You Don’t Need to Build for Everyone

Kai Tang didn’t set out to be a founder. He just couldn’t ignore the problem.

Back in 2015, Kai was part of Google’s design incubator—a dream for anyone with a background in product development. But the more he listened to the founders around him, the more uneasy he felt.

“Everyone was talking about engagement, retention, hours spent in the app, it was all about maximizing attention so you could sell more ads. That’s what success looked like.”

It didn’t sit right.

He started thinking more critically about the attention economy—how most modern tech products are designed not to help you complete a task, but to keep you staring at the screen as long as possible.

“You’re not paying with money,” Kai says. “You’re paying with your time, your attention, your data. The longer they keep you there, the more valuable you become.”

It was obvious once he saw it. But no one seemed interested in changing it.

So he did.

Kai launched Light, a company that builds intentionally minimalist phones designed to be used less—not more.

The Light Phone is exactly what it sounds like: a phone with limited functionality. It can call, text, play music, and give you directions. But it can’t run social media apps, browse the internet, or flood you with notifications. In Kai’s words, it’s “a modern tool designed to be put down.”

He’s careful to note: it’s not anti-technology.

“We’re not telling people to go live in a cave, we’re just offering an alternative. A phone that respects your time.”

The product isn’t built around nostalgia. It’s not a rebranded flip phone or some dusty Nokia. It’s designed from scratch—hardware and software—to serve a very specific purpose.

It wasn’t easy.

“Trying to build a phone company as an individual?” Kai says. “It’s insane. No one does this.”

And yet—nine years later—Light is still here. Still growing. Still thriving without a dollar spent on advertising.

“No paid social, No ads. Just community. People who care about the problem help us spread the word.”

That includes parents, celebrities, influencers, and religious communities—from Gen Z creatives to Orthodox Jewish schools. Different groups, same motivation: they’re tired of what smartphones have become.

And Kai gets it.

He’s not a parent himself, but the feedback he hears most often comes from families. One father wrote in to say he’d bought a Light Phone for himself, then for his entire family, after realizing how often he was checking email during movie night with his kids. “My daughter told me to put the phone down,” the dad wrote. “That’s when I knew something had to change.”

But Kai didn’t start Light to solve a parenting problem. He built it for himself.

“I wasn’t trying to create a product for a huge market,” he says. “I just wanted something I could use that wouldn’t hijack my brain.”

The simplicity is by design. When you open the directions tool, it gives you directions. That’s it. No detours. No Dunkin’ Donuts ads. No targeted upsells. “You don’t use a hammer and then swipe the hammer for 30 minutes,” Kai says. “It’s absurd. But that’s what phones have become.”

Light flips that model on its head. Instead of adding features, they remove them. Instead of optimizing for engagement, they optimize for peace of mind.

That clarity hasn’t always been easy to sell—especially in the early days.

“Nine years ago, when we pitched this idea, the reactions were polarized,” he says. “Some people got it immediately. They were like, ‘This would change my life.’ Others just laughed and said, ‘I love my iPhone—why would I need this?’”

But the sentiment has changed.

More people are waking up to the ways their phones control their time, behavior, and focus. More parents are setting boundaries. More schools are banning smartphones. And more founders, like Kai, are building with different incentives.

That’s the secret to Light’s longevity. It was never about scale. It was always about conviction.

“I don’t think we’d still be here if we weren’t so focused on this one problem,” he says. “Bigger companies have tried and failed to build minimal phones. But they were doing it because it felt trendy, not because they believed in it.”

Kai doesn’t talk like a typical founder. He’s quiet, deliberate, and uninterested in hype. When asked about Light’s long-term goals, he doesn’t mention market share or ARR. He just wants to keep giving people tools that make them feel more human.

“You don’t need to build for billions of people,” he says. “If you create something you truly need—something you really want—there will be millions of people like you. You’re not that special. And that’s a good thing.”

He’s not chasing virality. He’s not pitching VCs on explosive growth curves. He’s just trying to rebalance the relationship we all have with our phones.

And for the first time in a long time, it feels like the world is ready.

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