Today we’d like to introduce you to Lee Mills.
Hi Lee, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
From Aircraft Carriers to AI-Powered Construction Tech: My Journey
I started my professional journey on the flight deck of the USS Constellation CV-64, where I proudly served four years in the U.S. Navy and earned the Navy Achievement Medal. Navy life aboard an aircraft carrier taught me discipline, focus, and what it truly means to lead under pressure.
After the Navy, I put myself through design school while working full-time in sales. I worked my way up from a telemarketer to a trainer and eventually managed the P&L for a team of over 200 sales reps. That experience taught me how to build and motivate teams, sell with integrity, and execute at scale.
After graduating, I jumped headfirst into tech startups. I was an early marketing hire at Backup.com, where we were building cloud productivity tools before “the cloud” was even a thing. My focus was performance-based direct marketing, which is now better known as affiliate or partnership marketing. We would buy remnant ad space at scale and pay on subscription commissions. We rebranded as SkyDesk, and those early days sparked a love for building things from the ground up.
That led to the creation of Beyond Clicks, my digital marketing consulting agency. We worked on groundbreaking campaigns—including the launch of the very first Olympus digital cameras, and major campaigns for Intuit TurboTax, Jim Beam, Oakley, ProFlowers, and dozens of startups. It was fast, fun, and full of lessons.
Eventually, one of my clients pulled me in-house: Anonymizer. That led to being recruited to Secude in Switzerland, where I rebuilt their global sales and marketing strategy during a standout year abroad.
I came home to San Diego and became the third hire and VP of Marketing at MojoPages.com, which later spun off MOGL. Then a friend and former co-founder of Raken asked me to help with go-to-market. That’s when I fell in love with the construction industry.
Construction is one of the largest industries in the world—and one of the most under-innovated. It’s full of amazing, hard-working people building everything from homes, schools, and hospitals to stadiums and airports. At Raken, I built the early marketing team and helped the company reach $1M ARR in under a year.
From there, I was recruited to PlanGrid, one of the top-funded and fastest-growing construction tech companies in the world. I know what it’s like to scale startups with limited capital—and what it’s like to ride with the best of VC-backed growth.
Later, I served as Fractional CMO for Cupix, a 360° reality capture platform entering the U.S. from Korea. I learned the power—and the limitations—of immersive site capture tools. Despite their incredible results, they often require expensive hardware, intensive training, and delayed delivery.
Then Apple released the iPhone Pro Max with LiDAR, and the idea for Pixly.ai was born.
We set out to build a better way to document and communicate what’s happening on a jobsite—without hardware, delays, or complexity. Just smart, fast, mobile-first photo and video capture that teams can use instantly. Snap. Tag. Share. Prove your work. Move on.
Giving Back
Throughout all of this, I’ve made time to mentor other founders through Connect San Diego and served at-risk youth through Big Brothers San Diego, where I was honored as Big Brother of the Year in 2015—one of my proudest personal accomplishments.
This journey has been anything but linear. But the mission has always been the same: build things that matter, lead with heart, and help others grow along the way.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Has it been a smooth road? Not even close—but I wouldn’t trade it.
I put myself through school while working full time because the GI Bill didn’t cover everything. I was juggling late-night classes with long days at work—building my foundation the hard way. I learned sales through cold-call telemarketing, where if you didn’t produce, you didn’t get paid. That experience taught me how to connect with people and sharpened my resilience.
At Backup.com, I was an early hire paid mostly on commission. No production, no paycheck. It forced me to hustle, think creatively, and deliver results without excuses. That mindset has stayed with me.
Fast forward to Pixly—I started the company with just a small amount of capital, thinking it would be enough. But then COVID hit. Funding dried up. The market shifted. We ran out of cash. So I poured in everything I had—my savings, my time, my energy—because I believed in the mission. Today, we’ve built something real: thousands of users, dozens of customers, and a growing group of investors who believe in what we’re building.
On the personal side, I’ve had my share of setbacks. In 2015, I was hit by a car while riding my bike on the 101. I was hospitalized and left for dead on the road. At the time, the company I worked for was so cutthroat that other reps tried to steal my accounts while I was recovering. I also had a cancer scare that lastest over a year. That experience shook me—but it didn’t break me.
If anything, it deepened my drive.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m one of the most optimistic people you’ll meet. I truly believe we have to bet on ourselves—because if we don’t believe in what we’re capable of, what’s the point?
The road’s been rough. But it’s made me who I am.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
At Pixly.ai, we help construction teams simplify one of the most painful but necessary parts of the job: project visual documentation. This is super important because there are so many moving parts to any project. 30% of projects have disputes that go to litigation and there are countless disputes that don’t go that far. Whoever has the best documentation wins and nothing beats the solution Pixly offers.
Our mobile-first platform allows field teams to snap, tag, and share photos and videos instantly and automatically—with timestamps, location data, and context. Everything is synced automatically to the cloud and shared with the office and stakeholders in real time.
No more endless scrolling, losing critical proof, or sending photos through long, chaotic email and text threads. With Pixly, your documentation is fast, organized, and actionable—whether you’re tracking progress, proving work for payment milestones, or protecting yourself from disputes.
What sets us apart?
What makes Pixly different is that we’ve built the product from the field up, not the top down. We’re not trying to be a bulky system with 100 features that nobody uses. We do one thing extremely well: visual documentation made ridiculously easy and fast.
Mobile-first: Built for the field, not the boardroom
Automatic sync and sharing: No extra steps or tools needed
Instant accountability: Tag issues, assign tasks, and generate reports in minutes
AI-powered reporting: Our newest features include AI job walk reports and auto-tagging
We’re proud to serve the folks actually out there building—homes, schools, hospitals, stadiums, and everything in between.
What are we most proud of?
We’re proud of the trust we’ve built with contractors, supers, project managers, and owners who rely on Pixly to reduce stress, improve communication, and protect themselves. And we’re proud of what we’ve built with minimal capital and a lot of heart. To go from a bootstrapped idea to thousands of users, dozens of customers, and validation from top construction tech investors has been incredibly rewarding.
What should readers know about Pixly?
If you’re in construction, property management, facilities or any field service type work and you’re still using your phone’s photo app and chaotic email threads to track progress—there’s a better way.
Pixly is built to save your team time, protect your work, and help you get paid faster, with less friction.
Never lose another dispute.
Never miss a milestone.
Never dig through your camera roll again.
Pixly helps you get your job done—and get home sooner.
👉 www.pixly.ai
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Connect San Diego, where I’ve been a long-time mentor. Tom Saftig, our CFO and seasoned startup pro, helps me guide the company. All of our investors, especially Michael Pink, the CEO of SmartPM, and Jim Taylor, former President at Balfour Beatty, who help with strategy, partnerships, and product. Fellow startup founder / CEO Lucas Rotter from Valcre and Rodrigo Collao from FX Replay. Our CTO advisor Greg Retkowski. My friends and family who believe in me and the company we are building.
Pricing:
- Pixly Pro Unlimited Monthly $27.99
- Pixly Pro Unlimited Annual $273.00
- Pixly Pro Project (custom)
- Pixly Pro Enterprise (custom)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pixly.ai
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pixly_ai
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pixlyai/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leemills/
- Twitter: https://x.com/pixlyai
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Pixlyai
Image Credits
No credits needed.
