Albert Cheng

Head of Product, Growth and Monetization
2023
Every day, more than 30 million people and 70,000 teams around the world rely on Grammarly and our AI-enabled writing suggestions to communicate more confidently. Building and leading our 100+ person Growth Area, dedicated to connecting users with the value of Grammarly throughout their customer journey. Growth fuels the success of Grammarly's self-serve usage and revenue, through our freemium business model and PLG (product-led growth) and PLS (product-led sales) motions. Our cross-functional teams include Acquisition, Activation, Engagement, Expansion, Paid Conversion, Pricing & Packaging, Checkout & Trials, Billing & Payments, and MarTech.

Socially Financed

2020

Co-Founder, General Partner
2020
Socially Financed is a curated community of >500 fintech operators, investors, and founders. We've invested over $10M together in early stage fintech businesses. Our advantage is in leveraging our community to identify and support entrepreneurs.

Duolingo

2020 - 2023

Head of Product, Growth and Monetization
2020 - 2023
With over 500 million language learners, Duolingo is the most popular and top-grossing education app. I built and co-led Duolingo's Growth Area, later expanding to oversee both Growth and Monetization Areas, managing ~20 PMs and leading ~150 cross-functionally. We systematically reignited our growth, with DAUs now exceeding +60% YoY (over 25M) and Revenue now exceeding +40% YoY (over $500M), both best-in-class rates in the public markets. Our growth teams included Retention, Onboarding, Virality, Connections, Subscription Packaging, Subscription Features, In-App Purchases, International, AI, and Infrastructure. Reviewed thousands of bottoms-up feature ideas across the company through Product Review, alongside our CEO, CPO, and VP of Design.

SoFi

2019 - 2020

Director of Product
2019 - 2020
Led the product areas for crypto, app engagement, and social. We built a best-in-class investing experience that helps our members in their journey to financial independence. My teams' accomplishments included: - Building bitcoin trading into the SoFi app: from idea to launch in six months, then scaling to $1B in crypto trading volume - Added news, educational videos, analyst ratings, and more - Built an innovative social feed to bring transparency (and fun) to the markets

New Wave

2017 - 2019

Co-Founder
2017 - 2019
We built the first ever robo-advisor for crypto assets, and were approved by the SEC. I owned a broad spectrum of functions including product, growth, design, marketing, and support. Despite getting some user traction, we ran into significant challenges with our business model and the headwinds of the crypto bear market. It didn't ultimately work out. SoFi subsequently brought me onboard to lead their crypto initiative.

Chariot

2016 - 2017

Head of Product and Engineering
2016 - 2017
We created a fast, reliable, and comfortable way to commute using 15-seater shuttles bookable through our mobile apps, and serviced over 18,000 rides per week across the SF Bay Area and Austin. I was the first PM for the company and also recruited and managed Engineering, Design, and QA. During my tenure, we launched a wide range of products, including our iOS app redesign, a new referral system for drivers and commuters, Google Maps API integration, and new profitable business lines like Chariot Charters which better utilized idle vehicles. These launches drove a period of rapid growth up to our $65M acquisition by Ford Smart Mobility in late 2016.

YouTube

2011 - 2016

Senior Program Manager, YouTube Gaming
2014 - 2016
We built and launched YouTube Gaming, a platform for gaming creators and their fans. As a founding member of the team, I drove many successful product features for mobile, desktop, live streaming, monetization, and international growth, while managing the technical roadmap and enabling our engineering team to be as efficient as possible. We launched on schedule! Promoted with the highest rating (Superb), given to <2% of employees at Google.
Technology Manager, YouTube Sports
2013 - 2014
Directed the implementation efforts on YouTube with premier sports events, including the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup and America’s Cup. Partnered with major sports leagues (NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS) to dramatically expand their YouTube reach. Led the YouTube integration of the Google OneBox, which shows recent YouTube highlight clips when you do a Google search for teams. This drove additional revenue of over $10M to YouTube. Launched the Pac-12 Network on YouTube as the first-ever international live subscription channel, an early step toward the vision for YouTube TV.
Video Streaming Engineer III
2011 - 2013
Delivered reliable, high-quality video streaming of Google’s most critical events, including product launches, earnings reports and executive all hands meetings Initiated and led a complex cross-functional project to integrate closed captioning into live YouTube videos and Google+ Hangouts, providing accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing Partnered with 3rd party vendors to increase the service reliability and quality of Google's video events.

Elemental Technologies

2009 - 2011

Systems Engineering Manager
2010 - 2011
Managed our Worldwide Systems Engineering and 24/7 Technical Support team, driving an enterprise customer growth of over 50% QoQ (from 0 to 200). I was by far the youngest manager in the company and learned a ton. Implemented many large-scale video projects with companies such as Comcast, HBO, BBC, etc. Exhibited at premier trade shows in both the US and internationally such as NAB, CES, and IBC.
Systems Engineer
2009 - 2010
First customer-facing engineer in our startup company of under 20 employees at the time Delivered pre and post-sales support for enterprise customers, traveling about 50% of the time to customer sites to gather requirements, install systems and diagnose issues. Developed shell/Perl/Ruby processing scripts for our video software, outputting to set-top boxes, web formats and mobile devices