Meet Elizabeth Anderson | CEO & Co-Founder at LunarLab

We had the good fortune of connecting with Elizabeth Anderson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Elizabeth, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Risk is an interesting concept for me. I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself to be a risk-taker, but I have taken some big risks in my life and career. Probably the biggest one was launching a business (LunarLab) at the height of the pandemic, to create a service in our city that no one else here was really focused on at the time. My co-founder and I were both working and homeschooling our kids when we launched, and we couldn’t even leave our houses due to pandemic restrictions.

Launching a business at that time would probably be considered really risky, but at the time, it didn’t feel like it at all. It just felt like the obvious right move because we knew we wanted to help businesses create really successful software. Most of my career in tech has been spent as a project manager, and a big part of that job is about identifying and managing risks. In that role, you look for everything that could possibly go wrong, and find solutions to each issue before it becomes a problem. We took a similar approach when launching our business: we sat down and got really serious about finding every possible risk, and then we found ways to work around each and every one of them.

I’ve always found that risks can be planned for by identifying them up front, deeply analyzing the various possible outcomes, and then planning for what might happen. Sometimes, just planning for it can prevent the risk from becoming a reality. Sometimes, the risk doesn’t even happen. And sometimes a crazy unknown pops up that you could have never foreseen… but ideally if you’ve done enough planning, you’ll be ready for that crazy unknown when it does happen.

As someone who is pretty risk-averse, this is how I turn risks into big opportunities: find out what scares you about it, and defuse the fear with great planning.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
LunarLab is a UX Design and Product Strategy company. At a basic level, what we do is help anyone who is creating software to make sure that software is easy to use, inclusive, beautiful, and profitable for their business. We work on all kinds of software, from websites to mobile apps to web apps to IoT devices. And we also work with all kinds of businesses: startups, enterprise corporations, and small businesses. Design and strategy are useful for any business with any kind of software.

We started LunarLab with a clear vision of what we wanted to do, and how we wanted to be different.

LunarLab is a public benefit corporation. This means that we’re a for-profit company, but public benefit is part of the legal structure of the company. We have to consider positive social and environmental impact in all of our decision-making. We feel that good design and social impact are a natural fit. The best design work is always the work that puts people at the heart of the design. And when design is truly centered around people, it includes all people regardless of their race, age, ability or disability, socioeconomic background, ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender expression, marital status, religion, sexual orientation, neurodiversity, physical appearance, color, veteran status, or any other lived experiences. When we really consider the needs of all those people using tech products, it becomes clear that we should do what’s right and use tech to make the world a better place for them.

While we have such a strong ethical focus and are so heavily focused on designing for social good, we also want to do what’s right for the people building the software. We take our role as consultants really seriously in that always want to make sure our work has a super high ROI for our clients. We aren’t the type of company that just designs a pretty screen and leaves. Every design is strategically aligned to our clients’ business goals. If we think a proposed solution will be unprofitable or unethical, we tell them and recommend a better way. If we see a way to save money or reduce risk, we tell them. If we find a good partnership opportunity for them in our network, we make that connection. Sometimes this even means that our own company brings in less revenue, because sometimes the clearest solution isn’t designing software at all. Often we help our clients find ways to validate their ideas without building expensive software, because we know it will lead to a more effective solution in the long term.

At the end of the day, it’s about doing the right thing for everyone in every circumstance.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
There are so many fun things to do in Atlanta! I think it’s impossible to have a boring day. For lunch we’re going to Slutty Vegan… who could resist their incredible burgers and seasoned fries? I’ve never had a single thing from their menu that didn’t leave my mouth watering. Plus, it’s all plant-based… that’s healthy, right? 😉

I’m a Southern girl through-and-through, so next we’re headed for something fun you can ONLY do in Atlanta… that’s right, I’m talking about the World of Coca Cola Museum! Where else can you try 150 flavors of Coke AND meet a polar bear? You may be saying to yourself, “I’m not a kid, I’m a serious professional, this isn’t for me.” Well, I have to disagree. It is for you. It’s for everyone.

Next we’ll class things up a little bit and go to the High Museum of Art. Their permanent collections are dazzling, and they never fail to have some of the best exhibitions. I was able to catch their Yayoi Kusama exhibit a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure it was one of my all time top life experiences.

Finally, we’ll wrap the day up with dinner and drinks at the fabulous Rumi’s Kitchen. I recently tried this restaurant for the first time and was completely blown away – the hummus was some of the best I’ve ever head, the main courses were outstanding, and they have a great wine selection.

If we’re stretching it out to a week, there are so many amazing options for things to do: the botanical garden, National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, the aquarium. The list goes on and on; you could spend a week in Atlanta and never run out of things to do.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I definitely want to recognize the amazing impact my co-founder, Kelli Lucas, has had on my life. We worked together at other companies before launching our own, and she has always been so supportive at every step of the way. We always worked well together on projects, and I knew I could always count on her. She was there for me during some really tough times and is absolutely my go-to person when I need support. She’s pretty much the best person you could ever hope to have as a co-founder! In this line of work, you hear a lot of stories about terrible co-founder relationships. It makes me feel so grateful that I get the opportunity to work with Kelli every day.

I also want to recognize my college flute professor, Dr. Sheryl Cohen. I came from a pretty rough home situation and was the first in my family to attend college. Dr. Cohen helped me secure a scholarship to the University of Alabama for music, without which I would not have been able to go to school. To say that changed the trajectory of my life is an understatement. Not only did she help me with school and learning to be a better musician, but I feel like throughout the course of working with her I learned an enormous number of life lessons. She really is an incredible person. I didn’t end up with a career in music, but I can absolutely say I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.

Website: https://www.lunarlab.io/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lunarlab.io/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lunarlab

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LunarLab_IO

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lunarlab.io

Image Credits
Audrey Seymour at Audrey Creative