Founder's Note: Reflections on Ra's 7th Birthday
On this day, September 3rd, seven years ago, my good friend Luke Storey sent me a payment for a custom lens tinting service, which would end up becoming the first pair of Ra Optics.
I consider this first transaction the birth of Ra Optics, and so today is Ra's 7th birthday. That day signified the shift of an idea into economic reality.
For some reason, the number seven feels significant to me. Most businesses don't survive seven years. Seven is a special number which I consider lucky.
For those who aren't familiar, here's how it all started:
As a young kid, I was inspired that I could do something great and make a difference in the world. At the same time, I struggled with some different health challenges like issues with my gut, frequent painful headaches, and debilitating seasonal allergies. As I grew older, I began researching what I could do to improve my health, especially after Western medicine failed to help me, only prescribing drugs that never addressed any root causes.
Eventually I came across the science of nutrition and the important role that nutrition plays in our health. I dove deep and became obsessed, developing an obsessive relationship with food, and ultimately feeling stuck; feeling like there was more, but that I couldn't find it.
I then came across the research on light, mitochondria, and circadian rhythms, and the crucial role that they play in our health, including in how we process our food. When I found nutrition, I thought I had figured health out; the discovery of light showed me that there was a whole other level which I had never imagined.
I dove deep into the science and learned about all kinds of things I could do to improve my health with light—what I now call "The Light Diet".
Along the way, a friend of mine with a "Silicon Valley mindset" recommended that I read several books about startups and entrepreneurship: The Four Hour Workweek, The Lean Startup, The Hard Thing about Hard Things, and Zero to One.
These books inspired me that I could create my own business and have the freedom to live life I wanted. So, I followed my heart and began looking for what my business would be.
One piece of this "Light Diet" was wearing special glasses that block the wavelengths of blue light from artificial lights and screen devices that disrupt the body's natural circadian rhythm.
At that time, there was no product which was stylish, high-quality, and blocked the right wavelengths of light, based on the scientific research. So, I figured out how to have my own custom-made, which cost me around $300.
I was super passionate about sharing all the information I had learned, and I thought that maybe my business would be education, podcasting, and so on. I took a chance and went up to New York City where a podcaster I admired was holding a little event, to ask if I could go on his show and share this message with the world.
He said yes—and unexpectedly, he asked me and my friend where we got our cool blue light blocking glasses. I tried to connect him with the company we had worked with, and only after many emails back-and-forth did I realize that this was too complicated, and that I could actually do it for him. In this way, Ra Optics was born.
Although we began as a custom tinting service called "Matt's custom blue blockers", I quickly listened to customer feedback to offer our own line of products.
Since then, we've sold nearly 100,000 pairs of Ra Optics. We were the first to make high-quality, stylish, and science-based blue light blocking glasses, and have since inspired dozens of other companies to do the same. We have raised awareness around the important role that light plays in health, impacting millions of people with this information. We are grateful and feel fortunate to be a leader in spreading the Science of Light.
And of course, we could not have done this without the support of you: our curious, enthusiastic customers, who are dedicated to self-improvement and to getting the best for yourselves and your health.
There is a lot to reflect on after seven years, but one of the most significant takeaways I have found from my time traveling the world, meeting amazing people, working with celebrities, professional athletes, and major business executives, is that happiness is not something that comes from starting your own business and having freedom to travel the world.
I thought that all the things I was doing for my health would improve my hormones and brain chemistry in such a way that I always felt amazing, and that in this way I would feel fulfilled and whole—and that traveling around the world would cause me to be ever more fulfilled.
But after several years, even with such fortunate and exciting external circumstances, I still didn't feel the deep fulfillment that my heart was longing for. My experience led me to a spiritual journey and inquiry into the nature of fulfillment and joy itself.
Although that journey is still young, what I've come to understand is that there is a kind of joy, fulfillment, and wholeness which is inherent in and innate to creation/the universe itself. And we can connect to it.
Just like many grains of sand on a beach come from the same stone and make up one beach, all of us come from the same fundamental matter and energy that makes up all of the universe. I've come to believe that true joy and fulfillment, as taught by many wise and enlightened people throughout history, comes through the overcoming of the illusion that we are all separate, and the realization that we are all one.
When I first dove into the science of light and biology, I understood that there were laws operating on small scales, the results of which we could see on large scales. For example, hundreds of trillions of tiny mitochondria in our body produce energy which allows us to function, move, think, and act.
On a large scale, the concept of love interested me, because it's something so significant that everyone talks about, and I was genuinely curious if there was any sort of actual physical basis for love, or if it is just simply the release of certain hormones and chemicals in our brains.
The answer came one day when I was speaking with a wise spiritual teacher. In the midst of a deep conversation he looked at me and asked "do you know what the forces that holds atoms together, to make molecules and all of the structures that exist in universe?" I was speechless, and he said "it's love".
In the moment I was touched, but the significance of this idea—that what we feel as "love" is a high-level manifestation of one of the fundamental forces of the universe—became clearer to me years later, as I began my own spiritual quest.
It is our own thoughts, beliefs, programs, and illusions—some of which are adopted as young children (and some of which, some people argue, may even come from past lives or other cosmic forces) which blind us from our true connection with everything.
Great sages in history taught that it is this delusion which causes the hatred, pain, separation, and suffering of life; and that the highest goal in life—indeed the only way to achieve true, everlasting joy and fulfillment—is to relieve ourselves of the illusion of separation, through the practice of introspection, contemplation, meditation.
It is with this idea as my compass that I move into the next years of Ra Optics. As a company, our mission is help people realize the unlimited power that lives within them. We use the Science of Light to illuminate this potential, so that people can transform their health and share their greatest gifts with the world.
We are actively working on creating new amazing lighting and light therapy products, which we believe will lead the way for the healthy, biology-friendly lighting of the future.
With this being said, thank you so much for all of your support. My team and I are so excited for the next seven years and many more beyond that.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, let your light shine!
Matt Maruca
Founder & CEO
Ra Optics
I consider this first transaction the birth of Ra Optics, and so today is Ra's 7th birthday. That day signified the shift of an idea into economic reality.
For some reason, the number seven feels significant to me. Most businesses don't survive seven years. Seven is a special number which I consider lucky.
For those who aren't familiar, here's how it all started:
As a young kid, I was inspired that I could do something great and make a difference in the world. At the same time, I struggled with some different health challenges like issues with my gut, frequent painful headaches, and debilitating seasonal allergies. As I grew older, I began researching what I could do to improve my health, especially after Western medicine failed to help me, only prescribing drugs that never addressed any root causes.
Eventually I came across the science of nutrition and the important role that nutrition plays in our health. I dove deep and became obsessed, developing an obsessive relationship with food, and ultimately feeling stuck; feeling like there was more, but that I couldn't find it.
I then came across the research on light, mitochondria, and circadian rhythms, and the crucial role that they play in our health, including in how we process our food. When I found nutrition, I thought I had figured health out; the discovery of light showed me that there was a whole other level which I had never imagined.
I dove deep into the science and learned about all kinds of things I could do to improve my health with light—what I now call "The Light Diet".
Along the way, a friend of mine with a "Silicon Valley mindset" recommended that I read several books about startups and entrepreneurship: The Four Hour Workweek, The Lean Startup, The Hard Thing about Hard Things, and Zero to One.
These books inspired me that I could create my own business and have the freedom to live life I wanted. So, I followed my heart and began looking for what my business would be.
One piece of this "Light Diet" was wearing special glasses that block the wavelengths of blue light from artificial lights and screen devices that disrupt the body's natural circadian rhythm.
At that time, there was no product which was stylish, high-quality, and blocked the right wavelengths of light, based on the scientific research. So, I figured out how to have my own custom-made, which cost me around $300.
I was super passionate about sharing all the information I had learned, and I thought that maybe my business would be education, podcasting, and so on. I took a chance and went up to New York City where a podcaster I admired was holding a little event, to ask if I could go on his show and share this message with the world.
He said yes—and unexpectedly, he asked me and my friend where we got our cool blue light blocking glasses. I tried to connect him with the company we had worked with, and only after many emails back-and-forth did I realize that this was too complicated, and that I could actually do it for him. In this way, Ra Optics was born.
Although we began as a custom tinting service called "Matt's custom blue blockers", I quickly listened to customer feedback to offer our own line of products.
Since then, we've sold nearly 100,000 pairs of Ra Optics. We were the first to make high-quality, stylish, and science-based blue light blocking glasses, and have since inspired dozens of other companies to do the same. We have raised awareness around the important role that light plays in health, impacting millions of people with this information. We are grateful and feel fortunate to be a leader in spreading the Science of Light.
And of course, we could not have done this without the support of you: our curious, enthusiastic customers, who are dedicated to self-improvement and to getting the best for yourselves and your health.
There is a lot to reflect on after seven years, but one of the most significant takeaways I have found from my time traveling the world, meeting amazing people, working with celebrities, professional athletes, and major business executives, is that happiness is not something that comes from starting your own business and having freedom to travel the world.
I thought that all the things I was doing for my health would improve my hormones and brain chemistry in such a way that I always felt amazing, and that in this way I would feel fulfilled and whole—and that traveling around the world would cause me to be ever more fulfilled.
But after several years, even with such fortunate and exciting external circumstances, I still didn't feel the deep fulfillment that my heart was longing for. My experience led me to a spiritual journey and inquiry into the nature of fulfillment and joy itself.
Although that journey is still young, what I've come to understand is that there is a kind of joy, fulfillment, and wholeness which is inherent in and innate to creation/the universe itself. And we can connect to it.
Just like many grains of sand on a beach come from the same stone and make up one beach, all of us come from the same fundamental matter and energy that makes up all of the universe. I've come to believe that true joy and fulfillment, as taught by many wise and enlightened people throughout history, comes through the overcoming of the illusion that we are all separate, and the realization that we are all one.
When I first dove into the science of light and biology, I understood that there were laws operating on small scales, the results of which we could see on large scales. For example, hundreds of trillions of tiny mitochondria in our body produce energy which allows us to function, move, think, and act.
On a large scale, the concept of love interested me, because it's something so significant that everyone talks about, and I was genuinely curious if there was any sort of actual physical basis for love, or if it is just simply the release of certain hormones and chemicals in our brains.
The answer came one day when I was speaking with a wise spiritual teacher. In the midst of a deep conversation he looked at me and asked "do you know what the forces that holds atoms together, to make molecules and all of the structures that exist in universe?" I was speechless, and he said "it's love".
In the moment I was touched, but the significance of this idea—that what we feel as "love" is a high-level manifestation of one of the fundamental forces of the universe—became clearer to me years later, as I began my own spiritual quest.
It is our own thoughts, beliefs, programs, and illusions—some of which are adopted as young children (and some of which, some people argue, may even come from past lives or other cosmic forces) which blind us from our true connection with everything.
Great sages in history taught that it is this delusion which causes the hatred, pain, separation, and suffering of life; and that the highest goal in life—indeed the only way to achieve true, everlasting joy and fulfillment—is to relieve ourselves of the illusion of separation, through the practice of introspection, contemplation, meditation.
It is with this idea as my compass that I move into the next years of Ra Optics. As a company, our mission is help people realize the unlimited power that lives within them. We use the Science of Light to illuminate this potential, so that people can transform their health and share their greatest gifts with the world.
We are actively working on creating new amazing lighting and light therapy products, which we believe will lead the way for the healthy, biology-friendly lighting of the future.
With this being said, thank you so much for all of your support. My team and I are so excited for the next seven years and many more beyond that.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, let your light shine!
Matt Maruca
Founder & CEO
Ra Optics
