Granola, Otter, and Fireflies all do essentially the same thing. They listen to your meeting and give you notes afterward. So, I looked at how each one tries to win me over.
Granola’s homepage calls it “the AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings,” and then adds: “Without a meeting bot.” Granola records through your laptop, so nothing pops into the call and makes everyone wonder who is listening. The page is written for the individual who spends the whole day in meetings. On the Elements of Value pyramid, it hits “saves time” and “reduces effort,” but what it is really selling is “reduces anxiety.” The clean design and the phrase “for the doers” also add “design/aesthetics” and “badge value.”
Otter now calls itself a “Conversational Knowledge Engine.” In simpler terms, Otter is saying that your meetings become something you can search later. It is aimed at teams such as sales and recruiting, and it does not clearly explain why it is better than anyone else. Its main elements are “informs,” “organizes,” and “quality.”
Fireflies highlights its size, with “1 million+ companies,” 60+ integrations, 100+ AI apps, SOC 2, and HIPAA. It reads as if it were written for the IT person who has to approve the purchase. Its elements are “integrates,” “reduces risk,” and “variety.”
I would buy Granola. Much of PM work involves talking to people outside your team, and having a bot show up first feels a little rude. The other two have longer feature lists, but Granola is the only one that describes a problem I actually feel.
That is the lesson for me, too. Every one of these products saves time, so none of them wins on that alone. When I pitch myself, listing more skills will not help much. I need to name the one thing I make easier for the person I am talking to.
