Raphael Schaad

Raphael Schaad is a software designer and engineer who is currently the Head of Cron at Notion. Here are some key details about his background and career:

Education and Early Career

Raphael holds a Master's degree in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he achieved a perfect 5.0 GPA. He also has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Bern University of Applied Sciences, where he graduated as valedictorian.

Professional Experience

• Founder and CEO of Cron (January 2020 - June 2022): Raphael founded Cron, a next-generation calendar software aimed at building the "time layer of the Internet".1

• Head of Cron at Notion (June 2022 - Present): After Cron was acquired by Notion, Raphael joined the company to continue leading the Cron team and integrate the calendar functionality into Notion's ecosystem.2

• Previous Roles: Before founding Cron, Raphael worked as a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, a software designer and engineer at Flipboard Inc., and held positions at Information Architects Tokyo and PostFinance.

Entrepreneurial Journey

Raphael's startup, Cron, was part of Y Combinator's Winter 2020 batch.2 The company raised $3.5 million in seed funding in April 2020 and was later acquired by Notion in June 2022 for an 8-figure sum.4

Product Philosophy

Raphael aims to create software that "works and feels like a fine Swiss watch". With Cron, he focused on building a calendar application that caters to professionals and teams, addressing pain points in existing calendar software.3

Current Focus

As Head of Cron at Notion, Raphael is working on integrating Cron's technology into Notion's platform. In January 2024, Notion launched an integrated calendar app built on top of Cron's technology.45

Raphael Schaad's journey from founding Cron to its acquisition by Notion demonstrates his expertise in product development, user interface design, and his vision for improving productivity tools.