Startup Spotlight #90: Adora

Adora helps universities make every student's visit personalized and engaging.

Feb 24, 2021

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I got the chance to speak with Joseph Rubin, Raya Ward, and Ron Miasnik, co-founders of Adora, about what they are working on at their startup, and any advice they have for emerging entrepreneurs.

Adora is a digital campus visit platform that helps universities engage prospective students through personalized, digital experiences. The platform supports both virtual engagement and self-guided on-campus tours and is now being used by Princeton University, Washington University St. Louis, Pitzer College, North Dakota State, and others to engage students during these unprecedented times.

Joseph Rubin, Raya Ward, and Ron Miasnik are co-founders at Adora. They founded Adora as Princeton students and have grown the company while still in school. Joseph, Raya, and Ron's work experience spans design, software engineering, and product management at Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

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Startup Spotlight: Adora

Adora cofounders Joseph Rubin (top left), Raya Ward (bottom middle), and Ron Miasnik (top right).

Problem: Universities' recruitment and campus visit processes are ineffective at convincing students to enroll due to the fact that they are generic (same tour for every student) and inaccessible (limited slots and limited virtual engagement).

Market: The higher education and admissions space was massively disrupted by the pandemic — admissions processes that had been standard for decades stopped working overnight, forcing every university in the country to rethink and recreate their visit processes. considered normal for decades are now. Our SAM is $600M — focusing on educational institutions looking to recruit students. Our TAM is $15B — expanding to any location that might want to engage its visitors in new and innovative ways (museums, cities, etc).

Solution: Adora is a personalized, digital campus visit platform that makes compelling visits accessible to all. We make a mobile app that allows universities to offer personalized tours based on student interests both on-campus and virtually.

Team: Raya Ward, Joseph Rubin, and Ron Miasnik are the co-founders of Adora. They started Adora in collaboration with Princeton's Admissions office while students at Princeton. Their background is as engineers, designers, and product managers at firms like Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

Recent Success:

Rubin, Ward, Miasnik: We are proud of having built strong, meaningful relationships with our customers. Our customers are invested in us, our product, and our company's journey. Our check-in calls with them are friendly and casual, and they are not afraid to give us ideas and feedback. They are what drives us to improve.

Recent Struggle:

Rubin, Ward, Miasnik: Adora is a completely student-run team, and we've struggled with balancing Adora with the rest of our lives as college students. We've worked on Adora over school breaks and on top of internships, and often delayed homework and skipped nights out to move the business forward. It's not easy being a student founder, but it's one of the most rewarding things you can do!

Founder Advice:

Rubin, Ward, Miasnik: Listen to the people around you. Students eager to start a startup are quick to follow the first idea they have and their gut instincts about what to build. In order to start and grow a successful company, it's crucial to be in tune with what the people around you — your customers, users, co-founders, and employees — want, think, and feel.

Two Cool Founders You Should Know About:

Rubin, Ward, Miasnik: Here are two founders you should check out next!

Sarah Greisdorf, Founder of Holdette: Holdette is an e-commerce brand designing and producing women's workwear with real pockets.
Justin Intal, Founder of Forage: Forage is Internet infrastructure for government subsidies.

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