Why @Hall? Because We Need a Better Way to Work
and here’s $5.5M reasons why…
Update: TechCrunch story on my invesment in Hall just came out here
Yes, life isn’t all about work. But when it is, it should be better. How many of you reading this have an email inbox of ZERO right now. I’m betting I could count the number on one hand…
So, that brings me to Hall. The brilliant invention of Brett Hellman and Ron Adams. Two of the most persistent, passionate, and hard-working entrepreneurs I’ve been blessed to work with.
I first met Brett in 2011, he was introduced by a good friend and investor, thanks Tim! When he came in to pitch, I have to admit that I didn’t get it. They had built a polling product to help an internal group make decisions better. I don’t even think the company was called “Hall” at the time. We’d been “on” Yammer for 2 years by that point and it had left a bad taste in my mouth. It looked like a technology in search of a market as opposed to a market in search of a solution. I thanked Brett for stopping by, thought I’d never hear from him again, and moved on. BTW, all you aspiring entrepreneurs out there should definitely read the blog post from the guys at Hall on their iterative design process: https://hall.com/blog/hall-design-tour-from-0-to-30-weekly-retention/
Fast forward to 2013. As we geared up at Signia for our first fund, I was constantly on the look-out for the best tech platforms for messaging, collaboration, and more. Yes, we already used Asana (and salesforce and box and dropbox and pretty much every other “good” cloud app out there), but that didn’t feel like enough. Ok, I’ll say it, this whole consumerization of enterprise trend is pretty fun when you’re the “enterprise.” During my search, I polled a few of the start-up founders and CTOs that I know. I figured if developers were using a good messaging system then it was probably going to be good enough for me (my partners may disagree given how many new platforms we try out as a group).
To my surprise, the most vocal hipchat proponent, Chris LoPresto (CTO of plyfe), had already set up a plyfe network on Hall and multiple rooms for dev, BD, a fun culture room w/ a new name every week, marketing, and more. Getting set-up with the mobile app and desktop client for Mac took me all of 5 min. Figuring out how to turn off the notifications that came in with every message (on rooms I didn’t need that in) took a bit longer. I was hooked and pretty soon the rest of the Signia team was hooked as well. We cancelled our internal and portfolio Yammer networks, hooked our Hall rooms up with all sorts of notifications from services like Twitter and Salesforce…and we found that our internal email usage went WAY down. I’m talking at least 50%. And for new team members or consultants coming on-board, it’s so easy to get them up to speed now. All we have to do is add them to right room and let them read the history. Think of all the inbox headaches that cured, let alone the knowledge issues…because email is where knowledge goes to die.
Needless to say, when I reached out to Hall to compliment them on their product, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I already knew the lead investor (Tim again!), had met with Brett, and had no idea this was the same company from almost two years prior. There is a reason I try to write everything down…
If I’ve bored you with the background, let me cut right to the chase. Hall is going to redefine the way you communicate with your co-workers, your partners, your clients, and your friends (family might be a stretch, but hey, it could happen). This product isn’t even close to being finished, it’s only been 2 guys up till this summer, so think about what they’ll be able to do with an army of dev/design talent. Mike Maples at Floodgate has a great metaphor for start-ups, they’re either wine-sipping businesses for the “elite” or beer-chugging businesses for the masses. One of the many great things about Hall is that it’s both. A super user in a big-enterprise with 30 networks and 100 rooms uses it…along with a small team of 5 that needs to stay better connected and in synch. In the meantime, the thousands of teams/companies both big and small are already seeing the benefits of a real-time messaging platform that can reach you anywhere, anytime — because its NOT in your inbox. Forget wine or beer, if Hall ever went away we’d need a Hallers-Anonymous to figure out what went wrong.
I’m pleased to announce Signia’s partnership with Brett, Ron, and the rest of the Hall team (it’s growing fast and hiring). We are honored to invest alongside new co-investors Felicis Ventures and also great existing ones like PivotNorth, 500 Startups, and AngelPad. Sundeep is taking the board seat for this preferred round, but I’m on Hall all-day everyday, as a board observer and a dedicated user. Come join my Room on Hall and see for yourself what the fuss is all about. Stay tuned for more…
