The journey
Zero to one hundred,
one step at a time.
The volume didn't go up overnight. Each milestone below is a notch on the dial — the full story is in the book.
A secondhand speaker set
Two brothers, mesmerized by the bass of their father's Altec Lansing set, buy a secondhand pair of speakers for ten guilders — and immediately take them apart. More than twenty speakers are built and dismantled before high school.
The winter that started it all
Timothy spends his small inheritance building high-end speakers in the garden shed. Our first customers are an aunt and uncle who pay over €1,000 per speaker — on faith. Scheek-Loudspeakers is born.
A eureka moment at 3 a.m.
After years of late-night tinkering, the breakthrough: a speaker with multiple coils instead of one. We sell our PlayStation to fund the patent search. Mayht is officially founded on April 25, 2016, and the first patent is filed by September.
Ten meetings, three aluminum briefcases, and a pair of socks
Max joins, opening doors to the world's biggest audio and tech companies. We hand-wind coils, fight melting prototypes, and fly to Boston and Silicon Valley with demos hidden in cut-up socks. Every room we enter is shocked by the sound.
Negotiating from nothing
The bank account dwindles to nearly zero. Rent goes unpaid, collection letters pile up — yet a €5M acquihire offer is used as leverage, not an exit. In December, a binding term sheet with FORWARD.one buys time and oxygen.
The first €1 million
The VC deal closes; a hard-fought codevelopment deal follows after a locked-door session at Schiphol. Two races begin: a race against zero cash, and a race to technological maturity.
Backward to move forward
COVID-19 grounds the world. A heretical idea — swapping one new component for an older one — finally delivers clean, loud, reliable sound. The technology gets a name worthy of it: Heartmotion. World-class advisors join the mission.
Proof, in every form factor
The proof-of-concept program ships demos to the industry's biggest names. A double-digit-million offer arrives. Exeger and Martin Garrix join the cap table. Six "impossible" demos are built for one horizon: CES 2022.
"Go after these guys"
Best of CES on Billboard and TechCrunch. A demo at Sonos HQ ends with the CEO whispering to his VPs. Days later, in the middle of the night, the letter of intent arrives.
$100 million. Paid in cash.
After fighting harder internally than externally, all shareholders sign at the notary. The engineering team gets a meaningful piece of the pie and full-time contracts at Sonos. Everybody was a winner.
Forever switched on
After four years inside Sonos, the story becomes a book — and a platform to help the next generation of builders go from zero to one hundred.