Francisco Hui

Bio:

I'm a designer and the Founder of Interactees—a line of semi-interactive t-shirts. Before Interactees, I was a digital strategist and conducted trends research at PSFK for clients such as Apple, BMW, Nike, and MTV. I graduated from SVA in Advertising & Design, and speak Spanish and Cantonese when English isn't a viable option. I just finished reading The Design of Future Things.

• Title: Founder of Interactees
• Age: 26
• Location: Flushing
• Contact: @franciscohui, franciscohui.com

You mention in a recent blog post that you went to SXSW this year.  What was your favorite part of the event?  Any memorable moments in Austin you’d be open to sharing?

So SXSW was a layer cake of events for me. To get there, I went on the StartupBus, which was 3 days of hacking and designing with spotty wifi. Had a great time working with Chris Carella on Kajoo.org.

While in Austin, I set up an impromptu booth outside the convention to sell t-shirts and work on my tan. I was lucky enough to see how other brands hawk, and throw free breakfast burritos at pedestrians to lure them into their nightly, VIP parties.

The nights were filled with GroupMe Bnters to have #beers with friends and #justmet new people at more parties. Good times with the teams at Hashable and Shelby.

What kinds of things do you do that aren't work related and allow you to relax?

See, this is a trick question, 'cause The Blogs say entrepreneurs have to sleep, eat, breathe, and poop their work, but there's a world out there beyond startups that can serve as inspiration. The things that are inspiring and changing the way I see the world include—in random order—my girlfriend, Visioneers, StarCraft, making to-do lists, and How to Cook Everything.

At the start of the year you wrote a post titled “What Did Francisco Accomplish In 2010?” where you listed off your accomplishments for the past year.  How is your 2011 going so far?  Can you clue us in to what some of your goals are for the rest of the year and beyond?

2011 looks like a hockey stick of epic proportions. Up and atom.

It's been a few months since I quit my day job and started working on Interactees. Being a part of WeWork Labs is a reflection of my plan to surround myself with really smart people, so I can be guilty by osmosis association.

The current roadmap of executable actions to life and work is 3 months out. Beyond that, I'll modify and update as events unfold. The one thing that serves as my North Star is to improve how people interact with each other and those around them in "offline" settings. I'm working backwards from that vision to figure out how I can get there sans Google maps.