RALEIGH – Elizabeth Hunt moved into her first house last year, and began to make design decisions.
One project: the primary suite’s bathroom. The project: update the vanity.
But, then, a hiccup. Hunt could not identify a new vanity that had a logical place to store her contact lens boxes.
“There are storage solutions for everything else in the world, why is there not a good one for my contacts,” Hunt noted she’d asked at the time. That question led to a search, and there weren’t any available options that were acceptable to her.
That’s the origin story for OptoOrg and the startup company’s first product, the DailyLens Contact Lens Dispenser, as Hunt tells it.
Hunt spoke with WRAL TechWire earlier this year about the bootstrapped company. From this point of frustration, OptoOrg was formed.
According to Hunt, she designed a product that she would want for herself. First, she imagined and drew the design. She noted what was important to her: easy to hang, easy to load, easy to tear.
“Everything about it should be easy,” said Hunt. “That was my goal and that will continue to be our driving factor—making wearing contact lenses just that much easier.”
Others are making different technology bets on contact lenses, as some are pursuing how to augment lenses to provide access to visual overlays.
Video: ‘Smart’ contact lens prototype has built-in display screen
Growth planned, but through bootstrapping
Hunt has bootstrapped the company thus far, and doesn’t plan to seek outside fundraising, she said. This is her first startup company that’s emerged past a planning stage, she noted. Still, she’s been working for herself on a freelance basis as a book author and a book design layout editor in addition to a full-time role as a business analyst manager.
The product didn’t immediately come to life. It went through three rounds of prototyping, said Hunt. At first, the middle compartment wasn’t quite right. After the second iteration, Hunt elected to increase the complexity of the design by adding a hanging mechanism and lid. Finally, the third iteration allowed the design to be finalized, ensuring it could hang on something as simple as thumbtacks.
Hunt said that the company had not yet become profitable, but that was last month, before the product began to ship.
But the DailyLens is now shipping, and comes in white or black, with two optional accessories, at a starting price of $25.
Next up, Hunt is planning a travel dispenser, which will hold two weeks of contact lenses and hook onto a towel bar or towel ring. And then she’s already imagined and conceived a recycling container for used lens containers, she told WRAL TechWire.
