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Hey, it’s Kushagra! Kicking off the year with big hopes that your MRR soars high, just like the freedom Notion gives its users.

New year, same vibe—still here to help level up your product’s UX and keep users coming back for more.

Notion is the fourth fastest-growing app right now (it hit #1 last year), and everyone’s been begging me to spill the tea on how their team crushes it at building products.

Here’s what’s fire about Notion’s product vibe:

• They tweak stuff constantly while scaling like crazy.

• They ran with no PMs for ages (wild, right?) and only hired their first after blowing up.

• Their product review game? Tight 4-step process.

• Every tool they make vibes together—org structure on point.

• Their planning is sharp: 2x a year big plans, 2-week sprints, and a quarterly flow (kinda like Coda!).

• They’re leaning into real-time talks over just async notes now.

• All the teams (data, design, eng, PM, UXR, and security) report straight to Michael—because why not?

Notion’s got that secret sauce, and it’s worth stealing some for your own product glow-up!

1. How Notion Builds Product

I joke that we plan so much, but we need to plan how to plan. We used to focus on what we could do in a few months, but that’s a low-key problem. We weren’t thinking big-picture, just short-term fixes. Now we’re tryna balance tight planning with space to dream big.

Here’s the vibe: we plan for each half of the year but keep it chill for the second quarter. For Q1, we go all-in—list every project, rank it, and map the roadmap. For Q2, just bullet points—broad strokes. Once Q2 starts, we take those notes, tweak 'em, and lock the plan in. Plus, we stay flexible if company goals shift.

Here’s the deal with how teams roll each quarter: I’m not about forcing one process on everyone. Teams should run how they vibe best (though we do have org-wide stuff like product reviews). That said, all teams now sync up on two-week sprints—same cycle, org-wide. Fun fact: the latest sprint kicked off yesterday for the whole crew.

What do teams do in those sprints? Totally up to them. Some are super on it—they write down goals, track what’s done, and review at the end. Others, like infra teams, just use sprints as a way to block time, with no stress. The one thing we all share? That two-week rhythm. Beyond that, it’s a free-for-all.

We’re a tight crew—550 peeps—so I keep thinking, can we be more chill? Like, we know our goals and the game plan, so why not make planning more of a flow? Stopping everything to map out the next half is key for syncing with go-to-market and cross-team vibes, but for the product squad, it feels kinda off. The thing is, I don’t have a better way yet.

2. How many PMs have you got?

Less than 15—out of 550 folks. Tiny squad, right? We held off hiring PMs until two years ago, when we had 50-60 engineers. Not sure that was the move. The notion, like Stripe, started super eng-focused, which is cool, but there’s a gap between product-minded engineers and PMs who vibe with users, pull feedback, sync with go-to-market teams, and nail product strategy. Glad we’ve got PMs now and are growing the team.

At Notion, no product stands alone. Unlike Stripe, where products like Radar (fraud) and Capital (lending) ran solo, everything in Notion is linked. Change how databases work, and it hits Project Management, Docs, Wiki—all of it. That means we need tight planning to keep things smooth and not step on toes.

3. Do you use OKRs?

Yup, company-level OKRs are our jam. Each twice-a-year planning sesh sets the goals and key results for the squad.

Below company-level OKRs, there’s more variety. Some teams, like those pushing product-led growth, have their OKRs. In other spots, we’re still figuring things out, so a lot of our key results are just like ‘Ship this thing.’ Honestly, it’s been a journey to figure out how to measure success when we’re doing zero-to-one work. What’s the right way to track it? We’re far from Google, where they have OKRs at every level—company, group, team, and even individual.

4. How do product/design reviews work?

We’ve tried a bunch of ways to make reviews flow better. We used to have these “working sessions” that were super chill—30-45 mins, with no strict structure. Teams would meet with product leads to brainstorm or talk about high-level stuff. But we needed more structure to keep things moving and make sure feedback from me and the co-founders wasn’t just popping up last minute.

Now, we’ve got a 4-step “check-in” process:

• User problem statement

• Discuss possible directions

• Full solution with designs and scope

• Ship candidate, ready for quality check

These are mainly async. The team sends an email at each step, and we review and give feedback. But some things just don’t work async. For example, discussing all the options explored and why certain choices were made was taking too long in docs and emails. So now, we do more live discussions, like staring at Figma together, weighing options, and aligning as a team.

We started this check-in process in February for all major product work, but we’ll soon be tiering it so only top-priority projects get my eyes.

5. Are products and designs in the same org?

Yep, everything from engineering to design and data rolls up to me. We’ve got leads for all these areas, and we meet often to plan together. I love it because everyone gets visibility into what’s going on across the org. A year ago, our user research and data leads weren’t in the same meetings, even though their work overlaps a lot. Now, they’re in sync, and it helps us work better as a team.

6. How are product teams structured?

We’ve got four layers. First, teams focus on user-facing stuff, like project management or docs. They make sure the user problems for each area are solved using what’s already in the product or building new features. Below that are teams handling the core building blocks, like databases. The project management and wiki teams both rely on the databases team (called “Collections”) to make their tools work.

7. How do your product/design reviews work?

We used to do "working sessions"—chill, 30-45 minutes, no structure. We'd meet up when teams needed feedback, and it’d be brainstorming. But it felt too loose, so we added structure. Now we have a 4-step check-in process:

• State the user problem

• Talk through possible solutions

• Show full solution with designs

• Final check before shipping

We mostly do this async—send emails with updates, review, and give feedback. But some things are too big for docs, like exploring options. Writing all that takes time, and it slowed us down, so now we do more live talks, looking at Figma together, and discussing what works.

This process started in February, but now we’ll focus only on P0 projects for review.

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8. Are products and designs in the same org?

Yep, everything—engineering, design, data, and security—all rolls up to me. The leads meet up often to share updates, so everyone knows what’s going on. A year ago, teams like research and data weren’t in the same rooms, but now they’re synced, and it helps us work better.

9. How are product teams structured?

We’ve got 4 layers of teams. One group focuses on user-facing stuff, like project management or docs, making sure the user problems get solved. Below them are teams working on the basic features, like databases, that power everything. Then there are teams working on Notion-wide systems (search, notifications). Finally, Infrastructure handles the backbone.

Sometimes, teams work across layers. For example, the enterprise team handles big-company needs, like data security, and works with teams in other layers to make sure everything fits.

10. What’s in your product-team tool stack?

We use Notion for almost everything—writing, planning, and presentations. Some things, like design (Figma), experiments (Statsig), or data analysis (Hex), can’t be done in Notion, but you can embed them in Notion to keep it all in one place.

Project management is a big deal for us, both in how we manage stuff internally and how Notion helps users run projects with all their other work (docs, wikis, meetings, etc.). In the past, setting up a project management framework in Notion—like projects, tasks, and subtasks—was possible but took some work. It wasn’t as easy as in other project management tools. But we’ve got a big launch this week, and we’re pumped! It’ll be way easier to use Notion for project management, whether for general tasks or engineering and product issue-tracking, plus direct support for sprints. Starting the 31st, you’ll be able to add our new project management tools to any space.

Notion AI is leveling up! It'll auto-update project info as things change, keeping everything fresh without you having to do it. We think this will be a huge step forward for using Notion in project management.

What I found amazing this week

Test it. Prototype it. Great web design demands proof, not promises👀

This track gave me a serious boost—check out ‘To The Sky And Beyond’ by Chill Beto🎵

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