In a category plagued by bumbling meeting bots, Granola has achieved something special: they’ve built an AI note-taker that people genuinely love to use – and won’t stop talking about.
The founder, Chris Pedregal, attributes the company’s success to creating an app with “soul.”
Let’s break down what this means and how product teams and PMMs can learn from their approach.
The Bigger Story
Since launching in May, Granola has rapidly grown its user base, secured $20M in Series A funding, and achieved something rare in consumer AI: actual stickiness.
Their secret?
For starters, Granola has taken a far more restrained approach to product development than its competitors.
Following user feedback, buyer interviews, and a dash of intuition, Pedregal says he slashed half of Granola’s planned offerings to perfect a single core interaction: you scribble down meeting notes, AI transforms them into something “awesome.”
So far, this disciplined approach appears to be paying off (source):
- Active users average 6+ meetings per week
- 50% of trial users continue engaging with the platform after 10 weeks
- 57% of users hold decision-making roles at companies like Vercel, Ramp, and Roblox
But a meticulously honed product isn’t the sole driver of Granola’s buzz.
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