In May 2026, I drove my family to the Grand Canyon. I was trying to film the trip, and everyone around me was trying to catch the same moments.
We were also fighting the same things: sunlight washing out the screen, heat working on the phone, and rain sending people back under cover. Great shots were getting lost to the weather.
A few nights later, I dreamed about an outdoor filming tool with its own little canopy — shade for the screen, protection from rain, hands free. A stranger walked past in the dream and said how cool it was. I woke up thinking: that is the answer.
“The Selfie Shade is me solving a problem I lived, the way I wished someone already had.”— Ernesto Novelo, Founder
I did not sit on it. Within days I filed a provisional patent and started designing the real thing, teaching myself CAD and printing prototype after prototype at my kitchen table. My youngest son, heading to Texas A&M for engineering, became my right hand and my sounding board.
This is not a giant company with a giant launch machine. It is one engineer building at night and on weekends, with a family helping make a useful idea real. If you have ever lost a shot to the sun or rain, you are exactly who we are building it for.