Activate Vision
Fractional Founding Designer Begin a project
§ 01 — Premise By Niya Sisk

The founders I work with don't need someone to execute their ideas. They need someone to make those ideas earn their place in the market.

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Scroll · Seven sections · A reading.

An invitation, not a pitch — read at the pace your morning allows.

§ 02 The Problem · Why metrics aren't enough

Data reduces uncertainty.
It doesn't create meaning.

Users don't stay because your metrics are clean.

They stay because something in the experience made them feel understood.

That's not a feeling you can A/B test your way into.

§ 03 What this actually is

I work with founders whose product exists —
but doesn't yet cohere.

I step in as a fractional founding designer to define the product, shape the experience, and build a system that holds.

AI / Knowledge / Platform founders · Pre-seed → Seed

— pull —

Design psychology.
The discipline that turns a product into a presence.

§ 04 How I work · A method, not a menu
Portrait
Niya Christine,
MFA
Illustrated portrait of Niya
Fig. 04 — The Practitioner — N.

I help founders make their products cohere.

My background was shaped inside Silicon Valley product teams, but my approach is deeply human: understanding how people make meaning, build trust, and adopt new behaviors over time.

The best outcomes I've delivered came from creating space — unhurried, thorough, deliberate — where the real problem could surface before anyone reached for an answer.

I bring research, systems thinking, and pattern recognition shaped inside some of the most demanding product environments in the world. I genuinely respect and appreciate the founders I choose to work with.

I choose deliberately. Because when I take something on, I care deeply about where it leads.

Niya Sisk brings to technology a background in cognitive psychology, storytelling, and human-centered design. Her writing explores psychology, color, AI, and technology adoption.

§ 05 Proof · In other voices

The work speaks best through the people who've been inside it.

“I didn't have to say anything. You intuitively knew the next most powerful thing — allowing us to see the psychological edge cases and really see the product in the wild.”

Amir Aliabadi Founder · Trippy AI

“She delivers UX frameworks beyond what can be imagined in our own heads.”

Jared Garner Head of E-Comm, TinFsh · Lily AI

“She sees things in both a meta and micro capacity. A lot of creative people aren't detail-oriented. Niya is — and she makes everyone around her look good.”

Hilary Parker CEO · Habitat for Humanity

“She's been our designer since 2013. We trust her completely and know she will support our programs and team with the solutions that work with our evolving organization.”

Heidi Herinckx, MS Dir. of Research · Options for S. Oregon
— Lineage —

Running with a good crowd — evolved from Silicon Valley roots.

Apple· Adobe· Microsoft· NeXT· eBay· Oracle· Stanford· Visa· Lily AI· Macromedia
§ 06 Selected work · Three engagements
№ 01 Trippy AI
2024

AI Knowledge Platform · Product Definition + Trust Architecture

Trippy AI: Redesigning trust formation for an AI-driven knowledge platform.

Trippy's core innovation — its Subject-Verb-Object knowledge system — was visually confusing and operationally unsustainable at scale. I redesigned the SVO architecture into an interactive filtering and trust-building system that automated backend media generation, reduced production friction, and transformed the card experience into a shareable artifact designed around how trust actually forms online.

Led product definition, sensemaker narratives, UX architecture, visual design, design systems, and engineering handoff across a three-month founder engagement.

Stakeholder Research · Mental Models · SVO Architecture · Product UX · Design System · Engineering Handoff

№ 02 BILL
Multi-year

Financial Infrastructure · Vendor Payment Systems

BILL: Designing operational trust inside financial workflows.

Designed and shipped core UX architecture for vendor payments, audit systems, and financial workflow management across integrations including QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, and banking partners. Led cross-functional product strategy through wireframes, prototyping, and stakeholder alignment across complex operational systems still active in the platform today.

Financial UX · Workflow Architecture · Audit Dashboards · Product Strategy · Enterprise Systems

№ 03 Lily AI
Multi-year

AI Commerce Infrastructure · Enterprise SaaS + ML

Lily AI: Scaling AI-powered commerce systems for global retail.

Built and led Lily AI's first UX and research practice, creating a unified design system across the enterprise platform while partnering closely with product leadership on AI-driven tagging, predictive behavior modeling, and recommendation systems. Product design initiatives contributed to measurable revenue lift across major retail clients including Gap, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and thredUP.

AI/ML Systems · SaaS Architecture · Product Strategy · Design Systems · Research Leadership

§ 07 Who this is for · Two kinds of founders

For two kinds of founders.

— The First —

A product in market. Something is off.

Users aren't staying. Metrics are decent. But the experience doesn't feel like the vision — and you can't name why.

— The Second —

A vision that doesn't exist yet.

You can feel it but can't show it. You need to see it made real — not a wireframe, a world — before the next step.

— In their words —

“You intuitively knew the next most powerful thing.”

Amir AliabadiFounder · Trippy AI

“Frameworks beyond what we could imagine in our own heads.”

Jared GarnerHead of E-Comm · Lily AI
— Process —

I diagnose before I prescribe.
The audit comes first — what it reveals determines everything that follows.

  1. 01 Audit Hear the messy version. Find what's actually missing — not what's assumed.
  2. 02 Narrative Shape the through-line. The story the product tells about its user.
  3. 03 System Build what holds — components, language, and architecture that scale.
§ 08 Begin · A simple next step

If this resonates, let's Activate a Conversation↗

I take on a small handful of engagements at a time. The good ones start with a long conversation, no deck — just the messy version of the problem and an hour to chase it.

Email hello@activate.vision ↗ Intake Send a note via the form below ↓
Working from Bay Area · Phoenix · Europe ·
§ 08.b Intake · A few questions

A few questions, in your own words. I'll take it from there.

— Form —
01 / Name
02 / What's on your mind
03 / Where you are
04 / Provenance
05 / Reply-to

I read every response personally.
If it feels like a fit, I'll be in touch within 48 hours.

Received. Thank you.
I'll write back within 48 hours, from hello@activate.vision.

— N.