Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Welcome to Founder Fridays - a Notion founder series - where we sit down with builders who've been in the trenches to talk shop - product, design, and the real lessons no one puts on a slide deck.
In this episode, David Hariri, Co-founder of Ada, joins Notion's Nancy Chen, Startups Lead, to unpack what it takes to build an AI-native customer experience company from a failed social network to unicorn status. From growing up in an architect's home to pivoting with conviction, David shares why respecting history makes better software, why giving customers sandboxes beats selling them visions, and why the founders who go all-in on care are the ones who win.
To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/founderfridays
00:00 Intro
01:27 Lessons from Architecture
03:39 Respecting Software's History
05:52 The Painful Pivot
10:19 The Value of Taste
14:47 Understand the Customer
16:44 Accelerating Growth with AI
20:52 The Tool Stack
24:01 Advice Block
Welcome to Founder Fridays - a Notion founder series - where we sit down with builders who've been in the trenches to talk shop - product, design, and the real lessons no one puts on a slide deck.
In this episode, David Hariri, Co-founder of Ada, joins Notion's Nancy Chen, Startups Lead, to unpack what it takes to build an AI-native customer experience company from a failed social network to unicorn status. From growing up in an architect's home to pivoting with conviction, David shares why respecting history makes better software, why giving customers sandboxes beats selling them visions, and why the founders who go all-in on care are the ones who win.
To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/founderfridays
00:00 Intro
01:27 Lessons from Architecture
03:39 Respecting Software's History
05:52 The Painful Pivot
10:19 The Value of Taste
14:47 Understand the Customer
16:44 Accelerating Growth with AI
20:52 The Tool Stack
24:01 Advice Block
