Meet the people behind Squinted

We’re Paul and Loraine, a husband-and-wife team, and the two people behind Squinted — a new UK marketplace for pre-owned glasses frames.

And when we say the two people behind Squinted, we really do mean the two of us.

We’re not a big company. We don’t have a huge team, a big sponsor or a background in launching apps and marketplaces. We’ve never done anything like this before. We’re simply two ordinary people with two full-time jobs, who had an idea we couldn’t quite let go of — and decided to see if we could bring it to life.

The idea started with something pretty simple: we both wear glasses, and glasses can be expensive. After a lot of research, we discovered that lots of people keep their old frames tucked away in drawers and cupboards, even though the frames themselves are still perfectly good. Perhaps the prescription is out of date, or they’ve simply moved on to a new pair.

And that got us thinking…

What if those frames could have a second life?

And so, Squinted was born.

We’re hoping to create a simple, affordable and fun way for people in the UK to find pre-owned frames they love — giving people access to more choice, without always having to pay full price for a brand-new frame.

We’re not opticians, and we’re not trying to be. We just saw an opportunity to create something that we, as glasses wearers ourselves, would genuinely find useful.

Our story actually goes back 16 years, when I first met Paul at work. Oddly enough, one of the first things I ever said to him was:

“I really love your glasses!”

Who knew that, all those years later, those glasses would somehow lead us here?

Outside of Squinted, we’re just a pretty ordinary middle-aged couple with two full-time jobs, two very loud and very loved mini dachshund brothers, Bert and Stan, and a cat called Barry. Our children have all grown up and are now busy building families of their own, which means we’re lucky enough to have some beautiful grandchildren keeping us very busy — and very young at heart!

Right now, we’re learning as we go. We’re figuring out the tech, the marketplace, the branding, the business side of things… and probably making plenty of mistakes along the way!

But we care enormously about making Squinted work.

Our hope is that it becomes a genuinely helpful resource for people across the UK — somewhere you can discover affordable, stylish and pre-loved frames that perhaps you wouldn’t otherwise have had access to.

We’re starting here in the UK, keeping things small and manageable, and seeing where this little idea takes us.

So, if you’d like to be part of the journey, we’d love you to join us.