otion started as an all-in-one tool for personal use but quickly became popular in many various areas due to its flexibility and user experience.
There’re are so many benefits and use-cases that I’ve decided to [build an agency](https://www.maray.ai/digital-systems-for-businesses) to help entrepreneurs, startups, businesses, non-profits, agencies, and other types of organizations to transform the way they work through a digital operating system and automation.
In this blog post, you can learn about the benefits of running a business with an operating system in Notion and learn about the services my agency provides. It’s going to be a series of blog posts where I share my journey in building the agency as an open startup.
## Why would anyone want to run their business with an OS in Notion?
Notion is a collection of blocks that you can arrange in ways you want and create links between them. It’s a simple way of building different kinds of systems for different purposes.
That’s why there are hundreds of use cases. And one of the use cases is to organize work and operations in Notion.
The best way to illustrate why I chose to build an agency is to show you the benefits that an organization can get from my services.
### Benefit 1. Let the business run by itself
A business itself is a system that, if set up correctly, should run by itself with low maintenance and support.
Nowadays, modern technologies make it possible to run businesses by only one person. Every area of a business that required a person can now be replaced by a service and automation.
If your business is a type of a business where automation has not *yet* matured, or technologies haven’t *yet* progressed enough to replace humans*,* an operating system will still save you time and make your business more sustainable.
How?
It will benefit the business by way of aligning everyone with the company’s vision, growth, marketing, product development and so on. It’s going to provide a clear overview of the business, increase everyone’s performance and save time, make everyone be on the same page, grow your expertise and provide additional revenue stream.
These are the benefits that I explore next.
### Benefit 2. An OS gives you a bird’s eye perspective
What I like the most about Notion is that you can organize nearly everything in one place. And this advantage allows you to have a clear overview of your business from different perspectives:
- vision
- growth
- strategy
- product development
- library
Even when Notion is inferior to more specific and professional tools, it’s still possible to integrate those tools with Notion to maintain that bird’s eye view on the business.
The system is the backbone that brings everything together. It provides a clear overview of different elements of the business. It allows to zoom out and see potential problems and opportunities.
### Benefit 3. Increase performance by streamlining processes
As a business owner or a CEO, you might have no idea what’s going on in the day-to-day operations.
With a system, you can have a clear understanding of how things *really* work so that you can simplify processes, automate stuff, and discover what doesn’t work.
I am not talking about monthly or yearly questionnaires that nobody wants to answer because everybody knows that it won’t change anything anyway.
I am talking about giving everyone direct tools and accountability to optimize operations, increase performance and engage in the company’s life.
When you give your team a clear way to adjust the processes and give feedback, you’ll discover things that you won’t otherwise.
The examination and refinement of the processes will naturally improve the performance and free your time for more important stuff, such as the company’s vision and strategy.
### Benefit 4. Let everyone in the team be on the same page
When every team member has access to the system, they can learn more about the company and its vision.
When they are aligned with the vision, they feel they belong to the company. Their time becomes more than transactional.
As a natural consequence, everyone’s on the same page, everyone’s more motivated, and everyone’s making the business grow and prosper.
### Benefit 5. Improve teamwork
Parts of the system like task management, product development, the company’s wiki, guidelines, and design system improve understanding and teamwork.
In remote work, it’s especially challenging to maintain productive teamwork because of lack of real time communication.
Comapny’s wiki, guidelines and shared task management can provide useful information to maintain the performance on the high level.
### Benefit 6. Grow your expertise
Building a central knowledge base can be beneficial in several ways.
First, the expertise is captured in a structured way. It’s not only in the minds of the team but in a digital library that everyone can access.
Second, when people leave, they don’t take away the precious knowledge from the business. you build up the expertise instead of losing it.
Third, the new team members can use the digital library to align themselves with the company’s vision, principles, guidelines, and so on.
Fourth, when the wiki is accessible everyone is encouraged to improve and add more information to it.
Additionally, you can productize the knowledge and create an additional income stream.
### Benefit 7. Build a parallel income stream
The expertise can become a product that can drive more revenue.
It can be a book that makes your business as the industry leader or a blog post that can bring more customers and drive website traffic.
Over the years your company must have created collateral value that can be easily sold as a product to students, beginners, experts, and so on.
Not only it’s an additional revenue stream, but it’s also natural marketing.
### Benefit 8. Track the history
Last but not least, an OS provides a history of your product/service development, vision, operations, structure, clients, team, tasks, wiki, and so on.
Instead of lost files, you have a system to find whatever you want whenever you need it.
## What software do you use to create operating systems?
I use Notion to create the base of the system.
I use Figma for vector files and design system.
I use Zapier and Make! for automations.
I use Webflow for website design/development and Airtable for complex data driven applications.
## Where can I learn more about organizing a business in a digital OS?
In the next blog post, I will share the way I organize my agency, run operations, automate stuff, and so on. Once it’s published, I’ll add the link here.
Meanwhile, check out this [blog post](https://www.kopa.co/blog/posts/how-we-use-notion-as-a-startup) from Kopa and this [page](https://www.notion.so/startups) from Notion to learn more about the topic.
## What services does my digital agency provide?
The main service/product is a bespoke operating system to bring the abovementioned benefits to the customer. Additonally, I will provide Notion consulting services to help with custom workspaces.
Here’s an outline of the process.
Stage 1. Project request. Our collaboration starts with a simple form where you define key points of your project. This helps me to understand your goals and whether we are a good fit. If yes, we will arrange a video call to discuss the project and learn more.
Stage 2. First meeting. During our first meeting, we’ll get to know each other and learn more about the project. During the discussion, we’ll set the goals of the project so that we both understand the desired result.
Stage 3. Proposal. Based on the discussions and the information you provided, I’ll create a proposal where I outline the goals, the deliverables, the cost, and the timeframe.
Stage 4. Implementation. At this stage, I’ll examine the structure of the organization and its operations to the structure of the system. During this phase, we’ll test the system with key users to get feedback and finesse details.
Stage 5. Launch & handover. We’ll meet the team to perform an onboarding session, provide a video tutorial about the system, and answer all the questions.
As an additional product, I will release two operating system templates for startups and entrepreneurs.
## Why Notion consulting as a business?
There are several reasons why I chose to start such business.
First, the most important reason, I enjoy creating digital systems and architectures that organize complex processes into a holistic system.
Second, I find the product and the service valuable. Therefore, I don’t have to sell my service. My strategy is to explain the benefits to prospective customers and work only with those that see the value. I don’t want to convince anyone or “sell”. Therefore, I want to build a business that has little to no marketing and or sales.
Finally, I want to build an income stream to attain financial freedom.
## What’s next?
Notion and digital systems have a great potential to transform the way organizations work.
It certainly has changed the way I organize my work and now my business. The current technologies make it possible to run a business as a solopreneur or optimize a larger business to create room for more creative and impactful work.
In the next blog post, I’ll write about the system I am building to run the agency and share how I built the landing page for my customers.
Until next time!
