The story of Sunski didn’t start with a business plan. It started with a salsa bowl.

Tom Stewart and Michael Charley graduated in 2009, right into the teeth of a recession. No dream jobs waiting. No clear path. Just two guys with big ambitions and a product idea Tom had sketched on a napkin in high school: a ceramic bowl with a curved lip designed to keep salsa on your chip.

They went all in. Ordered 3,000 units from a manufacturer in China. Two-thirds arrived defective. They moved back home to South Philadelphia and started cold-calling retailers from the basement.

It didn’t work. By spring 2012, they had $273 left in the business account and were ready to quit.

But a few years earlier, on a surf trip to Australia, Tom had wandered into a beach shack selling off the last remaining stock of a defunct 1980s sunglass brand called Sunski. He bought a few pairs. Wore them constantly. Got compliments everywhere he went.

Then one afternoon on a beach in San Francisco, a stranger walked up and said: “Those are rad sunglasses.”

The stranger was a retail buyer. That was it.

The Book That Reframed Everything

When we sat down with Tom and Michael to film the third episode of Go West, one thing that came up early was The 4-Hour Work Week.

Not the hustle hacks. Not the outsourcing tricks. The bigger idea underneath it: that you get to design your life. That work and freedom don’t have to be in opposition. That the whole point of building something is to build it on your terms.

That landed with us. We read the same book. A lot of dads in this community did. And it shaped how Tom and Michael went about everything after Sunski took off.

They launched a Kickstarter in July 2012 with a $9,800 goal. They hit it in two days. The campaign closed at $157,000. They were suddenly, as Michael put it, “accidentally running a sunglasses company.”

The $273 Moment

There’s something about that number that sticks with us.

Not because it’s inspirational in a poster-quote kind of way. But because it’s real. Most people would have looked at $273 in the bank and called it a lesson learned. Tom and Michael looked at it and decided to try one more thing.

That’s the Go West spirit. Not recklessness. Not blind optimism. Just the refusal to quit before the last card is played.

They designed the frames themselves. Tom’s architecture background meant he could do 3D modeling. Their years of scrapping through the Salsabol failures meant they already knew how to deal with manufacturers, handle freight logistics, and move fast.

They launched. It worked. And then they had to pack 6,000 pairs of sunglasses in a rented artist’s studio in four days.

When the studio manager asked what their medium was, Tom said: “Cardboard.”

What They’re Actually Building

Here’s what makes Sunski interesting in 2026: Tom and Michael could probably exit. They’ve built a real brand, a loyal customer base, a proprietary recycled frame material they spent three and a half years developing. The outcome is there if they want it.

They’re not taking it.

Instead, they’re doubling down. Elevating the brand. Building something they believe can have long-term impact. Not just as a product, but as a statement about how a company can operate.

Part of that is sustainability. Sunski has donated 1% of revenue (not profit, revenue) to environmental non-profits since day one. Their SuperLight frames are made from post-industrial plastic scraps. This wasn’t a pivot to values. It was baked in from the start.

But the bigger thing we captured in this episode is the why behind all of it.

Screens, Nature, and the 16-Year Problem

We’re on track to spend an average of 16 years of our lives on our phones. Let that sink in for a second.

Tom and Michael brought this up on camera, and it hit hard. Because it’s not just a stat about adults. It’s a stat about what we’re modeling for our kids. About what we’re teaching them to value. About the world we’re handing them.

Both of them are fathers now. And the tension between a world pulling kids toward screens and their own instinct to push them toward nature, toward the outdoors, toward something real shapes how they think about Sunski’s purpose.

Sunglasses are a product. But what they represent is a reason to go outside. To be somewhere that matters. To be present in a way that a phone can’t give you.

Getting back to our ancestral roots, moving, being outside, paying attention to the physical world, is something both of them talk about with real conviction. Not in a preachy way. In the way dads talk when they’re actually worried about something.

The Team Is Family. They Mean It.

One more thing we captured that doesn’t always make it into founder stories:

Tom and Michael don’t take their team lightly.

Sunski has stayed small and independent. They know the people who work there. They feel the weight of that responsibility. When we asked about it, you could tell it wasn’t a talking point. It was something they carry.

That’s rare. And it’s the kind of thing that makes a brand worth rooting for.

Go West, Episode 3

The film is live now. Watch it above.

Tom and Michael’s story isn’t really about sunglasses. It’s about what happens when you read a book that reframes how you think about life, fail at a salsa bowl, find a pair of vintage shades on a beach in Australia, and decide, with $273 in the bank, to try one more thing.

We think you’ll love it.

Go West is a Dad Day original series about dads carving their own path. If you know someone whose story belongs in this series, reach out at dadday.com.