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"If it's not solving a fundamentally human need, it won't be an enduring product or solution."

Sida Li is the co-founder and CEO of Shared Context Lab, where she's building Cue, a personal AI that lives inside iMessage and group chats. Sida noticed that plenty of AI apps and services were being built for managing work. Her bet is that personal life, which is messier and less systemized, needed a solution too. 

In this conversation, IDEO's Chief Strategy Officer Becca Carroll talks with Sida about the design decisions behind Cue, what it takes to build a company that runs on AI when things are constantly shifting, and why she thinks it’s so important to prototype your business model as well as your product. 

Becca's Take

"We're just scratching the surface of value-based pricing and what it is going to unlock...There's an opportunity to experiment with charging not based on set up costs, but the value it actually creates for you."

— Becca Carroll, guest host and IDEO's Chief Strategy Officer (Follow Becca on LinkedIn)

Highlights From the Conversation

[35:28] Sida built Cue inside iMessage instead of a standalone app. She explains why the low-fidelity solution was the better one. 

[39:51] Every AI company uses the word "agent." Sida explains why she dropped it and the conversation with IDEO's Tim Brown that convinced her to do it.

[56:29] Sida pitched a B2B version of Cue, and everyone she talked to loved the idea. Then she ran into a problem. 

Put It Into Practice

Treat your business model as a prototype, not a fixed plan.
Test pricing and assumptions the same way you'd test a product feature. Expect to be wrong, and build in the ability to change course. Sida ran her early ideas through IDEO's desirability-viability-feasibility framework before committing to any of them. 

Read the blog post for more practical takeaways →

Coming Up Next

IDEO's Ed White shares how AI is better as an editor, not a writer. Plus, what he's hearing from leaders at Lovable, Anthropic, Google Creative Lab, and more on AI for creativity.

RSVP for the live event on Monday, August 3rd. Bring your questions for Ed!

The Bigger Picture

AI use is up, but data security is in question

Nearly half of U.S. adults (49%) now use AI chatbots, up from 33% just two years ago. But 71% expect increased AI use to make their personal information less secure, and only 3% expect the opposite. Source: Pew Research Center, "Americans and AI 2026," June 2026

Transparency is worth paying for

52% of consumers globally say they'd pay more for AI products that are upfront about how they use data—an average 7% premium, rising to 67% among 18-to-29-year-olds. Source: Usercentrics, "State of Digital Trust 2026"

Most founders wish they'd pivoted sooner

42% of founders say they wish they'd changed their business model earlier than they did. Better understanding product-market fit and having clearer decision-making frameworks were the most common lessons founders took from failure. Source: Wilbur Labs, "Why Startups Fail," 2026 survey of 200 founders

Non-technical founders are shipping real products
4 in 5 users on the AI building platform Lovable identify as non-technical, and the platform now sees 1 million new projects started every week. Source: Lovable, "The Build Economy," 2026

Related Episodes

Designing GenAI for the Emotional Side of Money: Johannes Seemann

How to Build a Better Business Through Design: Amy Bonsall & Kerry O’Connor

Ready to Go Deeper?

AI x Design Thinking Certificate — Learn design thinking with AI woven in at every step.

Designing a Business course — Make your idea desirable, viable, and feasible to build.

"You have total agency over your life and control over where you want to take it. I find that incredibly empowering."

— Sida Li

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