AUBURN — Troy Peterson’s hands are in his pockets. He’s looking left. He’s looking right. He’s shooting zombies with his eyes.

“Ooh, that one’s sneaking up on me,” Peterson said.

Bing, bing, bing!

Not anymore.

Peterson is the operations manager at his family’s company, Adaptive Designs, Inc. Sister Kryston Lemay heads marketing and sales, mom Lisa Elichaa is general manager and stepfather Joe Elichaa is CEO.

The small Auburn company is looking to break into the big virtual reality market.

It’s smartphone-based VR KiX headset debut last fall as the launch-of-the-day on the website The Grommet, where it sold 1,500 units between Thanksgiving week and Christmas.

“We’ve (also) sold that many on our own,” Lisa Elichaa said.

Earlier this month, VR KiX, which retails for $49.99, was featured on The Shopping Channel in Canada during technology innovation segments where it blew through 300-plus headsets.

It’s been in the works since early last year. Lisa Elichaa came up with the name.

“Because it kicks butt,” she said, laughing.

The family has owned another company, Refurb Supplies, since 2001, working with a Chinese partner to manufacture replacement parts for business phones.

Peterson said they and their partner were looking to try something new and looking for something to sell direct to the public instead of business-to-business.

They created a sister company, Adaptive Designs, and got to work.

Lemay said many of the customers so far have been grandparents buying for grandchildren and tech-savvy guys between 30 and 45.

“They’re early adapters, they want to try out the newest thing,” she said.

The headset has a spring-loaded cradle that holds most models of smartphones, a wipe-able, leatherette face pad that snugs up to your face, a strap to keep it on your head and knobs to adjust the “interpupillary distance,” Lemay said. (Don’t adjust it and it can cause motion sickness.)

The user taps into virtual reality content on their phone, via website or app, loads it up, hits play and has an immersive experience: Watching sharks swim by, for instance, or blasting zombies in Zombie Shooter by staring at the bull’s-eye targets.

It’s available locally at the Lewiston Pawn Shop.

It’s more expensive than the bare-bones Google Cardboard (literally a cardboard fold-out) and less expensive than the Samsung Gear or Zeiss. What sets them apart in the marketplace, Lemay believes, is having an American company and American-based customer service behind the product.

The company’s designing a second version now, out in time for Christmas, that’s a little more narrow and lightweight.

Adaptive Designs is working with distributors to place the VR KiX in stores across the U.S. and Canada. Toys”R”Us has asked to see a pink version, Lisa Elichaa said.

The goal for 2016: selling 50,000 of them.

“It’s very exciting for us,” Lemay said. “We have this product and people are interested in it and now we’re on the verge of seeing it in large retail stores. Can you imagine walking into Best Buy and seeing the product there on the shelf? That would be great. I was so excited when I saw it on TV.”

Adaptive Designs and Refurb Supplies share the same 10 employees. Peterson said future employee growth may come in product engineering and design.

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