# Adora Cheung  

> `[00:00:05]` Hello.

`[00:00:05]` 你好。

> My name\'s Justin Connor I\'m one of the partners NYC and I\'m extremely excited to introduce our next speaker adorer Choung.

我叫贾斯汀·康纳，我是纽约市的合伙人之一，我非常兴奋地向大家介绍我们的下一位演讲者-崇恩。

> Dora is the founder and CEO of Homejoy and one of our top companies that we\'ve funded.

多拉是霍姆霍伊的创始人和首席执行官，也是我们资助的顶级公司之一。

> I\'m particularly excited for her story because I know how good a door was previous to Lycee I was competing with her and she was the founder that kept me up at night many many sleepless nights.

我对她的故事感到特别兴奋，因为我知道莱西之前的一扇门有多好，我和她竞争，她是让我晚上睡不着觉的创始人。

> So adorer please come on up.

所以崇拜者请上来。

> She\'s in the back.

她在后面。

> Seat.

座位。

> `[00:00:39]` Right here.

`[00:39:00]` 就在这里。

> Hide.

藏起来。

> Applause.

掌声。

> `[00:00:49]` Thank you Justin.

`[00:00:49]` 谢谢贾斯汀。

> Really excited to be here today.

今天能来这里真是太兴奋了。

> Homejoy if you don\'t know is the leading platform that connects people with home service professionals and our mission is to make homes happier everywhere.

如果你不知道家庭快乐是将人们和家庭服务专业人员联系在一起的主要平台，我们的使命就是让世界各地的家庭变得更幸福。

> We\'re now available in the United States Canada UK and Berlin.

我们现在美国、加拿大、英国和柏林都有售。

> `[00:01:11]` We have a pretty awesome team here in Europe and I can\'t see them right now but give a shout out to Angela who run the UK for us inL.A.

`[00:01:11]` 我们在欧洲有一支非常棒的球队，我现在看不见他们，但对为我们在洛杉矶执教英国的安吉拉大喊一声。

> who runs field ops in North America and Europe for us.

他在北美和欧洲为我们管理外勤业务。

> If anybody they are the experts in how to make things big in Europe.

如果有人的话，他们是如何在欧洲大放异彩的专家。

> So since you guys are from here you probably want to hunt them down and get some advice.

所以既然你们是从这里来的，你可能想去找他们，并得到一些建议。

> So you know starting Homejoy here in Europe has been a great experience.

所以你知道，在欧洲开始“家庭快乐”是一次很棒的经历。

> While I still believe Silicon Valley is the number one destination for entrepreneurs I really believe the entrepreneurial spirit here is alive and well and in particular in London Berlin.

虽然我仍然相信硅谷是企业家的头号目的地，但我真的相信这里的企业家精神依然活跃，尤其是在伦敦、柏林。

> I really think it\'s on the cusp of something great.

我真的认为这是一件了不起的事情。

> Silicon Valley just has time on its side.

硅谷只是有时间站在它这边。

> And so if you choose to stay here in Europe I definitely advise you to go to Silicon Valley but if you choose to stay here in Europe you\'ll are pioneers in something up and coming in so that\'s very exciting.

因此，如果你选择留在欧洲，我绝对建议你去硅谷，但如果你选择留在欧洲，你将是一些新事物的先驱者，这将是非常令人兴奋的。

> So any case I came here today not to talk about that but to you know I\'m sure you came here to hear stories and advice on how to do startups and maybe get away with something inspiring or motivational to help you along your entrepreneurial journey.

所以，不管我今天来这里不是为了谈论这个问题，但对你来说，我确信你来这里是为了听一些关于如何创业的故事和建议，或许你可以通过一些鼓舞人心或激励你的东西来帮助你完成创业之旅。

> `[00:02:21]` The theme that most people want me to talk about in which I\'ll oblige today is on the topic of how not to die in the context of a startup.

`[00:02:21]` 大多数人想让我谈论的主题是，我今天要讲的主题是如何在创业的背景下不死。

> Of course not life.

当然不是生活。

> And the reason why I\'m asked to talk about it is because my co-founder who.

我之所以被要求谈论这件事，是因为我的联合创始人。

> His name is Aaron and he\'s also he\'s my younger brother as well.

他叫亚伦，他也是我弟弟。

> He and I spent a really really long time searching for what is Homejoy today and we essentially spent over three years in an utter mess and darkness until we figured out.

我和他花了很长时间来寻找今天的家，我们基本上花了三年多的时间在一片混乱和黑暗中，直到我们找到答案。

> `[00:03:01]` We even thought of Homejoy.

`[00:03:01]` 我们甚至想到了家庭。

> And so that\'s what I want to talk about today.

这就是我今天要谈的。

> `[00:03:06]` Tell you that story at least as much as I possibly can in time I have and hopefully you know I think there\'s something instructional in there if not some entertaining.

`[00:03:06]` 尽可能多地告诉你那个故事，希望你知道，如果不是娱乐的话，我觉得里面有一些教育意义的东西。

> So.

所以

> `[00:03:18]` Erin and I started we started working in 2009 and our goals were twofold.

`[00:03:18]` 艾琳和我 2009 年开始工作，我们的目标是双重的。

> We wanted to 1 make people happy or somehow.

我们想让人们快乐或不知何故。

> And 2 we want to build a huge humongous business because we wanted it to.

我们想要建立一个巨大的商业，因为我们希望它。

> It\'s a good proxy for making huge impact in the world.

它是在世界上产生巨大影响的一个很好的代表。

> And you know the problem was that most entrepreneurs are and which is very good advice given the advice of you should work on a problem that you actually have.

你知道，问题是，大多数企业家都是，这是非常好的建议，如果你的建议，你应该致力于一个问题，你实际拥有。

> The issue for us is that we are fairly simple people.

对我们来说，问题是我们是相当简单的人。

> We don\'t have that many hobbies.

我们没有那么多爱好。

> We actually don\'t own that many things.

其实我们并不拥有那么多东西。

> We literally both of us combined we probably own just you know our clothes and I just wear Homejoy t shirts all the time they\'re free so I really just on my pants and and shoes and we we both each own at mattress and that\'s literally it.

我们两个人加在一起，我们可能都有自己的衣服，你知道我们的衣服，而我只是一直穿着家里的 t 恤，它们都是免费的，所以我真的只穿裤子和鞋子，我们每个人都有自己的床垫，这就是字面上的意思。

> And so we just generally are very happy people are optimistic people and we just didn\'t have many problems.

所以我们通常是非常快乐的，人们是乐观的人，我们只是没有太多的问题。

> And so for us to build a business we then went about we had to go essentially search for a bottom.

因此，为了我们建立一个业务，然后我们开始，我们必须去寻找一个底部的实质。

> Now when you\'re searching for a problem to solve.

现在当你在寻找要解决的问题时。

> It\'s literally a needle in the haystack type problem you\'re trying to find that needle trying to find that great idea.

这实际上是一个干草堆式的问题，你想要找到那根针，试图找到那个好主意。

> And you know some people are very good at it.

你知道有些人很擅长这个。

> Some people literally have high powered vacuums and they just zap up all the hay in a perfect manner and then laying there is the perfect idea.

有些人确实有高功率真空吸尘器，他们只是把所有的干草以完美的方式，然后躺在那里是完美的想法。

> But for the rest of us we\'re literally taking you know each piece of hay one by one looking at it with a magnifying glass and seeing that piece of hay or is that a needle is a great idea or not.

但是对于我们其余的人来说，我们实际上是带着你们去认识每一块干草，一个接一个地看着它，用放大镜看着它，看到那片干草，或者说针是一个好主意还是不好的主意。

> And and and you just go piece by piece of piece for hay one by one and it\'s have to be very patient because it has lots of pieces.

你只需一片地干草，它必须非常耐心，因为它有很多碎片。

> And so that\'s what we did for a long time as we\'re searching for idea.

这就是我们在寻找想法的很长一段时间里所做的事情。

> So in 2009 we started a company called Path joy not Homejoy path joy and path Joy was a platform that connected people with therapies and life coaches.

所以在 2009 年，我们成立了一家名为 PATH Joy 的公司，而不是 Homejoy 路径 Joy 和 Path Joy，这是一个将人们与治疗和生活教练联系在一起的平台。

> Because again our part motivation for our business was to make people happier and we thought who are the people who make people happy.

因为再一次，我们做生意的动机是让人们更快乐，我们想谁是让人快乐的人。

> Well it\'s got to be these therapies and life coaches it turns out that\'s not really the case.

嗯，必须是这些疗法和生活教练，事实证明事实并非如此。

> It also turns out that we appear to be cynics because when we try to use the platform ourselves.

事实也证明，我们似乎是愤世嫉俗的人，因为当我们尝试使用这个平台时，我们自己。

> We absolutely hated it and we couldn\'t stand the sessions.

我们非常讨厌它，我们无法忍受会议。

> And so we so clearly we weren\'t working on a platform that we even actually use ourselves.

因此，我们非常清楚，我们没有在一个平台上工作，我们甚至可以使用我们自己。

> `[00:05:57]` And so we went through idea like this after idea and we went literally through a dozen ideas for over three years.

`[00:05:57]` 于是我们经历了这样一个又一个想法，我们在三年多的时间里真的经历了十几个想法。

> And meanwhile.

同时。

> In these three years you know life also happens so there\'s things like you need to pay your electrical bills on time.

在这三年里，你知道生活也会发生，所以你需要按时支付电费。

> And sometimes we didn\'t and we\'d be forced to go find a generator and when you have a generator you know a on a hot sweaty day you have to make the choice of do I plug in the portable AC Audio plug on my computer so I can continue coding.

有时我们没有，我们会被迫去找一个发电机，当你有一个发电机，你知道，在炎热的一天，你必须作出选择，我插入便携式的 AC 音频插头在我的电脑上，以便我可以继续编码。

> And so and there\'s other things like you know we have typical Asian American parents.

还有其他的事情，比如你知道，我们有典型的亚裔美国父母。

> And it\'s like they were they were about to disown me because I\'d taken the star genius child of our family and somehow convinced them to work on this flailing venture and instead of you know he could have been working at a really nice prestigious high paying job.

就像他们要和我断绝关系，因为我接受了我们家族的明星天才孩子，并以某种方式说服他们从事这个令人震惊的事业，而不是你知道，他本来可以从事一份非常有声望的高薪工作。

> And so while all this is happening in life you are also expected to just focus on building a business.

因此，当这一切都发生在生活中时，你也应该专注于建立一家企业。

> And we just had a really really tough time finding an idea that would work.

我们只是很难找到一个可行的想法。

> And you know in 2012 around the summer 2012 we just kind of lost our way and I found myself literally working on a network of blogs and rerunning gossip news for these blogs because we were just essentially arbitraging keyword traffic guess UNSCOM type traffic of making money off of that and thinking about you know back to why we started this business of making people happier you know.

你知道，在 2012 年夏天左右的 2012 年，我们迷失了方向，我发现自己确实在为这些博客建立一个博客网络，并重新播放八卦新闻，因为我们基本上只是在仲裁关键词流量，猜测特委会的那种赚钱流量，然后回想起为什么我们开始做这个让人们更快乐的事情-你知道。

> You know I think I convinced myself at some point that you know when people read entertainment news they get this little amount of joy out of it.

你知道，我想我在某种程度上说服了自己，你知道，当人们阅读娱乐新闻时，他们会从中得到一点点快乐。

> And if I was able to you know get millions and millions of people to read it then I can get this little bit of joy.

如果我能让数以百万计的人阅读，那么我就能得到一点快乐。

> Times a million.

一百万次。

> And so I\'d be at least creating this much happiness in the world.

所以我至少在这个世界上创造了这么多的快乐。

> But you see that\'s that\'s that\'s quite a stretch right.

但你看，这是个很好的选择。

> And and we were just essentially faking it at that point.

我们当时只是假装而已。

> So meanwhile you know it\'s summer of 2012 we were still we didn\'t have an idea.

因此，与此同时，你知道现在是 2012 年的夏天，我们还没有想到什么。

> Listen idea we thought that could get really big and meet the goals of you know what we want to do with our business.

听着，想法，我们认为这可能会变得非常大，并达到你的目标，你知道我们想做什么，我们的业务。

> And we are also running out of money.

我们也快没钱了。

> Three years we had managed to raise a little bit of investment capital in 2010 but it was pretty much gone.

在 2010 年的三年里，我们成功地筹集了少量的投资资本，但它已经基本消失了。

> So what were doing coincidentally at the same time Erin Aarons place we were working out of Aaron\'s place and he\'s a typical Dutch bachelor.

所以，巧合的是，与此同时，艾琳·阿龙(ErinAaron)的工作地点是在阿伦的地方，他是一个典型的荷兰单身汉。

> His place was extremely dirty.

他的地方非常脏。

> The bathrooms were gross I refused to use it.

浴室太恶心了，我拒绝使用它。

> I would literally walk three blocks bathroom Abathur Metacafe instead.

我真的要走三个街区的浴室，阿巴瑟·梅塔卡菲，而不是。

> And when I did work it out there I would literally carve out a little corner for myself to work from because it was said clean.

当我在那里工作的时候，我会给自己划出一个小小的角落，让我自己去工作，因为它被说成是干净的。

> And at some point he decided OK I\'m actually going to figure out how to clean this place.

在某个时候，他决定，好吧，我会想办法把这个地方打扫干净的。

> And he decided well maybe I should just go find a cleaner because you know I could.

他决定也许我应该去找个清洁工因为你知道我可以。

> I don\'t have that much money.

我没有那么多钱。

> But I think this project that we\'re working on is very promising.

但我认为我们正在进行的这个项目是非常有希望的。

> So I should just spend my time coding and just pay a little bit of money to have someone clean my place and therefore we can be more productive than you can stop complaining.

所以我应该把时间花在编码上，花点钱让别人打扫我的地方，这样我们就能比你停止抱怨更有效率了。

> So he went out to go find a cleaner and you know he ran into two issues One is he.

所以他出去找了个清洁工，你知道他遇到了两个问题，一个是他。

> He looked up cleaning agencies and stuff like that and there you know you can find a really great professional cleaner whose background check has been tested and Person interviewed you when they show up you actually know that they know how to clean.

他查了一下清洁机构之类的东西，在那里你可以找到一位非常棒的专业清洁工，他的背景检查已经过测试，当他们出现的时候你会面试你，你知道他们知道如何清洁。

> The problem is that you have to pay these agencies a huge premium for them in something he clearly we couldn\'t afford.

问题是，你必须向这些机构支付巨额溢价，因为他显然是我们负担不起的。

> Then the second route is in theU.S.

第二条路线是在美国。

> we have.

我们有

> I mean there\'s online classified sites everywhere in theU.S.

我的意思是，美国到处都有在线机密网站。

> It\'s called you know the most popular one is called Craigslist.

这个名字叫你知道最受欢迎的名字叫做 Craigslist。

> You can go to Craigslist and find cleaners there.

你可以去 Craigslist 那里找清洁工。

> But those people are not background checks.

但那些人不是背景调查。

> You don\'t know who is actually going to show up at your place so they could be essentially an axe murder serial killer.

你不知道谁真的会出现在你的地方，这样他们就可以本质上是一个斧头谋杀案，连环杀手。

> So that was not a good choice.

所以这不是个好选择。

> And so he comes to me and says Hey Dora I think that there\'s a problem here and I actually think we should try to look into and try to solve it.

于是他走过来对我说：嘿，多拉，我认为这里有一个问题，我认为我们应该试着去研究和解决这个问题。

> And at that point again we were just working on an idea that was you know kind of flopping.

在这一点上，我们只是在研究一个想法，你知道，这是一种失败。

> And so I said OK let\'s let\'s let\'s just look at this and the more and more we research into it the more more we realize that it was extremely inconvenient to book a cleaning.

所以我说，好吧，让我们看看这个，我们对它的研究越多，我们就越意识到预订一次清洁是非常不方便的。

> And that the industry hadn\'t changed in over 60 years.

60 多年来，这个行业没有发生任何变化。

> And so we decided to to to to start working on it.

所以我们决定开始研究。

> What is Homejoy today now.

今天何去何从。

> Now we had the idea.

现在我们有了主意。

> But there are still long path for us to even make it somewhat successful.

但是，我们还有很长的路要走，才能使它取得一定的成功。

> And the first problem we had was how do they find the customers.

我们遇到的第一个问题是他们如何找到顾客。

> So we spun up a Web site over the course of a weekend and we open it up and we thought everyone\'s going to start booking and the first day zero people like deserve therp after week zero people and we just couldn\'t find a customer.

因此，我们在一个周末的过程中创建了一个网站，我们打开它，我们认为每个人都会开始预订，第一天，像零人一样的第一天，我们应该得到一个又一个零周的人，我们只是找不到客户。

> So it looked kind of depressing for a little bit.

所以看起来有点郁闷。

> But again this is during a summer time it was very hot.

但这也是在夏天的时候，天气很热。

> And so I thought one day there was a fair outside our office.

所以我想有一天我们办公室外面有个集市。

> And I basically got a bunch of cool water bottles dragged it all the way out to outside and just convince people to start talking to me and I gave them free water bottles at some point.

我基本上得到了一堆凉水瓶，把它拖到外面，然后说服人们开始和我说话，然后我给了他们免费的水瓶。

> I was able to we were able to essentially guilt trip them into booking cleanings.

我能够

> And so we traded water for cleanings.

所以我们用水换清洁。

> It was it was pretty good.

很不错。

> I figured you know once the client once the booking the cleaning was supposed to happen they would actually you know cancel on me or on us.

我想你知道，一旦客户，一旦预订，清洁应该发生，他们会知道，实际上，你知道取消对我或我们。

> But but it turns out most of them didn\'t and which was a sign to me that this was something people actually wanted.

但事实证明，他们中的大多数人并没有这样做，这对我来说是一个信号，表明这是人们真正想要的东西。

> So when you start a platform or a marketplace you have a chicken and egg problem.

因此，当你开始一个平台或一个市场，你有鸡和鸡蛋的问题。

> You know your customers than you need the cleaners in this case.

在这种情况下，你了解你的顾客，而不是你需要清洁工。

> And if you don\'t the cleaners and you can\'t you know there\'s no way you can serve the customers.

如果你不去清洁工，你不知道你不可能为顾客服务。

> So we got the customers and we solved the other side of the equation instead of trying to find cleaners.

因此，我们得到了顾客，我们解决了方程的另一边，而不是试图寻找清洁工。

> We just became cleaners ourselves.

我们自己也成了清洁工。

> And so we showed up to the first few cleanings and apartments and what we learned very quickly was what we should have known anyway.

所以我们出现在最初的几个清洁和公寓里，我们很快就知道了我们应该知道的事情。

> We were very bad cleaners.

我们是非常糟糕的清洁工。

> And cleaning is very very hard.

清洁是很难的。

> So if you work hard you\'ll eventually get the place clean but it could take many many hours and a good example of this is one of the first places we cleaned was a 9000 square foot home in Los Altos Hills which is a rich area and in the south of San Francisco and in California we show up to this house and it\'s a post construction clean.

所以，如果你努力工作，你最终会把这个地方打扫干净，但这可能需要很多时间，一个很好的例子是，我们首先打扫的地方之一是洛斯阿尔托斯山(Los Altos Hills)的一栋 9000 平方英尺的房子，这是一个富饶的地区，在旧金山南部，在加州，我们出现在这栋房子前，这是一处建筑后的清洁。

> And so if you know anything about the cleaning history post construction cleaning the house is actually not gross or dirty in any sense it\'s just very very dusty because it\'s just been remodeled or they just built it.

因此，如果你对清洁历史有任何了解，在建筑后清理房屋，从任何意义上说，它都不是很恶心或肮脏的，它只是灰尘很大，因为它只是被改造了，或者他们只是建造了它。

> And so you just need to clean up a lot of dust.

所以你只需要清理很多灰尘。

> And we literally walk into one room.

我们真的走进了一个房间。

> We get our microfiber rags and we were just you know clean the dust up and then we would go to another and clean the dust up and then we circle back to the first Araminta.

我们得到了我们的微纤维抹布，我们只是，你知道，清理灰尘，然后我们会去另一个，清理灰尘，然后我们回到第一个阿拉明塔。

> And all of a sudden there\'s another layer of dust.

突然又有了一层灰尘。

> And so we were just going around the house in circles over and over and over again.

所以我们只是一遍又一遍地绕着房子转。

> It turns out you actually need special equipment to pick up those dust.

原来你真的需要特殊的设备来捡起那些灰尘。

> You don\'t use paper towels in microfiber rags to clean up this dust.

你不能用微纤维抹布里的纸巾来清理灰尘。

> And I kid you not.

我骗不了你。

> It took us five days to clean this house like literally five days.

我们花了五天的时间才把这房子打扫了五天。

> That is the worst experience for the customer because you end the day you said sorry I have to come back because you know what you saw in the morning it still looks like that.

这对顾客来说是最糟糕的经历，因为你结束了你说对不起的那一天，我必须回来，因为你知道你早上看到了什么，它看起来仍然是这样的。

> So I\'m coming back tomorrow.

所以我明天再来。

> So right there we knew.

所以我们就知道。

> Okay.

好的。

> We have to look legit.

我们得看上去是合法的。

> Anyway if we\'re gonna bring on actual professional cleaners on the platform we have to figure out how to clean ourselves first.

总之，如果我们要在平台上雇佣真正的职业清洁工，我们必须先弄清楚如何清洁自己。

> And so we decided OK let\'s go learn how to clean.

所以我们决定，让我们去学习如何清洁。

> So because Erin was working on the customer service side of stuff and that was are important we\'re getting lots of calls and stuff like that.

因此，由于 Erin 是在客户服务方面工作的，这是很重要的，我们会接到很多电话和类似的东西。

> It was on me to actually go learn how to clean.

我该去学清洁了。

> We first got some books which you know they\'re actually professional cleaner books out there.

我们首先有一些书，你知道它们实际上是专业的清洁书籍。

> But like any physical task you\'re better off.

但就像任何体力活一样，你会过得更好。

> And it\'s much faster to you know you learn by doing a learn by training.

这对你来说更快，你知道你是通过训练来学习的。

> So you decided to or I decided to just get a job at a cleaning company.

所以你决定或者我决定在一家清洁公司找份工作。

> So it actually took me two weeks to find this job and because mostly I was rejected at almost everywhere.

所以我花了两个星期才找到这份工作，因为我在几乎所有地方都被拒绝了。

> But this one cleaning company in San Francisco actually desperately needed somebody so they accepted my application and it was a bit of a taxing time at that point because it was and it was in San Francisco which is about 30 to 90 minute drive depending on the rush hour traffic at that time.

但旧金山的一家清洁公司实际上非常需要人，所以他们接受了我的申请，这是一个令人费劲的时间，因为它在旧金山，大约 30 到 90 分钟的车程，取决于当时的交通高峰时间。

> And so I would literally show up to work at 7:00 or go through rush hour traffic.

所以我会在 7 点上班或者在交通高峰时间上班。

> Show up to work around 7:00 8:00 depending on where my first gig was.

7：00 8：00 左右上班取决于我第一次演出的地点。

> Then I would go out and do the work.

然后我就出去做这项工作。

> Clean clean clean and then I would come back drop off everything and then drive back down to Mountain View which is where we lived and then took a shower.

打扫干净，然后我会回来，把所有的东西都放下，然后开车回到山景城，那里是我们住的地方，然后洗个澡。

> You take a shower after cleaning that much and I spent my time coding or doing working on operational type stuff.

你洗了那么多澡后，我花了时间编写代码或做操作类型的东西。

> Taking a nap and then driving back up and after a week that actually I noticed that I was spending too much time on the road in rush hour traffic.

打个盹，然后开车回来，一周后，实际上，我注意到，我花了太多的时间在交通高峰期的道路上。

> So I I actually decided to come back.

所以我决定回来。

> Cold cold cold and rough 3:00 I would just drive back up to the city and sleep in my car for a few hours.

寒冷而粗糙的 3 点，我开车回到城市，在我的车里睡了几个小时。

> I was right by the McDonald\'s there on Third Street and I would just go brush my teeth.

我就在第三街的麦当劳旁边，我就去刷牙。

> When I woke up and then just go straight to the gig and I was able to save about anywhere between an hour and a half and three hours everyday by doing that.

当我醒来，然后直接去演出的时候，我每天可以节省大约一个半小时到三个小时的时间。

> In hindsight not the most efficient use of my time or you know not even the best like route or the best thing to do but I was so focused on learning how to clean and cutting the site and getting the operations up.

事后看来，不是最有效地利用我的时间，或者你不知道最好的路线或最好的事情做，但我是如此专注于学习如何清理和切割网站，并使运作起来。

> That was the first thing I thought of to do.

这是我想要做的第一件事。

> So you know the job the cleaning job was actually quite interesting and very informational.

所以你知道，清洁工作其实很有趣，也很有信息。

> So I learned how to clean which was great but the best thing I got out of it was that I learned a lot about how to a typical cleaning company works.

因此，我学会了如何清洁，这是很棒的，但我从中学到的最好的事情是，我学到了很多关于如何一个典型的清洁公司工作。

> And there\'s a number of things I don\'t have time to talk about all of these things but you know it\'s things like getting getting getting a customer booking a customer took a long time was very inconvenient for no reason until Homejoy there was really no way to easily book something online which seems like a 21st century thing that should happen.

还有很多事情我没有时间来谈论，但是你知道的，比如让客户预订，花了很长时间是非常不方便的，因为直到 Homejoy 真的没有办法轻松地在网上预订一些东西，这似乎是 21 世纪应该发生的事情。

> And then it was down to you know scheduling cleaners.

这取决于你知道的排班清洁工。

> They were doing it in a very manual manner.

他们是用非常手工的方式做的。

> And as an engineer when you see these sorts of things you immediately see that these things don\'t scale and that\'s why cleaning companies generally stay very small.

作为一名工程师，当你看到这些东西的时候，你马上就会发现这些东西不会扩大，这就是为什么清洁公司通常会保持很小的规模。

> Well you can apply a layer of technology supplier layer of algorithms or whatnot and make things go much faster and make things much more efficient and essentially reduce the overhead cost to virtually nothing.

好吧，你可以应用一层技术，供应商层算法或诸如此类的东西，使事情发展得更快，使事情更有效率，并基本上把开销降低到几乎为零。

> So after a few weeks I quit the job because I wasn\'t learning thing.

所以过了几个星期，我就辞职了，因为我没有学到东西。

> We were growing a little bit and we were very confident that we\'re on to something.

我们增长了一点点，我们很有信心，我们正在做一些事情。

> And by taking the job we had built even more confidence.

通过接受这份工作，我们建立了更多的信心。

> And so for the next month in the next two months we were working working working.

在接下来的两个月里，我们一直在工作。

> We actually became a legit platform in the sense that the actual actual professional cleaners would join us and take jobs on the platform so we didn\'t have to clean as much.

我们实际上变成了一个合法的平台，因为真正的专业清洁工会加入我们的行列，在这个平台上工作，所以我们不需要那么多的清洁。

> So after two months we were growing a little bit and we ran into a problem and that is after three years of working we had no we virtually no money in the bank and while we could have sustained the business without raising more capital we knew that if we didn\'t raise more capital we couldn\'t grow as fast enough we couldn\'t grow as fast as we just remain a lifestyle business and for us again at the top of when I start talking you know our goals have always been to build a big business.

因此，两个月后，我们增长了一点点，我们遇到了一个问题，那就是，在工作了三年之后，我们几乎没有银行里的钱，虽然我们本来可以在不筹集更多资金的情况下维持业务，但我们知道，如果我们不能筹集到更多的资金，我们就不能像现在这样快速增长。一个生活方式的生意，对我们来说，当我开始谈论的时候，你知道我们的目标一直是建立一个大企业。

> And so we knew right then and there that if this was going to be big we had to raise a little bit of money to continue growing.

因此，我们当时就知道，如果这个数字要大的话，我们必须筹集一点资金才能继续增长。

> So now imagine after three years of failed idea after Phil idea and this current idea which is essentially at that point just another cleaning company with a nice booking flow on line.

现在想象一下，在经历了三年的失败之后，菲尔的想法和目前的想法，基本上是在那个时候，只是另一家清洁公司，有一个很好的在线预订流程。

> `[00:19:11]` Imagine trying to raise money for that kind of business.

`[00:19:11]` 想象一下，试着为那种生意筹集资金。

> And with your history of just not having anything done and things successful quite yet.

你的历史就是什么都没做，事情还很成功。

> `[00:19:22]` So where we\'re going to find this money will definitely come and go to the parents.

`[00:19:22]` 所以我们要到哪里去找这笔钱，一定会来找父母的。

> They thought we were pretty crazy.

他们觉得我们很疯狂。

> Already we go to investors because they don\'t really know us that well they don\'t know how we worked.

我们已经去找投资者了，因为他们不太了解我们，他们不知道我们是如何运作的。

> And and we\'re to convince them that the first twelve ideas were stupid.

我们要让他们相信前十二个想法是愚蠢的。

> You know what makes the 13th.

你知道十三号是怎么回事。

> Any any any less stupid.

再蠢不过了。

> And so we were pretty stuck for a little bit.

所以我们被困了一小会儿。

> So we made a decision.

所以我们做了个决定。

> We took out credit card.

我们取走了信用卡。

> Aaron actually started practicing poker because he thought Well worst case scenario I\'m going to go to Vegas and just double down on this.

亚伦实际上开始练习扑克，因为他认为最坏的情况是，我要去拉斯维加斯，在这件事上加倍努力。

> But my confidence in that wasn\'t very high.

但我对此的信心不是很高。

> And so we set a date and on that date I set up two meetings and I said if I out of these two meetings if we don\'t raise money we\'re just going to stop and we\'re just going to figure something out and just spin the company down.

所以我们设定了一个日期，在那个日期，我安排了两次会议，我说，如果我退出这两次会议，如果我们不筹集资金，我们就会停下来，我们就会想出办法，把公司分拆。

> So on this day it was sometime in late August.

所以这一天是 8 月底的某个时候。

> The first meeting was with an investor my former boss whose name is Max Levchin and he is one of the cofounders of PayPal and the founder slide and I set that meeting up because I used to work with him or I used to work for him.

第一次会面是和一位投资者，我的前老板叫马克斯·莱文，他是贝宝和创始人幻灯片的联合创始人之一，我安排这次会议是因为我过去和他一起工作，或者我曾经为他工作过。

> And I figured if anybody knew how hard I could work on a problem and could see some resemblance of a growing business and put money into it it would be probably him or worst case I would just maybe guilt trip him into giving the money.

我想，如果有人知道我能在一个问题上付出多大的努力，我就能看到一个成长中的企业的一些相似之处，把钱投入其中可能就是他，或者最坏的情况，我可能会内疚地把钱给他。

> And then a second meeting I set up was office hours withP.G.

然后我安排的第二次会议是和 P.G 的办公时间。

> literally that same day office hours with PGE.

就在同一天和 PGE 的办公时间。

> `[00:21:01]` And the reason why I did that was I figured okay if I don\'t get money from this first meeting then I\'m going to have to do the whole depressing walk back down to Mountain View and tell somebody that our company is dead and we need to figure out how to spin this thing down.

`[00:21:01]` 我这么做的原因是，如果我第一次会议没有钱的话，我就得回到山景城，告诉别人我们的公司已经死了，我们需要想办法把这件事搞清楚。

> `[00:21:17]` So we drive up to San Francisco and have a meeting with Max.

`[00:21:17]` 所以我们开车去旧金山和 Max 开会。

> And for the first 15 minutes we\'re just kind of explaining you know what was going on and and through this whole 15 minutes of just explaining things I was extremely nervous although I tried not to express it and sort of had the sinking feeling of we\'ve spent so much time building trying to come up with this thing like like the first part of what we did was you know was you know was just horrible stuff just stuff that didn\'t work out.

在最初的 15 分钟里，我们只是在解释，你知道发生了什么，在这整个 15 分钟的时间里，我非常紧张，尽管我试图不去表达它，并且有一种沉闷的感觉，那就是我们花了那么多时间努力想出这个东西，就像我们所做的第一部分一样。你知道，那只是些糟糕的东西，只是那些不管用的东西。

> We finally had gained momentum and then I could see in the next five minutes it was going to determine whether all that momentum was off or not.

我们终于获得了动力，然后我可以在接下来的五分钟内看到，它将决定是否所有的动量都消失了。

> And it was just gonna come all crashing down on us.

一切都会降临到我们身上。

> And so after 15 minutes I basically said hey Max we need some money to keep going would you like to invite us.

所以 15 分钟后，我基本上说，嘿，麦克斯，我们需要一些钱来继续前进，你愿意邀请我们吗？

> And he says well how much do you need.

他说你需要多少。

> And I say well we need a set up because the customer service lines are blowing up and we need some capital to expand our operations.

我要说的是，我们需要设立这样的机构，因为客户服务项目正在崩溃，我们需要一些资金来扩大我们的业务。

> And so I think I need 25 k to you know to kind of see this out for the next few months.

所以我想我需要 25K 才能在接下来的几个月里看到这个。

> And he looks up he looks at me and says oh that\'s it.

他抬头看着我说：哦，就是这样。

> Sure you can have it just like here I\'ll give it to you just to see how this will work out.

当然可以，就像这里一样，我会把它给你，看看它的效果如何。

> And as soon as he said that there was a sigh of relief and I got there as fast as possible before we could even change his mind.

当他说他松了一口气，我就尽快赶到那里，我们甚至还没来得及改变他的想法。

> And.

和

> And.

和

> And so we were we were extremely happy with high fives on the way out.

所以我们非常高兴击掌离开的路上。

> And we\'re just grinning the whole ride back down to to Mountain View.

我们只是傻笑着回到山景城。

> So our second meeting we had with Fiji and we had that meeting that was a good meeting and we actually ended the day with 50 came the bank because he also thought the same thing and also gave us 25 k and 50 he at that point felt like a bit jillion dollars like we went from like negative dollars to 50 K and we knew that with that 50 k we could make something happen because we just saw it.

所以我们和斐济的第二次会议是个很好的会议，我们以 50 美元结束了，因为他也有同样的想法，也给了我们 25k 和 50 美元，当时他觉得有点不稳定，就像我们从负美元到 50 美元一样，我们知道。我们可以让一些事情发生因为我们刚刚看到了。

> And so if I had to succinctly describe you know that whole experience from beginning to end until we got that 50 K that what then help us spurn the growth of Homejoy it would be like in 2009 we jumped out a plane together and we\'re falling very very very slowly down.

所以，如果我必须简明扼要地描述一下，你知道整个经历从头到尾，直到我们得到了 50K，然后帮助我们拒绝了 Homejoy 的成长，就像 2009 年我们一起从飞机上跳了下来，我们的下落非常缓慢。

> You can kind of see the ground but it\'s just like slow motion.

你可以看到地面，但它就像慢动作。

> And then when we got the idea of Homejoy it\'s like it\'s like clicking fastforward.

然后当我们想到 Homejoy 的时候，这就像点击 FastForm 一样。

> Basically you\'re trying to find the parachute and you don\'t have a parachute you\'re running running out of money and you just run out of money and somehow your feet before you hit the ground you mere maracas leaf get pogo sticks or whatever and you bounce right back up and skyrocket.

基本上，你在试图找到降落伞，你没有降落伞，你的钱用完了，不知怎么的，你的脚在你落地之前就跑光了，你只不过是一片荆棘叶，得到了一根棍棒之类的东西，然后你就会弹起来，飞升起来。

> And for us you know today we are in over 30 markets worldwide.

对我们来说，你知道，今天我们在全球 30 多个市场。

> We have 150 employees.

我们有 150 名员工。

> And we\'ve raised around 40 million dollars in venture capital and we\'re growing faster than ever.

我们已经筹集了大约 4000 万美元的风险投资，而且我们的增长速度比以往任何时候都快。

> And I would say I\'m pretty much living the dream that I imagined so many years ago today.

我想说，我现在的梦想就像很多年前我想象的那样。

> `[00:24:36]` And and I am very happy at this point with where we are.

`[00:24:36]` 我和我对我们现在的处境感到非常高兴。

> So I\'ll end with this.

所以我会以这个结束。

> You know a lot of people ask me how did you keep on going.

你知道很多人问我你是怎么坚持下去的。

> Like how did you persevere and not quit.

就像你是怎么坚持不放弃的。

> And I would say that Eric and I are like I said we\'re pretty simple people and we don\'t stress out about things.

我要说的是，我和埃里克就像我说的那样，我们是相当简单的人，我们不会对事情感到压力。

> And I think it\'s important to note that with start a lot of crap happens and when that crap happens you can\'t make a stressful situation more stressful.

我认为需要注意的是，开始的时候会有很多垃圾发生，当那些垃圾发生的时候，你不能让压力更大。

> You have to just say Oh that really sucks.

你只能说哦，太糟糕了。

> Ok.

好的

> I\'m not going to do that again.

我不会再那么做了。

> And 3.

和 3。

> Now how am I going to deal with this.

现在我该怎么处理这件事。

> If you maintain that mentality you\'ll win.

如果你保持这种心态，你就会赢。

> You can survive over and over and over again.

你可以一次又一次地活下去。

> `[00:25:28]` So you know I tell this story.

`[00:25:28]` 所以你知道我讲这个故事。

> Because it\'s entertaining hopefully.

因为这很有娱乐性。

> But I tell the story not to glorify failure.

但我讲这个故事并不是为了美化失败。

> It\'s quite the opposite.

恰恰相反。

> I tell this story because I want people to know that startups are very very very hard the good news is that you know you only fail if you stop trying.

我讲这个故事是因为我希望人们知道创业是非常困难的，好消息是你知道只有当你停止尝试时你才会失败。

> And so if you don\'t give up you won\'t have failed.

所以，如果你不放弃，你就不会失败。

> Now most a lot of successful entrepreneurs say that you know they\'re successful because they got lucky.

现在大多数成功的企业家说他们之所以成功是因为他们运气好。

> For some reason and I believe that\'s a bunch of horseshit and the reason why is.

因为某种原因，我相信那是一堆马术，而原因是。

> Sure there are some lucky events in your life and mostly that revolves around you know who you are your parents you know when you were born environment you grew up in.

当然，在你的生活中有一些幸运的事情，主要是围绕着你，知道你是谁，你的父母，你知道当你出生的时候，你成长的环境。

> These are things that are out of control for me.

这些事情对我来说是无法控制的。

> The one lucky event was being born into a family where my co-founder happened to me a brother the best co-founder I could possibly have happened to my brother.

唯一幸运的事情是出生在一个家庭里，在这个家庭里，我的联合创始人碰巧遇到了我的兄弟，这是我可能会遇到的最好的联合创始人。

> That\'s completely random and lucky event otherwise we have completely worked our asses off for where we are today.

这完全是随机而幸运的事件，否则我们已经为我们今天的处境而努力了。

> And we continue to work our asses off today.

今天我们继续努力工作。

> `[00:26:39]` I am so consumed by Homejoy that I work literally every single day still to make Homejoy better for our customers and for our service professionals.

`[00:26:39]` 我是如此地被家庭快乐所消耗，以至于我仍然每天都在为我们的客户和我们的服务专业人员工作，让家更美好。

> And I\'m not saying that it\'s too well that you need to work every single day that would drive most people nuts.

我并不是说你需要每天工作才能让大多数人发疯。

> But I would say that you need to work really really hard.

但我想说你需要努力工作。

> You need to work smart but you also need to work really really hard.

你需要聪明地工作，但你也需要非常努力地工作。

> So any case that is the story I\'m out of time now and I hope it was helpful in some manner.

所以，任何情况下，这就是我现在没有时间的故事，我希望这在某种程度上是有帮助的。

> And best wishes to your entrepreneurial journey.

并向你的创业之旅致以最良好的祝愿。

> Thank you so much.

非常感谢

> `[00:27:20]` Applause.

`[00:27:20]` 掌声。

