#VarsityPitch2018 Finalist & Business owner of Gilaasi gives the back story of the future.
Meet one of our #VarsityPitch2018 Finalists — Bukki Adedapo, Founder of Gilaasi.
My name is Bukki and I am a glasses wearer. A couple of years ago I decided I wanted a pair of sunglasses I could wear and see through, without contact lenses. I had two options — prescription sunglasses or glasses with photochromic lenses. I didn’t want to have to carry around two pairs of glasses (normal glasses and prescription sunglasses) so I bought myself a pair of glasses with photochromic lenses. These automatically change into sunglasses once outside, which felt like a great idea at the time. I thought these would become the best pair of glasses I ever owned. Unfortunately, I was very wrong about that. I had two big problems with them. The first was that I had no control over when the glasses tinted, because if I was outside in daylight they would tint, at least a little bit. So, if I was at a football game for example and just wanted clear glasses, the type of lens meant my glasses would turn into sunglasses.
The other problem I had, was that they would take way too long to adjust. I recall many times I would be in a room still wearing ‘sunglasses’ several minutes after coming inside because my photochromic lenses would take so long to adjust. After being teased one time too many by friends and coworkers, I decided to try and find if there was better alternative.
This is how I came up with the idea for Gilaasi Finetunes. With Finetunes, you just tap right for sunglasses and tap left for glasses in less than one second.
We built a functional prototype in April 2018 and our next milestones are to create aesthetic final product samples by March 2019 and launch to the public in the summer.
If you’re interested in owning a pair, sign up to hear when we launch at gilaasi.com/get-notified-first/
