Henry Michaelson

Halla started out as a project between friends to share ideas and collaborate while across the state from each other. It just happened to organically pick up steam until we found ourselves putting in more work on Halla than we did on school. After that, it all fell into place.

Halla was birthed as means to connect with two of my best friends as we were very close in high school but drifted apart soon afterwards.

The slow, cyclical, process of growth. It is both the best and worst thing about Halla. Since Halla is constantly in flux, there will never be a ‘right’ strategy, approach, or even business. It's constantly changing. It’s very much so like a living thing

Lack of patience and faith

• You will go through periods of success and failure, brilliance and mediocrity, at regular time intervals. Habit is the best way to insure growth, as a good habit persists on good and bad days / cycles.
• Your mindset / skillset is a function of your team. Much like cells specialize in multicellular organisms, you will find yourself specializing in patterns of thought / approach as the company changes. That is great and is a sign of a healthy business.
• Conflict is the seed of anything good. The best way to solve a problem is to argue about it, constructively, but after the seed is planted, it must take time, and work, to grow.

My favorite startups tend to be AI companies that have proprietary technology and the wherewithal to know how to use it to solve real business problems. Both pieces are necessary. The first is knowing what to say and the second is knowing how to say it effectively.

Henry Michaelson co-founded Halla while studying computer science at UC Berkeley. His day-to-day responsibilities involve internal leadership, especially with respect to technology. Michaelson's interests are not limited to food predictions, however. Previous projects include machine learning based classification of supernovae in the UC Berkeley Astrophysics department, a speaking role in the Warner Brothers blockbuster comedy Project X, a three year stint as lead guitarist for Joe Banks and a patented algorithm that has distributed over $7M in awards to mobile gamers.