Helena Merk Lunch & Learn — Custom CRM Stack & Agentic Workflows (May 2026)

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Notes from Helena Merk's portfolio Lunch & Learn (May 6, 2026). Helena is a second-time founder running a social media intelligence platform built largely solo with AI agents, and a generous community resource on agentic workflows. She walked us through the full architecture she uses to run her business — from how new emails and meetings auto-hydrate her CRM to how she uses cached agent outputs to keep token costs near-zero.

Want to talk to her directly? She's been generous with follow-ups: hi@helenamerk.com.

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TL;DR — The stack

Layer	Tool	Notes
LLM / coding agent	Claude Code Max ($200/mo)	The build engine. Helena uses a `cc` shortcut to launch it instantly. Always starts new projects with the Claude Code Starter pack.
Hosting + scheduling	Vercel (hobby plan, free)	Serverless functions, scheduled cron jobs, and webhooks. Means her computer doesn't have to be open for any of it to run.
Database	Supabase (free tier)	Holds every table — contacts, calendar events, email threads, Granola transcripts, action items, feedback themes, etc. She literally never opens Supabase anymore — Claude Code creates, manages, and queries it.
Meeting capture	Granola ($14/user/mo Business plan)	MCP unlocks unlimited transcript history, queryable from Claude. Webhook pings her system when a meeting completes → auto-runs analysis workflow.
Voice input	Whisper Flow	She called it transformative — "small tweak, outsized unlock." Talk to your computer instead of typing prompts.

The Claude Code Starter Pack she recommended

zbruhnke/claude-code-starter — production-ready Claude Code template with stack presets, security hooks, and automation tools.

Her setup flow when starting any new project:

Type cc (alias she set up) → Claude Code session opens instantly
Tell it "use Claude Code Starter"
Walk through setup wizard — pick your stack (TypeScript, Python, etc.), accept all the security defaults
Helena's tip for non-coders: "If you don't know what some of those settings mean, just agree to everything. It'll set you up with the most secure environment, and it's fine."

What the starter pack handles for you out of the box:

Blocks merges to main
Pre-commit review (Claude has to explain what it's about to commit)
Auto-formatting after every file edit
Stack-specific permission rules (safe by default, dangerous commands denied)
Custom skills (code-review, generate-tests, explain-code, etc.)
Specialized subagents (researcher, code-reviewer, test-writer)

Also works inside the Claude Code Desktop app GUI (the Code tab in the Claude desktop app) for anyone who'd rather not live in the terminal — same engine, same config files, visual diffs and plan view on top.