I’ve probably spent over 10,000 hours in meetings. If you’re a founder, you probably have too. That’s the equivalent of a full-time job for five years, with no vacations. Now, let me ask you a question: how much of that time was actually productive? And how much of it was spent with your head down, frantically typing, trying to be a human stenographer?
For the first decade of my career, that was me. I was the glorified secretary in every meeting I attended. Whether it was a pitch from a promising startup, a tense board meeting, or a casual one-on-one, my focus wasn't entirely on the conversation. It was split. Half of my brain was trying to engage, to understand, to strategize, while the other half was just trying to keep up, to capture every word. My notes were a chaotic mess of half-finished sentences, embarrassing typos, and ideas that seemed like pure genius in the moment but were utterly incomprehensible a week later. I wasted countless hours trying to decipher my own scribbles, and I know for a fact that I missed out on big opportunities because of it.
My name is Sahin Boydas. I’ve been in the trenches of Silicon Valley for a long time. I’ve built and sold two companies—RemoteTeam to Gusto and MovieLaLa to Gfycat. I’ve been fortunate enough to write over 200 angel checks into startups that I believe in, including some that have become household names like Anthropic, OpenAI, Scale AI, and Hugging Face. I even wrote a book about my experiences, called "Becoming Top 1%". I’m not telling you this to impress you, but to establish a single fact: I have been in an absurd number of meetings. And I’ve seen, up close and personal, how a broken process for capturing information can kill a great idea, a great team, or a great company.
The Tipping Point: The Multi-Million Dollar Typo
I remember one meeting with painful clarity. It was with a founder who was working on something truly revolutionary in the data infrastructure space. The idea was dense, the market was just beginning to form, and the team was composed of some of the brightest minds I’d ever met. I was completely hooked. For an hour, I took pages of notes, convinced I had captured the essence of their brilliance. A week later, feeling confident, I sat down to review my notes and draft a term sheet. What I found was a disaster.
My notes were a jumble of technical jargon I barely understood, half-baked questions, and a cryptic reminder to “follow up on that scaling thing he said.” That “scaling thing” wasn’t just a minor detail; it was the entire proprietary breakthrough that made the company defensible. It was their secret sauce. And my note for it was essentially a meaningless placeholder. I had been so focused on typing that I had failed to truly listen and comprehend the most critical part of the pitch.
By the time I got back to the founder with my tail between my legs to ask for a remedial explanation, it was too late. They had, just hours before, signed a term sheet with another investor who had clearly been paying better attention. I had missed out on what would have become a multi-million dollar opportunity, not because I didn't like the company, but because my own system for capturing information was fundamentally broken. That was the moment I knew something had to change. I was done being a stenographer.
My Simple AI-Powered Workflow: No Fancy Software Needed
I’m a big believer in keeping things simple. The world of productivity tools is a graveyard of good intentions. We sign up for fancy, expensive software with a million features, use it for a week, and then abandon it because the cognitive overhead is just too high. I didn’t want another subscription. I wanted a workflow.
My solution is almost embarrassingly simple, and it relies on two things you almost certainly already have: a smartphone and access to a large language model like GPT-4 or Claude. That’s it.
Here’s my entire, three-step workflow:
Record the meeting. I use the built-in voice memo app on my iPhone. At the start of the meeting, I just ask, “Do you mind if I record this for my personal notes? I find I can be much more present in the conversation if I’m not trying to type everything down.” I’ve never had a single person say no. In fact, most people appreciate it. It shows that I’m committed to understanding them. I hit record, put my phone on the table, and give the conversation my undivided attention.
Transcribe the audio. After the meeting, I use an AI-powered transcription service to turn the audio file into a text document. There are a ton of great options out there. Otter.ai is popular. Rev is great for human-powered transcription if you need near-perfect accuracy. But I personally use OpenAI’s Whisper API. It’s incredibly accurate, it’s ridiculously cheap (a one-hour meeting costs me pennies), and it’s fast. I can have a full transcript ready in minutes.
Summarize and extract action items. This is the core of the entire system. This is where the magic happens. I take the raw, unedited transcript—typos, “ums” and “ahs” and all—and I paste it into a large language model with a very specific prompt. The prompt is the key. A good prompt is the difference between a useless, generic summary and a powerful, actionable document.
Here’s the base prompt I use. Feel free to steal it and adapt it for your own needs:
You are a world-class executive assistant. Your name is “Alfred”. You are working for Sahin Boydas, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. Your job is to read the following meeting transcript and provide a concise, clear, and actionable summary. You need to provide the following:
- A one-paragraph summary of the meeting. This should be a high-level overview of what was discussed and what was decided. Capture the essence of the conversation.
- A bulleted list of key decisions. This should be a clear and concise list of all the important decisions that were made during the meeting. No fluff.
- A list of all action items. This should be a list of all the tasks that were assigned during the meeting, with the assigned person’s name in bold. Be specific about the deliverables and deadlines.
For different types of meetings, I use slightly different prompts. For a brainstorming session, I might add a section for “Key Ideas.” For a sales call, I might add a section for “Customer Pain Points.” The point is to create a structured output that is tailored to your specific needs.
The Impact: More Than Just Time
I’m a numbers guy, so let’s talk about the real-world impact of this system. I used to spend at least five hours a week just processing meeting notes. That’s 260 hours a year. That’s more than six full work weeks dedicated to a low-value, administrative task. Now, I spend about 30 minutes a week on the entire process. That’s a 90% reduction in time spent.
But the real impact isn’t just the time saved. It’s what I do with that reclaimed time. It’s the difference between being reactive and being proactive. That extra time allows me to personally review an additional 50 pitch decks a month. It allows me to have more thoughtful, strategic conversations with my portfolio company founders. It allows me to think, to read, to learn. I’m no longer just a scribe; I’m a strategist.
I can point to at least one investment I made in the last year that I would have missed if I was still using my old, broken system. It was a fast-moving, competitive deal in the AI infrastructure space. The founder was brilliant, but the technology was complex. Because I had a clear, concise summary of our first meeting, complete with a list of my own follow-up questions generated by the AI, I was able to move faster and with more conviction than anyone else. I got the deal done, and it’s already one of the best-performing companies in my entire portfolio.
The Hidden Costs of Bad Note-Taking
We’ve talked about the time you lose, but the costs of inefficient note-taking run much deeper. There’s the financial cost of missed opportunities, like the one I shared. There’s the damage to your reputation when you show up to a follow-up meeting unprepared. There’s the impact on team morale when action items are consistently dropped and nobody feels accountable.
This isn’t just a personal productivity hack. It’s a cultural shift. When you, as a leader, demonstrate a commitment to clarity, to action, and to accountability, it cascades through your entire organization. When your team sees that meetings lead to clear decisions and concrete next steps, they become more engaged, more motivated, and more effective.
Stop Being a Scribe, Start Being a Strategist
I’m challenging you to try this system for one week. Just one week. Record your meetings (with permission!), transcribe them, and use my prompt to summarize them. See what it feels like to walk out of a meeting and have a perfect, actionable summary waiting for you in your inbox minutes later.
Stop being a scribe. Stop being the bottleneck. Start being a strategist. Your business, your team, and your own sanity will thank you for it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most common mistakes when stoppeding wasting years on meeting notes with a simple ai trick?
The biggest mistake I see is overcomplicating things early on. Start with the simplest version that works, get real feedback, and iterate from there. Another common trap is copying what worked for someone else without understanding the context behind their decisions.
How long does it take to stopped wasting years on meeting notes with a simple ai trick?
The timeline varies depending on your starting point and resources. For most founders, expect 2-4 weeks for initial setup and 2-3 months to see meaningful results. I've seen teams move faster when they focus on one thing at a time rather than trying to do everything at once.
What tools do I need to get started?
Start with the basics. You don't need expensive software or fancy tools. A spreadsheet, a note-taking app, and direct access to your customers will get you further than any enterprise platform. Add tools only when you hit a specific bottleneck.