#330: Adam Nash of Daffy, on Disruptive Business Models, Building in Stealth, and Simplifying Generosity

Just Go Grind

Adam Nash is the Co-Founder and CEO of Daffy, a not-for-profit organization with the simple idea that everyone should put something aside for those less fortunate than themselves. The Daffy community is built around a new, modern platform for giving, one built around the commitment to give, not the amount you give. It empowers people to be more generous, more often through a seamless mobile experience that helps members set money aside, watch it grow tax-free, and donate to more than 1.5 million charities.

Adam is a proven advocate for development of products that go beyond utility to delight customers. At Dropbox, he led the teams responsible for growth, product strategy, product management & product analytics for a platform with over 600 million registered users with responsibility for all of Dropbox self-service revenue (~90% of all company revenue in 2019). Before Dropbox, Adam served as the President & CEO of Wealthfront, where for four years he championed the creation of a new category of automated investment services. Prior to joining Wealthfront, Adam was Vice President of Product Management at LinkedIn. Adam led LinkedIn’s Platform & Mobile products, including the launch of LinkedIn’s open developer platform and their highly successful native applications and mobile web experiences. Prior to joining LinkedIn, Adam held a number of leadership roles at eBay, including Director of eBay Express, an innovative new site focused on new, fixed-price products. Previously, Adam also held strategic and technical roles at Atlas Venture, Preview Systems and Apple.

Topics Covered by Adam Nash in this Episode

• Daffy’s founding story and Adam’s background in FinTech
• Why Adam decided to pursue entrepreneurship
• The pros and cons of building in stealth mode
• Daffy’s disruptive business model
• The challenge of onboarding investors given Daffy’s disruptive and mission-vision model
• The generosity gap and how research around giving and personal finance has influenced Daffy
• How they’ve approached growing Daffy
• Adam’s view on the lack of personal finance & giving education in the U.S. and potential solutions
• Recently added features to Daffy and what’s next for the company

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