Yes, this startup named itself after the Google-like company in HBO’s ‘Silicon Valley’

HBO’s Silicon Valley show, whose first season aired this past spring, humored folks in the real Silicon Valley with its portrayal of a company named Hooli — a caricature of Google, probably with a hint of Facebook and other tech giants.

And this is why I just had to stop and click when I noticed a message in my inbox from a company named “Hooli.” Launching today, the real-life Hooli is a team communication tool (Asana-meets-Slack, if you will) whose founding team seems to be greatly inspired by HBO’s show.

Names of some of the show’s characters are even included in the demo screenshots on Hooli’s website. In fact, they relate to the fictitious trip to present at TechCrunch Disrupt, coincidentally going on this week. And while you’d think it would be a fake company, Hooli confirmed in an email to VentureBeat that it’s real.

Hooli is a desktop and mobile app aimed at helping teams communicate more efficiently, mainly “for tracking shorter sprints or following up with meetings,” according to the company’s website.

At first glance, it mostly looks like the HipChats and Slacks of the world, basically team chat on steroids, with file-sharing, filters, groups, and more.

However, Hooli seems to also borrow from project management tools such as Asana and Trello as well, enabling team members to create tasks and to input subtasks with teammates assigned to them in the “@who should !do #what” format. The tasks automatically funnel into each teammate’s own to-do list in the app.

But most importantly, these tasks and subtasks are actionable, meaning that a teammate can mark them as “done,” “in progress,” or “deferred,” which eliminates the traditional “status update” email messages yet keeps everyone in the loop.

As I mentioned, Hooli caught my eye because they picked their name well. I enjoy the silliness of the show, as it lampoons the place where I more or less grew up.

And Hooli’s team is pretty clever. If you go to the website’s FAQ section, looking to learn more, you get directed to the wise words of Gavin Belson, fake-Hooli’s chief executive.

“What is Hooli? Excellent question. Hooli isn’t just another high-tech company. Hooli isn’t just about software. Hooli … Hooli is about people. Hooli is about innovative technology that makes a difference. Transforming the world as we know it, making the world a better place through minimal message-oriented transport layers. I firmly believe we can only achieve greatness if first we achieve goodness.”

I’m assuming the startup doesn’t actually think it’s making “innovative technology … transforming the world as we know it,” but rather, is giving a nod to building tech tools to help people do their jobs and saving them time.

Oh, and “minimal message-oriented transport layers” has nothing to do with this startup. This fancy term refers to a type of Internet protocol, the most well-known of which, User Datagram Protocol, is mostly used for video and voice streaming, as well as the Domain Name System.

Hooli was created by Siddharth Kothari, Sagar Chandarana, and Shannon Sullivan. The team is currently based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.