Date: 2026-08-18 Time: 4:12 PM EDT Attendees: Michael Houck, Blake Stewart (Geo/Blake Emal context implied)
Summary
Post-mortem on the Caroline Dell (Goodword) call. Strategic pivot: lead future Goodword pitch with video options, include Reddit Q&A as secondary. Also covered Granola tooling gaps, contractor hours concerns (Charlene), and Jacob update.
Decisions
- Goodword pitch strategy: Lead with multiple video options (UGC, creator partnerships, founder brand build), position Reddit Q&A thread as secondary. No attachment to any single service - full-menu approach.
- Granola: Add Blake Stewart to the paid Granola plan so he can access full transcripts directly without copy-paste workarounds.
- Studio roadmap (same night): Add “view transcripts” feature to Studio; update Hermes to read recent client call transcripts before generating next-call prompt questions.
- Charlene hours: Flag as suspect (60 hours logged with one client over half a period; Ben says she was only doing a couple of engagements for a couple of days). Keep Blake S in the loop on outcome.
- Long-term vision confirmed: Bundle all services (LinkedIn, newsletter, SEO, Reddit, UGC video) for portfolio companies with a big discount - “we take care of visibility on the internet for you.”
Action Items
- Michael: Follow up with Caroline on the Goodword pitch tonight (video-first, Reddit secondary).
- Michael: Add Blake S to Granola paid plan.
- Michael: Add transcript view to Studio + update Hermes to read recent transcripts before generating call questions (target: tonight).
- Michael: Follow up on Charlene’s hours; decide whether to move on from her. Keep Blake S in loop if the outcome is parting ways.
- Michael: No action on Jacob yet - he hasn’t responded; give him time to figure out his situation.
Notable Excerpts
“She’s sort of like larping at being a go-to-market founder. She doesn’t really know what to do… that’s why she brought in Emily that go-to-market consultant, that’s why she’s always asking us to actually tell her what to do.”
“Our pitch for Reddit is really strong. The problem is that because of how strong the underlying offer actually is, it sort of prices out a lot of these early-stage experimental founders. It’s more for folks who know that they want to have a strong SEO and GEO strategy.”
“Eventually that’s where we want to go when we have a fund - hey we can just take care of visibility on the internet for you and we have all these different services and you get a big discount as a portfolio company.”
“With Rina and Venus I feel like they’ve worked on the team for a long time… but Charlene - new to the team, we don’t know her, 60 hours when you have one client and you only are doing it for like half the period is insane.”