Last Wednesday I had 4 meetings back-to-back. By the 5th, my brain was fried.

Hung up a client video call at 3:45 PM, next one starts sharp at 4. I wanted to quickly check whether the client picked next Tuesday or the Tuesday after — searched chat history for 3 minutes, couldn't find it.

That wasn't the first time. I'd tried recording + taking manual notes before, but the post-meeting notes ended up a mess I couldn't even read myself — I messed this up twice.

The tool: Granola. It listens during meetings, then gives me a shareable summary right after.

Granola is an AI meeting notes tool, now valued at $1.5B. Co-founder Sam Stephenson said on a podcast their core principle is "be calming." He described the target user as someone with only 5 minutes between meetings — no time to整理 notes. That scene hit home for me.

How it works: open Granola during a meeting, it transcribes in real time (text, not audio). 30 seconds after the call ends, you get a structured summary — "Client decided X, because Y, next step Z, who's responsible." Sam says their most-used feature is "What did I miss" — click it, AI tells you the key points from your last meeting.

Already a bunch of indie consultants, freelance designers, and 1-5 person teams use it. A friend doing brand consulting, Xiaomin, told me last week she now dares to stack 6 client meetings on Mondays — because she doesn't have to spend an hour整理ing notes after.

Cost to replicate today: money, time, barrier, first step

Money: Free tier to start (25 meetings/month), paid plan $14/mo, ~$12/mo if annual. Roughly $11-14/month depending on exchange.

Time: 3 min signup, 5 min to connect Zoom / Google Meet / Teams, 15 min during your first meeting to learn the output format.

Tech barrier: Can install an app and join a video call. No code needed.

First step: Sign up at granola.so, link your Google Calendar. It auto-detects which meetings are online.

Advice by stage: If you... I'd...

If you're just starting out with no clients or fewer than 5: I'd say skip it for now. Don't worry about it — most of your time should go to finding clients, not processing meetings.

If you have 1-2 stable clients and 3+ meetings a week: I'd strongly suggest trying the free tier for a month. It solves a hidden trap — you forget what the client said, then the client thinks you don't care.

If you're scaling up with a 1-5 person team: I'd just buy the paid plan. Have everyone run it during meetings, then send summaries to people who missed them — saves 5-8 hours of meeting sync time per week.