Why I Quit Intuit and Started Hall.com - An Update

http://blog.hall.com/post/11276873024/why-i-quit-intuit-and-started-hall-com-an-update

by bretthellman • 15 years ago

50 44 15 years ago

blog.hall.com

lennysan• 15 years ago

Is it worth putting the time at a big company like Intuit, or if you were to do it over would you go straight to your own startup?

bretthellman11• 15 years ago

Depends on where you are in your career. Straight out of college I wouldn't recommend going to most big companies... you'll learn bad habits and not be pushed to do your best work. Join a startup.

mikepmalai• 15 years ago

"What I did take away from Intuit was an essential skill: How to rapidly test and iterate on ideas until you finally get to an indispensable product."

I found that comment really interesting since I've heard this from multiple current and ex Intuit employees. Given how "hot" the lean start-up methodology is, you'd think Intuit would push this more in their recruiting.

slewis• 15 years ago

Can you give some examples of some bad habits you might learn? 40 hour weeks?

ronadams• 15 years ago

I'm working with Brett right now at Hall.com and am loving it. I worked at an extremely small startup before joining Yahoo! and found that both experiences were invaluable. My time at Y! helped me learn about massive scale while my time at the small startup provided me with an understanding of running a business. Although I loved my time at Y!....especially the people.....it feels great to back with a small team and taking a greater degree of control over the creative process.

Hisoka2• 15 years ago

What is Hall.com going to be about, and how much did the domain name cost you:

bretthellman11• 15 years ago

Great question! We'll be releasing another story in the next few days as we open our doors to the world. Right now we are in private beta with 28k people in line for a hallpass.

bretthellman11• 15 years ago

Re: the domain name, beside hard work, we reached a fair deal thanks to some investor & legal advice. I'd be happy to share in another post if you're interested? Let me know...

rudiger• 15 years ago

I'd like to read the story behind getting the hall.com domain, as well as the 'hall' Facebook and Twitter handles.

Hisoka2• 15 years ago

Yes, I would like to read a post about it.. also would like to know how you manage to get 28K in private beta if you are willing to share that secret haha

tm65atcolumbia• 15 years ago

Yep, another post on getting the domain sounds interesting.

Rachelameadows• 15 years ago

A startup can get HALL.com but netflix goes with qwikster?

smackfu2• 15 years ago

Well it's not exactly the most exciting domain name. http://dull.com is also for sale if you are interested.

gunz_rozez4• 15 years ago

How do/did you convince other employees/partners to join you in this venture....Just having the faith is not good enough right?

bretthellman11• 15 years ago

Having well known investors certainly helped. that and the idea and technologies they'd be working with made the difference

bretthellman11• 15 years ago

If anyone has any other questions/thoughts... I'm in Mtn View and always up for chatting over coffee.

bretthellman11• 15 years ago

brett @ hall-inc.com

porterhaney• 15 years ago

Brett, curious without a cofounder and no employees, how much had you built before you raised your seed round?

bretthellman11• 15 years ago

@porterhaney What's important is to show you can execute on what you're pitching. We also had solid metrics (retention etc...)

dustineichler• 15 years ago

What's a 100% of nothing re: retention. No offense, but it sounds as though networking paid dividends, not what you had built... at all.

dmix• 15 years ago

> I wasted a month searching. I learned that you don’t find a cofounder; it happens naturally or it doesn’t.

I agree.

I've spent 2yrs+ years looking for good co-founders (through people I meet, not a recruiting mission). I've been to tons of events and meetups, kept up with entrepreneurs/developers in my area.

Theres only a few few people that I'd want to start a company with and they are all usually busy doing their own companies.

After having a few cofounders who didn't work out, I've learned its much better to not have one that have a mediocre one dragging out down. But at the same time I've still learned it crucial to have a cofounder.

ywong1372• 15 years ago

Brett also says "After spending a month building the first prototype, investors saw what I could do and I never heard the cofounder advice again."

I'd like to point out that Brett is an extraordinarily productive coder AND designer. I run Sunfire Offices (I'm Yishan) and it's pretty rare to find someone who can output so much stuff on his own so Brett's experience is admittedly atypical. Of course, that's also why we invited him to work out of Sunfire - I saw his stuff and was like, shit, this guy can really crank it out.

Anyhow, I should probably address some of the comments further up the page: Brett's the real thing and his company actually makes a Real Product. I'm afraid he hasn't put out any other public marketing materials because they've been working on the actual code. I know I probably don't have any credibility here (i.e. less than Brett himself since I don't post much on HN) but I'll still say - trust me, it's not just some crap marketing.

Brett: you should frickin release already! Sunfire was one of his beta-testing organizations and we'd like to be let into the new version, please.

bretthellman11• 15 years ago

Thanks Yishan, re:launching, we're working on that now. any day

ChuckFrank2• 15 years ago

And Hall.com does what exactly.

I've danced from your blog to your twitter and over to your fb and back, Then over to your .com which sends me back to your twitter, which says that if I read your blog, I can tweet a hall pass, for what? Okay so then I googled Hall.com and still nothing.

And herein we talk about how much the domain costs, and what your start-up experience is like (newsflash -- more creative control -- thanks) And still there's no word on hall.com.

Yet we have page after page of startup advice about being able to pitch our concept in an ice storm on a sinking ship, while the band plays and the Hotsy Totsies wink. Three Words -- Netflix for Comics. Done.

But still these pages fill with little teases here and there about the brilliant work that is being done, without actually saying what it is exactly.

So, dear sir, back to you -- in three or four words --

Hall is ..... in real life only better. Hall is ..... the new new coke. Hall is ..... Qwikster with a c. Hall is ...... kids in the. Hall is ...... Heuristic ALgorithmic Laboratory

bretthellman11• 15 years ago

Chuck, sorry if we caused any frustration. We had not updated our followers in some time and wanted to send out an update. We have 28k+ people in line and several have emailed asking for a status update. We'll be answer your question very soon and opening the doors to HALL.com. Thanks

timjahn• 15 years ago

Yet you didn't answer the very simple question of "What does your company do?"

omonra• 15 years ago

What exactly are they in line for? This sounds like Soviet Union circa 1980s (ie across the board shortages) when people would join a line in front of a store just because one was formed - without any clue as to what was offered. I have to say this 'i want attention but i won't reveal why I deserve it' attitude very annoying.

baytrailcat• 15 years ago

Today I learned that there are at least 28k gullible idiots in the world

ChuckFrank2• 15 years ago

Mr. Hellman, I'm sure that you've got something wonderful hidden in your manse. And I certainly don't mean to task your status update as an example. What I'm most fascinated about is the long term bias that I've discovered against the idea.

Time and time again, there are people who suggest that the idea is not the key, not the seed, not the most important part of the proposal. The proposal for time, for attention, for money,etc.

The argument goes something like this, while the idea is nominally important, it's the team, or the execution, or the networking, or the support that really counts. So if you can garner capital support, and 28K people anticipating your release, then you are on to something.

Let me diverge, if I may, to my own personal experiences. I went to graduate school in architecture at UCLA, and since at UCLA, the architecture school is amazingly situated across the greens from the film school, I was excited to learn about all the ideas that people had about the future of architecture, and the nexus between film and architecture. But when I got there, noone talked about ideas, everyone talked about other people. In both film and architecture, people talked about who they knew, and who the people that they knew knew, and soon we were playing 6 degrees, not to Kevin Bacon, but instead to Charles E. Cullen (Who? -- I know..right.) What was obvious, was that without the idea, everyone was competing like the courtiers of past for a chance to know someone who knows someone who knows the King, and needless to say, that competition to know someone was fierce. So idea-less we drifted aimlessly.

On the other hand, a good idea, a true idea can break through all the curtsies, gloved hand kissing and back patting, and can bloom into something unimaginable to most. The idea is the seed, the idea is the magic equation that can unlock the universe. (Like Harrison's imagined Tate-Kearney transformations)

Sure, the idea itself is not enough, but it is the essential beginning. Without it, there is nothing but whispers and promises. With it there is something undeniable.

So Mr. Hellman, while I am confident that you have such an idea, and I'm sure that you have it carefully protected so that you can nurture it, know that, as with any new idea, we look forward to you planting it amongst us so that we can watch it grow and share your joy.

calloc• 15 years ago

Why should I care about why you quit and your new project? What is hall.com? Clearly I am not the first person to ask this question.

Why should I bother asking for a "hallpass"?

It sounds like a marketing campaign... yet I can't find any information on what you are doing...

rosstafarian• 15 years ago

Am i the only one that finds it shady that this guy refuses to say what his company does and only weedles when asked directly? "We have 28k people in line! We'll tell you what we do later!" I can understand trying to create buzz with mystery, but come on sounds like the ads on craigslist asking for a programmer to work on the next big thing thats a total secret or some one will steal it!

mikk0j• 15 years ago

28K is an indication of nothing if they don't know what your product is about.

Why I Quit Intuit and Started Hall.com - An Update

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