By Bob Verlaat
From left: Bob and Nick, childhood best friends and cofounders of Hears.
Two years ago, my childhood best friend Nick and I started Hears from a living room in Amsterdam.
But the story started way before that. We spent years going to festivals, concerts, and clubs—every weekend, loving every second of it.
The ringing in our ears afterward? That part we didn’t love.
So we went looking for earplugs, but everything we found fell short.
Foam turned music into an underwater mess.
Generic silicone fell out after 20 minutes.
“Premium” $300 options still looked like they came from a hospital supply closet.
Nothing worked, nothing looked good, and nothing made us actually want to wear them. Most people don’t think about protecting their hearing until it’s too late. Every concert, loud commute, and noisy day adds up—and there’s no undo button.
We were frustrated. Why should protecting your hearing mean ruining the experience of live music and night life?
So we stopped searching and started building.
Hears spent 1.5 years developing their earplugs, with input from hearing professionals, artists, and music lovers.
We spent 1.5 years in development, testing hundreds of prototypes. Working alongside one of Europe’s leading manufacturers, we engineered a patented filter that delivers advanced noise reduction with high-fidelity clarity—the flattest sound reduction in the world.
Music stays clear, sound stays rich, and the design is something you’re proud to pull out of your pocket. We set out to create earplugs so comfortable and seamless that you feel like you aren’t wearing any at all.
We use them constantly. I’m at concerts and festivals all the time, and our Solar Bloom pair totally disappears into my style—they’ve saved my hearing at 30-plus shows. Nick uses our Silver Night Plus model when he needs to focus in open offices, coffee shops, or on flights, staying in the zone for eight-plus hours without shutting out the world completely.
The collaboration with Pacha features the iconic club’s double cherry logo.
By our one-year mark, we had helped over 50,000 people prevent hearing damage and focus better. That number honestly blew us away.
Now, two years after launch, we’ve protected the hearing of over 100,000 people, earned an iF Design Award in 2026, partnered with YSL for Saint Laurent Rive Droite x Hears, and built an ongoing collaboration with Pacha Ibiza—the most iconic club in the world. The fact that a venue defining nightlife since 1973 believes in what we’re building means everything to us.
To top it off, being named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list confirmed that protecting a generation’s hearing is a mission worth building for.
Thank you so much for two years of trust, support, and showing up for your hearing.
Bob Verlaat and Nick Nijhof are the founders of Hears, an earplugs company based in the Netherlands. Hearing Health Foundation is proud to be their partner in hearing health as well as science, as a portion of every sale supports our research efforts. For more, see hears.com.
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Most people don’t think about protecting their hearing until it’s too late. Every concert, loud commute, and noisy day adds up—and there’s no undo button.