Akshay Kothari

The product manager in me was like, well, we could build a better system, right? And so we could build better tools so that each support person can do more every day. But also, once you have enough of these customer tickets, then the next role you want to hire would be something called a product ops. Product ops would take all this feedback and synthesize it and share it with the engineers.

So one thing Ivan and I did in the early years, we created this canonical database of about 200 types of requests that would come, which would map to features. And we trained our support team to tag every request that come in with one of those 200 tags. You have to do that. That was part of the job.

So one thing Ivan and I did in the early years, we created this canonical database of about 200 types of requests that would come, which would map to features. And we trained our support team to tag every request that come in with one of those 200 tags. You have to do that. That was part of the job.

So one thing Ivan and I did in the early years, we created this canonical database of about 200 types of requests that would come, which would map to features. And we trained our support team to tag every request that come in with one of those 200 tags. You have to do that. That was part of the job.

Every morning at 6 a.m., we wrote a script which would take all these tags from Intercom and write it against these database tags in Notion. And so essentially what every engineer at Notion had was a real-time view of what people were talking about yesterday or the last week or the last month.

Every morning at 6 a.m., we wrote a script which would take all these tags from Intercom and write it against these database tags in Notion. And so essentially what every engineer at Notion had was a real-time view of what people were talking about yesterday or the last week or the last month.

Every morning at 6 a.m., we wrote a script which would take all these tags from Intercom and write it against these database tags in Notion. And so essentially what every engineer at Notion had was a real-time view of what people were talking about yesterday or the last week or the last month.

And so if you could see like, oh, wow, people are talking about the Android app over the last month and it's really gone up, they can go in and start solving that problem. And we use this tag across the tools we had, right? So for example, if you were working on Android, you could essentially put that tag in intercom and you can basically see all the customer support tickets that have come.

And so if you could see like, oh, wow, people are talking about the Android app over the last month and it's really gone up, they can go in and start solving that problem. And we use this tag across the tools we had, right? So for example, if you were working on Android, you could essentially put that tag in intercom and you can basically see all the customer support tickets that have come.

And so if you could see like, oh, wow, people are talking about the Android app over the last month and it's really gone up, they can go in and start solving that problem. And we use this tag across the tools we had, right? So for example, if you were working on Android, you could essentially put that tag in intercom and you can basically see all the customer support tickets that have come.

So you could essentially, in many ways, you don't even have to hire a researcher. If you put all these things together, we didn't have to hire as many support people. We did not have to hire a product ops person. And we also did not have research early days. In fact, all of these were given to the engineer directly to be able to tap into that feedback and actually solve that problem.

So you could essentially, in many ways, you don't even have to hire a researcher. If you put all these things together, we didn't have to hire as many support people. We did not have to hire a product ops person. And we also did not have research early days. In fact, all of these were given to the engineer directly to be able to tap into that feedback and actually solve that problem.

So you could essentially, in many ways, you don't even have to hire a researcher. If you put all these things together, we didn't have to hire as many support people. We did not have to hire a product ops person. And we also did not have research early days. In fact, all of these were given to the engineer directly to be able to tap into that feedback and actually solve that problem.

Everybody is starting to question things that we've been taught about this specific org structure and the fact that Jensen has like 40 direct reports and doesn't do one-on-one. So I think it's actually kind of good that we're reopening what does this lead to? And I think every leader has to sort of question what is sort of the best way to run their company.

Everybody is starting to question things that we've been taught about this specific org structure and the fact that Jensen has like 40 direct reports and doesn't do one-on-one. So I think it's actually kind of good that we're reopening what does this lead to? And I think every leader has to sort of question what is sort of the best way to run their company.

Everybody is starting to question things that we've been taught about this specific org structure and the fact that Jensen has like 40 direct reports and doesn't do one-on-one. So I think it's actually kind of good that we're reopening what does this lead to? And I think every leader has to sort of question what is sort of the best way to run their company.

If you go back to Notion and sort of why we did some of these things, I think a lot of it came from Ivan really prioritizing keeping a very small team. And that part was not done just because we thought we would be profitable because of that. But I think we did it because it really meant that we can stay a lot more nimble by doing that, right?

If you go back to Notion and sort of why we did some of these things, I think a lot of it came from Ivan really prioritizing keeping a very small team. And that part was not done just because we thought we would be profitable because of that. But I think we did it because it really meant that we can stay a lot more nimble by doing that, right?

If you go back to Notion and sort of why we did some of these things, I think a lot of it came from Ivan really prioritizing keeping a very small team. And that part was not done just because we thought we would be profitable because of that. But I think we did it because it really meant that we can stay a lot more nimble by doing that, right?

The best power founder has is like the veto power. And Ivan used that a lot when I was in the early days. Like, you know, I remember, I don't know how many salespeople we'd interviewed for the first six months. And Ivan was like, well, this person is quite good, but not great. So let's keep looking.