🎧: listening to 'the dude, by Quincy Jones'
i've had some time to sit and process shutting down hallo. things did not work out how i envisioned it, and i can finally wrap my head around it. when you start a company as an entrepreneur, you almost have a reality distortion field, because you have to as the odds are stacked against you.
i recently caught up with a friend, who i met when i first embarked on the journey of building hallo, almost eight years ago. as we recapped that initial meeting, i, very much now humbled, realized some of the advice my friend gave me from his experience prior to venturing into the role of startup founder.
i think inside every founder we were all inspired by the stories, movies (the social network), and idea of building a generational company that transformed the world. and it does happen, but here's what i've learned. maybe this helps you.
tl;dr - the more users that pay for your product the less capital you’ll need to raise — don’t chase vc dollars, chase revenue…
luck -
yeah. it's something that most people won't admit publicly, but being successful in any creative endeavor—business, art, music, etc.—luck plays a monumental factor. as a founder, we are accustomed to learning which levers to push, but mastering when is the real challenge. the reality is sometimes things outside of your control happen, like the market shifts either in your favor or out of it, your lead investor rescinds the term sheet, or your star engineer absconds to mexico with the codebase. sh*t happens that you can't control, and sometimes the stars align in your favor.
timing -
being too early is worse than being too late. at the time when i set out to build hallo, live events and a focus on an ai solution that prepped undiscovered talent wasn't a thing; it was 2017. i recall pitching a ton of investors, fervently trying to convince them that allowing this democratization of career information online would be a thing of the future, and open the pipeline for untapped talent to join top companies and increase revenues; easy pass for most. one event i never anticipated was covid-19, which when it occurred, our team saw server-crashing growth events on hallo, and virtual events became the thing. we were too early nonetheless.
capital -
i raised a couple million dollars in venture capital to build out hallo. we scaled to over 1,300 universities, launched the first multi-modal ai career coach, and closed enterprise deals with apple, palantir, and blackrock. interestingly enough, i managed that capital over seven years... yeah i know, insane. capital is essential if you’re aiming to build something to venture scale. one huge misstep i made that i now realize in hindsight is i became too accustomed to doing a lot with a little. i know most venture capitalists say they favor 'cost-cutting' founders, and love the idea of the ‘gritty’ founders, but it takes capital to really build at venture scale, and specifically hiring the right team. my advice: raise a bit more than you need (1.5x more) and manage the hell out of the capital for winter; it always comes.
team -
i saved team for last because i was able to create one of the most amazing technical, and design teams in the world; i just could never truly afford them. initially i thought i could manage with a rag-tag team to save money but my very first investor, who gave me a ton of tough advice, told me once "you can't become lebron on the cavs.” if you're a cavs fan i'm sorry, but i assume he felt i needed to focus more on hiring a-players. now that i spend time advising startups a lot and helping to build strategy and pitch decks, i have a very different perspective, and i almost understand why vcs flip through descent decks to the team slide; it closes the deal. one major learning for me was not only to get the right people in the right seat but also to be able to support these people on this wild journey of startup life, and i guess this part loops back up to capital 🤑.
all in all, i learned so much from building hallo, and owe so much to the team that joined me on the journey to build out my vision. co-founder, engineers, designers, interns, and investors (thanks for dealing with my sh*t).
it was a wild ride and i'll be back building again, semi-soon.
-v.