About Mono

The Mono Story

I didn’t set out to build an earplug brand.

Mono started because I couldn’t concentrate.

I work in a demanding role in tech sales. My days are fast, mentally intense, and often noisy with open offices, back-to-back calls, shared workspaces, constant background hum, and traffic noise.

At the same time, I’ve always built businesses outside of work. That means thinking deeply, planning clearly, and doing high-quality work in the margins of busy days.

And noise was getting in the way of all of it.

At first, I did what most people do. I put on headphones. I played music. I tried to drown everything out.

Sometimes it helped. Often, it didn’t.

Lyrics distracted me. Playlists got repetitive. I found myself switching tracks instead of thinking, or turning the volume up just to feel “focused”, only to feel mentally drained an hour later. The solution was creating a different kind of problem in itself.

What I needed wasn’t more sound.

I needed less noise.

But not silence. Not isolation. Just enough quiet to let my mind settle and stay on task.

I tried the usual options. Traditional earplugs felt too extreme, and frankly weird.

Headphones felt too involved.

Most solutions were designed either for protection, entertainment, or total escape - not for sustained, everyday focus in real environments.

I started looking at the problem differently.

What if focus wasn’t about willpower?

What if it was about environment?

Mono was born from that question.

Mono exists to reduce the everyday background noise that fragments attention. The constant distractions we’ve all learned to tolerate but shouldn’t have to. It’s not about shutting the world out. It’s about softening it, just enough, so better thinking can happen.

I designed Mono for the environments I actually live and work in: offices, shared spaces, cafés, travel, home. Places where noise isn’t extreme, but constant. Think trains going past, laughter, traffic noise.  All happening in places where focus matters.

With Mono there's no apps, or batteries, or playlists.

No pretending that louder equals better.

Just quiet by design.

Mono is for people who take their work seriously. Who value clarity. Who care about the quality of their attention. People who understand that focus is a finite resource, and worth protecting.

That’s why Mono exists.

And if noise has been costing you clarity, I built this for you. For those who think for a living.

-Jamie

Founder, Mono