Why Granola's Lack of Onboarding Backfires When You Test It

There’s an overwhelming number of AI-powered note-taking apps.

Practically every piece of productivity software now has one built in.

So, how do people choose between them?

This means that your first recording probably isn't a real meeting, it's a test.

"Testing, hello hello, testing, blah blah blah".

Granola doesn't just waste this moment—its lack of onboarding makes it backfire. 

Here are two ways they could fix that.

As a general rule of thumb, it’s more effective to cater to people’s instinctive behaviour, rather than to try and outright change it.

For example:

A boring residential street (that’s updated once every few years) hardly demonstrates the full capability of Google Earth.

So, they could either try and change this, by steering you into looking for a specific landmark, or they could lean into it and make it even easier to find your old bedroom.

In practice, what does this look like?

Take the video conferencing tool Whereby, as an example.

They know that after creating a meeting, new users will want to test the experience, so they make it easy for you to do that.

Just scan the QR code to join the meeting from your mobile. You get to see the experience from both sides, before inviting someone else.

With Granola, we saw how new users likely want to record a test, before trusting it with a full conversation—it’s the same principle.

On their desktop app, Granola shows you a live transcript.

So leaving it out of the iOS app is a choice (or trade-off). Why would they do that?

One possible argument is that displaying it on a smaller device, particularly one that’s placed in the middle of a conference table, is too distracting.

If you knew that everything you said was appearing on screen in words, like magic, it’d be tempting to watch it. This would kill the flow of the conversation.

That's a fair trade-off for everyday use, but a new user is in a different position. They're seeking reassurance.

This is why a one-time test experience can help bridge this gap.

These pull tabs hold the toy in a "try me" mode, allowing children to hear how it sounds, or get a rough idea of what it does, without cycling through all of the functionality.

Inside product teams, someone has to rally the decision-makers to commit resources to a feature that will only be seen once. That’s a hard sell.

But the first session in an app is disproportionately influential in how it feels, especially in an industry with so much competition.

And there’s a second-order benefit too, which might tip the balance.

This is a product that people naturally use in groups. It should grow organically via word of mouth.

If you record a meeting with four others, and then follow up with incredibly detailed notes, they might give it a go too.

Toy makers will create a mode that only has a benefit on the shop shelves, because that's where the decision gets made.

App designers should too—except because these apps are free to download, their store would be the first session.