Full stack receipt#11 · How we work · reviewed 2026-10-22
#11Meeting Notes to Build Plans
Granola
How we work
1. What we use it for: We use Granola (with its hosted MCP server and hourly sync into OpenBrain) to capture client kickoff calls from macOS system audio and turn the verbatim transcript into our engineering build plan.
2. Client use case · A print and signage companyState: used
Problem
Hand-written meeting notes drop specific signage terminology, quote-form fields, and page priorities discussed during a client kickoff call.
What the tool did
Recorded the 2026-09-16 kickoff call in Granola, synced the transcript into OpenBrain, and generated the 49-page website 2.0 build plan directly from the kickoff transcript.
Result
Used across 48 indexed agent sessions and synced hourly via cron so coding agents can verify exact client requirements against what was said on the call.
3. What it costs us or the client
$18/month on Granola Individual (after the free trial tier; Business is $35/user/month) (as of 2026-10-22).
4. Setup notes (how it is wired in)
Captures macOS audio locally with no bot joining the Zoom or Google Meet roster; an hourly Hermes cron job and the hosted Granola MCP server ingest completed notes and transcripts into OpenBrain.
5. What broke & how it was handled
Multi-speaker calls in the same room can blur speaker labels, and informal kickoff remarks ("we want work we would show a future client") can look like portfolio permission if an agent reads a summary instead of the signed contract—so our rules treat meeting transcripts as evidence of conversation, never as legal authority.
6. What we compared it against & why we picked it
Compared against Fireflies.ai (which joins client calls as a visible bot participant) and ElevenLabs Scribe v2 (which we use in 35 sessions for transcribing pre-recorded audio or video files when no Granola transcript exists). We picked Granola for live calls because it runs natively on macOS with zero bot friction and exposes an MCP server.
7. Last reviewed: 2026-10-228. Video / tutorial: Covered in Episode 4: "How kickoff transcripts flow into OpenBrain and coding sessions"
Step 1 is a free 15-minute fit call. Step 2 is the AI Staff Assessment, $500, a written assessment you keep. Step 3 is your first hire at a published price, or you take the assessment and stop.
Step 1
Fit call
$0 · 15 min
tell me which job eats your week: the phone, the inbox, marketing or support
I tell you whether an AI hire fits, and whether I am the right person for it
a 60-minute video call about how your business runs
my written assessment the same day: whether an AI hire would pay for itself, the job I would hand off first, what to settle first, and the fixed price for that first hire
not taken off the build, and no separate quoting call: the assessment names the package at its published price
proposals written before anyone learned your business
Bring the workflow or codebase to a free 15-minute fit call. We will tell you how we wire Granola in production, what breaks first, and whether a $500 AI Staff Assessment fits your scope.
