ANNIVERSARY: 3 + 1

We’ve come a long way

September 15th marks four years of SAN. To celebrate, we’re sharing some words from our two founders, Devin and DL, reflecting on where we started and where we’re headed.

A note from Devin

For about a year and a half, there was a hallway in my house that was barely a hallway.

It was mostly our early SANWEAR earbuds. Boxes and boxes of them. My house had become a warehouse and, alongside my other work, I became a one-man fulfillment team for the entire world. I’d work with our team in Asia at night, US hours during the day, pack orders whenever I could, and then drive everything over to FedEx to ship them.

This was, apparently, how you ran a startup.

Today SAN is four years old. And four years later, I still think about that hallway.

SAN started as a community project. Somewhere along the way, DL and I took this thing we had all started together and figured out how to turn it into a company. We knew we had a great product pretty early on, but we knew considerably less about everything else that comes with it. There were probably three points over these four years where we got extremely close to the edge. Each time I remember thinking, “How the heck are we going to make this work?” Somehow, we kept finding another way through.

For years I was working Asia hours and US hours at the same time. I barely slept. I didn’t have much of a social life. There were absolutely periods where I pushed myself further than was healthy, and I don’t think that’s something worth glorifying. But when you’re building something that feels like your baby, you convince yourself that you just need to dig deep and push another mile.

Eventually, one of those miles took me across the world to where I now live. Luckily, SAN has friends everywhere.

Every member of our community (special shoutout to The 33) and every member of our team, past and present, has been part of building SAN. I’m incredibly proud of what this small team has pulled off. One of my favorite things is when people see SAN and ask how many people work on our brand, social, and content. I’ve heard thirty. It’s six. Six people who are incredibly good at what they do and care deeply about what we’re making.

The next chapter for SAN is very different from the last one. We have the strongest product roadmap we’ve ever had, expanding internationally into different marketplaces and stores. I think we’re finally getting close to seeing what happens when a lot more people get the chance to experience what we’ve built. But to get there, there is still a lot we have to learn and a lot we have to get right.

Which brings me back to that hallway. At the time, I wanted those boxes gone. I wanted a warehouse. I definitely wanted fewer trips to FedEx. But now I look back at that hallway pretty fondly. Every box that we had to carry down that hallway meant somebody, somewhere, had decided to give SAN a chance. Four years later, we’re still carrying boxes; we just have a lot more people carrying them with us now.

And somewhere in all of this, DL and his family became family to me too. For years, dinner might have been something I ate in front of a computer between calls. Now, I get to sit down and have dinner with the family.

And I don’t need to go to FedEx anymore. That’s progress.

Happy four years, SAN.

- Devin P. Marty

A note from DL

Four years ago, we started SAN around a simple passion for audio and creativity, and a curiosity about what new experiences we could bring into the world. It didn’t take long to realize that creating those experiences meant going deeper and putting the underlying audio technology at the center of what we were building.

After more than 20 years developing consumer electronics and audio, I knew the category well enough to understand that great ideas and passion alone are never enough. Building something meaningful takes good people, capital, instinct, execution, resilience, and a bit of luck. There are moments when everything clicks, and moments when nothing does. The work has been staying committed through both. We didn’t build SAN with unlimited resources or deep pockets behind us. We built it with conviction, experience, long nights, hard lessons, and the belief that passion only matters when you can turn it into something other people can genuinely feel. That has been one of the keys for us.

That belief matters even more today. Audio has become increasingly consolidated: hundreds of brands, increasingly controlled by a handful of parent companies. More logos. More products. More features. Often less distinction. We chose another path. SAN was never meant to be another audio brand competing for shelf space. It was built to create experiences, technology, and sound with an unmistakable identity.

Four years in, the mission hasn’t changed: build differently. Build what doesn’t exist yet. Make people feel something. And bring that experience to more people, in more places. There is still a lot to build, but the path forward is becoming clearer every day as SAN reaches more markets, more people, and a much bigger stage.

To many more,

- David "DL" Leung

To join the festivities today, jump into our Discord, where we will be running contests, giving out prizes, sharing memories, and talking about the future!