Eugene Siew · About
It took me twelve years to admit the plan had to change.
At fifteen, in Singapore, I drew up a thirty-five-year plan to become a professional musician.
(A Singaporean boy aspiring to music in the late ’90s is the epitome of a pipe dream.)
Then I failed auditions.
Thrice.
Still got into the Music school via a different major.
Many curveballs later, I walked across campus from Music to Design. It became one of the best moves of my life, second only to marrying the woman who created the conditions for it.
Fifteen years designing at Apple, Wealthfront, Meta, OKX. Apple gave me two patents. Meta gave me two promotions in eighteen months. Two of the companies I helped build were acquired.
On paper, the pivot had corrected itself into something better than the plan. Underneath, I was circling. I knew the work I was meant to be doing, and kept not doing it. Admitting it, even to myself, is what took the twelve years. The second exit I navigated faster than the first, because by then I knew what the deferring had cost.
That is why this practice exists.
I’m not theorizing about the decision you’ve been circling; I’ve lived inside it.
Years ago, my wife told me: your family is your church. I have never been able to un-hear it. It reorders the calendar. It decides what the work is for.
I never wanted to be a manager at work.
I already have five direct reports at home.
My practice is grounded in a Reformed Christian worldview. Faith isn’t a compartment in the work; it’s the floor the rest stands on.
I invest in and advise founders. The advising is the part I love: closer to the work, shared incentives, a relationship rather than a line on a cap table.
Recovering Product Designer. Life Design Partner. Facilitator. Investor. Advisor. Aspiring speaker. Worship leader. The list reads scattered until you notice the through-line: design, applied to a life and not just a screen.
I have no stake in any direction you take. Only in you reaching one.
I’m not selling you a product or a framework to apply.
Once we begin, we set the objectives together, and you get protected time and privacy to think out loud, and to be challenged where you need it.
But enough about me.
If something here felt familiar, start where my clients start. The ALIVE Mirror: eleven questions, about a minute. An honest read on where you are, and the step that follows. No pitch.