Something weird is happening to productivity tools.
They’re not just apps anymore. They’re identities.
Think about it. Nobody brags about using Microsoft Word. But people put “Notion user” in their Twitter bios.
Notion hit 100 million users worldwide in 2024. But that’s not what makes it interesting.
What makes it interesting is that those users don’t just use Notion. They identify with it. They evangelize it. They build their entire digital lives around it.
The Numbers Tell Part of the Story
Revenue jumped from $250 million in 2023 to $400 million in 2024 - a 60% increase. The user base exploded from 1 million in 2019 to over 30 million by 2022.
Out of those millions of users, approximately 4 million are paying customers - a conversion rate that most SaaS companies would kill for.
Notion achieved a $10 billion valuation and maintains a 32% revenue compound annual growth rate.
But here’s what the numbers don’t tell you: why people are obsessed with this thing.
The Part Nobody Talks About
In 2015, Notion was dead. Not struggling - dead.
Co-founders Ivan Zhao and Simon Last laid off their entire team, ran out of money, and moved from San Francisco to Kyoto because it was cheaper.
Zhao’s mother loaned him $150,000 to keep them alive.
They spent 18 hours a day coding in their underwear in a tiny house where only a paper screen separated their bedrooms. Neither spoke Japanese. They just coded.
Why? Because they’d built the wrong thing. They made software for themselves, not for users. The tech stack was broken. It crashed constantly.
So they started over. Completely.
“Neither of us spoke Japanese and nobody there spoke English, so all we did was code in our underwear all day,” Zhao recalled.
That Kyoto reboot changed everything. Living in isolation, working like monks, they discovered something: people don’t want more features. They want tools that feel like theirs.
Design as Identity
Here’s where Notion gets interesting.
A screenshot from Google Docs is just... a page. You don’t think about what tool made it.
A screenshot from Notion? Instantly recognizable. The minimalist aesthetic. The hand-drawn illustrations. The perfect balance of brutalist design and whimsical emojis.
This wasn’t an accident. The design choices are intentional ideology:
Limited formatting (just 3 fonts, 10 colors)
Whitespace everywhere
Subtle animations that delight without distracting
Distinctive, playful illustrations
Stark minimalism with pops of personality
Compared to Microsoft Word or Google Docs, Notion is more playground than processor. More craft than corporate.
And here’s the clever part: people share screenshots of their Notion setups the way they share photos of their workspace or outfits.
The interface itself became Instagram-worthy.
The Journey That Changes You
Most productivity software is static. You install it, learn the features, use it.
Notion is different. It’s Lego blocks for your work life.
Start with a simple to-do list. Then you realize you can add a database. Then connect it to a calendar. Then build a dashboard. Then automate workflows. Then create a content pipeline. Then...
The IKEA effect kicks in hard. Once you’ve built something yourself in Notion, you love it disproportionately. Not because it’s objectively better, but because you made it.
With just 10 employees, Notion reached 1 million users. No massive sales team. No enterprise deals. Just users who loved what they built and told their friends.
And here’s where it becomes identity: once you’ve invested time building your “second brain” in Notion, you don’t just use the tool. You become a Notion person.
Minimalist. Organized. Systems thinker. Appreciation for design. Technical but artistic.
These aren’t just productivity traits. They’re personality signifiers.
The Movement Nobody Built (But Everyone Joined)
The r/Notion subreddit grew from 190,000 members in 2021 to over 346,000 by June 2024.
But that’s just Reddit. The community is everywhere:
YouTube channels dedicated to Notion tutorials with millions of views. Branded Twitter accounts selling templates for hundreds of dollars. Instagram aesthetics built around Notion screenshots. TikToks with millions of likes showing setup tips.
Notion didn’t create this. Their users did.
The company just fed it:
The legendary founding story - nearly bankrupt, moved to Kyoto, coded 18 hours a day
Offices that look like the software (minimalist, creative, playful)
First-person product updates from founders
Build-in-public blog posts showing what happens behind the scenes
Branded meetups for power users
Eclectic Spotify playlists that keep Notion in your head while you work
Merch that matches the brand philosophy
The result isn’t just software adoption. It’s a lifestyle.
Supreme started as a skateboarding brand. Patagonia means more than “I like hiking.” Notion’s productivity DNA evolved into something bigger.
What This Actually Means
Software used to be about utility. Features. Use cases.
Now the best products are about identity.
Arc browser users talk about it like a philosophy. Linear users identify as people who care about craft. Raycast users signal they’re power users. beehiiv creators are building media companies.
The software you choose says something about who you are.
Notion cracked this code early. Not through marketing. Through design, community, and building a tool flexible enough that users could make it theirs.
Notion’s website traffic grew from 1.5 million monthly visits in June 2022 to 6.9 million in June 2024 - over 4x growth while spending relatively little on paid advertising.
Because users were doing the marketing. Not because Notion asked them to. Because using Notion became part of their identity.
That’s the lesson. In the age of AI and infinite software options, the products that win aren’t necessarily the most powerful. They’re the ones that become expressions of personal style.
The ones where using the tool says something about who you are.