What do you do when you're good at your job, respected, well paid, and still know there's something bigger to build? If you're Laura Davis, you leave a secure job in the Texas Senate, start working out of an Austin apartment, and build the fix yourself.
Laura Davis is co-founder and Chief Business Officer of USLege, an AI-powered legislative intelligence platform that now tracks all 50 state legislatures and Congress. She spent 10 years in and around the Texas Capitol, watching brilliant people do impossible work with terrible tools. She knew the problem firsthand: spending hours hunting for a 20-second clip from two sessions ago. So she took the biggest risk of her career. Within nine months, USLege had taken over the Texas market and passed $1 million in revenue.
Rebecca and Laura go back to where her steel came from. She was born in England, fell in love with Texas, and moved here at 17 to chase a career in government. She spent a freshman year at military school, where she learned how strong she could be and stood up for the women around her. And she had a mom whose simple question, "Do you like it? Then it is cool," taught her to stop waiting for the crowd's permission.
Topics include:
- Leaving a secure career to start a company, and why you only regret what you don't do
- Being underestimated as a young woman in politics and tech
- "Chewing glass and staring into the abyss": the reality of early-stage startup life
- What to do when your first customer walks out the door
- Women supporting women in the Capitol community
- Why she stopped ruminating, and the problem-solving mindset every founder needs
- "Ride the tiger": her company's motto for pushing through discomfort toward growth
And yes, Laura names her horse. She's burgundy, she's sparkly, she rides through the desert, and her name is Champion.
Relevant for women entrepreneurs, female founders, women in government affairs and public policy, and anyone standing at the edge of her own leap.
"Start it and do it, but don't give up. Usually it's right at that time that you're ready to give up that everything shifts." — Laura Davis
Moment-Makers, new episodes drop every other Tuesday.