Our Story

Dear friends,

How are you? I am the founder of the Solyovia team. My name is Laith. Today I want to share three stories with you. Nothing grand — just three simple stories.

The first story is about the small moments that made up my youth. I come from a tiny village in a county town in China, and I lived there for eighteen years, until I was nineteen and passed the exam into a university and finally left. For those eighteen years I kept looking up at the sky, full of longing for the wider world and for the future. During the years I was teaching myself, I got up at 5:30 every morning, the hour the sun comes up. I would wait and watch it climb slowly, from darkness into light. It was so red, so warm. To me, that was hope. That was the future. And through my years in middle school, it was again the sun that walked me home after class: I would watch it sink slowly along the road on the way back, still that same red, like a friend, like a teacher. In university I still rose at five in the winter mornings, put on my coat alone, slipped quietly out of the dormitory, stood in the corridor, hid in an empty corner of the stairwell, and paced back and forth with a book in my hands. It was very dark and very cold, and I did not stop studying until the others were awake. I remember that winter was bitterly cold, the wind cutting to the bone, and the cold wind made my mind strangely clear. It pricked into my brain like needles. That was the first time I challenged fate.

The second story is about going out with an ideal and fighting for it. When university ended, I had to go to a big city and find work. Until then I had never once taken a train, never been to a big city, never ridden a subway. But I still had to survive there on my own, so I had to learn all of it fast. The weather was sweltering. I looked for a job alone for two months, and along the way there were interviewers who looked down on you — they sat there mocking you. They said you had no work experience. They said you had no ability. I also walked by mistake into a scam company that sold fake medicine, and they mocked you there too, because I did not even understand sales. They said I was stupid. Only after many, many interviews did I finally get one offer. That was the second time I challenged fate.

The third story is about death. I worked very hard at my job, and then, on a business trip, I had an accident. I fell — in an unfamiliar city, far away from my hometown. It was a pitch-black night. There was no one on the road and no cars, because the snow lay thick all around. As I fell, I could feel myself passing out. But in that same second I understood that if I lost consciousness, there would be no one there to call an ambulance for me. So I got myself back up. My body was hurt. I did not go to the hospital. I simply stood up alone, went back to the hotel and slept, and the next day went back to work. Only at night did I take the plane home, and even then I had to work through the pain. After that I realized that one day I really will die — and if I really die, it will be a regret, because I still have so many things I want to do.

Finally, there is one more thing I want to say. When I was in middle school, by chance I came across a speech by Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. In that speech he too told three stories, and he told young people not to waste their time, but to pursue the work of their ideals. He also mentioned a magazine that had shaped him when he was young, called The Whole Earth Catalog. Its makers breathed life into it with the eye of artists; it was filled with the colors of idealism — simple tools and great ideas. On the cover of their very last issue was a photograph of a country road in the early morning, and on the photograph were the words: stay hungry, stay foolish. Years later I went to a place called Manila, where there is a remarkable restaurant called Binalot. Its founder left childhood memories on the walls in the colors of art, wrapped clean and traditional food in banana leaves, and breathed life into the work of his ideal. When I came back to China, I could not forget any of it. I remembered the speech by Steve Jobs, I remembered that magazine, and I remembered my own dream — the ideal work that that boy had always wanted to pursue.

Through countless sleepless nights, one thought kept turning over in my head: if I truly cannot see tomorrow's sun, then what should I do today? The people who shaped me and the things I have lived through are all telling me the same thing — I should do what I want to do, and it is time to do it. So I made up my mind and began the ideal work of our team. I hope to gather the strength of young people all over the world, to gather those who share the same beginnings as we do, and to build a work that respects labor and respects ideals, that makes room for love and for speaking freely — so that the effort people give the world can receive the return it deserves. I want everyone to take part in this world with their own power to create: to know the world by changing it, and to change the world by knowing it.

My friends, my partners — we need you. We need your help.

— Laith, Founder of Solyovia