Paper

Paper ships faster with crystal clear processes on Notion

Paper helps every student reach their potential with intensive one-on-one tutoring. With a clearly defined operating process, team hub, and shared working spaces on Notion, complex collaboration is effortless and enjoyable.

Insights from

Brian Blount

VP of Technology

Rock Sfeir

Chief Of Staff

Use cases
Documentation, Wiki, Project Management
1

New employees contribute from day one

When Paper was just a dozen engineers, they didn’t need a written software development lifecycle cycle (SDLC) process. Everyone picked things up naturally. But as the company grew and the development team expanded, it became harder to get new engineers up to speed.

They designed their SDLC, embedded the visual in Notion, and broke each complex stage into easily digestible pieces on sub-pages.

Documenting their process on Notion officially defined how Paper works. Now, there’s no variance between teams and individuals. It reduced friction in projects, increased delivery speed, and enhanced collaboration.

checklist illustration
Turn informal ways of working into repeatable processes with Notion.
If something isn’t written down, it’s folklore.
Brian Blount
Brian Blount
VP of Technology
2

A common language boosts engineering collaboration

Paper’s engineers work in independent squads that focus on different parts of the product — mobile, ecosystem, service operations, and so on. Having lots of smaller teams meant they developed their own processes, assets, and jargon. Before, when squads collaborated, it felt like they were speaking different languages.

Once Paper defined its organization-wide SDLC, they began creating repeatable templates in Notion for things like project plans, problem briefs, and technical design documentation. The new artifacts formed the backbone of Paper’s new, standardized process.

With universally agreed upon definitions and templates for each artifact, Paper’s SDLC acts like a common engineering language for the startup. It creates crystal clarity on deliverables and processes that allows them to move quickly. When someone asks for a standardized problem brief, everyone knows precisely what to expect.

Paper-2
Standardized templates ensure Paper’s engineers tackle problems the same way.
3

Robust processes that thrive during exponential growth

Since Paper supports nearly two million learners, they need a lot of tutors. As they grew, Paper's Tutor Management team faced a challenge: how do they support these tutors at scale?

They use Notion as a centralized platform for coordination and organization. Everything’s in there — standard operating procedures, job aids, onboarding guide, and so on.

By creating a repeatable process, template, or framework on Notion, they can roll it out infinitely, multiplying their impact without increasing their workload.

tools
Onboarding one employee is as easy as one hundred
With Notion, missed onboarding steps for tutors have decreased from eight per cohort to just two — and we expect that to fall to zero!
Rock Sfeir
Rock Sfeir
Chief Of Staff
4

Building a long-term memory for crucial company decisions

As Paper grew so too did their meeting count — executive meetings, standups, syncs, and more. Before, they used one running Google doc to manage meetings. Unfortunately, it quickly grew disorganized and unwieldy. After a few meetings, old entries got lost in the noise.

They built a Notion template based on Level 10 Meetings and began using it for all their core meetings. The template provides the meeting’s structure, then attendees add agenda items through the week and assign priorities to each talking point. During the meeting, the meeting organizer adds action items and notes.

Instead of meeting notes living in one messy document, they’re now in a searchable, filterable, and sortable database. It created a record of Paper’s meetings — a sort of long-term memory for the company. If someone wants to look at why they made a decision, it means a quick search, not hours of scrolling.

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A tried and tested template keeps meetings short, snappy, and action-oriented.

Make collaboration effortless on Notion

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