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Hallow is the primary Catholic prayer and meditation app on the earth with over 12 million downloads. And after a surge in downloads following its Super Bowl ad, it took the top spot on Apple’s App Store across all apps.
The corporate has raised a complete of $105 million to date, thanks, largely, to the blood, sweat, and tears of co-founder and CEO Alex Jones. On this episode of The CEO Series, we visited Hallow’s headquarters to speak with Jones about all things business, leadership, and faith. Below are some highlights from that powerful conversation which have been edited for length and clarity.
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Divine inspiration
“Hallow is a prayer and meditation app for anybody looking to grow closer to God. Its origin goes back to my faith journey. I used to be raised Catholic but fell away from my faith in highschool and college. After I graduated, I got really into meditation. I discovered these apps that had just launched, Headspace and Calm, and I began using them day by day and I loved them. But each time I’d meditate, my mind would oddly feel pulled towards something spiritual, like a picture of the cross. So I began reaching out to priests, pastors, and folk I knew from Notre Dame and asked what I assumed was a extremely interesting query: Is there any way that there is some sort of intersection between this faith thing and this meditation thing? And they beautiful much all laughed at me and said, “Yeah, we have been doing it for 2000 years. It’s called prayer!” And that modified my life. I knew I needed to do that. I knew how to code slightly bit so we built the primary version and went from there. The app has helped me grow tremendously in my very own spirituality, which has been phenomenal.”
Something greater than themselves
“My cousin passed away when he was 45. He died in his sleep randomly. He had just gotten married and his wife was pregnant with their first kid. His mom, who’s my aunt, was obviously heartbroken. We had just launched the app and she or he sent us a note that I even have saved to today. It said, ‘I truthfully didn’t think I’d give you the chance to make it through my first Christmas without my son and I just want you to know that these little meditations on the app are the one thing that is jogged my memory that I’m able to have hope and that I’m able to get out bed and carry on on this deep time of a pain.’ And I similar to broke down crying on the ground in my tiny little studio apartment.”
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The challenges of fundraising
“The fundraising thing is super stressful for any CEO since it is crazy hard, especially in today’s world. While you do the seed round, you’ve gotten no real numbers to speak of. It’s just your personal story. And persons are just judging you and also you’re questioning yourself. Do they like our concept? Are you sitting up straight enough? Are you looking within the eyes? Do I like this guy? I had roughly 80 meetings in the primary two weeks, just pitching continuously. I remember I went back to my studio apartment after hearing no after no — people principally telling me that the core of who I’m is silly and this concept isn’t going to work. It was so heavy. I used to be so stressed. My heart was in pain. My back had all these knots in it. I began praying and I said, ‘God, look, this is simply too much. I can not do that. I’m done. I can not take this weight.’ After which I used to be like, ‘I’m gonna make a cope with you. I promise if this thing works out, you are at all times gonna get the credit. I’m never gonna trick myself into pondering I’m some successful startup CEO who figured all these things out. It was all you.’ That massive weight immediately lifted and the following day we went for a pitch meeting at a coffee shop with this guy and he gave us a term sheet. And we then get like three, 4 more the following day. It was just God being like, ‘Just wait.’ I just needed to give up.”
Advice to founders
“You have got to find something greater than yourself. You have got to, there isn’t any alternative.”
Take a look at more profiles of revolutionary and impactful leaders by visiting The CEO Series archives.
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