every culture has its customs. Every country has its constitutions. The same applies to organizations.”
The Notion team believes people work better when everyone collectively agrees on shared values. They see their operating values as a contract for how to best work together, influencing everything from day-to-day decision-making to building the best possible product for their customers.
Each person hired meets a craft and a values bar. What you can implement:
- Create explicit decision-making frameworks that reflect your values.
- Get intentional about building your culture as an operating system. Culture should reflect how people take action and work together, not just who they are.
A rigorous approach to excellence
Hiring isn’t done to meet a headcount number – it’s done because the hire will greatly impact the company Notion is trying to build in years to come. Notion’s Chief people officer, Maryanne Brown Caughey, wrote:
“We strive for Notion to be a lasting company where employees can look back and say they did some of their best and most meaningful work; where they find their eudaemonia — their fulfillment, flow state, and growth.”
Creating a space for eudaemonia starts with a rigorous approach to craft.
“We strive to hire exceptional talent that takes their craft seriously. There is a fine line between good and exceptional. We look for teammates who intrinsically give their best, and continuously work to perfect what they’re already great at.”
Most companies hire for "good enough." Notion optimizes for exceptional, believing that talent compounds – great people attract even greater people.
What you can implement:
- Define what "exceptional" looks like for each role with concrete examples, and build interview processes that test for excellence, not just competence.
- Make excellence visible by sharing and celebrating exemplary work.
- Consider craft development initiatives (dedicated learning time, mentorship programs) as opportunities for the company to refine their craft together.
Asking better questions
Early Notion hire Cory Etzkorn developed an interesting framework. Instead of asking if someone was qualified, he'd ask: "If this person joined tomorrow and I was an investor, would I feel more confident in my investment?"The people you answer “yes” to are the only ones he believes you should hire.
It’s not enough to look for good designers or good engineers. You should be asking if your next design or engineering hire’s approach to their craft will impact growth, solve business problems, and significantly drive the company forward.
Talent is a huge contributor to a company’s potential for success. And because early employees are also early investors, with equity in the company, their job should include setting and maintaining a high talent bar in addition to their functional role.
What you can implement:
- Challenge interviewers to think like investors, not just hiring managers.
- Validate hiring decisions against actual impact, and regularly review and refine hiring criteria based on successful hires.
Hiring with extreme intentionality
Notion’s hiring practices form a talent strategy that feels obvious in retrospect but is surprisingly rare in practice: treating hiring as a core product rather than a support function.
Most startups think about hiring as a means to an end – you hire to build product, to sell, to grow. Notion sees their team as the product that builds the product. They treat hiring with the same intentionality they treat every product and design decision.
In the long run, a company’s most valuable competitive advantage is the ability to consistently attract and develop exceptional people. Everything else – product, strategy, execution – flows from that.
Start your search today.
Speak with our team to learn more about how Paraform can help you fill your difficult positions