Why Books Are My Metaverse: Interlude

The Start-up Behind the Sol Reader and a Thank You to Our Allies

This is a multi-part series that shares my experience in building the Sol Reader.

My 2023 CES T-shirt.

“Books are my metaverse” means a lot more than the simple pun of building a smart-glasses product focused on reading. In a few short missives, I’ll tease this out by diving into the “why” behind the Sol Reader – a new wearable e-reader. We touch on the state of AR/VR/MR, The Jetsons, smartphones and what they do to our brains, the joy of reading, and more!

Are books your metaverse, too? Join our waitlist or shoot me a note at ben@solreader.com.

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The last few posts have waxed on about the state of FaceTech, Smartphone addiction, and the future of personal computing that I hope to see come to fruition in the coming years and decades. Allow me to take a brief aside to discuss the company behind Sol Reader and the business side of building this new product.

Today, we announced the first shipment of the Sol Reader: Advance Copy (read: private beta) to trusted friends, investors, and advisors. And, for the first time publicly, unveiled our $5M Seed Round of financing, led by Garry Tan (Initialized, Y Combinator), which we closed one year ago today. What a year! These milestones are the culmination of two years of tremendous hard work by the Sol team. Here’s the brief story…

Two years ago, we set out to build the Sol Reader, the world’s first wearable e-reader. We are creating the most comfortable and distraction-free reading experience ever. It’s lightweight, beautiful inside and out, and now, you don’t have to hold a book while reading in bed! All while leaving your smartphone elsewhere to get a respite from the distracting world that digital devices amply supply.

Since April 2021, we at Sindarin, Inc. (our legal corporate entity) have been designing and prototyping the early units of the Sol Reader. What started as a prototype with toilet paper rolls and duct tape evolved into our first packaged alpha units in October 2022, delivered to our team and close friends.

Sol16, the 16 alpha units we built and shared with team and friends.

Taking our learnings from these alpha users, we continued to refine our design heading into 2023. Along the way, we took a quick pit stop to CES in Las Vegas to do some demos and soft launch the Sol brand.

YouTuber Sadly It’s Bradley demoing the Sol Reader at CES in January 2023.

In the spring, we finalized electrical, mechanical, and optical parts for the Sol Reader, designed packaging, and ramped up our manufacturing overseas on the first production-ready units. With the help of our amazing suppliers and vendors, we’ve secured all of the components necessary for the first commercial build.

Scenes from manufacturing the first Sol Reader units.

The final product is amazing — a fully immersive reading experience in a beautiful package. When you read with the Sol Reader, you’ll get lost in books in a whole new way, fully relaxed on your couch or in bed. And you’ll soon find, as we have, that your screen time goes down as your reading time goes up.

The Sol Reader

To the Sol Reader team: a HUGE thank you and well done! Building anything from nothing is hard. Building a hardware product from nothing is even harder. And innovating in a completely new category to deliver something delightful is a task not for the faint of heart. Fortunately, our team is incredible. From award winning designers and artists to seasoned hardware and software architects to manufacturing operators who have seen everything under the sun (it’s never a bug in the PCB, right? right?!?), I’m so lucky to be a part of this humble and top-notch band of believers that simply want to make the most comfortable and distraction-free reading experience ever. Together, we’ve taken a huge first step by shipping real product to real customers. I’ll say it again: Thank you!!

Some of the faces behind the Sol Reader.

And of course, it’s not just about the team of amazing cross-functional builders, it’s about the allies who come alongside us with their capital to provide the fuel to propel this rocket to the moon and beyond. Last June, Garry Tan and the Initialized Capital team led our seed round with a who’s who of others (Founders Fund and Elementum Ventures, who have been involved since the very beginning, and Long Journey, Anorak, Kevin Hartz, Liquid2, and Long Family Ventures).

In Garry’s words:

The problem with tech-enabled glasses is that they create a barrier between you and the world, but when you are reading, that is exactly what you want. Sol's founders have translated their design expertise into an innovative and immersive wearable that will completely transform the way we experience reading, and I am thrilled to help bring this experience to life.

To our investors: thank you for believing in us to deliver!

In my internal Loom to the company last year announcing the funding milestone, my “word of the week” was Allies.

Actual screen-grab from my company communication

Part of my philosophy in building a great business is to create an ever-expanding circle of allies, people who cheer for you and honestly critique you to help you build the business to maximize its potential. So with today’s announcement, you’ll see Sol shift gears a bit. Up until now, our allies have been mostly internal — employees, investors, consultants, manufacturing partners, and a few close friends. Now, with our beta users and upcoming early customers, our set of allies will grow by leaps and bounds to include our customers: avid readers and aspirational readers alike — those who love getting lost in their reading in a completely new and delightful way.

Finally, to our new allies: thank you for jumping in and giving the Sol Reader a try. We look forward to hearing your stories as we continue to make the Sol Reader the best possible reading experience for you and the many many customers to come.