Closing the manual-sync gap: an automated meeting-to-CRM pipeline for a deep-tech founder racing a six-month grant deadline

The situation

Cyntric.io is a deep-tech semiconductor startup commercialising a novel transistor technology out of the University of Glasgow, with initial applications in defence radar and a longer-term path into hyperscale data centre power conversion. Founder Richard Oxland — ex-Siemens, PhD in semiconductor electronics — closed £100k of pre-seed funding from Scottish Enterprise's High Growth Spin-Out Programme and is operating as a one-man team while a part-time university professor co-leads the technical work. Richard's six-month opportunity-qualification phase requires him to interview around 40 potential customers across multiple defence and electronics segments, capturing structured market validation evidence to unlock the next tranche of grant funding. Every interview generates two streams of value: validation data, and follow-up actions — companies to add to the CRM, contacts to enrich, tasks to schedule. With no team to delegate to and a hard grant deadline, the manual sync work between Granola, Attio and Google Tasks was the single biggest threat to keeping the pipeline clean and the funding case audit-ready.

The brief

In Richard's words: "I'd love an automated system. I need to add company and people to the Attio CRM, and action items to Google Tasks. I believe this is very appropriate for automation. I'm also not getting it done consistently today."

What we did

• Mapped Richard's existing stack — Granola, Zapier (Zaps + MCP), Google Workspace, Attio CRM, Claude — and identified the manual-sync seam between meeting capture and downstream systems.
• Designed a human-in-the-loop review buffer in Google Sheets so Richard keeps editorial control over what reaches his CRM and task list.
• Built a custom Apps Script extraction layer that calls the Claude API to parse Granola notes into three structured tables: Tasks, Contacts, Companies — with status columns (pending / approved / complete) for review.
• Iterated to match Richard's existing four-tier task taxonomy (Today / This Week / Anytime / Someday) so approved tasks land in the correct Google Tasks list with the right priority.
• Designed Zapier-based CRM sync that pushes only status-approved contacts and companies into Attio, preserving database hygiene.
• Tested the pipeline end-to-end on real Granola notes from Richard's market validation interviews, then handed over working code plus a replication guide.

Engagement length: ~6 weeks (build + iteration) · Deliverables: working Apps Script integration, Zapier flow design, replication guide, ongoing iteration support.

What we found

1. Manual meeting-to-CRM sync was breaking under volume. With ~40 validation interviews to deliver, Richard's existing process was an estimated 15–25 minutes per meeting when done in full — and was not getting done consistently, putting grant evidence at risk.
2. Off-the-shelf integrations did not match the workflow. Richard had explored direct Granola → Attio MCP routes and found them too coarse. The missing layer was selective, reviewable extraction with a human gate.
3. Tooling cost was not the constraint — founder time was. Richard's tooling budget was £50–100/month and the marginal cost of running the extraction is roughly half a pence per meeting. The bottleneck was attention, not spend.
4. Priority logic was personal and non-negotiable. Any automation that flattened Richard's four-tier taxonomy into a generic inbox would have been worse than the manual process — looking complete while quietly burying real work.

What we recommended

The outcome

• Granola → Google Sheets extraction live as of mid-April 2026: pasted notes are parsed by Claude into structured Tasks, Contacts and Companies tables in seconds, with per-row status controls.
• Priority-aware Google Tasks sync handed over with the four-tier taxonomy implemented as a sheet-side dropdown.
• Attio CRM sync designed and ready for deployment via Zapier on Richard's account.
• Marginal running cost of approximately £0.005 per meeting via the Claude API — well inside Richard's existing tooling budget.
• Founder admin reclaimed: an estimated 15–20 minutes per meeting; ~10–13 hours redirected from sync admin into customer interviews, supplier conversations and the financial modelling required to unlock the next grant tranche.

Status: 2 of 3 recommendations live · 1 in flight (Attio sync) · solution in active use as of late April 2026.