Glasses are just as much an accessory as they are a necessity. Yet, while other accessories like shoes, bags, hats, belts, and jewelry add splashes of color, style, and individuality to an outfit, the adornment of glasses has become more of a chore than a fashionable detail. As someone who has been wearing glasses for most of his life, Nathan Kondamuri can testify to this feeling firsthand.
For years, standard frames and monotonous designs were the only options in the eyewear industry. But after bonding with fellow spectacle-wearer Sophia Edelstein at Stanford in 2014, Kondamuri saw an opportunity to re-introduce eyewear as both a practical and stylish accessory.
In the early days of product testing, Kondamuri and Edelstein sought to put a fashionable and personalized spin on the once-drab piece of eyewear. Fast-forward three years later, the two had officially launched Pair Eyewear — a glasses company that operates under a new, innovative model that allows customers to change their glasses as often as their clothes.
Using a specially designed magnetic mechanism that allows wearers to swap out any number of stylish frames to their lenses, Pair Eyewear has effectively changed the spectacle-wearing game.
From Eyesore to Eye-Candy
Commiseration loves company, and Kondamuri and Edelstein found that to be especially true when it came to the topic of eyewear. Throughout their college days, the pair noticed that glasses were being left out of the evolving world of fashion. As stylish trends for accessories like shoes, belts, and bags were taking center stage, eyewear was fading into the background.
However, both quickly realized they weren’t the only spectacle-wearers that shared this feeling—thus, spurring an entrepreneurial idea. Due to a lack of design and engineering experience, Kondamuri and Edelstein began working with Lee Zero, former head of product design at Warby Parker. Together, they developed a new glasses model which allowed wearers to easily detach their frames from lenses and add new frames that showed off their sense of style.
After testing their new design on a handful of fellow students, the glasses quickly became a hit, and many requested to purchase the prototypes soon after trying them on. For Kondamuri and Edelstein, there was no longer a question of whether they should launch their unique eyewear company, but rather, how to go about doing it.
Making Quite the Spectacle
Initially, the founders settled on offering 10 different frame options, which they ordered in bulk from an international manufacturer. However, shipping constraints prevented the pair from receiving multiple frames all at once, which quickly became a problem as the company took off and customers were requesting more custom options.
So, in late 2019, the entrepreneurs conducted extensive research into developing a production process of their own that would enable any digital design file to be displayed on their custom frames.
This venture led them to appear on Shark Tank in 2020, where the duo settled on a deal with sharks Lori Greiner and Katrina Lake. Pair Eyewear would offer 10% equity in exchange for a $400,000 investment plus a $1.50 per unit royalty until the sharks recouped their investment.
By the end of 2020, Pair Eyewear had successfully landed a licensing partnership with entertainment giant Marvel, and collaborations with major organizations like Sesame Street, Harry Potter, and the NBA followed soon after.
A Fresh Look to an Outdated Market
Though the glasses industry was already fairly saturated, Pair Eyewear saw an untapped market opportunity. The company had gone from prototyping its products to fellow undergraduates to securing brand deals with large corporations in less than a month at a time.
Over the following year, Kondamuri and Edelstein worked to tighten up their production processes. However, this only became more difficult as orders continued to pile up. Demand for their product was only increasing, leading the founders to expand their production process — manufacturing in-house in a brand-new 20,000-square-foot facility in Irvine, California.
Now, with the addition of a giant production warehouse, the company looked to add to its team of experts. Experienced eyewear industry veterans like Philip Gordon, James Mata, and Scott Craycraft were hired — all of which were former executives at Oakley.
Additionally, Pair Eyewear brought on over 100 employees to operate in its offices across New York, Irvine, and Nashville. With talented staff backing them up, Kondamuri and Edelstein have been able to maintain their focus on innovation and investment in research and development in the proprietary image translation process, which is a constantly advancing system.
The company has also extended its charitable reach, partnering with The Eyelliance to provide glasses and vision care to children in the developing world. Now, for every pair of glasses purchased, the company will send a free pair to a child in need.
Maintaining a Vision of Innovation
For many, accessories can either make or break an outfit. Most use them to accentuate a fashion statement, set a tone, or reveal their individual character through their appearance. However, wearing glasses has often been automatically labeled as “uncool” in the fashion industry, making their use a rather unenjoyable one.
But Kondamuri and Edelstein sought to change that.
Breaking through the barrier of stereotypes that followed spectacle-wearers, the pair saw an opportunity to tap into a dormant market, creating unique, stylish, and functional eyeglasses for people of all ages. What’s more, the founders introduced an entirely new approach to a once outdated industry, using especially mechanized frames to allow users to spice up their eyewear.
Now, Pair Eyewear is generating up to $9 million each year, according to Shark Tank’s research. Between 2020 and 2021 alone, the company saw ten-times the revenue growth and an additional three-times the revenue growth between 2021 and 2022.
As the eyewear company continues to fine-tune its processes, add to its already unique set of products, and secure even more influential collaborations, there seems to be no end in sight for the brand.
Check out our deep dive on Pair here.