The glasses have GPS tracking. Manufacturing The range is manufactured in Sydney from cellulose acetate which is a 100 per cent renewable and recyclable natural biopolymer manufactured from cotton and wood pulp. Tzukuri creates both glasses and sunglasses priced at $485 including prescription lenses. They are available online and from a pop-up at Sydney's Old Clare Hotel which opened this week. "If you look at technology like your phone, it is made from lots of different components," Liao says. "But when you make a pair of glasses you only have three pieces to work with. We invented a new process to seal the electronics inside one piece of material which allows us to make a very light pair of glasses."

Liao chose to stick to a classic and simple design for the glasses in contrast to the sophisticated technology inside. Allen Liao launched the glasses at a pop-up shop at Sydney's Old Clare Hotel. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer "There was a lot of work in [the] design, working out what materials to use and what lenses to use," he says. Tzukuri has only produced a first run of 320 pairs as the glasses are all handmade in Australia. Allen Liao is launching a range of "unlosable" glasses with GPS tracking. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

"We want to continue to make them in Australia and we're currently searching for manufacturers," Liao says. Backers He's scored some big name backers with Dennis Paphitis, the founder of Aēsop and Andrew Rothwell the founder of Tyro on board as directors of Tzukuri. Tzukuri's backers include Stephen Fry. Starting a company where you are making the physical product especially electronics is so hard that you have to have a great passion for whatever you are doing otherwise you will give up. Allen Liao

Liao won't reveal how much funding Tzukuri has received but says "it's been a long process, raising capital is hard". Liao travelled to the United States meeting with anyone and everyone he could. "Capital raising is really relationship building. For people to invest in a start-up there is no proof of its success. Nearly every investor we have, we've had strong relationships with six to nine months before we've had investment." The one exception is Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Wordpress. ​"We had a quick conversation when I was in the United States. I pitched him the company and he called me back the next day and said 'Allen it's absolutely crazy, but I think it might work'."

Other investors and advisers include Stephen Fry, Ron Johnson, who created Apple's retail arm and Bertrand Serlert, the former senior vice-president of software engineering at Apple. Liao met Fry through a screenwriter in the United States who told him "Stephen would really love your glasses". It turned out Fry did. He's now an adviser to Tzukuri, and Liao says Fry has made "many, many introductions". "He's very close to some Apple executives". Alongside the Apple alumni Liao has secured the backing of Ilana Atlas a director at ANZ, Coca Cola and Westfield, and Chris Boshuizen the founder of Planet Labs. The reality

Liao says he's nervous now his vision has become a reality. "You've got to be nervous, you just don't know what people will expect," he says. The signs are good so far, with Tzukuri breaking even the first day it started trading. Liao has plans to open three pop-up stores in the next six months and is aiming to sell 13,000 pairs of glasses in Australia, bringing in over $6 million in revenue. If his plans for international expansion come off there are more commercial opportunities. "We are looking first at New Zealand and Asia-Pacific and then looking very closely at the United States and Europe," Liao says.

But the process of developing Tzukuri has not been without its challenges for Liao. His initial co-founder left the business and went back to finish his university course. "You have to love it," Liao says. "Starting a company where you are making the physical product, especially electronics, is so hard that you have to have a great passion for whatever you are doing otherwise you will give up." Follow MySmallBusiness on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. An earlier version of this article priced the glasses at $480 not $485 and did not include the reference to pop-up stores.