Welcome to First Block, a Notion series where founders from the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

In this episode, we spoke with Varun Anand, Co-founder of Clay, one of the most exciting companies at the intersection of GTM and AI that’s redefining what modern go-to-market looks like.

Varun shares insights on the journey to finding product-market fit, how Clay went from horizontal spreadsheet tool to specialized go-to-market platform, and why following your curiosity matters more than traditional startup wisdom.

For video, transcripts, and custom Notion Clay templates, please visit: https://ntn.so/7i8hzv

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/udg5vz

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:20 Finding PMF

07:48 Reverse Demo Strategy

10:50 Scaling with Intent

16:04 Reinventing Sales Roles

19:58 Hiring for Potential

21:48 Clay's Operating Culture

23:56 AI Pressure

25:37 Advice Block

Welcome to First Block, a Notion series where founders from the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

In this episode, we spoke with Michael Truell, Co-founder and CEO of Cursor, an AI code editor that has gone from side project to one of the fastest-growing AI tools in the developer world in under a year.

Michael shares why they started with a solution in search of a problem, ignored conventional advice, and focused obsessively on product over everything else. From a 4-person founding team to hiring just one person every few months, their unorthodox path laid the foundation for breakout growth.

For video, transcripts, and custom Notion Cursor templates, please visit: ⁠https://ntn.so/2yr1lw⁠

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: ⁠https://ntn.so/9ipiek⁠

Timestamps

00:00: Intro

02:18: The original spark and false start in mechanical engineering

05:53: The pivot moment to developer tools

06:45: The decision to fork VS Code

08:45: Building AI-native coding tools and the balance between speed and control

12:24: Cursor's explosive growth trajectory

13:41: Early mistakes and lessons learned

14:16: Hiring philosophy and building the first team

17:08: Internal tools and operational philosophy

19:01: Maintaining focus in a hyper-fast environment

20:53: Advice for founders building in the AI era

Michael Nielsen is a quantum physicist, science writer, computer programming researcher, and modern polymath working on tools to expand human capacity to think and create. He’s previously authored pioneering quantum computing books, propelled forward the open science movement, and published research on artificial intelligence. He now researches meta-science at the Astera Institute, while writing about his many interests online.

See www.notion.so/blog/michael-nielsen for episode transcript.

Hosted by Devon Zuegel

Edited by Anson Yu

Audio by The Land Films

Andy is a software engineer, designer, and researcher working on technologies that expand what people can think and do. In past lives he helped build iOS at Apple and led R&D at Khan Academy. Now as an independent researcher, his methods bridge the gap between academia and Silicon Valley.

Char Stiles is an artist, educator and programmer whose work uses emerging technologies to bring to light how computers work. Char works and collaborates across mediums such as interactive installation, video, performance and web. She is a part of the Livecode.nyc collective, where she organizes shows, and livecodes music and visuals and has given talks and led workshops at Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University, University of Limerick, MIT and NYU. She is currently at an NEA-funded artist residency at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University to develop an open-source toolkit for artists.

Suzanne Ciani is a five-time Grammy award-nominated musician, composer, sound designer, and record label executive whose work helped define the sound of electronic music in the 1970s and left a lasting impression on the genre as a whole. She has released over 20 solo albums including "Seven Waves," and "The Velocity of Love," and was inducted into the first class of Keyboard Magazine's Hall of Fame. She is best known for sound designing commercials like the famous Coke noise, appearing on the David Letterman show, and for her explorations in quadraphonic sound.

Loretta Staples is a prolific designer and educator whose work designing graphical user interfaces such as those seen on the Macintosh Classic in the 1980s and 1990s helped shape personal computing as we know it today. Before becoming interested in software design, Loretta was a graphic designer for The Understanding Business, exhibit developer for The Burdick Group, and textile curator for the Yale University Art Gallery. Her essays and lectures on design criticism such as "The New Design Basics," in Steven Heller's book, “The Education of a Graphic Designer,” have defined the disciplines’ vocabulary and conception of itself. She now works as a therapist at Cityblock in Waterbury, and in private practice in New Haven.

Danielle Baskin is a product designer, situation designer, visual artist, and the founder of numerous small businesses such as Branded Fruit, the first company to print logos on avocados and clementines, Dialup, a voice-based social network that connects friends serendipitously in phone calls, Maskalike, a service that prints your own face realistically on your mask, and many others. She has been featured in The New York Times, Mashable, Vice, Fast Company, Business Insider, Engadget, The Verge, CNET, Oprah, MacWorld, and many others. In her free time she enjoys playing video games, creating Internet pranks, exploring abandoned buildings, and talking on the phone, a lot.

Gretchen McCulloch is an internet linguist — an analyst of the language of the internet, for the people of the internet. She's the author of the New York Times bestselling Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, a Resident Linguist at WIRED, and was formerly the Resident Linguist at The Toast. She also co-hosts a podcast called Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics.

Omar Rizwan is a researcher and developer​​ interested in new computer interfaces and new ways of programming. He previously worked at Stripe, Khan Academy, and Dynamicland, where he worked on projects such as Geokit. He’s also a prolific creator of paradigm-challenging projects such as Screenotate, Horrifying PDF experiments, Hijack Your Feed, and many others.

Howard Rheingold is a writer known for his specialty covering the development of virtual communities. He was one of the first authors, critics, and teachers to treat the internet as a social and cultural environment and pioneered new ways of talking about social media in his book The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. He went on to write numerous books about the power of the human mind and social media that pulled from his experiences being involved in one of the first virtual communities called the WELL, being the executive editor of Wired Magazine’s HotWired, and founding Electric Minds, another prominent early virtual community. He's also known for his spectacular painted shoes.

Alan Kay is a prolific computer scientist known by many as the “father of personal computers." He's best known for his work on object-oriented programming languages, windowing graphical user interface design (also known as GUIs) and for leading the team that developed Smalltalk.

Full video episode here: https://youtu.be/ZMrjvxCIPpY

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/rmCdsK First Block, a Notion series - hosted by Notion's Co-Founder Akshay Kothari - where founders and executives from some of the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience. In this episode, Akshay sits down with Notion co-founders Ivan Zhao and Simon Last to talk about everything Notion — where we started, how we got where we are now, and where we’re headed. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:06 The Founding Story 04:55 The Early Days 11:43 Reaching Product-Market-Fit 17:53 Building a Lean Team 19:58 Building for All: The Tradeoffs 27:09 Creating a Global Community 30:19 Scaling Company Culture 37:13 The Future of AI 44:32 A Day in the Life of Ivan Zhao and Simon Last

Jonathan Blow is an independent video game designer and programmer. He created Braid (2008) and The Witness (2016) — two puzzle games that, when released, received widespread acclaim. Jonathan also created a new programming language called Jai, intended specifically for game development.

May-Li Khoe is a designer, dancer, engineer, and DJ — an interdisciplinary artist-designer who’s spent her career at Apple, Khan Academy, and more. She invents new ways for to humans to interact with machines by blending prototyping with cultural practices, bright colors, and glitter.

A mathematician by training, Richard Hamming contributed significantly to the computer science and telecommunications industries. Of his work in information theory, digital filters and numerical methods, the most widely known is the Hamming codes — a family of formulas that allowed computers to detect and correct their own errors. This work would go on to be foundational for computers and communications, being used in modems, embedded processors, satellites, and more.  

For more episodes of Pioneers, including photos and transcripts, please visit: https://www.notion.so/blog/topic/pioneers​ 

Produced by Notion: http://www.twitter.com/NotionHQ​

Hosted by Devon Zuegel: https://twitter.com/DevonZuegel​

Audio by This Land Films: https://etfilmhome.com/

Pamela Hardt-English was the driving force behind Resource One — the first computerized bulletin board system that linked centers of counterculture across the Bay Area in the 1970s. She strived to provide people who didn’t consider themselves computer users (like social workers and hippies) with a resource network for anything they needed. Pam’s work was part of the earliest vanguard of personal computing, which anticipated the rise of the Internet decades later.

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You can find the full video interview, photos, transcripts, and more info about Pioneers here: notion.so/blog/topic/pioneers

Pamela: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Hardt-English
Notion: twitter.com/NotionHQ
Devon: twitter.com/DevonZuegel

Louis Pouzin is one of the titans of internet communication. In the early 1970s, he invented the datagram, paving the way for packet communications networks and the internet as a revolutionary tool for distributing information. Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn both cite Pouzin as a major influence in the development of the TCP/IP protocols that make up the heart of our modern-day internet. He was also foundational to France's version of ARPANET, CYCLADES.

We talked to Pouzin, who now lives in France, about the current shape of the internet, its influence on mass culture, and how to prepare for what it will become in both the near and distant future.

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You can find the full video interview, photos, transcripts, and more info about Pioneers here: notion.so/blog/topic/pioneers

Louis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pouzin
Notion: twitter.com/NotionHQ
Devon: twitter.com/DevonZuegel

Ted Nelson is the founding designer of Xanadu, the world's first hypertext project. Xanadu's influence on the Internet as we know it today is unmistakable. Ted coined the word "hypertext" to describe non-sequential writing — but clickable links are only the start of his expansive vision for digital technology. His ideas have influenced projects ranging from Objective-C to the original WWW to entire political philosophies about the role computing tools should play in our lives.

---

You can find the full video interview, photos, transcripts, and more info about Pioneers here: notion.so/blog/topic/pioneers

Ted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson
Notion: twitter.com/NotionHQ
Devon: twitter.com/DevonZuegel

Stu Card began work in Human Computer Interaction before it even had a name. His was the first PhD in the discipline, and Stu has made fundamental contributions to HCI including the design of Englebart's mouse and Information Foraging theory. In his work at Xerox PARC and beyond, Stu has always emphasized "theories with a purpose", the idea that academic HCI theories should have practical value and be incorporated into practice. --- You can find the full video interview, photos, transcripts, and more info about Pioneers here: notion.so/blog/topic/pioneers

 Stu: profiles.stanford.edu/stuart-card Notion: https://twitter.com/NotionHQ Devon: https://twitter.com/DevonZuegel

Welcome to the first episode of Tools & Craft! We spoke with Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the team that built the original Macintosh. We’ve all seen the legendary Apple keynotes and how personal computing has transformed the way we live and work, but what I was really interested to learn from Andy was what it was like to shape that vision from scratch. --- You can find the full video interview, photos, transcripts, and more info about Pioneers here: notion.so/blog/topic/pioneers Notion: https://twitter.com/NotionHQ Andy: https://twitter.com/AndyHertzfeld Devon: https://twitter.com/DevonZuegel

First Block, a Notion series - hosted by Notion's Co-Founder Akshay Kothari - where founders and executives from some of the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/tts9Uf

In this episode, we have Adeyemi Ajao, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Base10 Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the automation of the real economy. In this episode, we delve into his early days as a serial entrepreneur, experiences as an immigrant in Silicon Valley, his transition to becoming an investor, and much more.

For videos, transcripts, and custom Notion Base10 templates, please visit: ⁠⁠https://ntn.so/Hv0nRi⁠

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:32 Becoming an Entrepreneur

05:13 Co-Founder Relationships

08:58 Growing the Team

13:53 Building an Authentic Community

19:57 Learning to Be a CEO

22:18 Being an Immigrant

25:09 The Positivity of Silicon Valley

28:06 The Life after Acquisition

32:04 Becoming an Investor

35:40 Base10

38:55 The Ultimate Diversity

41:48 A Day in the Life of Ade Ajao

First Block, a Notion series - hosted by Notion's Co-Founder Akshay Kothari - where founders and executives from some of the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: ⁠https://ntn.so/56lXGm

In this episode, we have Vlad Magdalin, Co-Founder and CEO of Webflow, the leading visual development platform for building powerful websites without writing code. In this episode, we do a deep-dive into the early days of Webflow and its journey to sustainable growth and financing, their hiring principles, the importance of user feedback, the "no-code" revolution, and much more.

For video, transcripts, and custom Notion Webflow templates, please visit: ⁠⁠https://ntn.so/QFJPUA⁠⁠

Timestamps

00:00 Intro 03:22 Co-Founder Complimentary Skillset 07:26 Early Attempts at Webflow 12:21 Perseverance Despite the Challenges 17:49 Reaching Product-Market Fit 21:49 Fundraising 25:21 Hiring Principles 29:42 Building in Public & User Feedback 33:39 First Enterprise Customer 39:44 No-Code Revolution 42:44 A Day in the Life of Vlad Magdalin 47:02 Notion for Startups Special Offer (https://ntn.so/n0Iy5d)

First Block, a Notion series - hosted by Notion's Co-Founder & COO Akshay Kothari - where founders and executives from some of the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

In this episode, we have Daniela Amodei, Co-Founder & President at Anthropic. Anthropic is the AI safety and research company behind Claude — the frontier model used by millions of businesses and consumers for its emphasis on safety and performance. She discusses how to build a strong team of founders, how to navigate role changes, and how feedback is essential to scaling a company.

For an audio-only podcast, transcripts, and custom Notion Anthropic templates, please visit: https://ntn.so/CHl2rT

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/HHuDPC

First Block, a Notion series - hosted by Notion's Co-Founder & COO Akshay Kothari - where founders and executives from some of the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

In this episode, we have Mathilde Collin, Co-Founder & CEO of Front, a customer operations and communications platform. She discusses how to hire your first ten employees and the importance of radical transparency.

For an audio-only podcast, transcripts, and custom Notion Front templates, please visit: ⁠https://ntn.so/TuLOgg

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: ⁠https://ntn.so/hvXpHh

First Block, a Notion series - hosted by Notion's Co-Founder & COO Akshay Kothari - where founders and executives from some of the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

In this episode, we have Christina Cacioppo, Co-Founder and CEO of Vanta, discussing her transition from VC to operator and how she has built Vanta into the leading trust management platform.

For an audio-only podcast, transcripts, and custom Notion Vanta templates, please visit: https://ntn.so/TQf6LA

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/2f5lfV

First Block, a Notion series - hosted by Notion's Co-Founder & COO Akshay Kothari - where founders and executives from some of the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

In partnership with Index Ventures, this episode features Julianna Lamb, Co-Founder & CTO of Stytch. Stytch helps developers secure and scale their applications with authentication and fraud prevention. Akshay sits down with Julianna to discuss the founding story of Stytch, how her role as CTO has evolved over time, the early days of finding product-market-fit, building out their engineering team, and much more.

For more episodes of the First Block series including custom Notion templates, video, and transcripts, please visit: https://ntn.so/pIvAbt

For more startup resources and to learn more about the Notion for Startups program, please visit: https://ntn.so/AZhAX8

First Block is a Notion series hosted by Notion's Co-Founder & COO Akshay Kothari, where founders and executives from some of the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

This episode features Parker Conrad, Co-Founder and CEO of Rippling, discussing the ins and outs of his entrepreneurial journey and what he’s learned along the way. Rippling lets you easily manage your employees’ payroll, benefits, expenses, devices, apps & more — in one place.

For more episodes of the First Block series including custom Notion templates, audio-only podcasts, and transcripts, please visit: https://ntn.so/5uecCU

For more startup resources and to learn more about the Notion for Startups program, please visit: https://ntn.so/JSIG0M

Welcome to First Block, a Notion series where founders from the world's leading companies tell us about the many "firsts" of their startup journeys. We explore the ups and downs that founders face as they build, and what they've learned along the way.

In this episode, we spoke with Brendan Foody, Co-founder and CEO of Mercor. Mercor is an AI-powered recruiting platform that scaled from $1 million to $100 million in revenue run rate in just 11 months, making it one of the fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley.

Brendan shares his journey from selling donuts in eighth grade to building automated hiring solutions, the decision to drop out of college, and how he positioned himself perfectly for the AI talent revolution.

For video, transcripts, and custom Notion Mercor templates, please visit: https://ntn.so/cbc8mp

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/271hmw

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

03:39 Mercor by the Numbers

05:36 Obsession Over Discipline

08:39 Fundraising as Input

10:59 Scaling Self & Culture

13:40 Automating Manual Processes

17:40 Finding the Right Market

21:08 Staying Long-Term Oriented

22:58 The Tool Stack

25:22 Advice Block

For an audio-only podcast, transcripts, and custom Notion x Handshake templates, please visit: https://ntn.so/tgn78c

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/slpyk0Welcome to First Block, a Notion series where founders from the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey—and what they learned from that experience.

In this episode, we spoke with Garrett Lord, co-founder and CEO of Handshake. Handshake is the leading career platform connecting students and young professionals with employers, serving 17 million users and nearly 1 million companies. Garrett shares his journey from growing up in a working-class family in Michigan to building a company that democratizes access to career opportunities. He discusses his days living out of his car, the importance of talent density, and why this is the moment to go all in on your biggest bets.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:48 Founding the Spark

02:43 The Early Grind

06:42 Talent Matters Most

07:37 Scaling Through Leadership

13:17 Inside Handshake AI

18:04 Shaping the Future Workforce

19:38 Advice Block

Welcome to First Block, a Notion series where founders from the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey—and what they learned from that experience.In this episode, we spoke with Jesse Zhang, Co-founder and CEO of Decagon. In just a year since coming out of stealth, Decagon has become a $1.5 billion AI unicorn, transforming customer service for companies with AI agents.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

01:40 Rethinking Customer Experience

02:45 Early Startup Lessons

05:18 Agent Operating Procedures

09:58 Building Enterprise Trust

14:04 Scaling Fast

15:53 Hiring Philosophy

19:12 The Tool Stack

20:12 Advice Block

For a full video, transcripts, and custom Notion x Decagon templates, please visit: ⁠https://ntn.so/nfxioe⁠

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/u28v7x

Welcome to First Block, a Notion series where founders from the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey—and what they learned from that experience.

In this episode, we spoke with Ant Wilson, Co-Founder and CTO of Supabase. Supabase is the Postgres development platform that has become one of the world’s fastest growing open source communities.

Ant shares his journey about previous founder experiences, the power of solving your own problem, and why building authentic relationships with your community matters.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

02:56 Supabase Explained

07:04 The Positioning Shift

09:25 Memes & Marketing

13:08 Scaling the Community

15:09 Winning Enterprises

17:09 Remote-First Culture

22:49 AI in Action

26:10 Advice Block

For video, transcripts, and custom Notion x Supabase templates, please visit: https://ntn.so/aow225

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: ⁠https://ntn.so/cwep6x

Welcome to First Block, a Notion series where founders from the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey—and what they learned from that experience.In this episode, we spoke with Fabian Hedin, Co-founder and CTO of Lovable. Lovable is a platform that lets you build apps and websites by chatting with AI. After launching in November 2024, they've scaled from $1M to $100M ARR in just eight months—one of the fastest growth trajectories in AI history.Fabian shares his journey from running Minecraft servers in high school to cofounding Lovable, the bold bet on democratizing software development, and why building for today's AI capabilities beats betting on tomorrow's.

For video, transcripts, and custom Notion x Lovable templates, please visit: ⁠https://ntn.so/hz0tpb

To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ntn.so/v53xj8

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:38 Early Journey

05:57 Becoming Lovable

08:40 Launch Lessons

09:39 Scaling Fast

12:38 Building with AI

17:11 What's Production-Ready

19:39 Notion x Lovable

20:34 Future of Building

21:20 Advice Block