Back in 2014, No Matter Products’ founder Shawn Willette found himself enjoying the 11,000-foot views on top of Mount Rainier, only to wish he had a comfy chair to elevate the moment. “It was a nice afternoon, we were done for the day and we’re just looking at the valley below.”
He remembered thinking to himself, “I’d kill for a chair right now!”
No hiker or mountaineer wants to pack the unnecessary weight and bulk of a common camp chair. But, why hadn’t the principles of ultralight been applied to a portable and packable chair?
Two years later, Shawn embarked on an ambitious expedition on Denali, North America’s highest peak. He recalled how badly he wished for a portable chair on Mount Rainier, but sledding and schlepping upwards of 120-pounds gear on Denali was arduous enough. “I knew any extra weight was going to be painful.”
With a masters degree in mechanical engineering, Shawn's entire professional career has been in the defense and aerospace industries designing hardware for the military. While he had an aptitude for schematics and spreadsheets, there was still plenty to learn about technical fabrics and stitch lines.
Using the same principles of tension employed in tents, Shawn crafted the plans for a lightweight canvas “tent chair”. Lacking confidence behind the sewing machine, Shawn brought the idea and components to a local seamstress who happily obliged.
Shawn’s first prototype made its debut on his trip to Alaska, and while it was kinda flimsy when you got in and out of it, “it worked perfectly and I was the envy of my tent mate when we got snowed in,” he laughed.
Like most of us during the Spring of 2020, Shawn had some additional time at home.
Unabashed by his nerd-like tendencies, he took his new 3D printer and toyed with making some new components and hardware for his tent chair. Each iteration was better and lighter than the last. “But they were bordering on being too light, too skinny and easily breakable. So I bulked up the poles and ended up at 8-ounces, which is still three times less than its competitors.”
While never his end goal, it was after some encouragement from friends when Shawn looked into what it would take to start making his chairs at scale. “I do believe it has a very applicable market and the people will understand the benefit of having a place to sit when they get to the places that are worth suffering to get to.”
“Like a good engineer, I created lots of spreadsheets to get a good estimate for what I’d need to make a full chair,” Shawn laughed. “It was just me in the basement on a sewing machine making those first prototypes. I’d send samples to sewing companies to see if they could replicate and even improve on the product.”
After over ten years and 18 iterations of dreaming and scheming, the Antimatter Chair went to market in the spring of 2024. Made of carbon fiber poles and ripstop nylon, the chair weighs less than most cell phones and collapses down to the size of a fanny pack.
Even though Shawn has domestic manufacturers providing custom poles and soft goods, every single Antimatter Chair is fully assembled and shipped by Shawn out of his Madison, WI home. “By myself, in my basement, for hours on end,” he laughed.
Recently patented, the Antimatter Chair truly is the lightest way to take a load off. Shawn hopes it will encourage users to get outside their normal, screen-filled space and experience the healing power of being in nature. “I invite those using the chair to take a minute and see the view, whether that be the beautiful valley below, a campfire, watching your children at a sporting event.”
“I want to share my personal desire to stop, enjoy the experience and see the view; I wondered if others were experiencing the same desire, and hope I’m giving them the means to fulfill that with this design.”
Originally from Alaska, Maria currently resides in Montana with her husband, two young daughters, and chocolate lab named Echo. When she’s not chasing her kids or that next running goal, you can find her weekend-warrioring in the mountains or thinking about her next cup of coffee.
