How Granola got its users

Start with the circle whose job is talking to the people you want next. Granola's homepage still runs quotes from Olivia Moore at a16z and Deedy Das at Menlo alongside the founders of Linear and Vercel: investors first, because their day is meetings with founders, then the founders themselves. Onboard by hand, one call each, before a public page exists. Ask each one which meeting they would never risk your product in, and fix that before adding anyone new.

done whenAsk your last ten signups to name someone in the same circle they speak to every week. If most cannot, you picked a wedge that forwards nothing.

Kill whatever makes recommending you awkward. Granola's features page leads with 'Uses your computer audio, so doesn't invite a bot'. Rivals drop a visible notetaker into the participant list, so running one during a pitch or a client call costs the user socially. Find your equivalent: the moment your product shows up in front of your user's investor, boss or customer. Make it invisible, or make it flattering. Nothing spreads in a tight circle if it embarrasses the carrier.

done whenWatch one user run your product in front of a third party. Count the seconds they spend explaining it, apologising for it, or hiding the screen. Each one is a reason they never recommend you.

With no bot announcing itself, the note does the introducing. Granola is 'private by default, easy to share if you choose', and what travels is the cleaned up note sent to the other side of the call minutes after it ends. Build one artifact your user hands to a non user the same day, and spend your effort on how it reads to that person, not to the owner. They reach your product already convinced, with no ad in between.

done whenMeasure what share of new users send something out of your product to a non user within a week. If the artifact never leaves the account, you have a tool and not a channel.

Let respected practitioners put their name inside the product. Granola ships Recipes, saved prompts you call by typing '/' in Granola Chat, with launch ones written by Lenny Rachitsky, Matt Mochary and Ridd, plus note templates you trigger the same way mid call. You have no audience, so borrow theirs. Ask one person your circle already reads to write a preset in their own method, name it after them, ship it. They share it because it is their work, not your ad.

done whenName three practitioners your target circle quotes from memory, and the method each is known for. If you cannot, you do not know the circle well enough for anyone to want your preset.

Shape the free plan around how the circle spreads. Granola's Basic plan already carries shared folders and custom note templates, so the second and third person on a team never hit a wall, and granola.ai/startups hands a free year of Business to pre-seed and seed teams under thirty people. Copy the structure: free where the product moves sideways to a colleague, paid where one person gets more power. Then give a claim link to every accelerator and angel near your circle.

done whenInvite yourself into your own product from a second account, the way a teammate would. If you hit a paywall before you see anything useful, your pricing taxes the exact path your growth runs on.