Will Notion dethrone HubSpot with AI?

00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:21,440 [Eric] [upbeat music] I wanna dig into how far Notion has to go in order to, you know, let's say, take out HubSpot or meaningfully compete with them, you know, across the surface area. 00:00:21,440 --> 00:00:22,340 [John] Right. 00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:38,920 [Eric] But zooming out, we started this episode by talking about how it's difficult to predict what's gonna happen in the near term with AI. You know, and, and maybe a little bit easier to predict, you know, what's gonna happen in the long term, not that we have a crystal ball. But 00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:52,100 [Eric] I wanna talk about why we believe that Notion has a chance in the near term to be a major player. So I'm gonna give you the Eric Dodds- 00:00:52,100 --> 00:00:52,550 [John] Oh, boy! 00:00:52,550 --> 00:01:23,300 [Eric] ... quick hot take, um, on why this is possible and what it explains about sort of near-term and, and long-term market dynamics. So there is a tried-and-true playbook that has generally been true for most business models for a long period of time, maybe since the beginning of time, which is, uh, find a very specific problem for a very specific 00:01:23,300 --> 00:01:36,190 [Eric] person, company, et cetera, and solve that problem better than anyone else. As your starting point, if you're starting something new, how do you get traction? You solve a very specific problem for a very specific person- 00:01:36,190 --> 00:01:36,190 [John] Right 00:01:36,190 --> 00:01:48,780 [Eric] ... and try to do that better than anyone else. And I think that there are a couple of... There are many reasons for that, but at least two major ones are: it creates differentiation- 00:01:48,780 --> 00:01:49,760 [John] Right 00:01:49,760 --> 00:02:10,979 [Eric] ... um, and it gives you pricing leverage. So a modern example of this, uh, might be something... I- I'll give you two modern examples. Um, one is Linear, right? Project tracking tools are a dime a dozen, right? 00:02:10,979 --> 00:02:12,560 [John] Yeah. There are many. 00:02:12,560 --> 00:02:25,660 [Eric] Uh, and Linear, uh, went for some extremely specific pain points for power users who were sick of Jira. 00:02:25,660 --> 00:02:26,220 [John] Mm-hmm. 00:02:26,220 --> 00:02:26,920 [Eric] You know, and that's- 00:02:26,920 --> 00:02:27,080 [John] Yeah 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:28,980 [Eric] ... really... And, and 00:02:28,980 --> 00:02:51,880 [Eric] they just started taking over, right? And so of course, it's, it's possible and even likely that they expand the surface area of their product. But a good example of how they have really stayed the course is, like, their document, you know, the document piece of their product, is still very, very primitive, right? It's, it's not even- 00:02:51,880 --> 00:02:51,890 [John] Mm 00:02:51,890 --> 00:02:53,600 [Eric] ... close to Confluence. You can't- 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:53,760 [John] Yes. 00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:55,080 [Eric] You couldn't really make that comparison- 00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:55,230 [John] Right 00:02:55,230 --> 00:03:07,380 [Eric] ... right? Now, what's interesting is that the barrier of entry to creating software is dramatically falling, which means that 00:03:07,380 --> 00:03:12,010 [Eric] we will have way more software, and the- there will be downward pricing pressure, right? 00:03:12,010 --> 00:03:12,040 [John] Right. 00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:16,860 [Eric] So supply is increasing, and the cost of software will decrease, right? 00:03:16,860 --> 00:03:16,940 [John] Yeah. 00:03:16,940 --> 00:03:24,560 [Eric] Um, in, in aggregate. You know, we can, you know, se- I would say, like, enterprise security concerns are probably, like, a separate conversation. 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:25,360 [John] Sure. 00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:36,590 [Eric] So that's one example. Granola is actually another really interesting example, where, um, you know, there were, there were, you know, tools like Otter.ai- 00:03:36,590 --> 00:03:36,750 [John] Mm-hmm 00:03:36,750 --> 00:04:06,540 [Eric] ... and other transcription tools that have been around for a long time, and Granola executed against the main pain points around just ease of use, access to the stuff, r- you know, running things locally on your compu- It was just, you know... And for a very specific group of people, right? Those sort of knowledge workers on Zoom calls all day who were having trouble taking notes, whatever, right? Okay, so 00:04:06,540 --> 00:04:34,700 [Eric] what's interesting is that that is going to get more and more and more and more competitive. So if that ends up being true, then who are the big winners in the near term? My hypothesis is that it is the Notions of the world who will have a dramatic advantage in how magical AI feels because of the connected ecosystem. And 00:04:34,700 --> 00:04:48,270 [Eric] the quick example there would be, before you tear this apart, which please do- [chuckles] ... is that for a long time it's been really painful to try to connect different pieces of software, even from the same vendor, that you use every day, right? 00:04:48,270 --> 00:04:48,300 [John] Yeah. 00:04:48,300 --> 00:05:11,620 [Eric] So I have a calendar. I have email. A lot of that runs in the Google ecosystem, uh, you know, or the Microsoft ecosystem, and they're kind of connected, but not in a way that's meaning... N- not in a way that feels like magic, right? But in a system, i- you know, and that would be true of HubSpot as well. I mean, if you think about, you know, HubSpot's Gmail integration, I haven't used it in a long time- 00:05:11,620 --> 00:05:11,660 [John] Yeah 00:05:11,660 --> 00:05:17,440 [Eric] ... but I th- my guess is that it still largely operates like it did before, where you essentially BCC- 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:17,590 [John] Yeah, I think it does 00:05:17,590 --> 00:05:18,640 [Eric] ... a HubSpot email address- 00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:19,350 [John] Yeah 00:05:19,350 --> 00:05:23,710 [Eric] ... and you get the email into the system, but it, it's so janky, right? 00:05:23,710 --> 00:05:23,710 [John] Mm-hmm. 00:05:23,710 --> 00:05:35,860 [Eric] I mean, no one likes to operate like that. So now imagine a world where, with Notion, you have your CRM as a database in Notion. 00:05:35,860 --> 00:05:36,599 [John] Mm-hmm. 00:05:36,600 --> 00:05:43,360 [Eric] You have all of your company documentation, right? Internal docs, you know, everything. 00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:43,860 [John] Yep. 00:05:43,860 --> 00:05:56,300 [Eric] Um, you know, uh, uh, customer intelligence, et cetera. Um, Notion's transcription service is extremely good, you know, for, you know, recording calls. 00:05:56,300 --> 00:05:57,580 [John] Right. 00:05:57,580 --> 00:06:00,490 [Eric] Um, and it's actually connected, right? 00:06:00,490 --> 00:06:00,540 [John] Right. 00:06:00,540 --> 00:06:40,496 [Eric] It is legitimately connected, you know. So you get an email from a customer-... um, you know, or a calendar invite, you know, that has email addresses in it, and that can be connected with the entire system. And that is such an in- that is what AI needs today in order to feel like magic, because if an agent is going to execute some process where I get an email from a customer, and that needs to trigger a workflow that evaluates, is this a support issue, is this a whatever, and an agent needs to execute, you know, a complex workflow, it needs context from all these other places in order to make the right decision- 00:06:40,496 --> 00:06:40,765 [John] Right 00:06:40,765 --> 00:06:46,616 [Eric] ... as it sort of autonomously works its way through the steps. Um, and 00:06:46,616 --> 00:06:49,635 [Eric] that's gonna be very hard 00:06:49,635 --> 00:06:52,335 [Eric] for HubSpot to execute, in large part- 00:06:52,335 --> 00:06:52,346 [John] Right 00:06:52,346 --> 00:06:59,936 [Eric] ... because of their legacy architecture. Um, but I think it's a huge opportunity for Notion, and I'm sure there are other companies. So- 00:06:59,936 --> 00:07:00,075 [John] Hmm. 00:07:00,075 --> 00:07:03,056 [Eric] But what say you? 00:07:03,056 --> 00:07:07,275 [John] So I think in favor of Notion, the 00:07:07,275 --> 00:07:15,976 [John] core primitives seem good, in that there are not many other tools where the core primitive is, like, text files. 00:07:16,035 --> 00:07:16,376 [Eric] Yes. [chuckles] 00:07:16,376 --> 00:07:16,825 [John] Pages. 00:07:16,825 --> 00:07:16,876 [Eric] Yes. 00:07:16,876 --> 00:07:19,096 [John] I guess they call them pages, but they're just text files. 00:07:19,096 --> 00:07:19,366 [Eric] Right. 00:07:19,366 --> 00:07:22,356 [John] And then you can have, like, a database and a text file, [chuckles] like a page. 00:07:22,356 --> 00:07:26,616 [Eric] Yeah, or essentially it could be... You can export to Markdown. Whatever they're doing under the hood- 00:07:26,616 --> 00:07:27,015 [John] Right 00:07:27,015 --> 00:07:32,405 [Eric] ... it's a much, much shorter path to, like, a text file or machine-readable information. 00:07:32,405 --> 00:07:45,436 [John] Yes. Right. Yeah, yeah, so I think that's... I think that's a huge positive for them. There's not many other people that have that form factor. Um, and I looked up some numbers for us. 00:07:45,436 --> 00:07:46,056 [Eric] Oh, yes. 00:07:46,056 --> 00:07:46,075 [John] You ready? 00:07:46,075 --> 00:07:46,775 [Eric] Okay, I'm ready. 00:07:46,775 --> 00:07:51,616 [John] I have a graph. Let's see if I can share this. Um, 00:07:51,616 --> 00:08:07,176 [John] I used, uh, Perplexity here for fun to generate a graph on the funding and suspected revenue, so I don't, I don't think all of these numbers are... Some of these numbers are conjecture, but- 00:08:07,176 --> 00:08:09,816 [Eric] It was a non-deterministic methodology. [chuckles] 00:08:09,816 --> 00:08:18,496 [John] Yeah. [chuckles] It was a have, have, um... Here, I'll share it. All right, can you see that? 00:08:18,496 --> 00:08:19,635 [Eric] Uh, yes. 00:08:19,635 --> 00:08:29,476 [John] So essentially what it did is it searched the internet, read a bunch of articles, and tried to graph its, its best guess at revenue growth versus funding for Notion. 00:08:29,476 --> 00:08:49,616 [Eric] Okay. And for the... Yeah, so for those of you who are listening to the episode, we have a timeline on the x-axis, and then, um, amount in US dollars on the y-axis, and two lines, one revenue and one funding, and John's- 00:08:49,616 --> 00:08:49,626 [John] Yep 00:08:49,626 --> 00:08:51,435 [Eric] ... gonna describe them. 00:08:51,435 --> 00:08:56,195 [John] So 2019, 2020, we've got 00:08:56,195 --> 00:09:00,935 [John] a little less than 100 million raised, and revenue is not much. 00:09:00,935 --> 00:09:01,556 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:09:01,556 --> 00:09:18,976 [John] Um, then 2022, revenue's headed toward 100 million. 2023... So between 2022 and 2023, um, it looks like revenue just had this massive jump, and they're on this, like, crazy upward trajectory. Um, so- 00:09:18,976 --> 00:09:20,656 [Eric] Yeah, it's the hockey stick that gets- 00:09:20,656 --> 00:09:21,496 [John] Yeah 00:09:21,496 --> 00:09:22,675 [Eric] ... venture capitalists excited. 00:09:22,675 --> 00:09:31,776 [John] Exactly. So you still have a major... So then there's a big funding round in '21, and they raised... So their cum- I think the 00:09:31,776 --> 00:09:55,876 [John] f- cumulative raise is $345 million, um, in 2021, but then you see this nice, um, curve of revenue, 2022, just under 100 million, 2023, 250 million, 2024, 400 million, 2025, 600 million, and haven't raised any more money. [chuckles] So- 00:09:55,876 --> 00:09:57,795 [Eric] This is, this is incredible. 00:09:57,795 --> 00:10:12,216 [John] So it's a pretty incredible growth curve. Um, it stated somewhere when I was doing the research for this, I think it's further... [chuckles] This is funny. It decided to do a bar chart, and I was like, "What are you doing? Do a line chart." Um- 00:10:12,216 --> 00:10:15,185 [Eric] You're so disgusted with that as a data person. [chuckles] 00:10:15,185 --> 00:10:28,685 [John] I am. But yeah, so here, here's an interesting piece from September 2025. "Leadership noted they have more cash on the balance sheet than, than roughly the $330 to $340 million raised," fall of 2025. 00:10:28,685 --> 00:10:28,776 [Eric] Wow! 00:10:28,776 --> 00:10:40,546 [John] So they're in a really strong position, bec- 'cause part of my... You know, sometimes these things get so over, overvalued, it's like I don't even know if they're gonna, like, execute. 00:10:40,546 --> 00:10:40,556 [Eric] Sure. 00:10:40,556 --> 00:10:41,246 [John] They're gonna have to sell- 00:10:41,246 --> 00:10:41,246 [Eric] Sure 00:10:41,246 --> 00:10:43,076 [John] ... they're gonna have to IPO. I don't know. 00:10:43,076 --> 00:10:43,506 [Eric] Right. 00:10:43,506 --> 00:10:43,556 [John] So- 00:10:43,556 --> 00:10:51,356 [Eric] That's a lot of money raised, but with that amount of revenue, and you're... Let's just make the assumption that the cap table's managed well. 00:10:51,356 --> 00:10:51,695 [John] Right. 00:10:51,695 --> 00:10:54,355 [Eric] They're in an unbelievably strong position- 00:10:54,356 --> 00:10:54,396 [John] Mm-hmm 00:10:54,396 --> 00:10:55,276 [Eric] ... in this market. 00:10:55,276 --> 00:10:58,974 [John] Yeah, and then I think the current valuation's, like, 11 billion or something like that. 00:10:58,976 --> 00:10:59,955 [Eric] Wow. 00:10:59,955 --> 00:11:22,336 [John] So in a really good position. Okay, so those are all things in favor of original form factor, the integrations, acquisitions, or, um, like, the other thought is, like, you could... Say you wanted to add email marketing, you could build it yourself. Eh, that's still, that's still, like, difficult. You could essentially find one of these developer tools, like think about what Stripe used to be for finance. 00:11:22,336 --> 00:11:22,345 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:11:22,345 --> 00:11:25,955 [John] There are several of them now that does all the hard parts for you- 00:11:25,955 --> 00:11:26,096 [Eric] Right 00:11:26,136 --> 00:11:27,256 [John] ... and you basically just white label. 00:11:27,256 --> 00:11:28,266 [Eric] Yep, it's just an API- 00:11:28,266 --> 00:11:28,776 [John] You know, and- 00:11:28,776 --> 00:11:30,476 [Eric] So SendGrid, you know. 00:11:30,476 --> 00:11:35,506 [John] SendGrid's a good example, and you can get that up. You could probably get a product out in 30 days if you did that. 00:11:35,506 --> 00:11:36,476 [Eric] Right. 00:11:36,476 --> 00:11:42,616 [John] Um, and they could do that, or they could buy somebody. So I think they have a lot of options to really expand and, and cover- 00:11:42,616 --> 00:11:43,876 [Eric] And capital to- 00:11:43,876 --> 00:11:44,616 [John] Oh, and the money 00:11:44,695 --> 00:11:44,736 [Eric] ... which to do it. 00:11:44,736 --> 00:11:45,636 [John] Yeah. Right, right. 00:11:45,636 --> 00:11:46,056 [Eric] Yep. 00:11:46,056 --> 00:11:53,175 [John] A lot of options to cover pretty much the, the ground they would need to, to, to be an alternative for HubSpot. 00:11:53,175 --> 00:11:53,796 [Eric] Yep. 00:11:53,796 --> 00:11:57,636 [John] Um, here's, I think, the, the negative 00:11:57,636 --> 00:12:07,816 [John] of... For any company, even Notion, is, what do you do when the [chuckles] reality is-... your form factor's not the right one anymore. 00:12:07,816 --> 00:12:08,356 [Eric] Mm. 00:12:08,356 --> 00:12:19,616 [John] And this could, uh, this could potentially happen for every single current software startup. 'Cause for example, like, what if the right form factor is 00:12:19,616 --> 00:12:27,915 [John] let the agent- let your, you know, agent decide how it wants to store stuff, and you just say, like... And it just decides? 00:12:27,915 --> 00:12:28,226 [Eric] Mm. 00:12:28,226 --> 00:12:34,936 [John] And, and maybe markdown pages like, you know, like Notion is, is not its best solution. 00:12:34,936 --> 00:12:35,876 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:12:35,876 --> 00:12:41,156 [John] And then you have some startup that decides to do that, and everything just performs great. 00:12:41,156 --> 00:12:41,276 [Eric] Yeah. 00:12:41,276 --> 00:13:01,585 [John] Because [chuckles] you know, a- and then you- if your core form fac- factor's broken, like, what do you do, right? 'Cause that would be the thing, right? Like, pages are nice for humans, like they work, slash text files, but at some point it might be that that's not the right thing. 00:13:01,585 --> 00:13:01,596 [Eric] Yep. 00:13:01,596 --> 00:13:04,216 [John] And if that's not right, the right thing, that is kind of core- 00:13:04,216 --> 00:13:04,435 [Eric] Yeah 00:13:04,435 --> 00:13:08,556 [John] ... to the platform, and the human tendency would be to, like, force that to be the right thing. 00:13:08,556 --> 00:13:29,956 [Eric] Totally. Okay, I have a couple... I have, I have a couple thoughts on that. Um, the- just what's interesting about Notion to me, and why I'm- I'm clearly bullish on... You know, I don't, I mean, I don't know if they're going to take my advice [laughing] you know- 00:13:29,956 --> 00:13:29,966 [John] We'll see 00:13:29,966 --> 00:13:32,096 [Eric] ... as they steer their $600 million [chuckles] - 00:13:32,096 --> 00:13:32,576 [John] Yeah 00:13:32,576 --> 00:13:36,656 [Eric] ... a year juggernaut. But what's interesting to me 00:13:36,656 --> 00:13:40,316 [Eric] is that, um, 00:13:40,316 --> 00:13:43,476 [Eric] under the hood, everything is a database entry, you know? 00:13:43,476 --> 00:13:43,586 [John] Mm-hmm. 00:13:43,586 --> 00:13:48,915 [Eric] So yeah, it, it's a very short path to text files, I agree, because it's sort of a document-based- 00:13:48,915 --> 00:13:49,116 [John] Right 00:13:49,116 --> 00:14:06,935 [Eric] ... form factor. But because of that, and because there's a lot of flexibility in even the databases that you can create, I think that is insulation... I think that is some level of insulation from the type of disruption that you're talking about. 00:14:06,935 --> 00:14:07,456 [John] Okay. 00:14:07,456 --> 00:14:14,316 [Eric] Um, because an agent can, uh, 00:14:14,316 --> 00:14:21,616 [Eric] create a database structure, I mean, you know, we're- depending on how deep you go into their actual database system, right? 00:14:21,616 --> 00:14:22,236 [John] Mm-hmm. 00:14:22,236 --> 00:14:37,296 [Eric] But if we think about this for, like, small business, mid-market, the level of complexity is not super high, and so I think an agent on top of a flexible database system 00:14:37,296 --> 00:14:46,876 [Eric] can, can really do most of what needs to be done. Um, and I don't think that that will be, like, dramatically disrupted- 00:14:46,876 --> 00:14:46,886 [John] Right 00:14:46,886 --> 00:14:48,576 [Eric] ... in the near term, at least- 00:14:48,576 --> 00:14:48,956 [John] Okay 00:14:48,956 --> 00:14:49,496 [Eric] ... by, by a startup. 00:14:49,496 --> 00:14:58,036 [John] Yeah. So here, here's another way to think about it. I, I think, I think they're really well-positioned against HubSpot. 00:14:58,036 --> 00:14:58,476 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:14:58,476 --> 00:15:07,966 [John] But, um, I guess the other question is that how easy it would be for a hyperscaler to just eat them both. 'Cause essentially- 00:15:07,966 --> 00:15:07,966 [Eric] Mm 00:15:07,966 --> 00:15:25,195 [John] ... like, if, if there's some... With all, I'm thinking about the OpenClaw, whatever it's called now, [chuckles] um, Bolt Bot. Like, the, the concept of the AI employee, right? If that really actually does work, like, who has all the hardware, like the three- 00:15:25,195 --> 00:15:25,386 [Eric] Yeah 00:15:25,386 --> 00:15:36,976 [John] ... main hyperscalers. And then how hard is it for them to, like, make a thing that can work like Notion? Like, super easy. Or it doesn't even have to work like Notion, it just has to be, like, roughly- 00:15:36,976 --> 00:15:37,576 [Eric] Right 00:15:37,576 --> 00:15:38,276 [John] ... equivalent. 00:15:38,276 --> 00:15:38,906 [Eric] Right. 00:15:38,906 --> 00:15:47,996 [John] And then they already have all of the, like... You know, think about AWS, I mean, they have, like, a million different, like, modular things that takes a lot of development effort today- 00:15:47,996 --> 00:15:48,596 [Eric] Yep 00:15:48,596 --> 00:15:50,616 [John] ... to, to do stuff with. 00:15:50,616 --> 00:15:50,896 [Eric] Yep. 00:15:50,896 --> 00:15:59,536 [John] But if there was an option to, like, "Hey, I run an agent," and, like, check all the boxes for the thing you need it to do, it seems like those guys are in the best position- 00:15:59,536 --> 00:15:59,685 [Eric] Yep 00:15:59,685 --> 00:16:01,105 [John] ... you know, here. 00:16:01,105 --> 00:16:01,896 [Eric] Yep. 00:16:01,896 --> 00:16:03,556 [John] But I don't know. 00:16:03,556 --> 00:16:16,136 [Eric] Well, okay, jumping back to something that you said before, if we think about the gaps that Notion would need to overcome, and I'm sure we're not thinking about all these, 'cause I haven't looked at HubSpot's- 00:16:16,136 --> 00:16:16,256 [John] Yeah 00:16:16,256 --> 00:16:17,216 [Eric] ... product surface area. 00:16:17,216 --> 00:16:19,156 [John] Yeah, and they're growing their surface area, too. 00:16:19,156 --> 00:16:19,376 [Eric] Right, right. 00:16:19,376 --> 00:16:20,325 [John] They have analytics- 00:16:20,325 --> 00:16:21,356 [Eric] And they're, they're integrating- 00:16:21,356 --> 00:16:21,386 [John] ... suite now 00:16:21,386 --> 00:16:22,796 [Eric] ... you know, AI, all that sort of stuff. 00:16:22,796 --> 00:16:23,616 [John] Yeah. [clears throat] 00:16:23,616 --> 00:16:29,636 [Eric] So, um, m- the automation is a huge one. 00:16:29,636 --> 00:16:31,056 [John] Yeah. 00:16:31,056 --> 00:16:38,486 [Eric] Website builder I think is a big one, too, but I think that's very easily solved by using one of the provider APIs. 00:16:38,486 --> 00:16:38,536 [John] Yeah. 00:16:38,536 --> 00:16:47,175 [Eric] So for example, v0's API, you just bake that into the hood and you give, uh, you create- you do website generation, you know, as part of- 00:16:47,175 --> 00:16:47,205 [John] Right 00:16:47,205 --> 00:16:52,556 [Eric] ... your product suite. That's very... I think that would be very quick to build out. Um- 00:16:52,556 --> 00:16:52,596 [John] Right. 00:16:52,596 --> 00:16:59,945 [Eric] And probably actually more accurate, because you have the- you would give- Notion would give the agent so much more context about your business, right? 00:16:59,945 --> 00:17:00,976 [John] Right. 00:17:00,976 --> 00:17:02,476 [Eric] Um, 00:17:02,476 --> 00:17:18,445 [Eric] and that sort of extends, like, in interesting ways, as a quick side note. If you think about, okay, I wanna do a customer testimonial or a case study or whatever, I mean, you could get very, very far on generating a customer case study page if it's being generated essentially out of your CRM, has access to emails- 00:17:18,445 --> 00:17:18,445 [John] Yeah 00:17:18,445 --> 00:17:19,136 [Eric] ... call transcriptions- 00:17:19,136 --> 00:17:19,226 [John] Sure 00:17:19,226 --> 00:17:19,974 [Eric] ... like all that sort of stuff- 00:17:19,976 --> 00:17:20,076 [John] Mm-hmm 00:17:20,076 --> 00:17:24,215 [Eric] ... right? So I think that's a little bit of the magic that I'm sort of speaking towards is- 00:17:24,215 --> 00:17:24,275 [John] Right 00:17:24,275 --> 00:17:31,116 [Eric] ... those types of things are actually not a huge deal for Notion to, um, you know, to do. 00:17:31,116 --> 00:17:32,176 [John] Oh, for sure. Yeah. 00:17:32,176 --> 00:17:46,275 [Eric] Um, you know, so marketing automation, website builder. The analytics piece is really interesting. Um, you know, but at the same time, they're in such a strong position, you know, financially, that, you know, I- 00:17:46,275 --> 00:17:46,436 [John] Yeah 00:17:46,436 --> 00:17:46,876 [Eric] ... again- 00:17:46,876 --> 00:17:48,076 [John] They can buy or build. 00:17:48,076 --> 00:17:48,546 [Eric] Exactly. 00:17:48,546 --> 00:17:48,556 [John] Yeah. 00:17:48,556 --> 00:17:50,534 [Eric] They can buy or build, right? 00:17:50,536 --> 00:17:52,096 [Eric] Uh, 00:17:52,096 --> 00:17:53,456 [Eric] but 00:17:53,456 --> 00:17:55,576 [Eric] the, 00:17:55,576 --> 00:18:05,616 [Eric] one of the, like, hyperscalers, I... There are a couple of things that come to mind when I think about the hyperscalers taking out both HubSpot and Notion. The- 00:18:05,616 --> 00:18:09,275 [John] And just to be- we're talking Google, Microsoft, Amazon, basically. 00:18:09,275 --> 00:18:12,068 [Eric] Yeah, exactly.... Yeah, uh- 00:18:12,068 --> 00:18:16,988 [John] Which Vercel and Cloudflare are pretty well positioned, too. 00:18:16,988 --> 00:18:17,508 [Eric] Right. 00:18:17,508 --> 00:18:17,708 [John] Um- 00:18:17,708 --> 00:18:19,647 [Eric] So such a different business, though. Like- 00:18:19,648 --> 00:18:20,688 [John] Yeah. 00:18:20,688 --> 00:18:26,198 [Eric] Um, Google's the main in, you know, the main incumbent because they, because so many- 00:18:26,198 --> 00:18:26,198 [John] Right 00:18:26,198 --> 00:18:28,628 [Eric] ... businesses operate off of G Suite, and they have, you know, you have your- 00:18:28,628 --> 00:18:28,728 [John] Sure 00:18:28,728 --> 00:18:30,028 [Eric] ... documents in a drive. 00:18:30,028 --> 00:18:30,618 [John] Right. 00:18:30,618 --> 00:18:30,618 [Eric] Right. 00:18:30,618 --> 00:18:30,938 [John] Right. 00:18:30,938 --> 00:18:36,248 [Eric] Yeah, especially for SMB. Um, 00:18:36,248 --> 00:18:48,988 [Eric] the, but Notion, I think, um, is, uh, I mean, this is gonna sound ironic based on, you know, Google's [chuckles] because- 00:18:48,988 --> 00:18:48,998 [John] Right 00:18:48,998 --> 00:18:58,228 [Eric] ... Google's, like, market penetration is gigantic. But if Notion can solve those problems, they have a pretty big distribution moat. 00:18:58,228 --> 00:18:58,408 [John] Yeah. 00:18:58,408 --> 00:18:58,928 [Eric] Right? 00:18:58,928 --> 00:18:59,448 [John] Right. 00:18:59,448 --> 00:18:59,857 [Eric] Uh, I mean- 00:18:59,857 --> 00:19:00,928 [John] And people like it. 00:19:00,928 --> 00:19:01,988 [Eric] And people like it. 00:19:01,988 --> 00:19:03,548 [John] It's a big deal. 00:19:03,548 --> 00:19:07,208 [Eric] They're a startup, but, I mean, at 600 million, you know- 00:19:07,208 --> 00:19:08,268 [John] Right 00:19:08,268 --> 00:19:10,628 [Eric] ... they're a, they're a, they're a force as a company. 00:19:10,628 --> 00:19:11,408 [John] Yeah. 00:19:11,408 --> 00:19:14,948 [Eric] Still small compared to Google, but people like it. It's w- 00:19:14,948 --> 00:19:15,108 [John] Yeah 00:19:15,108 --> 00:19:17,888 [Eric] ... I mean, it's so much better than the Google Workspace suite- 00:19:17,888 --> 00:19:18,148 [John] It is 00:19:18,148 --> 00:19:18,488 [Eric] ... you know? 00:19:18,488 --> 00:19:19,188 [John] Yeah. 00:19:19,188 --> 00:19:19,268 [Eric] And so- 00:19:19,268 --> 00:19:21,388 [John] Which has been roughly the same for, like, a decade. 00:19:21,388 --> 00:19:22,058 [Eric] Exactly. 00:19:22,058 --> 00:19:22,148 [John] Yeah. 00:19:22,208 --> 00:19:30,298 [Eric] And so if... I mean, Google, I don't think we should discount Google's ability to sort of respond to a red alert- 00:19:30,298 --> 00:19:30,908 [John] Right 00:19:30,908 --> 00:19:31,588 [Eric] ... and, you know- 00:19:31,588 --> 00:19:31,698 [John] Mm-hmm 00:19:31,698 --> 00:19:45,958 [Eric] ... start making OpenAI shake in their boots. Um, but at the same time, the great sort of user experience that Notion provides is not Google's core competency. Like, that is not what they do really well as a company. 00:19:45,958 --> 00:19:46,048 [John] Yeah. 00:19:46,048 --> 00:19:46,638 [Eric] Right? 00:19:46,638 --> 00:19:47,208 [John] Yeah. Mm-hmm. 00:19:47,208 --> 00:19:52,248 [Eric] And so I do think Notion has... I think you said it well: people like to use it, right? 00:19:52,248 --> 00:19:52,558 [John] Mm-hmm. 00:19:52,558 --> 00:19:54,428 [Eric] And they have a gigantic user base. 00:19:54,428 --> 00:19:54,538 [John] Right. 00:19:54,538 --> 00:20:06,228 [Eric] And that's a... I think that is somewhat of a moat. Um, I think that's somewhat of a moat for them, especially as AI becomes more cost-effective, and they can distribute that magical experience- 00:20:06,228 --> 00:20:06,928 [John] Right 00:20:06,928 --> 00:20:15,368 [Eric] ... to, you know, to more and more people. Um, so I don't know. I mean, it's so interesting to think about, like, will, will Notion try to do that- 00:20:15,368 --> 00:20:15,378 [John] Right 00:20:15,378 --> 00:20:23,748 [Eric] ... you know, as opposed to, as opposed to staying in the lane of, like, Google Drive, you know, sort of document management-type stuff? 00:20:23,748 --> 00:20:35,048 [John] Right. Yeah. I- again, I think the biggest barrier for any company that was founded pre-now, you know, pre the last couple years- 00:20:35,048 --> 00:20:36,088 [Eric] Mm-hmm 00:20:36,088 --> 00:20:43,188 [John] ... especially that is now big, like, if the form factor needs to change, are you gonna do it, right? 00:20:43,188 --> 00:20:44,918 [Eric] Yep. Yeah. 00:20:44,918 --> 00:20:56,008 [John] And I, I don't know, because there's a component where, uh... So the, uh, well, here's the downside of Notion. So I'm part of, like... I'm part of a lot of Notion workspaces- 00:20:56,008 --> 00:20:56,238 [Eric] Mm-hmm 00:20:56,238 --> 00:20:58,848 [John] ... right now. Um, 00:20:58,848 --> 00:21:00,688 [John] they get really messy. 00:21:00,688 --> 00:21:01,268 [Eric] Yeah. 00:21:01,268 --> 00:21:06,768 [John] They get really messy, and, and I think 00:21:06,768 --> 00:21:14,528 [John] c- can you get AI to, like, keep them straight? Can you make the [chuckles] AI search experience actually good? I think the answer is probably yes. 00:21:14,528 --> 00:21:16,368 [Eric] Yeah, I would agree with that. 00:21:16,368 --> 00:21:28,228 [John] But, but especially if it's a team, a, like, a team setting, which is the point here. It's like, how do you actually, like, keep the knowledge consolidated? Because that's actually, that's a, that's a really hard problem. 00:21:28,228 --> 00:21:29,108 [Eric] Mm. 00:21:29,108 --> 00:21:37,347 [John] Because people duplicate things. People don't search before they start a new thing. Like, you... And, and I guess my point here 00:21:37,348 --> 00:21:54,748 [John] is, is to solve that problem, you would have to force everybody through agents to do everything, to, to really solve that problem well. And then, if you're doing that anyways, who cares what, how it's... You know what I mean? 00:21:54,748 --> 00:22:06,688 [Eric] I do, although I think I disagree. I think I disagree on this being a problem because in the SMB mid-market space, 00:22:06,748 --> 00:22:08,968 [Eric] messiness in Notion- 00:22:08,968 --> 00:22:09,528 [John] Mm-hmm 00:22:09,528 --> 00:22:14,888 [Eric] ... as a, as a single system is way better than what most people are experiencing now. 00:22:14,888 --> 00:22:14,958 [John] Yeah. 00:22:14,958 --> 00:22:15,828 [Eric] 'Cause at least- 00:22:15,828 --> 00:22:16,028 [John] True 00:22:16,028 --> 00:22:19,528 [Eric] ... at least if you search, you can find stuff faster. 00:22:19,528 --> 00:22:23,868 [John] Yeah, and, and surely there, there will be buttons to, like... or pop-ups that are like, "Hey- 00:22:23,868 --> 00:22:23,938 [Eric] Right 00:22:23,938 --> 00:22:25,608 [John] ... it looks like there's a duplicate. You want me to fix it?" 00:22:25,608 --> 00:22:26,948 [Eric] Right. Exactly. Exactly. 00:22:26,948 --> 00:22:27,528 [John] Yeah. 00:22:27,528 --> 00:22:28,867 [Eric] So 00:22:28,868 --> 00:22:36,788 [Eric] I co- I constantly remind myself of that, where I think you and I tend to operate on a little bit more of the bleeding edge, where we're, you know- 00:22:36,788 --> 00:22:37,048 [John] Right 00:22:37,048 --> 00:22:48,708 [Eric] ... doing advanced stuff with agents, and, you know, we've sort of straddled this world where, yeah, Notion's, like, really messy, but we're seeing the power of AI, and it's like, okay, m- maybe that's actually a solved problem. 00:22:48,708 --> 00:22:49,468 [John] Right. 00:22:49,468 --> 00:22:57,288 [Eric] And then we're using these tools in a more advanced way than I think the average user. And so I constantly have to remind myself- 00:22:57,288 --> 00:22:57,298 [John] Right 00:22:57,298 --> 00:23:04,068 [Eric] ... like, "Oh, well, actually this is better..." Like, I am annoyed with being a part of a bunch of Notion workspaces that are messy. 00:23:04,068 --> 00:23:04,528 [John] Right. 00:23:04,528 --> 00:23:11,188 [Eric] But being in a messy Notion workspace where everything is together is better than the current state for people who- 00:23:11,188 --> 00:23:11,388 [John] Right 00:23:11,388 --> 00:23:12,528 [Eric] ... aren't, you know. 00:23:12,528 --> 00:23:13,028 [John] Right. 00:23:13,028 --> 00:23:13,948 [Eric] Um- 00:23:13,948 --> 00:23:24,908 [John] Yeah, I would agree with that. One other point, one other counterpoint to Notion, and this would be more about growth for them, regardless of the AI stuff, for SMB specifically. 00:23:24,908 --> 00:23:25,628 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:23:25,628 --> 00:23:36,448 [John] It's like, how many of those people, like... I think there's a lot of SMBs that they don't have any, like, any sort of, like, [chuckles] organization other than the email, basically. 00:23:36,448 --> 00:23:36,748 [Eric] Yeah. 00:23:36,748 --> 00:23:38,948 [John] Or email and maybe some kind of chat app. 00:23:38,948 --> 00:23:40,088 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:23:40,088 --> 00:23:46,868 [John] And, and a lot of them can get pretty far with that. So I think some of those people won't like the form factor. 00:23:46,868 --> 00:23:47,528 [Eric] Hmm. 00:23:47,528 --> 00:23:56,118 [John] And I think there's a, an eventual cap in the people that want to sit down and write. So there, there may be this other form factor- 00:23:56,118 --> 00:23:56,118 [Eric] Mm 00:23:56,118 --> 00:24:08,988 [John] ... where you've got email and maybe chat, and then there's this other form factor out there that, that works for people that, like, they don't really wanna sit down and write. They don't wanna, like... They don't wanna manage things this way. 00:24:08,988 --> 00:24:09,668 [Eric] Yeah. 00:24:09,668 --> 00:24:11,488 [John] They'd rather, like, talk to a thing- 00:24:11,488 --> 00:24:11,748 [Eric] Yeah 00:24:11,748 --> 00:24:16,580 [John] ... or they'd rather delegate to a-... you know, AI thing to- I don't know. 00:24:16,580 --> 00:24:16,680 [Eric] Yeah. 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:18,580 [John] I, I think that, I think that's an interesting one- 00:24:18,580 --> 00:24:18,770 [Eric] That is- 00:24:18,770 --> 00:24:22,600 [John] Is that there might be a, a max of people that want to work this way. 00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:26,260 [Eric] Totally, but that's, that's input mechanism. 00:24:26,260 --> 00:24:28,400 [John] Yeah, which they, which they could e- evolve that, right? 00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:29,539 [Eric] Right. Right. 00:24:29,540 --> 00:24:30,490 [John] Which, I mean, meetings is- 00:24:30,490 --> 00:24:31,950 [Eric] I mean, they kind of already have that with the- 00:24:31,950 --> 00:24:31,950 [John] Meetings is a start 00:24:31,950 --> 00:24:33,110 [Eric] ... with the transcriptions, you know- 00:24:33,110 --> 00:24:33,190 [John] Mm-hmm 00:24:33,190 --> 00:24:34,540 [Eric] ... which is really interesting. 00:24:34,540 --> 00:24:36,160 [John] Yeah, meetings is a start to that. 00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:45,420 [Eric] Um, I think the other interesting thing is that... Two additional quick thoughts, one of them more specific, one more general. 00:24:45,420 --> 00:25:00,580 [Eric] One of the... I, I think one of the things that could emerge if Notion follows this path is templates that are primarily permission-based. So if you think about a CRM, the problem is you don't want someone to be able to go in and just make a bunch of changes and- 00:25:00,580 --> 00:25:00,800 [John] Yeah 00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:01,400 [Eric] ... you know, screw it up. 00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:02,840 [John] Sure. 00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:09,060 [Eric] And so really you're talking about, like, a sort of a permissions, like, who actually has the ability to edit this? 00:25:09,060 --> 00:25:09,860 [John] Right. 00:25:09,860 --> 00:25:19,520 [Eric] You know, or make changes or, you know, all that sort of stuff. And so I think you can almost imagine, like, a CRM, you know, sidebar nav item in Notion- 00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:20,480 [John] Mm-hmm 00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:23,910 [Eric] ... that has some of those baked in, but it's really just a Notion database under the hood. 00:25:23,910 --> 00:25:23,920 [John] Right. 00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:38,320 [Eric] It just has, like, a, a more, um, opinionated layer of permissioning on top. Um, so that's one thing. The other thing that I think is really interesting, which we've talked about before, is the a- the cost of running agents. 00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:38,780 [John] Mm. 00:25:38,780 --> 00:25:51,280 [Eric] And one of the things that has prohibited, um, advance in the user experiences that are possible, where AI will just do things for you, is that that's very expensive, right? 00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:51,380 [John] Yeah. 00:25:51,380 --> 00:25:51,820 [Eric] And so- 00:25:51,820 --> 00:25:52,620 [John] Uh-huh. 00:25:52,620 --> 00:25:52,980 [Eric] Um- 00:25:52,980 --> 00:25:54,040 [John] Yeah 00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:57,530 [Eric] ... doing that across your whole user base could be prohibitively expensive, right? 00:25:57,530 --> 00:25:57,540 [John] Right. 00:25:57,540 --> 00:26:13,680 [Eric] And so the value actually has to be there. But when you think about things like cleanup, if it gets to the point where there's enough margin for Notion in the SMB mid-market space, you could just have agents, like, running cleanup, you know- 00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:14,280 [John] All the time. 00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:14,780 [Eric] All the time. 00:26:14,780 --> 00:26:15,330 [John] Yeah. 00:26:15,330 --> 00:26:15,660 [Eric] Right? 00:26:15,660 --> 00:26:15,940 [John] Yeah. 00:26:15,940 --> 00:26:20,460 [Eric] And so it just... And that actually, in and of itself, would be magical. 00:26:20,460 --> 00:26:20,700 [John] Right. 00:26:20,700 --> 00:26:21,930 [Eric] How do you charge for that? 00:26:21,930 --> 00:26:22,000 [John] Right. 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:27,040 [Eric] How... You know, do people see the value? Like, I don't know. That- those are all, like, very difficult questions, but- 00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:27,640 [John] Yeah 00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:32,740 [Eric] ... that is certainly, like, a huge- that would be a huge advantage for- 00:26:32,740 --> 00:26:32,820 [John] Yeah 00:26:32,820 --> 00:26:34,880 [Eric] ... especially in the SMB mid-market space. 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,360 [John] All right, here's one more hot take on this topic. 00:26:37,360 --> 00:26:38,040 [Eric] All right. 00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:39,780 [John] Um, 00:26:39,780 --> 00:26:52,580 [John] I think one of the big factors that's completely out of Notion's control that will impact their success is how far ahead will the frontier models be of open source models? Like, it- 00:26:52,580 --> 00:26:52,750 [Eric] Mm. 00:26:52,750 --> 00:26:56,800 [John] 'Cause right now, I think we're kind of at, like, a three or six-month lag time. 00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:57,420 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:26:57,420 --> 00:27:03,780 [John] If that kind of stays pretty consistent, I think Notion's got a real shot, because they can 00:27:03,780 --> 00:27:06,720 [John] run models for really cheap and, and do all sorts of neat things. 00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:07,600 [Eric] Yep. 00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:12,980 [John] If there's a bigger gap or for some reason some kind of, like, feature parity problem, where, like- 00:27:12,980 --> 00:27:13,010 [Eric] Mm-hmm 00:27:13,010 --> 00:27:17,560 [John] ... the frontier ones can do w- a couple really useful things, like, way better- 00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:18,340 [Eric] Mm-hmm 00:27:18,340 --> 00:27:22,060 [John] ... then there might be a financial problem for them, where it's like- 00:27:22,060 --> 00:27:22,300 [Eric] Interesting 00:27:22,300 --> 00:27:28,540 [John] ... "Cool, this thing is..." W- what is the pricing now? It's, like, 100 bucks to accomplish this really good task. 00:27:28,540 --> 00:27:29,000 [Eric] Yep. 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:39,179 [John] And then that 100, like, uh, you, you can't just absorb that forever. And then if you go direct with one of the frontier models, they're like, "Oh, for you, if you go direct, it's $2." 00:27:39,180 --> 00:27:39,290 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:27:39,290 --> 00:27:40,280 [John] You know? I mean, it's way cheaper, right? 00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:41,180 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:27:41,180 --> 00:27:43,519 [John] And we've seen that already with 00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:48,340 [John] Claude and how they're limiting their API in certain ways. 00:27:48,340 --> 00:27:48,380 [Eric] Mm-hmm. 00:27:48,380 --> 00:27:51,820 [John] They're not letting people use it outside of kind of their ecosystem- 00:27:51,820 --> 00:27:51,880 [Eric] Mm-hmm 00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,260 [John] ... and in certain scenarios, where it's really expensive to use outside- 00:27:55,260 --> 00:27:55,330 [Eric] Right 00:27:55,330 --> 00:28:14,040 [John] ... of the ecosystem. So I think that's worth thinking about. And then the second factor is if there's not more than, like, a three to six months gap, there's [chuckles] so many billions of dollars deployed inside these frontier models, do they just go really hard after a ton of different app- 00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:14,340 [Eric] Mm-hmm 00:28:14,340 --> 00:28:15,100 [John] ... form factors- 00:28:15,100 --> 00:28:15,110 [Eric] Mm-hmm 00:28:15,110 --> 00:28:17,980 [John] ... realizing that, like, 00:28:17,980 --> 00:28:20,280 [John] y- yeah, realizing that that's the play- 00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:20,420 [Eric] Right 00:28:20,420 --> 00:28:23,900 [John] ... [chuckles] to, to spend the money on, and then that's just gonna be a problem for a lot of people- 00:28:23,900 --> 00:28:24,120 [Eric] Yeah 00:28:24,120 --> 00:28:25,460 [John] ... I think, if they decide to do that. 00:28:25,460 --> 00:28:27,720 [Eric] For sure. 00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:35,880 [Eric] All right. Well, we will see how this plays out, and I think after this conversation, one of my biggest questions is, 00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:38,660 [Eric] if you have a revenue growth curve 00:28:38,660 --> 00:28:39,580 [Eric] like they have- 00:28:39,580 --> 00:28:40,190 [John] Yeah, it's phenomenal 00:28:40,190 --> 00:28:41,540 [Eric] ... at 600 million- 00:28:41,540 --> 00:28:41,650 [John] Yeah 00:28:41,650 --> 00:28:45,500 [Eric] ... and cooking, you know, do you rock the boat? [laughing] 00:28:45,500 --> 00:28:47,639 [John] Yeah, right. Yeah. Exactly. 00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:57,379 [Eric] Uh, but we shall see. All right, well, thanks for joining us for another episode, and we will catch you on the next one.