Levelty
Our Story
I bought my first laptop stand in 2017
It looked good. But it was a hassle to carry, and it needed an external keyboard. Eventually I stopped using it.
Then my neck gave out
Neural inflammation spread from my neck down my left arm. For weeks I could barely use my arm. Recovery took months of (rather expensive) therapy.
My therapist attributed it to years of hunching over a laptop
He showed me where my head was supposed to sit — much further back than I was used to. Holding that position at a laptop means one thing: the screen has to come up.
So I went looking for the best laptop stand
I wasn't really happy with mine — it looked really nice, but it wasn't easy to carry and it wasn't adjustable. As it turned out, nothing I found online actually ticked all the boxes.
Those made out of wood were aesthetic but not super functional. Metals and plastics were more practical but unattractive. The perfect stand would be the best of both worlds. But it didn't exist. Yet.
So we started sketching
Until we had something that scored high on all parameters. Well… except for manufacturing ease.
Excited for this concept, we moved forward to prototyping.
18 months of testing
We made a batch of 50 stands. Then we made 50 more. Each batch fixed what the last one exposed, and the design kept maturing.
Many upgrades were made and many materials tried out, until we settled for a solid, single-layer bamboo from Shanghai.
Made locally
The quest for local production as a self-funded startup proved to be a much greater challenge than expected.
We produced a few small batches locally with the help of an awesome team of architect-woodworkers in the labs of the University of Architecture in Sofia.
Where it stands now
300 stands later, we've got a product that does everything we wanted.
It folds flat and travels. It works without an external keyboard. It's solid bamboo — warm to the touch, no plastic anywhere. And it goes high: up to 24 cm of lift, across 15 positions, which is what puts the screen at eye level rather than just off the desk.
I've used mine every working day since. So have people who bought the first batches, years ago.
Still made in Sofia — cut at the University of Architecture, finished by hand. I check every one myself, including that each magnet lands with the click it's supposed to.