Most software companies spend millions trying to convince people to use their product.
Notion did something much more interesting.
It gave people a product they could build on, customize, share and show off.
And then those people started marketing Notion themselves.
Someone creates a beautiful student dashboard.
Someone else builds a startup operating system.
Another person creates a content calendar.
A creator makes a YouTube video showing their entire Notion setup.
Someone publishes a free template.
Another person duplicates it.
Then customizes it.
Then shares their version.
And suddenly…
Notion is everywhere.
That’s the fascinating part of the Notion story.
It isn’t simply:
“Notion has a great product.”
It’s:
“Notion turned the act of using the product into a potential marketing activity.”
And that is a very different growth strategy.
The Crazy Part: Notion Almost Died
To understand why the strategy worked, we need to go backwards.
Notion started in 2013.
But according to co-founder and CEO Ivan Zhao, the company struggled for years.
The team didn’t initially have a clear business model, and Notion struggled with being a broad, “horizontal” product.
Zhao has said that Notion almost died before the company found stronger traction.
Then came Notion 2.0 and its 2018 Product Hunt launch.
That was the turning point.
By August 2024, Notion had passed 100 million users. Zhao’s own account of the journey makes the contrast remarkable: from 1,000 users, to 1 million in 2020, to 100 million four years later.
So how did a product that almost disappeared become a platform used by tens of millions of people?
Part of the answer is product.
But another huge part is what happened around the product.
Notion Didn’t Just Build Software.
It Built Building Blocks.
This is probably the most important thing to understand.
A normal productivity app gives you a finished workflow.
For example:
“Here’s your task manager.”
Notion essentially said:
“Here are the building blocks. Build your own system.”
You could combine:
- pages
- databases
- tables
- calendars
- boards
- documents
- wikis
- templates
- formulas
- embeds
- automations
- AI
And create something that felt uniquely yours.
That’s powerful.
Because customization changes the relationship between a user and a product.
You’re no longer just using the software.
You’re building with it.
And Once People Build Something…
They Have Something to Show.
This is where the marketing flywheel begins.
Imagine you create an incredible Notion dashboard.
You post it on X.
Someone comments:
“Can I get the template?”
You share it.
Another person asks:
“How did you make that?”
Someone else wants to know:
“Can I use this for my business?”
Now you have content.
But Notion didn’t have to create that content.
The user did.
And that’s the genius.
The Product Creates the Content
Think about a traditional software company.
The company creates:
- blog posts
- advertisements
- product videos
- tutorials
- webinars
- landing pages
Then distributes them.
Notion has another source:
the users themselves.
Users create:
- templates
- workflows
- tutorials
- screenshots
- YouTube videos
- TikToks
- productivity systems
- use cases
- communities
- courses
- newsletters
The product generates things worth talking about.
That’s a powerful property for a product.
This Is Where Product-Led Growth Comes In
You’ve probably heard the phrase:
Product-Led Growth
PLG means the product itself plays a central role in acquiring, activating, retaining and expanding users.
Instead of relying entirely on:
Sales → Demo → Contract → Onboarding → Product
the product can create its own growth loops.
Notion is an especially interesting example because its product isn’t just useful.
It’s also:
demonstrable.
People can show you what they’ve built.
And when they show it, they’re showing you the product.
Think About This Simple Loop
Someone discovers a Notion setup
↓
They become curious
↓
They try Notion
↓
They build something
↓
They share it
↓
Someone else discovers it
↓
That person tries Notion
↓
They build something
↓
They share it
And the loop continues.
That’s not traditional advertising.
That’s product-powered distribution.
Notion’s Template Strategy Is Insane When You Look at It This Way
Templates might look like a convenience feature.
They’re much more than that.
A template is essentially:
a ready-made use case.
Instead of asking:
“What can I do with Notion?”
a user can see:
“Oh. I can use Notion to manage my freelance business.”
Or:
“I can use it to plan my wedding.”
Or:
“I can use it as a CRM.”
Or:
“I can manage my content calendar.”
Or:
“I can build my personal finance dashboard.”
That dramatically reduces the blank-page problem.
Templates Turn a Blank Canvas Into a Starting Point
This is important.
A completely blank productivity tool can be intimidating.
You open it and think:
“Okay… now what?”
A template changes that.
You open it and think:
“Oh. I can start here.”
And once you’ve started, you can customize.
Notion itself describes templates as pre-designed pages or sets of pages that users can duplicate and customize for their own workflows.
That tiny change in onboarding can have a huge psychological effect.
But Notion Didn’t Keep Templates Locked Inside the Company
This is where things get really interesting.
It opened the ecosystem.
Creators could make templates.
Share them.
Build audiences around them.
And eventually sell them.
Notion’s Marketplace now supports creators who want to publish and sell templates, with creator profiles, payments, analytics, reviews and promotional tools.
That changes the incentive structure completely.
Now a creator can think:
“If I become really good at Notion, I can build an audience around it.”
And suddenly:
Notion expertise itself becomes a creator opportunity.
The User Stops Being Just a User
This is the key transformation.
Traditional SaaS:
User → Customer
Notion:
User → Creator → Educator → Community Member → Customer
And sometimes:
User → Creator → Business
That’s much more powerful.
Some People Built Businesses on Top of Notion
When Notion celebrated passing 100 million users, Ivan Zhao specifically highlighted this phenomenon.
He wrote that the original vision was for non-programmers to build “software” using Notion’s building blocks.
He noted that some creators had made $1 million in 2023 from businesses built around Notion.
Think about what that means.
Notion isn’t merely selling software to creators.
Its ecosystem can create economic opportunities for creators.
And when your product helps someone make money…
You create a very different kind of loyalty.
This Is a Powerful Marketing Principle
People promote things that make them look smart.
Think about it.
Why do people post:
- their desk setup?
- their productivity system?
- their workout routine?
- their investment dashboard?
- their camera?
- their laptop?
- their favorite AI tools?
Because they’re not only sharing the tool.
They’re sharing an identity.
Notion tapped into that.
A beautiful Notion workspace can say:
“I’m organized.”
“I’m productive.”
“I have my life together.”
“I’m building something.”
“I’m a creator.”
“I have a system.”
The product becomes part of someone’s identity.
That’s powerful marketing.
Notion Became Something People Could Show Off
Here’s the difference.
You don’t usually post:
“Guys, I use Microsoft Word.”
You might post:
“Look at the system I built in Notion.”
Why?
Because Notion is visually expressive.
You can customize the page.
Add icons.
Images.
Databases.
Views.
Colours.
Cover images.
Dashboards.
Templates.
Your workspace becomes something you can display.
And display creates distribution.
This Is Where Social Media Enters
Notion’s growth didn’t happen in a vacuum.
Its template ecosystem naturally fit platforms where people share visual ideas.
Think:
YouTube
TikTok
X
Blogs
Newsletters
Someone posts:
“My entire productivity system.”
And underneath:
Built in Notion.
The product gets a free brand impression.
But more importantly:
the audience sees a use case.
Use Cases Are Better Than Features
This is another huge marketing lesson.
Imagine a SaaS company saying:
“We have relational databases.”
That’s a feature.
Now imagine someone saying:
“I built my entire freelance business inside this.”
That’s a story.
Stories sell features better than features sell themselves.
Notion’s community helped transform:
Feature → Workflow → Use Case → Story
And stories travel.
The Template Gallery Became a Discovery Engine
Notion eventually realized that templates were scattered across the internet.
Creators were sharing them through Etsy, Gumroad, Pinterest, personal websites and other channels.
So Notion rebuilt its Template Gallery as a central place for discovering and sharing templates.
When it launched the redesigned gallery, Notion said it expanded from around 600 templates to more than 5,000.
Today, its Marketplace has grown dramatically beyond that.
Notion currently lists thousands of templates and hundreds of creators across categories such as marketing, creators, communities, productivity and more.
And that creates another loop.
The Marketplace Flywheel
Creator makes template
↓
Template solves a problem
↓
User discovers template
↓
User enters Notion
↓
User customizes template
↓
User becomes more invested
↓
User creates their own workflow
↓
User shares it
↓
New creator appears
↓
More templates exist
↓
More people discover Notion
And around it goes.
The community creates more reasons to use the product.
This Is Much Bigger Than “User-Generated Content”
Marketers love saying:
“Let’s create some UGC.”
But Notion’s model is more interesting.
Traditional UGC might be:
“Here is a video of me using the product.”
Notion’s community can create new utility.
That’s a major difference.
A user doesn’t just create content about Notion.
They can create something that makes Notion more useful for another person.
That’s almost like users are extending the product.
Users Become Product Marketers
Imagine a Notion creator posts:
“My complete content creator dashboard.”
The audience sees:
- the dashboard
- the workflow
- the result
- the product
The creator has effectively done:
Product demonstration + testimonial + tutorial + use case + distribution
in one piece of content.
And Notion didn’t have to produce it.
That’s an extraordinary acquisition mechanism.
Community Is Not an Add-On
Notion itself calls community one of its most valuable pillars.
Its community team has built resources, events and online community infrastructure, and Notion says it uses member feedback to understand what is working and what members want next.
This is important.
Because many companies think:
“Let’s build a community.”
Then create a Slack group.
And wonder why nobody comes.
A real community needs:
identity + utility + participation + status + connection.
Notion has a product that naturally gives people reasons to participate.
The Community Has a Job to Do
A healthy community can:
- teach newcomers
- share workflows
- create templates
- answer questions
- showcase use cases
- provide feedback
- create social proof
- generate content
- build relationships
- create creators
That’s a marketing department’s dream.
Except the community isn’t simply working for the company.
They’re pursuing their own goals.
That’s why the ecosystem can feel authentic.
And Notion Benefits From Both Sides
Here’s where the flywheel gets stronger.
Notion helps creators
Creators help users.
Users create demand.
Demand helps Notion.
Notion improves the platform.
The platform gives creators more capabilities.
Creators build more things.
And the cycle continues.
That’s a much more sustainable ecosystem than:
“Post another ad.”
Notion’s Freemium Model Fits This Perfectly
There’s another piece.
A product like Notion benefits enormously if people can start using it before making a major purchase decision.
You don’t need to understand every feature before trying it.
You can:
sign up → create → customize → share → collaborate
And as your usage grows, the product can become more valuable.
This is a classic product-led pattern:
Let the product demonstrate its own value.
Instead of spending the entire acquisition journey convincing someone that Notion is useful…
let them experience it.
That’s a Very Different Sales Pitch
Traditional SaaS pitch:
“Here’s what our software can do.”
Product-led pitch:
“Try it.”
That difference matters.
Because demonstrating value is often more persuasive than describing value.
Notion Also Made Sharing Part of the Product
Think about how many ways a Notion page can be shared.
A workspace can become:
- a document
- a wiki
- a website
- a knowledge base
- a public resource
- a template
That means the boundary between:
product
and
content
gets blurry.
And that’s exactly where a modern growth engine can become powerful.
Your Product Can Become Your Distribution Channel
This is the bigger lesson.
Usually companies think:
Product ← Marketing
Marketing brings people to the product.
Notion’s ecosystem can create:
Product → Marketing
The product itself generates things people can share.
That’s the dream.
Compare This With Traditional Advertising
Imagine Notion spends $10,000 on an advertisement.
The advertisement gets impressions.
Campaign ends.
Done.
Now imagine a creator builds a template.
10,000 people discover it.
500 duplicate it.
100 people share it.
20 creators make videos around it.
Those videos keep getting discovered.
The template keeps existing.
The workflow keeps being useful.
The content can continue generating discovery.
That’s compounding distribution.
Not every template will do this.
But the system makes it possible.
Notion’s Real Product May Be Bigger Than Notion
This is where the case study gets philosophical.
Notion isn’t simply:
software company → productivity app
It’s increasingly:
software → platform → creator ecosystem → community → marketplace
And each layer strengthens the others.
The company has explicitly positioned its Marketplace as a place where users can discover templates and where creators can showcase and monetize what they build.
But Here’s the Most Important Lesson
Notion Didn’t Force People to Market It.
It Gave Them Reasons to.
That’s the difference.
If you tell customers:
“Please share our product.”
They probably won’t.
But if your product helps them:
- solve a problem
- look smart
- build something beautiful
- make money
- teach others
- build an audience
- express their identity
then sharing becomes a natural behaviour.
The marketing becomes a side effect of value creation.
That’s much more powerful.
The Notion Growth Flywheel
Let’s reduce the entire strategy into one diagram.
1. Build a flexible product
↓
2. Let users customize it
↓
3. Users create unique workflows
↓
4. Workflows become templates
↓
5. Templates become content
↓
6. Content gets shared
↓
7. New users discover the product
↓
8. New users create their own systems
↓
9. More creators emerge
↓
10. The ecosystem becomes bigger
↓
Back to #1
That’s the flywheel.
And There’s a Hidden Psychological Loop
The strategy works psychologically too.
Ownership
You build the system yourself.
↓
Investment
You spend time customizing it.
↓
Attachment
It becomes your system.
↓
Identity
You start associating yourself with the workflow.
↓
Advocacy
You naturally talk about it.
This is related to a broader behavioural principle:
people tend to value things more when they have invested effort into them.
And Notion’s flexibility encourages exactly that kind of investment.
The IKEA Effect Meets Software
There’s a famous behavioural concept known as the IKEA effect.
People can place greater value on objects they’ve helped create.
Notion doesn’t literally manufacture furniture.
But the psychological analogy is interesting.
You don’t just receive a productivity system.
You build one.
You decide:
- what databases exist
- what the dashboard looks like
- how information connects
- what your workflow is
- what your icons are
- what your categories mean
After enough customization, the workspace feels like:
“Mine.”
And “mine” is a powerful word in marketing.
This Is Why Copying Notion’s Strategy Is Hard
Another company could copy:
- templates
- databases
- dashboards
- icons
- AI
- communities
But copying the ecosystem is much harder.
Because ecosystems have history.
Creators.
Knowledge.
Templates.
Audiences.
Communities.
Habits.
Social proof.
And network effects.
You can’t manufacture all of that overnight.
The Creator Economy Becomes a Competitive Moat
Look at what happens when a creator becomes known for Notion.
Their audience learns Notion.
Their tutorials teach Notion.
Their templates use Notion.
Their recommendations mention Notion.
Their customers use Notion.
Their income may depend partly on Notion.
Now Notion isn’t just a tool.
It’s part of the creator’s business ecosystem.
That creates switching costs.
And it creates advocacy.
But There Is a Weakness
This strategy has a potential problem.
Complexity.
Flexibility is Notion’s superpower.
It can also be its weakness.
If users have infinite possibilities, they can become overwhelmed.
The blank canvas problem returns.
That’s why templates, onboarding, examples, education and community are so important.
The more flexible your product becomes, the more you need to help people understand:
“Here’s what you can actually do with this.”
This Is Why Templates Are More Important Than They Look
Templates aren’t just shortcuts.
They’re education packaged as a product.
A good template tells you:
“Here’s one way to think about this problem.”
So:
Template = Use case + Education + Demonstration + Starting point
And when millions of potential use cases exist, templates become an enormous discovery system.
What Notion Teaches Us About Modern Marketing
The old model was:
Create product → Create advertisement → Buy attention
The newer model can be:
Create product → Create value → Let users create more value → Let that value travel
That second model is harder to build.
But when it works…
It can compound.
The Notion Playbook for Other Businesses
You don’t need to build another Notion.
You can steal the underlying principles.
1. Ask: Can users create something?
If customers can create:
- templates
- designs
- workflows
- reports
- projects
- profiles
- collections
you may have a distribution opportunity.
2. Make the output shareable
If the result can’t be shown, shared or discussed, you’re losing potential distribution.
3. Turn expertise into assets
Let experts create templates, guides, frameworks and systems.
4. Give creators an incentive
Money.
Audience.
Recognition.
Status.
Leads.
Access.
Choose what makes sense for your ecosystem.
5. Make the creator successful
This is crucial.
Don’t just extract value from creators.
Help them build businesses.
When creators win, your ecosystem becomes stronger.
6. Build discovery into the product
A marketplace, gallery, community or showcase can turn user creations into acquisition channels.
7. Let the product demonstrate itself
The best product demo might not be a sales presentation.
It might be:
someone showing what they built.
The Question Every Marketer Should Ask
Here’s the question I would steal from the Notion case study:
“If our customers loved our product, what would they naturally create or share?”
That’s the starting point.
Maybe it’s:
- a template
- a result
- a dashboard
- a before-and-after
- a workflow
- a tutorial
- a case study
- a community
- a collection
- a project
Find that thing.
Then make it easier to create.
And easier to share.
Imagine Applying This to Other Businesses
A fitness app could let users share workout plans.
A finance app could let users share portfolio dashboards.
A design tool could let users publish templates.
A CRM could let consultants publish sales systems.
An AI tool could let users share workflows.
A marketing platform could let agencies publish campaign templates.
A cooking app could let users publish meal plans.
The principle is the same:
Turn customer success into customer-generated distribution.
The Difference Between UGC and an Ecosystem
This distinction matters.
UGC
“Customers create content.”
Community
“Customers interact with each other.”
Ecosystem
“Customers create value that attracts, educates and enables other customers.”
Notion is interesting because it moves toward the third category.
And that’s much harder to replicate.
Notion’s Biggest Marketing Lesson
It isn’t:
“Build a template marketplace.”
It isn’t:
“Start a community.”
It isn’t:
“Use product-led growth.”
It’s something deeper.
Build a product that gives people something worth sharing.
Then give them the tools and incentives to share it.
That’s the real strategy.
Brand Yaatra Takeaway
Notion’s greatest marketing asset isn’t its logo.
It isn’t its advertising.
It isn’t even its social media.
It’s the things people build with it.
Every beautiful dashboard.
Every template.
Every tutorial.
Every workflow.
Every creator.
Every shared page.
Every “here’s how I organize my life” video.
Each one can become a tiny piece of distribution.
And when enough tiny pieces connect…
You don’t just have customers.
You have an ecosystem.
That’s the part of modern marketing worth paying attention to.
Because the future may not belong to brands that simply have the biggest advertising budgets.
It may belong to brands whose products make their customers say:
“Look what I built.”
And then someone else looks at it and says:
“Wait… I want that too.”
That’s when a product starts marketing itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Notion’s marketing strategy?
Notion’s marketing strategy combines product-led growth, community, templates, creator participation, content, education, word of mouth and a flexible product that encourages users to build and share their own workflows.
How does Notion use product-led growth?
Notion puts the product at the center of discovery and adoption. Users can start using the product, create customized systems, share them and invite others into those workflows. This allows product usage itself to contribute to acquisition and expansion.
How do Notion templates help marketing?
Templates turn abstract product capabilities into concrete use cases. They can help users discover what Notion can do, reduce the blank-page problem and create shareable assets that introduce new people to the product. Notion’s Marketplace now supports thousands of community-created templates.
Does Notion pay creators?
Notion’s Marketplace allows eligible creators to sell templates, with Notion providing payment processing, analytics and other creator tools. Notion says creators can also use third-party payment platforms where applicable.
How many users does Notion have?
Notion announced in September 2024 that it had passed 100 million users.
Why is Notion’s community important?
Community gives users ways to learn, share workflows, create templates, participate in events and provide feedback. Notion itself describes community as one of its most valuable pillars.
What is the Notion growth flywheel?
A simplified version is:
Product → Creation → Sharing → Discovery → New Users → More Creation → More Sharing.
The more valuable things users create, the more potential reasons new users have to discover and adopt the product.
Can other businesses copy Notion’s strategy?
They can copy the principles but not the entire ecosystem. A business can encourage customers to create shareable assets, develop communities, publish templates and build creator incentives. But the network of creators, content, habits and relationships takes time to develop.
Final Thought
The easiest way to market a product is to tell people how great it is.
The harder way is to make people demonstrate its value for you.
Notion chose the harder way.
It gave people building blocks.
People built things.
Those things became templates.
Templates became content.
Content became discovery.
Discovery brought in users.
Users became creators.
Creators built more things.
And the flywheel kept turning.
That’s the real lesson.
Don’t just ask how your brand can create more content.
Ask:
“Can we design the product so our customers naturally create the content, use cases and stories that attract the next customer?”
Because when the answer is yes…
your product doesn’t just have users.
Your users become your distribution.
Sources & Further Reading
- Notion’s announcement of reaching 100 million users and its reflections on the creator ecosystem.
- Notion’s official explanation of its community, marketing and internal growth systems.
- Notion’s Template Gallery evolution and expansion from hundreds to thousands of templates.
- Notion Marketplace and creator tools, including template publishing and selling.
- Notion’s current creator and template ecosystem.
