Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Lori-lee Elliott, CEO of Future Sight AR, located in Houston, TX, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

My company is Future Sight AR. We make mixed-reality software to help frontline workers offload tasks into the metaverse so that they can be more productive. By leveraging mixed reality, we let people who do hands-on work automate the tedious parts of their job and focus on doing what they do best. It's 2022, and while most of us still have to go to work, we don't think anyone should have to go to a boring day job again.

Tell us about yourself

Career pivots maybe my superpower. In grad school, I switched from doing clinical psychology to journalism...and then ended up working as a de-facto data scientist at a massive engineering & construction firm at an energy project on an island off the coast of Australia. Despite the fact that we were doing all this cutting-edge work, we used pretty basic systems and A LOT of pen and paper. It made the job, and the job of all the data entry clerks who worked for me, very tedious. I thought this was totally unnecessary. This was a problem that software could solve. After searching the world over, I couldn't find anyone making the software I needed, so I decided to create a company and build it myself. The idea that we can make turn a job that is "just okay" into a job that someone loves doing and is super important to keeping society functioning using this emerging technology is really want keeps myself and my team motivated each day.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

We recently won some contracts with the US Air Force. It's pretty rare for a small business to get just one contract, but we actually got two in the same award cycle, which is almost unheard of.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Having an employee's livelihood depending on you - whether that employee is just yourself or a team of 50 - is incredibly stressful and something only other business owners truly understand. It can make the job very lonely if you haven't found a community to support you yet.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Start with a clear intention and purpose in mind for the business (and life) you want to build in the next year or two. As woo-woo as it sounds mindset of the founder(s) is actually the make-or-break for whether a business thrives or dies.
  2. Validate product-market fit as quickly and inexpensively as you can. It doesn't have to be pretty. Mockup a website or app, cobble together an MVP, whatever works, and start testing things out.
  3. Understand what type of business you want to build to fit your ideal life. Is that a freelance/solopreneur setup, a lifestyle business, a B2B business, or a venture scale startup with 500+ employees?

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.futuresightar.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LorileeCEO/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorileeelliott/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lorilee__e
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorileeelliott/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.