Adora Cheung is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future Return on capital, return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of pr ...

, and

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

. She was the co-founder and CEO of house cleaning business Homejoy. After Homejoy shut down, Cheung continued working for

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

as a partner, until February 2021.

Early life and education

Cheung grew up in a small town in

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

and earned a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

in Computer Science from

Clemson University Clemson University () is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university near Clemson, South Carolina, United States. - The blue-shaded pattern denotes university property. This shows Clemson University is ''out ...

. She received a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in Economics from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

. While working on her

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

, a friend asked for programming help with his startup, so she left her PhD program to help him. When that didn't follow through, she moved to

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

Career

Cheung worked at Slide.com as a group product manager, overlooking multiple projects such as FunWall, SuperPoke!, and SuperPoke! Pets. After departing from these projects, Cheung and her brother joined Y Combinator. Together, they brainstormed several startup ideas, including Pathjoy, a platform to connect customers with life coaches and therapists, but soon abandoned the idea. Instead, Cheung pivoted Pathjoy's business model towards finding house cleaners instead of therapists. The idea came when her brother was looking for a cleaning service, but all offerings were either from expensive cleaning agencies or untested cleaners from

Craigslist Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is a privately held American company operating a classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussi ...

. To further reinforce the company's new direction, the name Pathjoy was changed to Homejoy.

Homejoy

Inspired by other companies that participate in a

sharing economy The sharing economy is a socio-economic system whereby consumers share in the creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods, and services. These systems take a variety of forms, often leveraging information technology and the ...

, Cheung created Homejoy with her brother in 2012. The company was located in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

and she worked as the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

. By 2013, the company raised $38 million from

Google Ventures GV Management Company, L.L.C. (file no. 4726690) is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides seed, venture, and growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Ventures in 2010, th ...

Redpoint Ventures Redpoint Ventures is an American venture capital firm focused on investments in seed, early and growth-stage companies. History The firm was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with offices in San Francisco, Los Angel ...

, and

Max Levchin Maksymilian Rafailovych "Max" Levchin (born July 11, 1975) is a Ukrainian-American software engineer and businessman. In 1998, he co-founded the company that eventually became PayPal. Levchin made contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts ...

towards their

venture funding A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the p ...

. By 2013, Homejoy was available in 31 cities. For research, Cheung worked at a professional cleaning company to learn the issues facing cleaners, including scheduling difficulties and inefficient traveling. She was the first cleaner for Homejoy and cleaned houses herself as the startup got off the ground. Because of her experience, the new Homejoy hires were required to do a test cleaning job as part of the hiring process. During their test cleaning the new hires were taught how to clean in an efficient manner, and how to communicate with the homeowners in a friendly and effective way. Cheung herself also went out on cleaning assignments at least once a month. She had plans for Homejoy to move into home repairs, including electricity and plumbing. Homejoy shut down in 2015 due to poor

customer retention Customer retention refers to the ability of a company or product to retain its customers over some specified period. High customer retention means customers of the product or business tend to return to, continue to buy or in some other way not defe ...

rates, high customer acquisition costs, and several

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

s from workers claiming to being "misclassified as independent contractors.". An estimated 20 of Homejoy's employees were hired by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

in the wake of the closure.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheung, Adora Living people Clemson University alumni University of Rochester alumni American technology company founders American women company founders American company founders American women business executives Y Combinator people American venture capitalists Women venture capitalists American women investors 1984 births 21st-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople