At age 20, Andon Russell is no stranger to entrepreneurship. He started his first business at age 15, but he wasn’t mowing lawns or selling lemonade. Russell was a free-lance engineer, developing and printing prototypes for small businesses and industries.
Now, as a sophomore entrepreneurship major at East Central University (ECU) in Ada, Oklahoma, his newest business idea, Apexion, has earned him the Advanced Collegiate Champion prize at ECU’s Tiger Tank pitch competition. In the spring, Russell will take his pitch to the i2E Entrepreneur’s Cup competition, hoping for prize money, but also to connect with investors and make his newest dream a reality.
Russell, a Chickasaw citizen, credits much of his success to the encouragement of Luke Kerr, manager of the Chickasaw Nation STEM Academy. Russell was highly involved with the Chickasaw Nation Robotics Team as team captain of the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) team for one year and then captain of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team for the next two years.
During this time, Russell and Kerr got to know each other well. Russell had received a 3-D printer as a gift when he was 15 years old and started a business doing basic modeling and printing. However, after about a year and a half, Kerr taught him more about the possibilities in this field and suggested he take an open position at Ram Jack in research and development.
He took the job at age 17 and realized while some companies can afford their own research and development departments, many small businesses cannot. This realization led him to expand his business model and acquire his LLC. What had started off as a small 3-D printing enterprise became Russ-Tech Industries, a freelance engineering and prototyping firm.
While Russell continues to help small businesses and other entrepreneurs through Russ-Tech Industries, he has also taken a small step back from it to focus on other things, like college and his newest business idea, Apexion.
Russell’s previous experience with engineering and prototyping helped him develop his idea for Apexion, a company that manufactures machine designed and optimized eyewear.
“Most eyewear is one size fits all,” Russell said. “You go to a store, pick them out, and they’re going to be whatever size fits you off the rack. It is more about the style. But a lot of those sunglasses can cost upward of $300. Why should I pay $300 for something that ends up being uncomfortable because it doesn’t fit my face quite right?”
This problem is what led Russell to Apexion. Sunglasses and safety glasses are usually ill-fitting because they are one size fits all, but everyone’s head and face is different. At one point in his teenage years, Russell practically lived in safety glasses in between his time in the robotics lab and his work at Ram Jack while he was also studying HVAC at Pontotoc Technology Center (PTC).
“They gave me serious tension headaches from pressing on the back of my head,” Russell said. “They made the bridge of my nose raw and would fog up really bad because there was a big gap at the bottom.”
Russell’s solution was to create a way to make customized eyewear that was comfortable, fashionable and affordable. Apexion focuses on four main categories of glasses: casual sunglasses, sporting sunglasses, lab safety glasses and safety glasses for shooting sports. For the safety glasses, Russell is looking at a business-to-business model to offer bulk discounts to his customers.
A user would begin by utilizing a secure app on their smartphone that takes a 3-D scan of their face. Russell said it would take about 15 seconds and be similar to setting up face ID. The data would then be secured to protect the customer’s identity. After the facial scan, the app would design custom glasses for the user based on the collected data.
The next step of the process is customization, with two different approaches: manual and algorithmic.
Manual options allow the user to make their own changes to the frames, such as adjusting the thickness, shape or color.
The algorithmic customization makes suggestions to the user based on fashion trends that consider eye color, face shape, skin color, etc. For instance, if the user has a rounder head, the algorithm might suggest more angular frames, or it might recommend a certain color if it would highlight the user’s eyes.
Russell is also building a feature into the app that uses augmented reality (AR) to allow the user to virtually try on the glasses to see how they look. This way the customer is guaranteed custom frames that fit their face and style.
Once the order is placed, Russell predicts the ship date within a week and at a cheaper price point than what one would find in a store.
One of the reasons Russell anticipates a lower cost, yet higher quality, product is the very low human input into the process.
“Basically from the order time to it being printed, there is zero human input,” Russell said. “The scan goes straight into the algorithm which then creates a design based on what the user selected. It creates the model and ships it directly to the printer. There’s no human input or labor necessary until the actual pair of frames comes off the print bed, where a single employee can inspect it, insert the lenses, put it in a box and ship it.”
While Russell is looking forward to getting Apexion up and running, he said he still has a few more tasks to check off his list. His own experience with Russ-Tech Industries made him aware of the importance in talking to outside experts when doing something new. With Russ-Tech, he was the outside expert, but now he is consulting fashion designers and product designers to get their input as well.
After that, all that is left is purchasing the production equipment, which he hopes to be able to do after the i2E Entrepreneur’s Cup pitch competition in the spring.
While Russell’s journey to innovation and entrepreneurship began with a 3-D printer and lessons learned in a robotics lab, in a short amount of time he has transformed these ideas into something more ambitious, first with Russ-Tech Industries and now with Apexion. Who knows what will come next for this Chickasaw innovator and entrepreneur?