Latest / The LIVing Room with Liv Harrison / He Quit Wall Street Cold, Then Built the #1 App Worldwide | Alessandro DiSanto, co-founder of Hallow

Transcript

He Quit Wall Street Cold, Then Built the #1 App Worldwide | Alessandro DiSanto, co-founder of Hallow · The LIVing Room with Liv Harrison

0:00
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to go to hell more than anything else.
0:02
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
0:03
SPEAKER_02: I try and do this prepared talk.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: Seven words into it.
0:07
SPEAKER_02: He just are you quitting right now?
0:10
SPEAKER_02: No.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: So the least stressful part of that decision was that we knew without a doubt that like this is what God was calling us to do.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: We went over a year without any income.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: Which was fun.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: A lot of waffles, Costco burgers.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: Next day, Jesus is the Super Bowl, starts going viral.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: By Wednesday, we were number two in the app store.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: The number one app was Temu.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: So we're like, there's no way.
0:32
SPEAKER_02: Mark Wahlbooker, who we've been working with, and he's like, Well, I'm going on Colbert tonight.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: And so by the end of the day, we're uh number one in the app store, which is pretty nuts.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: Two things I always say nobody needs an app to pray, and the pinnacle of your prayer life is never gonna be on Hallow.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: That happens at the altar.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: And one thing that I really admire about you is that you always stop to say hi to people, even though you could tell that you're getting bombarded or like everybody's coming at you.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: And I really find that really endearing because I'm sure once you turned into this world of people knowing who you are, your life kind of changed because you didn't go after, you know, creating an app that was going to put you on the spotlight.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: You're a guy that came from Wall Street, from what I understand.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: So, how has that transition been for you to go from just a guy to the guy, you know, in in the at one time biggest app in the world?
2:00
SPEAKER_01: So, how is that transition for you, especially as um as a Catholic?
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Big big question is big question.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
2:09
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna get in there.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh, first and foremost, all praise and glory be to God.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you would have told us a thousand people would ever use this thing eight years ago when we launched, it would have been wildly hard to believe.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: And so it very much at the time felt like kind of just going out into the abyss, kind of throwing away every sense of potential like worldly success and just totally abandoning and surrendering to God.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: And so, more than anything, the fact that even a single person comes up and is excited to share their story is honestly the most humbling thing in the world.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: And it's I do have to plan a little bit more time in terms of like if I want to get from point A to point B, and it should take five minutes, maybe it's gonna take 30 minutes or something, but it's honestly the most humbling thing in the world.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: And um, well, two things that ground me personally.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I would love to know.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: I found the biggest help in humility is marriage.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: How long have you been married?
2:59
SPEAKER_02: My wife is amazing, going on six years.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: And the second is parenting.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: So we have three little boys.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, under four.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: Stop talking.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: That's insane.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: I will be praying for your wife daily.
3:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if anybody has any room for extra prayer intentions, my wife's name is Sam.
3:17
SPEAKER_02: And so she Everyone pray for Sam.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: She could very much use that.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, that's beautiful.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: That's really beautiful.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: And I think, yeah, the heart, uh, learning how to develop the heart of a husband and the heart of a father have made um my life just so much more full.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: And I think in that context of marriage and parenthood, you feel like you learn in a unique way that love grows with giving.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: And it's not a it's not a loss from giving, but a gain from giving.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: And I think we just try and bring that heart to every person we meet, kind of at how, and every person we serve.
3:48
SPEAKER_02: And I'm also an extrovert, so that helps.
3:50
SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that that helps.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: Are you sanguine?
3:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh, do you know your temperaments?
3:55
SPEAKER_02: I do not know my temperaments.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, you're sanguine.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: I'll take your word for it.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Just skip the test.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: No, it's fine.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: No, that is interesting.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: That's good that you're an extrovert, but I'm sure, I mean, I'm I'm an extrovert with a cape.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I still need some time, you know, stepping away and just kind of refueling.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: What do you do as an extrovert to kind of re-energize yourself after seeing so many people?
4:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think one of the benefits of being not just a Catholic professional, but like professional Catholic in some ways.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: Um I see what you did there.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: Is the uh I forget where I heard that from, but credit to whoever I heard it say that.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: To whoever that guy was.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: Um, many of the places we go, like the places you mentioned, the sacraments are very available.
4:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they were.
4:34
SPEAKER_02: And so uh trying to get to daily mass, especially when I'm at a conference and uh at home, it's a little more complicated with the boys, but um, daily mass, trying to start some some meditation time in the morning, and then trying to get to the gym is often helpful.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: You will often I've heard of it.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: I've it's been mentioned a time or two, and uh one day I'll I'll venture in, but no, you will often see me at conferences like at noon, right?
4:57
SPEAKER_02: When everyone's like going to lunch, I'll go to like if I'm not getting up early and places like here, like when you're up late, maybe that's hard.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: But like when people go to lunch, I can sneak in like 20 minutes and then I'll just go to lunch late.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: That's one of my conference hacks.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, I have tried to this recently tried to do one meal a day when I'm at conferences for food.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, especially you're gonna have maybe a few extra drinks and a big meal.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: Trying to enter into that uh fasting, not just from a physical sense but spiritual sense, uh, to really kind of empty yourself and try and be a little bit more tuned to kind of contemplativeness in the context of a lot of noise.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: So a few different no, that's great.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: Those are like I love that.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: I love when people can share actual real tangible things because you know, you see everybody and you're like, oh, they just have it together or whatever.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, no, there's actual intentional decisions being made by this human being, and here's what they are.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: And it seems like that's who you I mean.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: Did you am I right?
5:53
SPEAKER_01: Did you come from Wall Street?
5:54
SPEAKER_01: You came from finance?
5:56
SPEAKER_01: Very much so I'm a professional investor and thought that's what I was gonna do forever, yeah.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay, my husband owns his own financial firm and he's a financial advisor, and uh, so I know I know that world just a tad, not the same way as as you, but uh, but that's a pretty big swing from you know the the daily grind of that.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: But but actually I could see also some similarities.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: What do you think prepared you from coming from a world of finance for where you are now with Hallow?
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Like, were there any lessons that you learned from there that you you know see in your everyday?
6:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, some good lessons, maybe some less good lessons that I've tried to unlearn.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's been it's been interesting.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I started a big Wall Street investment bank in New York and then was a called private equity investor, raised money, go buy businesses and uh was on international deals, flying all over the place.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: And my goal at the time there was like work really hard for like 20 years, retire in your 40s, buy your own plane, and like have a lot of fun.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: Done.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, not the most Christ-centered vision of the future, uh, but uh Christ opened my heart in that space along with Alex, Eric, uh the rest of our founding team, um, Brian, Joe, Abby, Francis, and just spoke into us.
7:08
SPEAKER_02: Um, my version of that journey was very much around looking for peace in the sense of chaos or in the surroundings of chaos, and very much recognized that there was a peace the world could not give.
7:19
SPEAKER_02: And it was in prayer that um found the idea of true discernment and surrender to the Lord's will.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: And very unexpectedly, each of us have our own journeys.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: Alex had a falling away and coming back story, Eric had kind of a cultural uh Catholicism that eventually ran into the big theological questions.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: So each have our different flavors, but my flavor was like, no, if you're gonna take seriously this idea of you believing God and that he has a plan for you, like you should really spend time thinking what he wants for you, not what you want for yourself.
7:50
SPEAKER_02: And so, in doing that, it felt like an exercise in learning how to pray, and then unexpectedly in doing that discerned a call to like go help others do the same.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: And so there was this very specific moment where we got together because we were friends talking about our prayer lives, and there's a three-hour version of the story.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm keeping it punchy, I'm happy to double-click anywhere you want to go.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: But we had basically, as friends, have been having these deeper conversations as we were working professionals in different cities and calling each other, and we started to have our hearts kind of pulled into this um uh this direction of you know, we've been learning all this stuff, which in my case, 16 years of Catholic school education, I had somehow missed.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: And you know, the I don't know about you, but I'm the type of person with like 10 browser open and each with 57 tabs.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: ADHD, absolutely.
8:39
SPEAKER_02: All of it.
8:39
SPEAKER_02: So like the books and the blogs were stacking up, and we're like, wouldn't it be awesome if we had some kind of digital tool and these meditation apps were really popular at the time, and right we had used some of those separately and be like, it would be really cool if there was some kind of spiritual tool to like help us in this process.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: And so we originally built a tool for ourselves, what is now Hallow for ourselves.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: And the more we used it, our friends and family wanted to check it out, and some pretty crazy things started to happen in the lives of our friends and family of like committing to 10 minutes a day of prayer, basically.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: Like you really saw like a difference in their lives.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: One yeah, one good story.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, please Eric's ex-girlfriend's sister reached out to us.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: So when I talk to like high school kids, I always make a point of like one of the lessons of the Hallow story is have good breakups.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: Because you never know when you're gonna need, you know, the ex-girlfriend's sister to play every part of your life story.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: She might be a part of your story.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: So uh she calls and she's like, Hey, I heard you guys have this like discernment prayer thing you guys are working on.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh, can I try it out?
9:37
SPEAKER_02: I'm like trying facing this big decision, and you know, I'll give you feedback.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: Okay, knock yourself out.
9:43
SPEAKER_02: We're not thinking of like creating something for the world at this point, but you know, it's like knock yourself out.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: We had literally nine audiophiles, uh, three kind of three days on each three different types of prayer Christian meditation, the ignition examin, and Lexia Divina.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: And she called us on day 10 and said, I can't believe that I'm saying this, but this was like really helpful.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna send you my prayer journals.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I'd really been wrestling.
10:07
SPEAKER_02: My boyfriend and I have three years, we're just turning married, trying to figure out what to do.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: And like, I feel like I've actually achieved real clarity of what God's will is in my life, and I think I've found the courage in him to do that.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: And so now we're like getting like, okay, like what is it?
10:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm like on the edge of my seat.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Are they married?
10:22
SPEAKER_01: If they have 12 kids, so they've gone.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what happened?
10:25
SPEAKER_02: They break up.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh and she is I should have seen that coming.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: Sister of Christian charity committed to religious talking.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she is not praise be to God.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: So she answered the novici soon thereafter, after that uh talk to a vocations director.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: And um Oh my gosh.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's crazy.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: That's that's not an us story, it's not a house, it's like a God's grace imperfect accepting that into her life, but it was hitting us in the head of like, hey guys, instead of thinking about like what is discernment, like why don't you actually like do some and why don't you consider this?
10:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: And so we put together this little half-day retreat at Eric's parents' house in uh the suburbs of Illinois where he grew up, suburbs of Chicago.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: And kind of all the friends came in, some from other cities, one was in seminary at the time.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: And I remember I stayed up Friday night till 5 a.m.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: in the office that I was working at, so that I could get just a few hours on Saturday, like go to this thing.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: I was working seven days a week at the time.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: Nonstop.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: So I go home at five, walk home at five, sleep from five to six, get up at six, and then take an hour-long Uber to Eric's parents' house.
11:24
SPEAKER_02: And I walk in not feeling great, physically, emotionally, spiritually, everything was not great.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:31
SPEAKER_02: And we um, Francis, who if anyone has used the app, Francis, one of the voices, one of the original voices.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: And he has the most contemplative, peaceful voice.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: And people sometimes think he's either AI or is like really trying hard.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, that's just Francis.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: So he organized, he was, I think we'll start with 45 minutes, maybe an hour of just contemplative prayer, mostly silence.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, okay.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I remember it was a Notre Dame game day, and I remember thinking to myself, like, I've gotten up this early on a Notre Dame game day, but not for an hour of contemplative.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what are we talking about?
12:14
SPEAKER_02: What are we doing?
12:15
SPEAKER_02: So we shuffle into his parents' kind of living area, and I get put in the corner.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm in like the really plush big armchair, and I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm gonna fall asleep.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna pass out.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: So I'm just like, please don't snore, please don't snore, please don't snore.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: It was like my only prayer.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: And he opens us up, and then we enter into silence, and as soon as we entered in that space, as close to a light switch moment as I've ever had in prayer, complete peace, complete serenity, all the physical pain, mental pain, brain fog was gone.
12:41
SPEAKER_02: And it was like the deepest contemplation I've ever had since then.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: And it was just a complete resting with God.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Whatever this is, I want as much of this as humanly possible, and I want to help as many people you know find us as possible.
12:57
SPEAKER_02: And so we we were, I don't know if it's 45, 50, or 60 minutes, but it felt like five.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: Really?
13:02
SPEAKER_02: It went like that, and towards the end, felt um heard as close to an audible voice as I've ever heard of like a go help people pray.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: And so we came out of that, we shared our different versions of the story.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: Alex had uh was very much committed and was like, I'm gonna go do this.
13:17
SPEAKER_02: He um had left his job already, Eric similarly, and we're kind of going around the room, and um that that was Saturday.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Went back to work that week, closed my last kind of deal in finance world on Friday, walked in the next Monday morning and quit my senior partner to go try and figure out how to build a prayer app.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: So which was an interesting set of conversations.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: Um did you tell them that when you were leaving, or did you leave that part out?
13:43
SPEAKER_02: I was really unsure how to have this, because this is gonna be like wildly out of the blue.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: I was doing really well.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: It was like a three-year thing.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: I was a year and a half into it.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: I was about to apply to business school.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: Like, I got through the really hard part, and I was like, I was gonna start like bearing some fruit.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: And in that context, it was like no one leaves at that point, right?
14:01
SPEAKER_02: So I walk and I'm like, hey, you got a minute?
14:02
SPEAKER_02: I sit down, I try and do this prepared talk.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, So you know, I've been working really hard.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: And like seven words into it, he just like, are you quitting right now?
14:11
SPEAKER_02: No, I was like, I mean, yeah.
14:15
SPEAKER_02: No, he's like, What in the you know, some wall shooting New York words, and now in those types of situations, usually when you quit or something, this is a thing of like security comes, escorts you out, they ship all your stuff.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: There's like some intense data security stuff there.
14:32
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Where are you going?
14:34
SPEAKER_02: Expecting a competitor or something.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, um and I knew this was a person who did not have a tremendously positive relationship with organized religion.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: And was yeah, so I just ended up like I just gotta tell you what, like a hundred.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I mean, honestly, um, I think you know my faith is important to me.
14:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm always showing up with ashes on Ash Wednesday or whatever it is.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, I have felt pretty called to go join my friends and like try and help people pray.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: And it was just like I don't know what to do with that.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I sort of try and pitch it as like a startup thing because like these like tech investors, so I'm like trying to gain some credibility.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: And he's just like, just don't move.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: Because I said, you know, I'm happy to as much of a transition as you want.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to leave anybody hanging, it's big projects.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: He's like, Don't move.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go talk to HR.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know what to just sit here, don't leave this room until I come back.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: So I sit for 30 minutes, just waiting, looking out the window.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: We're the top floor of this skyscraper in Chicago.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm just taking in the beautiful day.
15:36
SPEAKER_02: He comes up, he's like, All right, look, obviously, this is not competitive.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: Um we'll just have you finish out the week and like move some stuff around, just I'll like tell people, I guess.
15:48
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, that is crazy.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh and then had conversations with others.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: But so that was uh yeah, that was an interesting set of conversations.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: And then so simultaneous to get back to your maybe answer finally your question, it was simultaneously the most and least stressful decision I've ever made.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: One most stressful because I had built my entire identity since I was like 18 around trying to become that guy and like beat out you know the dog pile to get the first great job in the next year, and like this was my dream job, and I was doing well and making a lot of money and have a ton of responsibility.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: And it was like a pretty clear like throwing that completely out the way it was like wasn't gonna call back a year later and be like, hey, can I come back?
16:28
SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right, right.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: Um so that was like a complete abdication, you know, social cachet, like everything I built up around my own self-image, uh income, right?
16:41
SPEAKER_02: So like which was practically really very relevant.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: How long, how long of a time did you have this like fallout of this decision between the day that you walk out to when you know Hallows started just a little bit picking up?
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Like, how long was that that desert?
16:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was so I would I wouldn't necessarily describe it as a desert, I would say it was a it was a abundant spiritual harvest from the beginning, but this very uncertain like economic reality.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: So that was um so the least stressful part of that decision was that I knew I and we knew without a doubt that like this is what God was calling us to do.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: And so the um sense of peace that came from like I will provide what you need uh was overwhelming as well, and so it was you know, never looked back and never had any existential like was that the right decision.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: We went over a year without any income, okay, which was fun.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: Um we had a lot of creative, I'm sure you got creative in that year.
17:46
SPEAKER_02: Eric had the Costco membership, a lot of egg of waffles, Costco burgers, ramen.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: My uh girlfriend was very supportive, uh now wife.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: Oh, good, okay, living close, and so we weren't yet married, but um, she was very supportive.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: My parents were very supportive.
17:59
SPEAKER_02: And the nice thing about working on Wall Street, I had some bonuses saved up, and so like I was I could stay in my same apartment for craft mac and cheese instead of Costco mac and cheese.
18:08
SPEAKER_02: Something something like pasta in my yeah, it's got a lot of pasta red sauce.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: But you know, I I wouldn't say there was any real huge watershed moment.
18:16
SPEAKER_02: I think there were a couple of milestones along the way.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: We used to track like you know, down we still track downloads, obviously, but you know, like looking every morning like how many people downloaded the app yesterday and it was single digits for a long time.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: And I remember uh Eric called me, and he's like, We had 12 people, we had double digits.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: Um so that that felt huge.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh that felt really huge.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: That's really cool though.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: About a year in it.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: So we launched in December of 2018.
18:46
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
18:46
SPEAKER_02: About a year later, in the fall of 2019, we raised some um investment capital, some venture investors, some angel investors, and so we could hire our first team outside of the founding team.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: That was nerve-wracking, and that was like, okay, we could throw our lives away, but now people leaving their jobs, being responsible for their families, that felt pretty intense.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: And three or four months after that, COVID hit.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:09
SPEAKER_02: And church doors are closed, people's lives are disrupted in every possible way, and we really just went heads down for like basically a whole year, just trying to create as much stuff to help people, support people spiritually in that moment.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: We grew 700% in 2020.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: I believe that.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: And um, that set us up.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: We raised some additional capital in 2021, and uh that kind of let us build out a real team, and then it started to feel more real.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: I think it was in 2022.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: I got in the first like Uber, and we were wearing team shirts, we were going to some conference, and that was the first time someone had ever like recognized Hal in public.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: Really?
19:44
SPEAKER_02: Oh, is that like the prayer thing?
19:45
SPEAKER_02: I was like, What?
19:46
SPEAKER_02: You've heard about this?
19:48
SPEAKER_02: That so that was pretty funny.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: Took a picture with the guy, yeah.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: But now, you know, that's amazing.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: So when but when did it go number one?
19:56
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember?
19:57
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: So for the first time, so we were uh the first religious or wellness app ever to reach the number one spot in the app store um in history, above all apps across all categories.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: That was two Ash Wednesdays ago.
20:10
SPEAKER_02: We did it for the first time.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: It was on Ash Wednesday.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: So our biggest week of the year is the start of Lent, as we invite people into a Lenten journey.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, yeah.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: Even bigger than Advent and Christmas.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:20
SPEAKER_02: Um there's a lot going on in December and holiday stuff, but Lent we found um given the content we have daily devotional content, invite people and do a lot of social media stuff to kind of prioritize prayer that Lent.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: And that every 12 to 15 years, Super Bowl Sunday immediately precedes Ash Wednesday.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: Because like the you know, church calendar and the NFL postseason calendar oscillate, and that usually doesn't happen.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: But that year it was that way.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: So it was like Super Bowl Sunday, and then three days later it was Ash Wednesday.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: And so after a fair amount of discernment, we took out a Super Bowl ad, which was like a smokes, wildly big, nerve-wracking swing, especially as the finance guy.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you were sweating.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: Not a cheap thing.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Not a cheap thing.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: So the I don't even know who you call.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you like find that number on Google?
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Like to do this.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: I'm looking for the Super Bowl.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: Who's the ad guy?
21:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, really, that's impressive.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm impressed by that.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: I think that's amazing that you found that number.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, but good for you.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you take out a Super Bowl ad.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: We take out a Super Bowl ad, and you know, we're thinking about like what kind of I was talking to my co-founder, Alex, uh, about this two days ago, about the whole reliving that decision.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, usually people watch the ads and like they're supposed to be like funny things and like you know, character stuff.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: And we'd been pitched, we had come up with internally and been pitched by different agencies, like different, you know, funny versions of things.
21:49
SPEAKER_02: And we just we're like, I don't know, we're not really like funny people, and it felt like a pretty wild swing to like try something wildly new.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: It's like, what is our what is our mission?
21:58
SPEAKER_02: And that's to help people press.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: And so we're like, what if we tried to just construct an ad that was an invitation into actual prayer?
22:07
SPEAKER_02: And so we did a 30-second spot.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: Mark Wahlberg goes into a uh a church, um, crosses himself with the holy water, and then uh invites people into a literal prayer.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: So it's like a 20-ish second prayer uh for the country, uh, for unity, for healing, and then it ends with an invitation of Jonathan Rooney receiving ashes on his forehead and said, you know, consider prioritizing prayer this lent uh and join us on Halo.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: And so the next day, the late night talk shows are starting to pick it up.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: There's all this uh article, Jesus at the Super Bowl, starts going viral.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: And then by Wednesday, we were number two in the app store.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: The number one app was Temu, the Oh yeah uh Shop Like a Billionaire.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, whatever.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: Don't you won't look like one, but yes.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes, hopefully you don't get sued for this uh segment here.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: They're not listening, they had six nationwide Super Bowl ads.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: They had six, yeah.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: We had one, it's kind of super regional one.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
23:07
SPEAKER_02: So we're like, there's no way.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, but we're texting everyone we know, and um Mark Wallbooker, who we've been working with and who's in the ad, checks in that morning.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: He's like, How are we doing?
23:16
SPEAKER_02: We know he knew the Ashwin's gonna be the biggest day.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: And we're like, we're number two, probably not gonna get to number one.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: But you know, we're the first to cra crack the top three ever, it was a big deal.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Well, I'm going on Colbert tonight to uh promote a movie.
23:29
SPEAKER_02: Do you think I should bring up Halo?
23:31
SPEAKER_01: We're like, No, actually, we'd like you to keep it a secret.
23:35
SPEAKER_02: Please don't tell anybody about Jesus.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: So thanks, Mark.
23:39
SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, if you would be, you know.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: If you remember, sure, yeah.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: We'd certainly be appreciative of that.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: So, and we've done some PR earlier that day, some other stations.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: So, Roomy was in uh New York, so he goes and sits.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: And um Open Colbert's like, How's it going?
23:55
SPEAKER_02: He's like, Oh, I'm just loving it.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm here with my boy Jonathan Roomy.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: We're here, we're starting the land, we're pretty we're staying prayed up, and the camera turns.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: Roomy's like, and they're like, Oh, you do that Halo stuff.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: He's like, Yeah, Halo's amazing.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Hallo, you should try how, and just like basically doesn't talk about the movie.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: And so by the end of the day, we're uh number one in the app store, which is pretty nuts.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: So, do you send him like a fruit basket?
24:14
SPEAKER_01: Like, what is an appropriate thank you, Mark Wahlberg, like gift for making us number one?
24:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm like, how do you do you just like buy him a cart?
24:22
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's incredible.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: So thank you, Mark Wahlberg.
24:27
SPEAKER_02: Thanks to him, praise be to God.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Stay prayed up.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's uh a fair amount of downside that comes with like celebrity stuff in general, but uh it has been, and he in particular, he, Jonathan, Gwen, Chris, Pratt, others have just been wildly um giving.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: They seem like they're really like proud to be associated, and it's not without risk for their 100% Catholic prayer app.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: And so we're deeply appreciative of their partnership.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: And I could tell you literally hundreds of stories of people that were outside of the faith that would have never stopped for a Bishop Baron or Father Mike's invitation or something, but they see Star Lord from Marvel.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: I mean, who does someone to do with Star Lords?
25:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, take a second to pray with me.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, occasionally that's like a shirtless Mark ad in the gym as well, which is a different audience.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we all find prayer in different ways.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: It's fine, you know?
25:19
SPEAKER_01: It's like that's okay.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: They gotta meet people where they're at.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: You gotta meet people where they're at.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: Ideally, you also help journey with them.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh 100%.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: I think it's great.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: I think it's fantastic.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: So we've been super buffed on that front as well.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no kidding.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: All right, I I'm I I keep getting nervous every time a new uh beautiful celebrity face for Halloween comes up.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my gosh, we're gonna run out of Catholics.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, like, how many do we have on here?
25:43
SPEAKER_01: This is so great.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: It's like I know.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of fun.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: It's like a like a hide-and-seek game, and you're like, I didn't know that kind of kid, you know, whatever would support this.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: I think that's really cool.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: It's so funny.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: I brought my um a 23-year-old, so I'm in a different camp of parenting than you, and you and this shall pass.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: You will survive this, I promise.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell my wife.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Yes, tell her.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: She Sam's gonna be fine.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, but my 23-year-old and I went to the sphere to see Gwen uh do no doubt or whatever.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, the whole time I was like, she's on Halo.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Like also, and then singing like, you know, I'm just a girl.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: But it was We're working on a Halo App Girl remix from uh Ain't No Halo.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: We're working on it, we're working on it, we're working, working on it.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: Don't hold your breath.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: Working on it.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: I just want a music video.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: That should be the next thing that Halo does, is like music videos of your.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: That would be an interesting Lent theme.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: That would be an interesting Lent theme.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: That would be amazing, and you're singing it to the Dell Ain't No Hollow Bacco.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, no, I love that.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: I think that's really cool because and it's brave, like you said, it's I don't think people realize it's a risk on both ends.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: It's a risk for you guys to also, you know, put your wagon with that horse or you know, whatever that looks like in the same for them to do that.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: How do you discern those decisions in and those risks that you're taking even now, especially that you're established?
27:05
SPEAKER_01: Because now everybody's watching.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, before you can make mistakes and it was like, you know, 1995 when nobody had, you know, digital anything, and now it's everybody can record everything or say anything or do anything and judge everything that you do.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: How do you discern those moments of when to take a risk and when not to?
27:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh really hard.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: It's a case-by-case thing.
27:25
SPEAKER_02: We have developed a little bit of a partner philosophy.
27:27
SPEAKER_02: We've definitely made mistakes over time, and uh we've tried to own them and learn from them, and we're always trying to have a day one mindset, and we obviously have a huge responsibility that we don't take lightly in terms of the scale that we've been blessed with, but we also try and not take ourselves too seriously and be willing to experiment, and not part of that is not every experiment is gonna be successful, and uh so we try not to do you know horribly immoral things.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, I don't want to go to hell more than anything else.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
27:53
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so in general, our mission that we feel is to really have a heart for the for the one, not the 99.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: Or not not instead of, but uh a particular love.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: We still love the 99.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: We love the 99, and we have bishops and priests that use the app, religious sisters, but we also have fallen away people.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: We have people that haven't been to the sacraments in 20 or 30 years, and to find those people and bring them back into the embrace of the church is something that's really core to our mission.
28:19
SPEAKER_02: And I think you know, the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: We feel that you know our role as laborers is to really speak into the culture and do things like Super Bowl ads and Instagram and TikTok and live in those spaces.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: And the celebrity kind of approach and invitation can really speak into those.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: We are willing to work with in a we kind of think about like what are we doing together kind of categories, and we have a blog about this if anyone wants to go super deep on it.
28:46
SPEAKER_02: But if you're like trying to invite people into prayer, we'll work with pretty much anyone that is willing to extend that invitation.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Right.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, short of an organization whose uh explicit purpose is to do destroy the Catholic Church.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: We will work with you if you want to tell people to go use how because we think that will help people.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, as we get more into content in the app, we kind of have different bars when it and how we think about um putting a microphone in front of someone and letting them say whatever they want.
29:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's a relatively short list of really, you know, shepherds of the faith, whether that's uh uh priests, bishops, religious sisters, or people like Jeff Cavins.
29:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh most of the time we try and find an area of collaboration where there's something on their heart.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we just did in the summer we do this Saints in Seven Days series.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: And so we pick one month, we do a month, four different weeks, four different saints, one week for each saint, and we work with uh fun people that you may not normally expect that have a particular devotion and unpack that devotion.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: So we did Fernando Mendoza, the quarterback who just won with Wiseman.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: We asked him, he's like, What's on your heart?
29:51
SPEAKER_02: And uh he's obviously a devout man.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: He said, You know, I I I really love St.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: Paul, I'd love to pack St.
29:56
SPEAKER_02: Paul's life.
29:57
SPEAKER_02: And so we've learned to like think about what is what is a genuine thing on your heart, what devotion do you have, what spirituality would you like to explore?
30:04
SPEAKER_02: And so we just try and have those conversations, and more than anything, we've learned that paying someone X dollars for like an Instagram post and then move on is not a formula for you know success on any metric, uh spiritual or economic.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: And so it's really about developing relationships, it's getting to understand their heart.
30:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then when it comes to content, how do we find something that's both authentic to them and we think additive and helpful to our users?
30:32
SPEAKER_02: And that's just an organic process.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: So we try and just be more relational than transactional, and that weeds out most of the nonsense.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: Good.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: So, what is on your heart?
30:42
SPEAKER_01: What is uh the devotion that that speaks to you right now where you're at?
30:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll answer that in a couple different ways.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, from a Halo perspective, what I'm most excited about in terms of like what we're working on and trying to um support is we're really trying to be focused, especially this year and beyond, to help people grow from the digital and the individual experience of prayer into the communal in-person and ultimately sacramental experience of prayer.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: And so we're doing a lot of work with parishes now to help people bring people off their phones and back to the altar.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so we're trying to do that in a bunch of fun ways and happy to talk more about that.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: But that like is bringing me a lot of excitement and joy and getting to spend more time with uh families and uh pastors and teachers and principals and um helping build real community.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: Because two things I always say nobody needs an app to pray.
31:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, and the pinnacle of your prayer life is never gonna be on Hallow.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: That happens at the altar.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: So fundamentally, we need to stay grounded in the reality that Hallow is not is both um unnecessary and insufficient.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: So we gotta like work to actually help people in between that to get to the necessary stuff.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: So that's the first thing.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: And then on a personal spiritual level, just trying to be a good husband and good father, uh as our kids are getting older and thinking about school and you know, becoming going from infants and toddlers to like little boys.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: To people.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: How do I help uh, you know, how do I not be a Pharisee and not do the do as I say, not as I do, but to actually be an expression of love that brings the image of the of the father to them.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Do you have anyone that you connect with spiritually that helps you do that?
32:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, is there a saint that you cling to for your fatherhood?
32:23
SPEAKER_02: So two things.
32:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh Thomas Aquinas, I took as my confirmation saint.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: Oh, and so I gravitated really towards like the intellectual discovery and wrestling that's been part of um my journey from kind of the beginning and took me a little bit off course.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: When like super intellect and ego and the Wall Street stuff, I obviously missed the most important part, which is the end of uh uh Thomas's life, looking up and realizing everything he had written was straw in comparison to the beatific vision.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: So I I f uh the intercession that I uh pray for now is a lot different than it was ten years ago, where it was more like sharpening my intellect and and the reason part of faith and reason to now recognize that all of this is straw.
33:05
SPEAKER_02: So that's like uh grounding uh in humility and away from ego.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: And then Saint Joseph, uh the holy family from uh more practical dad stuff.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: Sure, yeah.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: The um silent labor uh of Saint Joseph.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm talkative, I'm self-centered, I'm you know, an annoying husband and father in many ways, and I uh constantly ask for the grace of um silent service.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: I love that silent service.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: I haven't heard that before.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: So that's really beautiful.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: We are sadly at the end of our time, which I can't thank you enough for your time um with with all of us today.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: I always ask one last question to my guest, which you kind of answered earlier, but um, besides praying for your beautiful wife, Sam, how can we pray for you?
33:55
SPEAKER_01: What is a way that this audience can support you personally um in prayer?
34:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you could just pray for us at HAL that we remain focused on God's will and not our own.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: That we are focused on the doors that he opens and ignore the ones that he's trying to close, um, that we always remain in service of him and not our own wills.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: That would be amazing.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay, done.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, sir.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: This was fantastic.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.