HEARS: from bold idea to 500,000+ units sold in under a year
Stylish, certified earplugs with a patented membrane filter that mimics the ear's natural response. Harmful volume down, sound quality intact.
Turning strong e-commerce instincts into certified manufacturing
Foam earplugs protect your hearing and kill the music at the same time. That's exactly the problem HEARS set out to fix. HEARS came to us as a startup: strong e-commerce instincts, zero manufacturing experience. Together with the HEARS team and ManGo Product Design, we took the product to certified, scalable hearing protection. Here's what we built around:
- Two tiers: Hears One (20dB reduction) and Hears Plus (25dB, for 110dB+ events)
- A patented membrane filter that preserves speech clarity and situational awareness
- The "Coin," a metallic accent finish designed to feel considered and stylish, not clinical safety gear
Production Heroes managed the full production process, including:
Tooling & Mould Development: prototype tooling built in Europe, scaled to mass production tooling in Asia
Sourcing, manufacturing, and packaging management
PPE certification: earplugs are legally classified as Personal Protective Equipment, which shapes the entire design and regulatory process
End-to-end supply chain management
A strategic OEM partnership, specialized in hearing protection, for certified production
Looking good was never going to be enough:
Injection molded in ABS and TPE, with metallizing for the coin and soft touch coating for the casing
Certified to PPE standards, not just marketed as protective
Manufactured across Europe and Asia for consistent quality at scale
Launched in under a year, with the development timeline cut by more than half
units sold in under a year
Winner of the Red Dot Design Award, with post launch collaborations including Yves Saint Laurent and Pacha nightclubs
Are you the next hero?
Send us your drawings. An engineer will tell you whether it can be made, what it costs per unit, and how fast it can reach your market.