November 2022 SVJP Executive Roundtable with Ivan Zhao

Speaker: Ivan Zhao, Co-founder and CEO, Notion
Moderator: James Kondo, Co-Chair of the SVJP Executive Committee

Ivan Zhao is Co-founder and CEO of Notion Labs, the Developer of Notion. Notion is an all-in-one workspace and collaboration tool that launched its Japanese beta version in 2021. 
Its business in the U.S. and Japan has grown 4-fold annually.

Notion's Japan Roots and Global Vision

What do Lego blocks and a Kyoto Airbnb have in common? They're both central to the Notion story.

When co-founders Ivan Zhao and Sam faced an early setback, they retreated to Japan to rebuild from scratch. Inspired by Japanese craftsmanship and design philosophy, they created Notion, a flexible all-in-one workspace tool that empowers anyone to build the software they need, without coding.

Think of it like Lego: instead of using apps built by someone else, users snap together their own tools from blocks like wikis, docs, and project management boards. Simple, yet endlessly customizable.

Today, Japan is Notion's second-largest market, a success Ivan credits to finding local leaders who deeply understood the market and shared Notion's values.

The bigger lesson? Companies that resist adopting new tools risk falling behind. Notion's "bottom-up" approach, where individual employees champion the tool and bring it into their organizations, shows that meaningful change can start with just one person.