In May, hundreds of people queued outside an auditorium in the San Isidro district of Lima, Perú. They had to wait another two hours before the event began, with the line nearly wrapping around the block and storm clouds looming in the late evening sky. As they killed time, the crowd buzzed in anticipation: “Notion! Notion! Notion!” they chanted.

The young Perúvians had gathered to celebrate their favorite workplace productivity app, Notion, filling the next three hours with discussions about new templates and design hacks. One presenter, Jhon Miranda, explained how he ran his recycling technology startup, Circulapp, on the platform. Notion, he said in Spanish, provided “organization, productivity and, above all, control—control of your things, control of your time and control of your mind.”