Designing for Generosity: Adam Nash on Building Products with Heart

Jul 7, 2025

In this discussion, Adam Nash, the Founder and CEO of Daffy, a platform making charitable giving accessible, shares insights on revolutionizing philanthropy. He highlights the enormous potential of donor-advised funds, emphasizing emotional connections in giving. Adam explores how subscription models build customer loyalty and trust, key for startups. He also dives into the challenges of securing B2B clients and the importance of planned giving, showcasing how small steps can lead to meaningful generosity. His vision revolves around making charity simple for everyone.

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INSIGHT

Donor-Advised Funds' Hidden Power

Donor-advised funds are a $557 billion market mostly unknown to average Americans.
These funds allow tax-efficient giving but have been traditionally geared towards the wealthy.

ADVICE

Master Plan Emerges Backwards

You can't predict a master plan when building your career; it unfolds with connections and timing.
Embrace the unpredictability and opportunities as they come along.

INSIGHT

Democratizing Charitable Giving

Daffy democratizes charitable giving by making donor-advised funds accessible to everyone.
It simplifies putting money aside for charity and allows donations to over 1.7 million US charities.

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Adam Nash is the founder and CEO of Daffy, a donor-advised fund platform that's democratizing charitable giving for everyday Americans. Previously, he served as CEO of Wealthfront, where he helped grow the robo-advisor from $80 million to over $80 billion in assets under management. Before that, he held senior product roles at LinkedIn, eBay, and Apple.

What you'll learn:

How donor-advised funds represent a $557 billion market that most people have never heard of
Wealthfront's counterintuitive strategy for building trust by targeting tech workers first
Why subscription business models create better customer relationships than transactional ones
The three key metrics that subscription businesses should obsess over: acquisition, retention, and churn
How to design organic network effects that make customers want to share your product
Why emotional connection is the hidden driver behind every successful scaled product
The importance of finding the "humanity underneath" when building financial products
How to turn a financial task into something people genuinely care about
The behavioral finance insight that separates "how much to give" from "who to give to"
Why putting money aside for charity (even without knowing the recipient) is the most important first step
The trust-building power of getting one prestigious customer in B2B sales
How geographic restrictions can actually help remote companies maintain culture and reduce fraud risk

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Adam Nash and Daffy

(04:19) What donor-advised funds are and why they matter

(06:32) How Daffy is democratizing charitable giving

(12:23) The emotional connection behind successful products

(15:05) Wealthfront's journey from $80M to $80B

(21:14) The trust-building strategy that worked for fintech

(28:12) Subscription vs. transactional business models

(34:08) Designing organic network effects

(38:20) Adam's giving philosophy and approach

(44:18) The remote work fraud problem and trust issues

(52:00) Building ownership culture in startups