Notion Startups

Noah is an indie hacker who previously founded CoffeePass, a Starbucks-like app for local coffee shops that was acquired after two years. He is now focusing on Potion.so, a website builder that lets users create custom styled websites directly from their Notion content.

MangoMint is a vertical SaaS platform for salons and spas with a $4K ACV and five-day sales cycle. Under VP of Sales Marchelle Mooney's leadership, the remote revenue organization built an AI-powered three-layer system (Clarity, Cadence, and Co-Pilot layers) that achieved a 7.2x ARR-to-OTE ratio, increased win rates by 7% in two quarters, and recovered 16 hours per month per rep through tool stack automation and integration across Notion, Slack, Salesforce, Snowflake, Sigma, and Momentum.

Uptrend was a B2B lead generation agency founded by Maverick Lim that sourced deals for M&A firms in the US. The business generated $15k+ in revenue with 3 clients at $2k retainer, but ultimately failed after 10 months due to poor timing (pre-COVID economic boom), weak branding, and inability to build the necessary databases of business owners. The failure taught Maverick critical lessons about domain naming, niche selection, and the importance of proof-of-concept validation.

Swoop is a group transportation marketplace founded by Amir Ghorbani that connects users with party buses, limos, and charter buses. Starting from Amir's family limousine business and evolving from an on-demand Uber-for-groups model to a marketplace platform, Swoop grew through grassroots marketing, influencer partnerships, and strategic partnerships with wedding venues—which became their largest revenue stream. The company has since secured pre-seed funding and is expanding into fleet management software for transportation operators.

Toby Allen built two side projects—I Voted Remain (a Brexit-themed dropshipping t-shirt business) and RealityHunt (a Product Hunt clone for AR/VR)—to learn and test ideas. I Voted Remain generated only £70 profit from 10 t-shirt sales before shutting down due to high advertising costs and political sensitivities. RealityHunt cost €1,000-€2,000 but failed to gain traction due to poor execution and insufficient market maturity, though Toby believes the problem still exists today.

NoGood is a growth and performance marketing agency founded by Mostafa ElBermawy in 2017 that has doubled in size every year by focusing on word-of-mouth referrals and content marketing. The agency works primarily with early-stage SaaS and DTC brands, delivering exceptional results that drive client retention and organic growth through SEO and the NoGood blog (630% YoY organic traffic growth). Rather than traditional sales tactics, NoGood works directly with clients through experienced growth marketers to define success metrics and deliver measurable outcomes.

Kimp is a subscription-based design company offering graphic design and video design services for a flat monthly fee. Founded by serial entrepreneur Senthu Velnayagam and his brother Ven, it was built by bootstrapping revenue from their previous design businesses (BannersMall and Doto) after those faced declining market conditions. Within a month of their soft launch in February 2019, they scaled to global traction through social media and Google Ads, eventually building a remote team across multiple continents.

James Traff made $280,000 in approximately 5-6 weeks from a custom iOS icon set that took only 2 hours to create and package. The breakthrough came when his Twitter screenshot of a customized iPhone home screen went viral, followed by MKBHD featuring the icons in a YouTube video that reached 6 million views. His success was built on 7 years of design experience, a habit of sharing work on social media, and the ability to quickly capitalize on trending opportunities using no-code tools.

Tali is a free-to-use form builder co-founded by Marie Margeons and Philip that reached 10,000 users within a year of launch despite entering a crowded market. The product grew through a combination of cold outreach, a Product Hunt launch in March 2021, and product-driven growth via an embedded badge that advertises Tali when forms are shared. Marie bootstrapped the company alongside raising a newborn, leveraging her marketing background and the growing no-code wave to carve out a niche.

Internet Pipes is a content platform and community created by Seth Smith that teaches people how to find and discover interesting data, trends, and resources online. Starting as a Notion-based book with videos and text, it has evolved into a community platform with databases like the Digits database (100+ generation-defining statistics). The product has grown to eight-figure revenue by providing tools, resources, and insights on leveraging existing platforms to uncover trends.

Do Anything is an AI-powered autonomous agent platform that executes tasks without explicit prompts. The founder Garrett created it as a side project while building Pipe Dream, demonstrating the capability to analyze YouTube channels, create content plans, generate presentations, and handle complex workflows automatically through natural language requests.

Starter Story is a content platform that interviews and profiles founders running businesses generating $10K-$100K+ monthly revenue. Founded by Pat as a side project in 2016, it grew to include a blog with case studies, YouTube channel, community, and products by requiring founders to publicly share their revenue numbers. HubSpot acquired the company, with the deal expected to close around the time of this interview.

Lenny's Podcast is a top 10 technology podcast that launched six months before this episode with 50 episodes published, 2+ million downloads, and 40,000-50,000 subscribers across Apple Podcasts and Spotify globally. The podcast interviews world-class product leaders and growth experts on building and growing successful products, using Notion to coordinate operations and guest management.

Mixpanel, founded in 2009, started as a product analytics solution for mobile and web teams. After explosive early growth fueled by a proprietary event database (Arbor), the company expanded into adjacent categories like messaging and data infrastructure. By 2018, facing 40% revenue churn and under-investment in core analytics features, leadership made a strategic pivot to focus exclusively on the core analytics product. Through rapid feature development (100+ features shipped in one year) combined with design-led architectural improvements, Mixpanel increased retention from 60% to 90% and NPS from 16 to 50 by 2021-2022.

Softr.io is a no-code platform that allows users to build powerful applications on top of Airtable in minutes without design skills or learning curve. Founded by Mariam Hakobayan and a co-founder in August 2020, the company achieved product-hunt launch success and has grown to over 10,000 active users and several hundred paying customers within 6-7 months, reaching approximately $23,000 MRR. The company raised a $2.2M seed round in January 2021 and continues to grow primarily through organic channels like Twitter and word-of-mouth.

Waldo Labs is a recruiting automation platform founded by Taylor Bergen in July 2021 that charges a flat $7,000/month fee to handle a startup's top three hiring roles. The bootstrapped team of four has grown from $35,000 MRR one year ago to $84,000 MRR today with 12 active clients, achieving a 40% hire rate on first candidate submissions and maintaining ~52% diversity hires. The company is highly profitable with ~$40,000 monthly net revenue reinvested into development, and has grown primarily through referrals and word-of-mouth.

Remote is a SaaS platform founded in 2019 by Dutch founder Jo Bendervoort and Portuguese founder Marcelo Leb that enables companies to hire and manage employees anywhere in the world by handling global payroll, benefits, compliance, taxes, stock options, and visas. The company operates as a fully distributed organization across 1,000+ employees in 70 countries and uses its own product as their first customer. Remote emphasizes a strong culture built on five core values—excellence, kindness, ownership, transparency, and ambition—operationalized through async work practices, public documentation in Notion, and intentional community building.

Notion Mastery is an intense workshop and educational business run by Marie Poulin and Benjamin Borowski that teaches people how to use Notion professionally and productively. The founders focus on building a sustainable educational business with emphasis on social media distribution and platform risk management. The conversation covers their approach to keeping courses relevant, working together as a couple, and building partnerships.

Ship 30 for 30 is a writing community and course co-founded by Dickie Bush and Nicholas Cole that transforms writing from a solitary activity into a communal one. The platform leverages Twitter and social media for idea refinement and community building, emphasizing small iterations and immediate feedback. The movement has grown into a structured course with a strong community component, attracting writers seeking to overcome imposter syndrome and build credibility through digital publishing.

Khe Hy is the founder of Rad Reads and the Examined Life podcast, a content-driven venture exploring themes of success, happiness, and personal fulfillment. The project operates as a podcast and newsletter focused on introspective conversations about lifestyle design, mental health, and authenticity. Khe's content strategy leverages multiple platforms including Twitter, a podcast feed, blog, and newsletter to build an audience around personal development and self-examination.