Change the way people think about design

1. Can you give us your startup's elevator pitch?

Hausie is a curated portal for designers to showcase their works, collaborate and foster new relationships, and provide the world with real access to high-design talents. Vetting design concepts, socializing photographic and media partnerships, custom-design requests – Hausie bridges the gaps and creates a virtual ecosystem for highly talented designers to penetrate the marketplace.

2. Where do you see your project in 2 years?

We hope that Hausie will have grown to a large enough community that it will be able to empower designers with the resources to unlock their full potential and be successful in creating great works of art to be shared with the world. At the same time, we want Hausie to be able to act as a sounding board for not only today’s fashion and design insiders but also readying consumers to join the deeper design conversation as well. We want to make high-design accessible to the masses.

3. How do you get your brand out there? (Did you leverage any connections to other startups? Any other meaningful relationships or connections that helped you?)

The very first designers to join Hausie were definitely our first meaningful relationships. When we first started out it was really hard to get our first designers to join as designers are generally cautious given their designs represent an intimate extension of themselves. It was even harder to convince designers that were wholly-offline to take the leap and suddenly put themselves online. That being said, once we got our first couple of designers onboard we really worked hard to build their trust. To that end, building high quality content covering topics that were very meaningful to the designer community was definitely key to not only getting Hausie out there but more importantly getting the brands of our designers out there too.

4. What is a typical day like at Hausie?

Very very busy! From conducting designer interviews, facilitating collaborations with industry stylists and photographers, to liaising customized couture, and working on new functionalities on the tech side, everyday is different.

5. What excites you most about your industry?

Definitely the mind-blowing talent and creativity of the designers. We get several new applications a day from new designers who want to join the Hausie designer community. I can remember on more than one occasion opening up a recently submitted designer application for the first time and literally screaming for the rest of the team to come over to see how amazing it was. Those moments are priceless. It’s like discovering a buried treasure… literally.

6. What has been your biggest challenge? Did it result in you flipping in another direction?

Our biggest challenges are definitely on the tech side and user experience. Building out new functionalities to meet the increasing demands of designers and consumers is a never-ending process. Designers in particular have very specific thoughts on how they want to be presented and showcased, not all of which is completely practical within the confines of the tech side of things. At the end of the day we are dealing with disciples of great design whom understand the technicals of the visual experience. I guess you can say we are constantly on our toes.

7. TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More. What keeps your team going? What do they value the most?

We really do have a great team made up of very different skill sets that complement each other. Oddly enough, for a team with individuals of such varied backgrounds things just seem to click, the chemistry is unbelievable. I think we are all united by the common belief that Hausie can be something truly special and can help designers to share their talents in a way that hasn’t been done before.

8. What is the one reason to launch a startup in HK? And what would be the reason not to do so?

Hong Kong is a great place to launch a start-up. The diversity mixed with the density makes Hong Kong a literal concrete jungle of east-meets-west fusion. It’s not to say Hong Kong is the easiest place to launch but it does have its merits, like serving as a proving ground for start-ups that intend to go after the two largest internet markets in the world; China and the US. From a Hausie-specific point of view it might actually have been easier to launch in say London, Paris, or New York, given the established designer communities there - but perhaps that is one of the challenges we relish the most, in which as we grow so too will the Hong Kong designer community.

9. What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?

A wise woman once told me “Just do” and that’s what I intend.

10. What is your #Startup Passion?

To change the way people think about design… to change the way people consume design… to change the way people design.