Life for Chris Loer and his wife, Lt. Shamis Fallah has always been filled with adventure.
In December of 2010, while on vacation after a work trip to Poland, Chris broke his back skiing in the French Alps. When he was well enough to go out again, a friend invited him to a fundraiser party for students in the medical professions. His future wife, Shamis, was at the party and couldn’t help “approach guy with a broken back who was trying to dance.” Two months later, Chris flew out to Rhode Island to attend Shamis’ graduation from Officer Development School, and within another year, they were married. After a military-short honeymoon they moved to their first duty station at Naval Medical Center San Diego, then on to Pensacola, Florida, and are currently planning a PCS to 29 Palms.
Like many military in the community, Chris initially struggled to carve out his identity as a Navy spouse. A driven student, Chris attended The University of California at Berkeley, where he learned the tools to apply toward his interest in computer science. While at Berkeley, he started working for a small software company, BigFix, which provided software to help large organizations– including many branches of the US government-to manage their sprawling networks of computers. Chris worked at BigFix for nine years, holding positions from intern to software engineer to engineering manager until IBM acquired the company in 2010. The IBM acquisition gave Chris the chance to travel and work at different IBM labs around the world as part of the integration effort.
But after marriage, the military lifestyle dictated that Chris’ career as a software engineer take an even more portable route, and he found himself trying to piece together remote telecommuting work. As a career driven individual, he felt particularly uncomfortable answering the question, “so, what do you do with your time?”
Then one day, a bright idea struck that changed his answer.
Mission Objective
The idea for Chris’ business began when Chris, Shamis, and three other friends spent a long evening trying to build an iPhone app for fun. As they were busy brainstorming, they got hungry and tried to figure out what to order for dinner. Everyone had different preferences and the discussion went in a circle until the group almost decided to just go with the easy choice–pizza. Then, they stopped and said “wait, there should be an app that makes it easy to balance everyone’s preferences!” Unable to find an app that did what they wanted, they built a prototype with pen and paper, and used it to determine that sushi was the perfect option. They didn’t get anywhere close to building an app in a single night, but everyone liked the voting idea. They kept playing around with the idea for a few years, but without any one person to devote time to it, it didn’t go anywhere.
Then one day, Chris decided he was sick of conference calls and commuter flights, so together the couple made the decision for Chris to quit his job and concentrate on the iPhone app. The rest, as they say, is history. VoteUp was born. Chris released version 1.0 on February 5, 2014 and started sharing the initial version with his friends.
Like all military families, Chris and Shamis made friends quickly upon their move to Pensacola, but without a shared past, found it difficult to determine mutual and dislikes. The VoteUp application has helped those relationships grow, as it has made collecting input from each person an easy part of planning outings.
Incidentally, Chris chose to name his company, Uxor Navium Labs, a rough Latin translation of “Navy Wife Labs.” Chris selected the name to poke fun of his confusion over his new role in life, as the house-husband.
“Replying with having my own business doesn’t really solve the gender-role/ego-problem, but maybe if I’m really successful my worry will go away!” Chris shares good-naturedly. “Or more likely, I just have to get comfortable being the one dude on base with no job and long hair.”
Mission Critical
Chris believes that running your own business gives you the flexibility a military spouse needs. “Having the financial stability of a spouse in the military gives you the freedom to take risks on a business that may be promising but also might never make a profit.” He didn’t start out with the intention of making this a profitable venture; he wanted it to be fun and the app to be useful. With the financial and emotional support of his wife, Chris has been able to devote his time to his software development instead of working remotely. Chris also spent time researching and implementing budgets to make one income work for their family. “We don’t eat out as much, but we still enjoy sushi.” Chris explains. Being able to live comfortably on one income has been the best way to start this adventure.
Mission Focus
Chris was pleasantly surprised to discover the extensiveness of a network available to military spouses, and encourages other military spouses to interested in entrepreneurship or starting their own business to reach out to others in the community. Initially he made contact with the magazine by listening to some advice and putting together a press release. Then, using some contacts from another friend, he was able to send that press release to others. He believes word of mouth is still the most effective way of advertising, and adds that the military spouse community has an infinite amount of connections.
The Future of VoteUp
Somewhat selfishly, I asked Chris about the possibility of an android app. He explained that as of now, the free VoteUp app (available on iTunes) is really user friendly for all. Someone with an iPhone has to start the voting process, but then it sends a text message and anyone with a smartphone can respond. He hopes to expand the user base to develop an android app as well. As Chris and Shamis move again and continue to get used to this military lifestyle, I’m sure this VoteUp App will help them as I hope it helps all of you!
For more information, or to test out Chris’ app with your friends, visit