Masters in BusinessBloomberg Radio host Barry Ritholtz speaks with Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler of Hodinkee, the preeminent website for enthusiasts of modern and vintage wristwatches. Clymer, who’s been dubbed “The High Priest of Horology,” founded the site in 2008 and is currently executive chairman; Fowler was appointed Hodinkee’s chief executive officer in 2022.
This is Master's in Business with Barry rid Hoolds on Bloomberg Radio.
This week on the podcast, I have a pair of extra special guests. Ben Klember took an buyout offer from UBS in two thousand and eight, right in the middle of the financial crisis, and said, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna launch a site about watches, which has been my hobby and see where this goes. And that was fifteen years ago and it's turned into one hundred million dollar business with incredible investors and just a huge brand on the Internet. Jeff Fowler has been CEO of the company for just about two years. This really is a fascinating discussion. First, if you're interested in watches, it's amazing to talk to guys who have known so much and are so plugged into what's going on in the industry and really are right in the middle of what's become a speculative boom in time pieces. But also this is a story of starting a small media outlet, a small web presence, and recognizing that there's business potential here and how to slowly grow that into something that's substantial. How do you hire people, how do you go out and find investors. When do you do that? When do you take this to the next level? When do you as founders and CEO say hey, I need somebody who can scale this and I'm going to step back and become chairperson and bring in a professional CEO to run the site. So there are a lot of different ways to look at this. I found the conversation to be absolutely fascinating. I could have gone for another two hours with no further ado my conversation with Hodinky's Ben Klember and Jeff Fowler's let's talk a little bit about how a blog becomes a business. I know a little bit about that. Twosand and eight you launched a blog after you leave UBS in the midst of the financial crisis.
Yeah, first, what were you doing at UBS? So I was basically the lowest of the low man on totem poles. I was twenty four. I was working at UBS in wealth management. And it's funny, actually, before I even get into that, coming to Bloomberg is actually my favorite place to go because it is the only location that I visited pre hoad Inky and post hod Inky. Oh really so, actually, when I used to visit here, your systems used to pull up the original photograph ever taken of me as a guest, and it was me at twenty four years old, no beard, dressed head to toe and Joseph A. Banks. Legitimately, I'm not dressing that anymore, thankfully, and it was just an amazing flashback. Anytime I come here, I've been here a few times for other shows, and so this is one of the few places really in the world that kind of unites my pre hoad inky and present day world.
That's really interesting. So post Ubs, yes, you're doing this just as a hobby, started as an interest.
Started for fun. So I was a kid. I was in wealth management at Ubs, and this was two thousand and eight when Leven collapsed and the world effectively imploded, certainly for people of my age who had no authority at all. I mean, we had no cloud whatsoever in a giant company like at Ubs. And they said basically like, look, you're probably going to get laid off. Will you take a severance package and get out of here? And I said, oh no, what hell? Yeah, absolutely, And keep in mind I had nothing. Both my parents are public school teachers. I mean, I didn't come from a world of luxury or finance or anything like this at all from Rochester, which is not anywhere near Westchester, you know, a really dramatically different world. And I said, you know what, like finance, this version of finance is just not for me at all. I always fancied myself a writer. My grandfather, who was kind of a mentor not kind of. He was a mentor to me. He was still alive at the time, and he was an entrepreneur. He gave me his Omega Speedmaster, which is a really nice watch, when I was sixteen years old. Is my only nice watch.
So wait, you're I'm trying to do the math if you were twenty four and eight. So you got this watch in two thoy ninety nine.
Yeah, around there, I would say.
And he purchased it twenty thirty years before he.
Actually purchased it. He purchased it in the early nineties. It was a later speed Master. He bought it when he was in his probably sixties or seventies, so it wasn't like something he had throughout his entire lif but still it's what I remembered him wearing. And one day he just literally slid off his wrist and said, I want you to have this, which is unbelievable to me, obviously, and that was his daily drug, that was his daily driver. That and a gold Rolex Day eight as well, which now my father has. And it was just something so impactful to me. And he was really my hero. I mean, he represented something that that I didn't really see much of in Rochester, New York, which was a self made you know, truly self made to a material degree. Was interested in the world, interested in how things are made, nice cars, nice watches, et cetera. And had very little to do with the cost of things, but really appreciated how things were made. And it was always critical that he made me understand why in Omega would be two thousand dollars instead of two hundred, or Mercedes would be sixty thousand dollars instead of six thousand.
But really quite interesting. So so you have this cash out from UBS.
If you can call it that. I think it was a grand total of around nine thousand dollars, all right for me, Hey call it.
One thousand and eight. That was not nothing.
Yeah, And look, and I was twenty four, I was living with my girlfriend at the time, and so just kind of goofing around. So I'm like to be able to pay my you know, I think my share of the rent each month was around nine hundred dollars, so like that paid.
Hey, but your years were almost the year's worth and.
Rent exactly right, so allowed me to take my time and write with that. With that time, I ended up freelancing for the likes of GQ for the Financial Times How to Spend It, you know, great really great publications, mostly about watches, but other men's lifestyle things, cars, you know, whatever, restaurants. Ended up applying to journalism school here in the city at Columbia for a master's degree. I went to undergrad for finance and computer science, so dramatically different field, and I said, look, I'm going to be in media, and I wanted to be a true journalist, like a real Bloomberg style journalist. I wanted to do it the right way. So I applied to Columbia, somehow got in using my blog about watches as the foundation of my application, and ended two years of a master's degreeyet at Columbia, while I continued to blog every day about watches.
And the site was called to Dinky it was.
It was called Houdinky from the start Hodinky with a y and it means wristwatch in check of all things. Everyone asked, I'm actually not check, but I was just kind of goofing around and googling Google translating what wristwatch was in different languages, and and you might remember. But like so in two thousand and eight, Google was the hottest thing on earth, and Google was like, really kind of it's on its ascent, and the double vowel kind of like stuck with me. And another site that launched around the same time had a double vowel, and it's called Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle site. So the double vowel, for some reason, really was popular with Internet domains.
You can't get you can't get a domain, right, I literally wrote down what was the inspiration for using the check word for watch? But I know if you go to register a company or haven't forbid register a dot com, every word, every two letter, three letter four letter combination has been taken, every common word in the dictionary. Somebody's squatting on. So yet really have to get creative.
Yeah, so we we. I'm still used to saying we as if it was more than me. It was just me. But I always used to use the royal weed to pretend like we were biggert we are now actually having the people here, which they were a huge company you wouldn't understand. So but back then, even more than that, I was already a of the tenuous relationship tenus it best relationship that watches and luxury had with the Internet. And so the first people to sell watches on the Internet or even list watches on the Internet were what we call gray market dealers, guys that had no legal right to sell watches.
So people that we well, I'm guessing eBay was pretty big in the early Absolutely still is eBay is the largest watch strow on Earth.
Oh is that true? Absolutely absolutely, much to the chagrin of the Swiss, but it is the largest seller of watches on Earth. And look, I mean it's just it's just reality. But I mean, forget eBay. eBay is a real publicly traded you know, has has business practices that we all hold in the high regard. Well, you know, there are other other sellers.
Out let's put a little asterisk on that one big circle.
That's a good one. But the there were a lot of other purveyors of watches that really were not super super ethical folks, little shady a little bit. And so the Swiss and the and the Europeans at large were really kind of reticent to to to get involved with watches on the Internet at all, and that includes evening even a covering them. So when I would go to Switzerland and say, hey, Rolex Pa Tech, whoever Omega smaller brands, can I photograph your watches from write about them? They say, oh, you know, we don't really want coverage on the internet. Truly. That's how it was like in the early forward tech exactly, very forward thinking. There's a famous line that I've told in a few other podcasts and a few other stories where a very very prominent i mean one of the most prominent CEOs of one of the largest Swiss luxury groups in the world told me to my face in twenty ten that he thought the internet was for poor people, that nobody would ever make a buying decision based on anything published on the Internet. And keep in mind, this is what I was doing for a living back.
That's you know, if someone would have said that in nineteen ninety nineteen ninety five, I would have said, all right, their a little backwards looking, but by twenty ten.
Yes, Amazon is immense.
All these companies had migrated. Jeff, what were you doing in twenty ten?
I was working on Louis Vuitton at the time, and it was actually Jeff who said it to me.
Yeah, so, Lesbie, they have a pretty robust online presence.
Yeah, I mean at that time it was likely the case that Louis Euton's dot com store, if you want to call their online presence, was likely the biggest store in any of their regions globally, certainly in the US. Louisviton dot com for the US region was well on its way to becoming the biggest site for any sales for Louis Vuitton. So yeah, was well established at that point. But Ben's right, I mean even across the broader luxury categories of fashion shoes. I mean, luxury was late to the game, saw it as more of a branding and marketing activity, and the watch industry in particular was very, very late to I think understand the true impact and potential.
Of And when did you first first become aware of this little blog called hode.
Yeah. I was at LVMH for a number of years, mostly with Louis Vuton for the first few years and Louis Euton has a watch business and division, and then within lvmhor I moved to Taghoyr, which is a pure watch business within the broader luxury group. It was really kind of in the Taghoyr timeline for me career wise that it became aware of Ben and of Hoodinky, And as he stated earlier, in my mind, Houdinky was this huge operation. It was, you know, dozens of writers and journalists simply because the influence that they already had at that point, this is twenty twelve twenty thirteen, was enormous in the industry. There would always be someone from Hoodinky at a precedent or press junket.
You know.
The site was getting a huge amount of appeal and building a community. So we were well aware of their impact. But I hadn't met Ben yet. I was heading up retail for Tag Hoyer for North America, so I was sort of traveling around from market to market, store to store. But yeah, I was very aware of Hudinky's impact.
So I'm going to jump to the end of the story and then we'll backfill what took place between eight and twenty twenty two. You join as CEO last year. How did that transition take place and why were you excited about stepping into the chairman's role.
So for me, Hoodinky has been my life's work truly. I mean, I have a child now, but I kind of think of it as my firstborn. And you know, like any child, you know, things tend to grow up and mature. And I think, you know, if there's one thing i can say about myself, it's that I'm acutely aware of my strengths and weaknesses. And as my strengths are that I've got the vision, the idea. I think. I think I'm a solid writer. I've got, you know, the creative mind to to build something that other people wouldn't see. If I may say, where I'm not super strong, honestly is running a business at scale constitution is tough, sure is to come to find out, you know. And so you know, when we closed our Series B in twenty twenty, which as you mentioned, include lvmh in in a minority share, there's no there's no majority holder. Just to be clear, TCG, Tom Brady, Tony Fidel, John Mayer. I mean, like all these mean, that's a crazy list. That's a crazy people don't know who Tony Fiddell is. He is essentially the guy who created the iPod and then said I need to do something out and then goes out and creates nests. Yes exactly, I mean talk about.
A design you know, legacy, amazing.
He's he's a legend, and he's of all the people in my in professional life that is mentor, he would be the one. And actually it was he who decided, or he who influenced me not to sell the business. I had the opportunit need to sell the business in twenty fourteen, and he said, do not sell this thing. Let me help you raise money. So he actually invested as early as to us.
And I know from having seen him on talking watches. Yeah, exactly, he's been a watch geek forever because the you know, it's funny, we briefly touched upon what your grandfather said, but the elements of design and precision craftsmanship come together and watch in a way very few things do. Perhaps the iPod and nest are good example.
That's exactly that, and so so Tony Fidel. A guy named Kevin Rose who sorted dig and is now in NFTs. He was actually he stepped in and invested as well, and was actually our CEO for a while. Tony Conrad, who's big and trueventures he did Peloton and Blue Bottles really great, you know Silicon Valley names that were all friends and we all kind of connected. They all kind of helped me shepherd in this new version of what Hodingki could be, which was that of a retailer and that of somebody who had this amazing influence. Editorially speaking, we had done limited editions where we designed them. I'm actually wearing one right now. Let's say this is an IWC that we did, sure, so you know, this is a seven thousand dollars watch. We did five hundred sold out and I think four minutes. Wow. So you know it was it was with their help and their product that we said, hey, this could be something much bigger than I don't want to say just an editorial platform, but we can do real content to commerce. And that was really not a model that existed anywhere.
So let's talk about that. I want to loop Jeff into this part of the conversation. So you start out as essentially a non professional media outlet, evolve into a media outlet, and then eventually add e commerce when you think about Hodinky today, and I'll direct this to Jeff who joined in twenty twenty two, is it media first? Is it e commerce? Or is there no bright line between the.
Yeah, you know, I get that question often, and in fact I get that question often even from new joiners to Hoodinky people that have come aboard. Perhaps it's that we've hired them into the commercial side of the business. Perhaps we've hired them into the editorial side of the business. And it's not long before they ask, well, which one are we are?
We?
Are we an editorial sort of content business? Are we a commercial business that sells things? And I sort of reject the premise that it has to be an or rather than an end. But I think it's the end aspect that really makes us unique, that really sets us apart as a pioneer. And I'm going to quote actually someone totally not connected to our business, but recently at a conference for CEOs tech executives, the global president of Shopify was speaking and was on stage and behind him in his slideshow, he presented the logo of Hodinky, and a friend of ours was in the audience. It was quick on the trigger and pulled up his phone and recorded you know this otherwise private conversation happening with CEOs, and the gentleman from Shofai said, does anyone know who Hodinky is?
And what year was this? This was last year.
I remember we're talking maybe six months ago. They don't know who Hoadinky is. A bunch of hands I presume got you know, put in the air because we were just listening to the audio. Says for those who aren't aware, if you want to watch, talk to me later. And then he proceeded to say, Hodinky is the greatest watch retailer on the planet. Here's why, And he said they spent the first better part of ten years just writing about watches, just pursuing the knowledge of watches, furthering the knowledge of watches, building a huge community, and then and only then did they start to actually sell things, at which point there was a captive audience of people ready to convert, which you know, at the end of the day is really important if you're running an e commerce business, you know, conversion is the key to all of that. And I think, you know, we and again we get asked this often is like, you know, are you editorial or commercial? Isn't there a conflict. Isn't there some sort of like mixed sort of motives there, And we reject the premise. Again, we simply say, we write about things that we love, we sell things that we love, and in some ways this there's an intellectual honesty to that. You know, there's there's editorial choices being made at every stage, whether it's on the content side, whether it's on the commercial side, and it just so happens that a content to commerce model, if done effectively, is an incredibly efficient model.
A little secret.
We don't sort of always say this, but something that we love to brag about is there wasn't until twenty twenty one that Hodinki spent its first dollar on marketing, right, A lot of businesses have to spend a ton of their revenue on marketing in order to get that next customer in the door. Really is the editorial side of Hootinky, That really is what gets people interested, keeps them interested, keeps them engaged. For many people, it's their daily read on their morning commuter, their afternoon commute, you know, And that's really the secret, the secret sauce.
Yeah, and just to put just quickly, to put a fine point on that, just add further context. So Jeff is exactly right. We hadn't spent a dollar marketing, and literally not a dollar on marketing until April of twenty twenty one when we heard it for CMO. We were doing about thirty million dollars a year in revenue at that point. So we've gotten from zero to thirty million dollars a year roughly, you know, give or take without a dollar spent on acquisition costs. Wow, that's impressive.
So since you mentioned the media focus on what you really love, let's talk about what you guys write about. It's often about the history and the narrative surrounding a specific watch, the brand, the background why a watch is important, even if you don't like it, here's why it's significant.
There's a lot.
I mean, obviously I'm a fan for a long time, but discussing the in depth background of each watch. When you started doing that, yeah, I mean other than a p industry professional red a trade publication, nobody was doing anything like that online.
Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think if there's one thing that I'd say we got right early, which was this the idea of taking this thing that really could be perceived as pretentious or complicated or certainly expensive, you can't deny that, and explaining it in a way that is incredibly digestible for the average guy like you or me or a Jeff, and also doing it online in a broadcast mechanism. There were some people discussing the finer points of high and watch making inforums, but you had to register the comments, I moderated. If you weren't part of the gang, you basically had no cloud at all. And I said, that just doesn't feel democratic at all, Like I love this stuff in such a sincere way. I want to basically share what I'm learning to as many people as possible, and then people can read it or not, they can comment or not. That's okay, and I think that is really what made us different from everyone else. And we did it in a way that was style. And something that I've always really focused on is ensuring that the presentation of our of our media is really beautiful. And so the first dollars I ever spent at Hodinky were to actually have double engraved business cards, which literally cost me thousands of dollars. We were exactly you know, back in the day when business you.
Got that nice nine thousand dollar ubs exactly.
I've probably spent a third of it on business cards, truly, But this idea of like presenting something that was just so much more thoughtful than anyone else out there. And yes we were a blog, and yes we had a silly name, and yes we were online, but I cared in such a way that was so different than everybody else. And a lot of the journalists, and certainly not here at Bloomberg, but elsewhere in the world, a lot of journalists in the luxury space are there for the good wine, the pretty girls or guys, the free travel sometimes on these junk kids, and these amazing experiences. And I get that, like, I'm not going to knock people that are there for that. I wasn't. I didn't know that existed. I wasn't there for any of that. I was there for the product and there to share the product with as many people as well.
And full disclosure, Bloomberg republishes ho dinky columns on occasion it goes incas Yes, in the Wealth or Pursuits section of Bloomberg. I didn't mention that earlier, but I want everyone to understand you and I have never met before the strictly in armslong conversation, but there is a relationship between Bloomberg and Hodinky. But let me go back to spending three thousand dollars on business cards on a zero like of course, law, when did it dawn on you that hey, this is could be a business and maybe generate a profit.
Yeah, so, I mean early on we had advertisers, and back then, I mean the cost of running hoodinky was my time, which was effectively free, and then hosting fees on squarespace and elsewhere. So we'll say, what we're using for software was so tip it or Tumbler for the first six months, and then Space and Squarespace, and I love those guys. They were really instrumental to the growth of Hordinky allowed me to design my own website in two thousand and nine till probably twenty twelve or thirteen when we got a professional upgrade and really like without them and the interface that we put forward and everybody was using WordPress and other you know other a really frankly more rudimentary at the time products and Squarespace. Squarespace was incredible, I mean really allowed. It was almost like Shopify in a way, like really open up a whole new world to me to to preduce something that was really beautiful.
What were you using before square space tumbler? All right, so let me explain how old I am sure when I launched my blog it was on GeoCities, which means that you had to do HTML coding. You learn and when six apart came out with uh, I'm sorry, is it movable type came out with trying to remember the name.
Of it, I can't even remember anymore. Uh.
Six apart was a movable type where it was old wizzywig where you didn't have to code indent or pictures or wait, I could just drag a picture there. This is astonishing.
Yeah.
So you went from an hour of writing in two hours of coding to an hour of writing and five minutes of formatting it was that was three Yeah, that was a game changer. So when you go from four space to whatever was next, what we're using is.
The So we were in squarespace until probably twenty we did a super custom version of scareespace and just on background, I was a coder like I in high.
School graduated, I said, you were college finance.
So I was doing I was banging out coat for a good chunk of time there in college and before I built my first website when I was probably fourteen, so you know, it was something that that I really took a lot of pride in. And then in twenty thirteen fourteen, an agency that that actually Jeff knows what called Wondersauced a great name, I know, they approached us and said, hey, we love what you're doing. Your content is unreal, like, can we help redesign your site? And I was like, I don't have any money, but sure, you know, And it was this probably twenty twelve.
Okay, at that point in the nine thousand zeverance was gone.
Right, so four years later it was long but yeah, so taking a step back. So we we hadn't been making money with advertising, and advertisers came quickly because we had represented we represented.
Anybody else was in that space.
You had it to yourself all online. And on top of that, our audience was wrapped. I mean, audience was obsessed with what we were doing. The young and they were They might not be wealthy now, but they probably they probably were going to be, you know, And so we had average Our first big advertiser was Automarpi Gay We had Ptec as a no kid. We had Rolex as an advertiser, frankly in a different way than we do now. Even it was really special because we weren't selling anything. We were just there to promote the industry. And what change for me was after a few years of making a good living and I own the whole thing, so it was like a nice little living for me. I said, hey, like, I'm getting these emails that person X or woman why is buying this protect filip or Rolex whatever because of the content we're creating And here's the proof, Like, here's an email, And I would take that to brand X and I would say, hey, isn't this cool? Do you guys want to advertise more? And they say, oh, no, we're good, But like you want to come to per Se for dinner? And I was like, per Se is lovely, but like you know, that doesn't that doesn't pay for my rent, It doesn't allow me to grow this business. And I said, man, our audience is really special. And we started doing these surveys, internal surveys where hey, what do you want from Hoodinki? The number one response every single time to this day is for Hoodinki to sell things. Because they trust us.
Really very interesting. I'm intrigued by how you guys have grown own. I'm familiar with a few parallel stories, but I don't know of anybody that's taken it to the level that that Hodinky has.
I appreciate that.
Ben Kleimber is the founder of odinky, one of the world's most fascinating and well read watch sites. Jeff Fowler is the company CEO. A couple of years ago they launched whodinky shop is what its current name is. I don't know if it was called something else.
It's Hodinky. I mean the shop was, you know, it was basically, you know, to get into breast haacks. It was a subdomain powered by Shopify, so we did shop at hoodinky dot com. But it's hodinky.
It's all one company, all right, and it now does sells over one hundred million dollars worth of watches, which is not too shabby. So so let's talk a little bit about the wacky world of watch retailing, starting with why can't I walk into a Rolex shop or a bushera Tourneau or any retailer and say, Hey, that Daytona is pretty nice, and that Batman Jubilee bracelet. Let me take those too. Why can't we do that?
I mean, the simple answer is just supply and demand. You know, there's well more demand than there is supply of these products brand new at retail. You know, it's estimated that Rolex produces around a million watches something like that. Yeah, give it, give or take a million watches a year. No one knows the real answer for exactly how many they could sell if they had, you know, the amount of supply to meet demand. But it's got to be in the millions, so you naturally get this issue of constraint. I don't believe it's a managed constraint. I don't think it's one where they're like intentionally trying to come some million units under the demand. But of course, like you know, only Rolexs would be able to answer that question at the end of the day. Scaling up in this industry is not terribly easy. I mean, you know, they're roll handmade, They're very intricate. Some of the nicer watches are five hundred, seven hundred nine hundred teeny tiny little pieces. Yeah, and I often say that, you know, leading aside of the brand on the dial of the watch, the most important thing on the dial of a Swiss mechanic watches these two tiny words Swiss made usually around the six o'clock marker. And for that to be the case, it's got to be totally manufactured, assembled, quality controlled. Every step of the process is to take place in Switzerland. And I'm sure you visited Switzerland then, and I have been there many times.
I have, it's on my list.
It is a teeny tiny country, right, It's like I always say, for most parts of Switzerland, if you just pick up your eyes and look at their eyes, and you're probably looking.
At another country.
Now.
You know, the tiny villages in the mountains, you know the historical you know, cradle of watchmaking is all there, and a lot of people in those parts of the country are affiliated to the watchmaking industry. But they're making one tiny subcomponent, teeny tiny part, and it all comes together in one glorious supply chain that ultimately becomes these watches. But it isn't as though you can just scale that.
Up very quiet and to put some flesh on the bones. So if Rolux is doing a million million, two Paddock is doing sixty thousand, Yeah about that, And Lango is doing five thousand, Yeah, five six seven in that right, I mean are just insane numbers. Yes, it's seven thousand of anything is Yeah, you know that. That's how many must and convertibles sell. Yeah, that's and good good luck get it. They cost about the same. You could walk into a Ford dealer in order must end convertible. You can't walk into a language now. To be fair, a lot of these places they're like perpetual calendars that are a buck fifty. You could probably go in and get one, yeah, if you, if they like you, maybe maybe, And I like those seem to be more available than the Yeah.
Look I think that the average I mean just to get you know, the Rolex question is one we get a lot obviously because every guy in the street. Look, I love Rolex, I own several, but everybody when you.
Were a UBS, did you notice that, like every kind of shady stockbroker had a Submarner. Yes, I mean I know everybody loves that. I have a problem with that watch because I just associate it with you know, junk stocks and heart selling.
Yeah, I get that, and like the whole like used car salesman guy where it's like that has that has dissipated quite a bit, and now people want Rolexes.
You know, when I was, well, they're not the Rolex, just the sub mariners got it. Like the senior guys had gmts and Daytona's, but the junior guys all were wearing subs and people kind of looked a stancy.
He used to be able to go in and get it whenever you said, yeah, exactly. And the world has just changed. And look, I would never take or we should not take all the credit. But like sites like ours change the demand flow in such a way that Rolex or any brand just couldn't keep up with it. And then COVID everything changed, you know, Dict Covid, Covid.
We'll talk a little bit about Covid, but so let let's talk about a couple of other smaller brands. I'm a fan of some of the h. Moser and Company. Grooble four S seems to have exploded. NB and F is next level Jacob and Company. Yeah, and that's before we get to artisans, the Geneva who have decided give us your Rolex and we'll slap one hundred thousand dollars worth of labor on it and make it one of a kind. Like this sort of thing start in the car industry on a very very small level. You can personalize your car, put stripes on it. But to take a thirty thousand dollars Rolex and turn into a six figure product pretty amazing.
Yeah, I mean, Rolex is should be viewed differently than almost every other watch brand market shared to the giant. I mean in the US they're one half of all luxury watches, is that true?
I know, globally it's twenty something, and.
It's just enormous in this country. And you know, look, there are big if you go to India, if you go to Asia, there are brands such as Omega, Launjeans, et cetera that that could rival Rolex in terms of popularity. But in the US, this is Rolex country for sure. But they are they should be viewed separately from almost everybody else in the industry. As I said, the demand mechanism that they have is just so robust. It's like people don't even know why they want a Rolex, they just do. And almost no other brand in the luxury space and watch his car as anything really benefits from that.
So quick funny story, I have a guest a couple of months ago, and he's wearing a reverse Panda, which is the Daytona chronograph with the white face and the black dials. And I don't remember what I was wearing. Was probably my my yacht Master is my daily driver. And I just happened after we'd done, I happened to mention it to him, and he said, about twenty years ago, when we first launched the firm, him and his partner got one and then went to their local ad and said, I need thirty of these.
This is twenty years ago.
And there why he goes every time we make someone a partner, we give them a daytime.
Yeah, I like talk about it was a good investment.
By the way, he's in private equity, he's got a good talk about spotting value before anybody else did.
But that sort of thing could never happen.
Well, no, Barry, you don't have to go that far back in time to get to a moment where it was possible to go into many of the brands you just named and asked for a discount. I don't watch how they have it available. You'd be able to get it for a discount ten years ago, five.
Years ago, I mean, if you're talking about MBNF Moser three years ago, pre COVID.
Yeah, I was looking at the torb On and the Mosar and just couldn't wrap my head around the price, and I couldn't pull the trigger. And now I regret it. Not because I'm a flipper. Every watch I've ever bought I still have unless I've given it away, but just the thought of like, oh, I'd love to have that for half of what that's gone for.
Yeah, once you break that, this is going to sound awful, but here we are. You know, once you break one hundred thousand dollars market, it becomes a lot easier. Do it once and you can do all the time.
A lot of demand, limited supply. I couldn't help but see Bloomberg headline last week Rolux and Protect investment beats S and P five hundred gains over the past five years. In other words, if you went out and bought a bunch of rollies and a couple of paddocks, you outperform the market. Is this what's driving the speculation in the watch industry.
I think it's part of it.
And again I think to really trace the history what got us here, you'd have to go back to again. You know, if I may say, sites like cud inky that really helped to kind of encourage more curiosity about this industry, build a community of people, more and more of whom are interested in this in this product category. I think you can can't ignore the impact of the Apple Watch, if I may say, I mean this was why is that? Well, this was meant to have been the nail and the coffin of the mechanical watch.
So let's let's back that up a little bit, because I like where you're going with this so quartz crisis. You had all these cheap Japanese quartz watches using to maintain battery precise to seconds a year. And why do I need a complex, expensive mechanical watch when I get a cheap.
Oh, we've seen we've seen this story before. This was meant to have been the end of the Swiss the mechanical watch industry in particular. Obviously, you know there there were some incredibly talented, committed executives at that time, any of whom are in particular you want to mention anything the one who probably gets and maybe deserves a must graviouldn't you grade is probably Jean lab there, Nick Kayak as well, you know.
The designer of the uh Autemar Piget Oak and the.
Jarl.
Jenta has to get a lot of credit for saving the watch industry, right is yeah, where do you put these three guys in?
If I got in? Yeah, it slightly different. So Jenta was early nineteen seventies and he was just a designer. So it's like saying, hey, like, design me a coffee cup. Here's a coffee cup. That's it. We're done now. You know what Ap and Petak and others did with Genta's design is really what allowed them to kind of continue to grow. But I think what what Jeff is referring to is really a decade later when courts really kind of came in, and to be clear, courts won. Like if you look at how many watch probably ninety nine percent, right, So just to be clear, like courts won. That doesn't mean that this that the Swiss didn't have its own little kind of pocketive influence and pocket of growth growth potential. But as Jeff is saying, Jean club Beaver, who revived blan Pond and then Omega in the nineties, he was the first one to sign James Bond and Sydney Crawford to Omega. Huge deal, mister Hyak who designed the Swatch, right, I mean that is a Swiss made watch for back then was probably what twenty five probably yeah, thirty.
Bives and that's a giant right. People collected them like beanie babies.
Swash in the eighties was as big than anything today. I mean just cannot be kind of surmised or can really understood today here, Swatch in the eighties was everything.
It's because they turned watches into fashion.
Exactly exactly that you still have a few tricks up.
Their sleeve, right, Well, we just saw what they did with Omega, had.
People lining up around the block to get to get a watch.
Right.
We've done five collaborations with Swatch, right, I mean Judikia, We've collaborated with Amez, with Laika, with Omega. I mean really, you know, high end brands, and we did with Swatch. And the guys that are buying our sixty thousand dollars of astron or whatever are also buying our swatches.
Really absolutely so, I totally get the appeal of Asiko for three, four or five six hundred dollars you get a really well made watch. Question that looks pretty good, tells pretty good time. And if one of your nephews says something, oh you like it here, Yeah, it's not. It's I don't know if I would do that with this, but I certainly would do that with anything from Seiko, even some of the nicer divers that are experienced. But Swatch always, maybe it's my age, watch always struck me as kind of like a fun fashioning not a serious time people.
Well, I mean, look, first of all, Swatch owns Blanc Pond, Brigue, Omegan.
Oh the company I'm talking about the Schwatch watch exactly. The company is massive.
Yeah.
I would argue though that does it does it need to be something complicated, in something serious, because for some people that gets in the way of just the enjoyment of wearing the watch.
I think, you know, I'm aware when I wear a very nice watch, I'm aware. Oh gee, am I going to get on the subway with this?
Yeah? Very true, very true. We'll talk about what AP is doing.
Yeah, with a Swatch, he probably wouldn't have that concern for sure. And I think you know there we talked about Gerald Genta, I mean his impact was surely from the design angle he's watched. One thing they've done incredibly well is just design great looking watches and design watches for different people with different appeals. It was in Paris recently they did a really cool collaboration with Cafe to Floor. We've talked about the Moon Swatch. I mean, ours our beautiful watches and are the ones that we've collaborated with Swatch on. So design something to watch is no firm. For some people, it's a it's fashion, you know, it's something that they put on in their part.
So let's talk about the Apple Watch. Yeah, when when the Apple Watch comes out and it starts just selling crazy numbers, what was going on in Geneva?
What would people think? They were terrified and really like here we go again, Oh my god. I mean it was the end of the end of time, right and in full transparency, I was consultant on the Apple Watch, like I helped. I helped them and Johnny I was on our second cover of our magazine. I mean, well, and so you know, I'm a lover of Apple Like I was just a designed guy. The guy who's spending money on business cards when he had no money, Like what Apple does is just remarkable. So it was honored to work on that project. And so I was actually the only person from the watching industry to attend the launch of the original Apple No kidd. And that story that I wrote, which was totally unbiased, Like even though I helped kind of work on it, it was like what they were doing with the Apple Watch in terms of materials and in terms of the way that the bracelets snapped on and off. I mean like it was miles ahead of Switzerland, miles and these things were four hundred dollars and that really really terrified the Swiss. And the Swiss are there there. They can be persnickety, for sure, and they really thought that anybody that was supporting the Apple Watch was an enemy, including us for a time, No kid, truly and we we still to this day. So Apple Watch more were proud to sell it. But it really got people to think about the wrist as real estate again, which they had not gone in a decade.
The wrist as real estate. Yeah, huh, that's really interesting. So I noticed you're not wearing an Apple Watch, not today, and you're not wearing an app I was this weekend. I consider it a great privilege to not be notified about anything.
Like to me, to me an Apple watch, an Apple watches.
Wait, I'm tied into I'm getting Slack notifications, I'm getting Twitter notifications, I'm getting email and text leave me at the long Yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of get it.
And I know a lot of people that you know, if they lost their roll ups, they'd be upset, but they couldn't go a day without their look, their Apple.
The Apple Watch, you can make whatever you want it to be. So I wear it solely when I go to the gym and when I play off, that's it. That's the only time that I wear Historically, I used to win a few versions ago. I had one that was selled, and I would leave my phone at home when I would go driving, and I might need a vintage car to kind of escape. But so I use it for two things, working out and really working out, and that's it's But I do not have notifications of emails, texts, et cetera. It's really for me giving input to it. How many steps did I take, what kind of calories have I burned? Et cetera.
And you you don't want to wear a nice watch when you're golfing anyway, because the little pistons that hold the face in place will snap if you're wearing a watch, yeah and swimming the golf or good. Yeah, you could always buy a reshard meal. Yeah, I mean that's probably the most responsible thing to do, exactly. You know, we'll get those financially response, get the one, the rough m the dolarwares. Yeah there, but it's on his other hands, isn't it.
It's not on his uh but but Bubba Watson has his own reshard meal and he wears it every time he plays. No, kidd is it's pink, right, it's pink now is originally white, but yes, funny and a pink three million his was when it launches around six fifty. I would guess now probably run a million.
Right, So so forget strapping a BMW two your wrist. That's a very nice three bedroom condo. Oh yeah, yes, place two bedroom condo with yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know that not everybody is going to be comfortable, or even the people who can afford it. A lot of people look at Watchnista's for lack of a better word, and like.
You guys are crazy. Yeah, And I think to some degree. Everyone that's passionate about anything is a little bit crazy. Sure, But I think also if you look at I mean, the other thing that I'm interested in like you is cars. And so if you look at the running costs of a great car, Let's say you buy a car and watch both fifty thousand dollars right right, own it for on them both for ten years, get the ing German for both for ten years, to watch you. Basically, if you want to have insurance, you can. You don't have to have a storagees nothing, put it in a drawer, a safety deposit box. Cars, insurance, maintenance, parking cars are so much more expensive you want to maintain as a collectible assets. So it's remarkable and I do both, so I know. But watches they can do so much more than cars.
Eight you're wearing. You're wearing them right now, so am I, so is Jeff.
And these are things that like these are real almost Housman's for for for people's lives, and so like when my daughter was born in December twenty twenty one, I gave my mother, my mother in law, and my wife a watch each to celebrate the birth of her. And those watches are hers and like, you know, for until until the day that she dies, you know, hopefully long far away, those watches of hers and she'll remember that that these were given, you know, the day that.
She was a milestone.
And I think you know the omega that my grandfather gave me. That watch changed my life. I can wear it every day. When my daughter was born, I was wearing that watch. And when I asked my wife to wear to marry me, I was wearing that watch.
And what'd you get married? In?
A ptec A Protect fifty two seventy all right?
Because you weren't fooling around. This was a serious that was Yeah, we were not messing around. We were in Rome and yeah, it was. It was.
It was a good one.
When you travel, do you travel with multiple watches either?
Yeah, it depends on where I'm traveling to. Recently, we're in Geneva for Watches and Wonders, the big international trade show of watches. I think I had nine watches for that event.
Really so different. Watch twice a day.
Yeah, multiple times, multiple watches in this same day. Sometimes, you know, your meeting with a brand partner you want to represent. Sure, sometimes I'll bring one watch if I'm going or two watches usually as a minimum. If I'm going, you know, on a golf trip, I'll bring a watch I wear golfing. I'll bring another watch that's sort of like a daily wear, usually something that can kind of go with different types of looks and outfits and activities.
But and just for the record, Ben.
Mentioned you know you don't have to ensure what you should ensure your watch, especially if you're traveling with it, especially if you value it. Inside note, we offer insurance hooting and.
We're going to talk a little bit about that. But as since you brought it up, someone asked me this question the other day. I said, I don't know the answer, but I know the guys that do you have a writer on your home insurance with a number of watches listed you travel with that watch? Is that covered under your homeowner's insurance or do you need to have a separate policy on them.
There are lots of questions like that that you could ask when discussing how a homeowner's insurance policy could cover the value of a loss or stolen or downage watch. I would just say ignore all those questions because, to be honest, the best way to ensure your watch is not to attach it or assign it to your homeowners policy. Itated Yeah, I mean, we've had stories from people who had to make a claim on a damage or lost watch while it was a part of their homeowners insurance. Then their homeowners insurance got canceled and they couldn't get homeowners insurance. Again, it's just not a situation when we want to find yourself.
I total de car at five miles an hour, I got t boned, and I had that exact same thing happen right the homeowners and the umbrella was canceled and you had to scramble to replace it. Because it's easy enough to get homeowners an umbrella is a little more complicated.
Yeah. In twenty twenty one, we actually launched our own insurance program that that myself and a job with Job So Chubb is the underwriter, but we conceived this product ourselves. This is a totally unique product designed for watch collectors, so it has nothing to do with homeowners, nothing to do with anything else. And you can dynamically and really retroactively assign and unassigned insurance attachments to any watch, so like you're out of the house right now, you could ensure that watch when you go home tonight and put in your safe, turn it off, do it all on your phone. And so it's all in the hood Inky app. It's underwritten by chub, so you know, best in class. It's really an amazing thing that truly like, Like I can say, you can critique Codnky for anything you want, but our insurance product is better than anybody else's by far. I'm gonna take a look at that.
Yeah, a little bit interest.
And by the way, you guys did a very nice job on the app.
Oh thank you.
I'm still waiting for Bring a Trail at a roll On and I don't.
And they did a billion.
Dollars in sales. I sold one hundred thousandth car.
Amazing.
They definitely need to uh but but this is something you guys were Internet.
Although so were they?
Yeah right, didn't they start out as Yeah?
So I've known Randy who started Bring a Trailer for ten plus years. We used to do a column called bring a Loop that was very much inspired by Bring a Trailer. Know those guys super well. I mean they've done amazing things that abstoually sold to hurst in look Covid and good on them. I mean they've they've got a great thing going. I mean, they really you know, we admire a lot about what they do. I know that they admire a lot about what we do, but they've been able to to really own the collectible car category in an amazing way.
You guys talk about what you were doing during the pandemic. I know a lot of people with streaming Netflix, bring a trailer and ho dinky is what kept me occupied out? Yeah yeah, and you know, to the detriment of my bank account, but to the betterment of my wrist and garage. So it was. And I mean I was into this sort of stuff long before, but it's just amazing.
How gee, I'm not commuting.
I'm getting so much work done from home in my pajamas, unshowered. We had a rule in our house you had a shower once a week, whether you need to or not. I mean, it was just you know, and occasionally get out of your pajamas. But it was just really easy to say, I'm done with everything, now let me wordle and then oh dinky, and then bring a trailer. It was it kept everybody entertaining, all right. So let's talk a little bit more about retailing. You launched the shop in twenty twelve. You're now doing one hundred million plus in revenue. Yep, congrats, that's a real number. It is. Thank you, But you guys are also expanding that you bought Crown and Caliber and tell us a little bit about the thinking of behind the purchase. Yeah.
So twenty twelve, the first Shopify site was set up to sell some straps and related accessories. At the time, I think Ben and the team would would pop up at occasional you know men's men's wear flea markets things like that were always sort of like scrappy and you know, trying to connect you know, lovers of watches with products that they love. Limited editions, as Ben mentioned, was a big push towards the commercial side. That was around twenty fifteen. The first watches. The first one was was a Max buser Watch MBNF, so beautiful, beautiful, limited edition collection. And then it wasn't until twenty seventeen. And I say twenty seventeen I emphasized that because that's not that long ago that Hoodinky was the first online only authorized retailer of watches. So that, yeah, that reticence to kind of move online and really see online as a channel as a commercial channel. I mean that that that sort of ail wasn't pierced until twenty seventeens. And Hoodinky was really the trailblazer, launched with eight brands as authorized retail partners up and now we're up to about forty brands, so, you know, not a nice list of brands, it's a great list of brands. I mean, you know for some of them where they're only online authorized partners, so Arimez, Apple, Omega. You know, for those three brands, the only other retailer besides themselves who sells their watches as an online only channel is Hoodinky.
But then Omega is probably second second substantial oh yeah, substantial watch elo with hundreds of models, it seems.
Ye oh yeah. I'm look, they sponsor the Olympics, they sponsored James Bond. I mean this is a global, global brand. Yep.
So, but at that point in time, Hoodinky is still new watches, limited edition projects, which you're not doing them every week or sometimes not even every month. We do about a dozen a year. Uh, And then vintage watches, which you know, there's always a market for collectors who want a vintage watch. Really a one of one define vintage typically defined US a watch that's before nineteen nineties.
Okay, you know when.
Did the modern US watches start showing up on hote King?
When did you decide to do modern use?
Yeah, so that would be the pre owned category as pre owned distinct from vintage, and that they're both pre owned technically, but vintage will be nineteen nineties and before, yeah, and pre owned would be you know again, a modern IT eighty could actually be a watch that someone else has just purchased and is flipping. They've never worn it.
It's in its.
Original box with original papers. That was with the purchase of Crown and Caliber, which was the business that we acquired that you mentioned. That was in February twenty twenty one. I think, you know, looking back as an outsider, I was not involved with the business at that time. An incredibly shrewd decision because basically online at this point, you still have very very few brands that have meaningfully moved their new watch sales online, some not at all. So Rolex doesn't sell online, ap doesn't sell online, Paddock doesn't sell online. Even authorized dealers of those watches are not allowed to sell the watches online. You can see the reference information. Then it will say visit a retailer, and then and a local retailer. The only way you can buy those watches online is to buy them pre owned and pre owned, which you know, as Ben mentioned earlier, used to be quite a wild West sort of shady business online certainly not something that you would kind of you wouldn't use catchwords like trust or authority or authenticity. It was really kind of buyer beware situations. The online channel, you know, really had a lot of opportunity to be cleaned up. And I would say that Crown and Caliber, a business that's been around now for a decade or so, is one of those business that was doing a very good job of playing the game in a clean way. They were buying the watches that they were selling, taking ownership of those watches, which I think says a lot because it means that they were willing to vouch for those watches in terms of their authenticity, the quality. They had invested in a true watch shop in Atlanta, Georgia, where the business was found in its base. So you have, you know, watchmakers who have graduated from the likes of the Rolex School watchmaking, the Reachmont Technical Center in Dallas, Texas to have real, real train skilled artisans that are able to repair and service walk to make sure that when those watches are being sold to the next owner that they're in as good a condition as that when they were originally sold. That Basically, the acquisition by Hoodinky allowed Hoodinky you kind of fast forward its way into being a player in the pre on space, which is a larger market than the new watch market online about thirty percent of pre on watches are sold online versus only about five percent of new watches that are sold.
Thirty percent. That's an amazing statistic. I never would have guessed it was that large. You mentioned authenticity there. There are lots of replicas out there. What do you guys make of the super replicas that without a loop? Certainly from a risk distance, it's hard to tell. Like in the old days, you would see a fake Rolex Chinatown, twenty five bucks.
With a ticking secondary right.
Exactly, Yeah, no sweep and it would jingle and you know its the best twenty five bucks you could spend in the world. Watches and kept pretty good time today, pretty impressive, yeah, now, and they're pre sophisticated counterfeit pieces out there China mostly right, Some that you know, go so far as to include all like manufacture original parts on the outside of the watch. And it's only when you get inside into the movement that you understand that the movement has some parts or the original movement has been swapped out. You're telling me Rolux doesn't come with a twelve dollars Chinese.
They don't don't do that.
No, No, that's not the case that.
By the way, the new transparent case back on the Daytona. Is this something that we're going to start to see more of as an anti counterfeit or that just happens.
To be a pretty titanium watch. My my guess. Look, I don't know it all, to be clear, and I really mean that, I don't think that has anything to do with anti counterfeit, and I think it's more celebratory and they want to show off the new movement, et cetera. And to be clear, it's only in the platinum Daytona.
Which, even which is unfortunate. The one of the nice things about Langa is every one of their watches has a display case back, which is quite This is.
Really one of the I mean look, every not ivy Omega, but a lot. I mean, so does scant Acos. I mean it's it's it is uncommon for a high end watchman to not today, but it wasn't always the case. Sure, yeah right yeah.
So so how big of an issue are these super counterfeits?
I mean, for us, they're not a major issue. And that's again down to the fact that we've had we have an investment in people that are able to sort of sess them out. And that's even before we get them in our possession. We have pretty good you know tracker.
You can eyebowl something on it just a photo. Some of the sock ex selling Sneakers has a counterfeit division, yeah, because they were getting so many fake nikes coming in.
We we have a staff of authenticated yeah, truly. And then the benefit of us being us is we have direct relationships with brands and we can say, hey, bright Ley and grand Seiko, whoever was this watch born with a black dial or blue? We can track the serial number two and not not many people on the pre own side can do that. And as Jeff said, I think you know much credit to Hamilton Powell, who's the founder of Credit Caliber the business that that we now that we now own. You know, he really wanted to do stuff that is like, buying a watch is one thing, but selling a watch is actually brutal. And if you've ever tried to sell a watch, which doesn't really sound like you have, it's awful. And so if you want to do it, either go to Corona twenty four and it may never sell. You go to auction. They're gonna take twenty percent. With crownic Caliber and now Hoodinky, we're gonna tell you what we're gonna pay then and there you're gonna send in the watch. We're gonna send you a check.
That's it.
You're done.
So I tell I'll tell you that sounds like a lot of fun. So you take them on consigned, we owne that you buy that we're cutting your check.
Yeah, no kidding. So one of the few I.
Didn't realize that think it's big. That's a big difference.
Instant quoting about eighty percent of the watches as well. So again you go on to Crowncaliber dot com, Hoodinky dot com. You type in the reference number, some information Rolex Batman, etcetera, ask a couple of clarifying questions you get a quote right then and there, and if you like that quote, you send the watch in. We authenticate, inspect that, make sure that it is as it was described, send you a check.
You'll have a check right away. So my brother has a Vacheron.
I forgot the model. It's one of their more globe trot or something popular.
Overseas, overseas, overseas, but they came.
Out with a black dot and he has a blue dial, and I've never seen a blue dial else.
That's a classic fashionround color. That blue dial is gorgeous.
And very deep.
I literally have never seen that anywhere else in blue. I'm gonna send him over to you guys, because he wants to sell it, and I had no idea you guys would would cut a check like that. So we're talking about online retailing, but I'm gonna throw one of your quotes back at you, which is physical retail will always have a home in luxury and watches. Of course, I think in everything, in everything, So sometimes like one of the things I like about the yacht Master is it has a hef You feel it. Yeah, when I Baltic makes some nice watches, you put him on your wrist you're unaware you're wearing. And even this has a little bit of a half which is mostly the pink gold. But you know, how easily can you buy a watch that you've never had on before?
Pretty easily. We do about one hundred million dollars year worth of it. Yeah, okay, so let me rephrase that. How how comfortable can so if you know what you want? Right?
So? The Moser tor me on in vans of black kind of an interesting watch. I've had it on in the in the ice blue and the dark blue. I'm not sure which way I would pull the trigger in that, but I've worn it and I'm like, Okay.
I'm comfortable with this watch.
But if I've never tried a watch on before that the new ice blue Daytona with the brown bezel, if you're going to drop, you know again an S class on your wrist. Can you do that online or do you want to go in and experience it?
Well, everyone's different for sure. To be clear, Rolex doesn't sell online anywhere with anybody, not not with us, not with not even themselves. So no Rolex New can you buy online?
Just right here?
But like, let's use a brand that that we sell because this happens every day. A brand new Omega speed Master, which is about a seven thousand dollars watch that fire case back, great manly wound, iconic thing. We sell those all day long, and if people don't like it, they can return it, right and so.
Thirty days so longly you give them to Yeah, I think it's fourteen days.
Two weeks. You know, we can't like I've been wearing it around. You try it on. If it's not for you, you send the book. I think you know what we did with with the Hodinky Shop in twenty seventeen, we took I look, the brands that I hold in high regard are no.
Surprises, and they're not unique to me. It's it's Apple, it's Nike. I mean, I wear air Maxes almost every day. If I if I like the air Maxes.
I get those are good ones.
You know.
If I like the air Maxes that come in the mail to me, I keep them. If I don't, I send them back. I got my I got a refund in three days or five days. And that's fine. And so taking these very normal twenty fourst century e commerce practices and applying them to watches is not that crazy, but we were the first and still we remain one of the few who does it far fetch does it? Mister porter does it? Great etailers like that.
You're you're out of far fetched. How did that experience translates to Hodenky.
Yeah, it's interesting because I talked earlier about when I first encountered Hodinky. And you know, sometimes if you if you go away from a thing and you don't go back to for a while, and that was the case for me. I was really busy with my career. My wife and I were having three boys in three years, so we were pretty busy. I hadn't paid super close attention to everything that was going on in the world of hood Inky until it was contacted by a recruiter, until I got a chance to meet Ben, and I couldn't. I just couldn't believe how much had evolved at the business because in my mind it was still, yeah, the pre eminent watch blog, but I had no idea watch blog, yeah retail exactly, all the retail like, the way that the business set of all was enormous. Me the fact that it had launched its own insurance product, I mean, it was incredible and sort of I think what I saw was I had just spent almost six years at far Fetch starting when you know, the primary business of Farfetch was then and remains a marketplace, but so much it evolved at Farfetch as well. I mean, we had launched a platform services business which was taking all of the core technology and making it available for other retailers like Herod's and the likes. We had acquired a few businesses. I was involved in the acquisition of Stadium Goods, a pre owned sneaker marketplace. So just seeing kind of how that business has grown and evolved and I've kind of grown up in my career with it. I saw a lot of similarities with hodigiva'm on. It's a foundation of things that were there that one of our investors likes to say, are they close to maturity or are they like ten percent? And I'd say lovingly, they're closer to like ten percent, meaning like there's so much upside, there's so much still growth and evolution in front of us and in different ways that we can kind of push this business forward. And just being able to work alongside Ben as a founder of somebody who's who's I think truly one of the most influential people in this industry just was like an opportunity. I simply I would I would have never forgiven myself if I didn't go for it. Someonelmost told me that's the kind of sign of an entrepreneur. I've never been an entrepreneur to start my own business, but I had that feeling.
You've worked at companies that are I don't want to call them startups, but not that you know, there's a difference between joining Amazon and eBay today and joining h Sure, joining eBay when it's two years old, and people like, hey, we don't know if this is gonna be Yeah, I think I'm probably the guy right behind the guy with the machete.
Blazing a trail to the jump.
I'm with him, but you know, he's got the He's the one who's been there instead of taken that sort of initial leap of faith. I mean, it's one thing that I think you always just have to like never take for granted in a business like Hudinki. And I think Ben did a good job with this very recently for an internal meeting, was just reminding people that this thing wasn't always a given, you know, And he went back to his original email inbox from two thousand and eight, to the first emails he sent from his inbox, and they weren't to collegues. They were to his family members. It's like, can you guys believe I'm getting paid to do this?
Send five dollars? Truly, So Jeff's referring to a post that I was writing about watches. I was being paid seventy five dollars a post, truly.
Then the first advertising contract, which was twelve months run of sight for a price that today might get you a day, it was twelve hundred dollars for the year. So those things, now you know that that's fifteen years ago. And again remember that the first part of the first decade of those fifteen years largely was spent just developing the most important editorial presence for the world of watches. I mean, I still think it is a startup, but it's a startup where there's again there's a trail that's been blazed. My role, the way I see it is really just to kind of, like I suppose, increase the speed and certainty of execution and really help it scale and build and sort to help us realize what we think is our fullest potential as a business.
So let's stay with retail. I was going to ask you who your competitors are, but really, in terms of new nobody else is really selling very much online. Yeah. Look, I mean a handful of micro brands, but sure none of the bigs are selling to the level.
Yeah, I mean, look there are a lot of and look, it's funny you say competitors like these are all our friends, Like we get coffees with them all the time. Watches in Switzerland and Torneo Booker, like these are great world class retailers. We have a lot like they do stuff that we can never do, and I think we do stuff that they could never do, you know, but there's nobody that competes with us directly in everything we do, and I think that's what makes us so so special. Frankly, Like this is a truly unique business, a piece unique, if you will. And you know, so many times over the years people said, was Houdinki the Warby Parker of watches? Which is not is it the Glossier of watches? It's none of that. It's something else entirely. And I think what the ambition is here is to become kind of really the global global leader of watches content and commerce, and like really b watches through six do we want to ensure your watches, we want to help you buy and sell them. We want to sell you straps. We want everything to exist in watches on Houdinki and we're getting there. And I think that's what's so exciting about it. And I think to Jeff's point, like I view really all brands as one or two things. Are either a challenger or you're an incumbent, right, And I think like a Torea, which is an amazing business, and one I've got a lot of love for it, like they're inn incumbent business. They've been around forever that they're now owned by Booker. We to some people are probably an incumbent, but we're not like this, as Jeff said this, I came from nothing. This business came from nothing. And the way that we view everything we do is from the mind of a challenger. We want to continue to push and continue to change things.
Keep in mind the Internet runs in dog years, so you're an incumbent on the Internet. But when you look at some of the watch brands that have been around since the seventeenth century, eighteenth century, seventeen fifty five older than the country. Right, it's just absolutely so. So two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine young business in the internet, sort of middle aged.
Yeah, and I want to be clear, like I so the business was an immediate platform with a little bit e commerce that was basically three people until twenty fifteen. Then we raised our first venture capital. We were probably ten twenty people, and now we're one hundred and thirty hundred and forty. So it's big or now that's a real business. It's a real business. But we're still not or know, we're still not Bloomberg. We're still not you know, something like that that is ubiquitous in a great way and really has the the kind of the certainty of its future. Like we want to to continue to push and challenge what the luxury watch industry and what all industries kind of think of when they think of retailers. We are a retailer. We are immedia platform. We're a community platform, we host events. We're an insurance product. We are a strapwear brand. We make things that say hood Inky on them. We are all these things and that's exciting to me.
A couple more questions about retail before we move on, got to ask about Rolex getting into the certified your own business. What's that about? Where do you think that goes?
I sort of use the analogy of like the world of automotive we talked about cars earlier. I mean, for me, it would be almost like impossible to think of a world where, you know, BMWU or Mercedes didn't offer a certified pren program under their own brand, under their own market.
But let's break that take that apart a second. You go and buy you want to buy a used car, but you like the advantage of having the manufacturer tell you the cars in good shape and they're going to warranty it for you know, another three years and fifty thousand miles, so you're going to pay a little bit of a premium to pick up, especially if you're looking at an expensive car or complicated, you know, any of the more sophisticated vehicles out there. It's nice to have that backdrop when you're going out and buying a GMT from Rolex. Do you what does CPO do for you other than tell you have Rolex tell you we looked at this wat we cleaned it up here.
I think for some people that's worth the premium, and at the moment, at least based on the evidence that we can we can observe. You know, where Rolex certified premium programs have already started to roll out is they are pricing it at a premium. The only way the premium to a premium, to a premium, to use a premium, to use the premium to the kind of market price a pre owned so a sub mariner which we were talking about earlier. You know, ten twelve thousand dollars watched retail, usually selling for the upper teens, maybe twenty thousand dollars in the preon market, you know, the Rollck certified preon prices are going to be even higher than that, maybe in the mid to upper twenties. And so for a certain buyer that maybe is peace of mind. Maybe it's the kind of knowledge of having bought it from a Rolex authorized dealer, certified by Rolex, making sure that it's only ever been serviced by Relux. And but again I think where the comparison still holds to a certified preon program is there's a finite number of places that sales certified preon and those are the brands themselves or the authorized dealer with the brands. There's tons of places that sell pre owned cars, and there are lots of places that sell pre owned watches. I think consumers have choices to go to a trusted player in a pre owned space, or maybe you know, go buy it off of eBay from the original owner. Take your chances. Maybe you get a lemon, maybe you get something in In our case, I mean, we're I think, as trusted as it gets. The trust is unimpeachable. Never you know, never sold the non authentic piece, never sold the piece that we couldn't stand behind and vouch for in a pre owned capacity. And to the points that we were discussing earlier, the ease of selling with us is unparalleled. I think the ability to sell and transact your sale of a watch over the internet, get an instant quote at an inserprise. The way the Certified pre Owned program is working at the moment is you have to physically take your watch into an authorized dealer that is offering the Rollick CPO program. They'll inspect your watch, they'll offer you something in exchange for your watch, And then I think, then this is you know, just my own personal views. Then they have the challenge of showing the original piece side by side with the pre owned piece, right, And there's something a little off there, right, If you're selling an original sub mariner for that ten twelve thousand dollars retail price and then the pre owned piece right next to it for twenty seven twenty eight thousand. Explaining that is a challenge. But my point being that like their entry into this market, if anything, just serves as an endorsement of the pre owned market. I think it's the biggest brand of the world. Whatever they do matters a hell of a lot in this space, and I think we look at that as a good thing. It's kind of a blessing, if you will, for the pre owned space and for the importance of the pre and space in the kind of constellation of you know, how people consume and transact with watches.
Huh.
So let's do a compare and contrast. I'm going to mangle his name, the CEO of.
Paddock Here Here Star.
Yeah. So he goes out and buys modern era Paddocks on the US market to figure out who's flipping them and to call a dealer two account, Hey, why are you selling our rare watches to somebody who's just flipping them on the secondary market. Can we assume we'll never see a CPO program from Paddock that?
Well, actually, I think you guys actually reported that pretty recently, that that Thiery said that.
That was an interview that one of the Bloomberg reporters who were at watching exactly right.
So, I mean, as of today, it seems like they will not get into CPO, and that is not surprising to me.
Really, all the volume, it makes much more sense.
Yeah, but exactly the ticket price is so much higher with Rolex in particular, I think it's important you could.
Get in to a Calatrava relatively get it twenty five probably, Yeah, oh really if you can get it, Oh, that's much more than they were just a few year.
Yeah, and again you can't you can't find them at retail. They're they're so more demand than supply.
Yeah, but yeah, Rolex is a different thing. And I want to be totally concise here, So like when when we say Rolex CPO, like the dealers are mostly going to be doing this stuff, and the dealers set the prices. It's not like Rolex set the prices.
So what's in it for Rolex versus you know, what's in it for the dealers, because there's only so much apply. I went to an event out in at the Manhassan Americana, at the big watch place over there. I'm I believe that's correct, and they have they're pushing everything except ap Rolex and Paddock. Because you want to get on their their good side.
Buy some of these watches.
I mean, it's they don't come out and say it, but it's wink wink, nudge, nudge. Hey, if you wanna if you want a Batman, you need to buy one of these Pistachio Brightling premieres, and then we could talk about, you know, a batgirl on a jubilee.
If that that's what gets you excited.
How did we ever end up in this place?
Well, I mean it's it's the uniformity of taste at this point. And I'm gonna blame it on Instagram, my friends at Instagram. You know, it's just so many people posting the same stuff over and over again. And five years ago, nobody cared about the Nautilus or the Aquanat. I mean, they were good watches and we all liked them, but It wasn't a big deal at all, and people were buying what they like. And then all of a sudden people say, wait a minute, I can I can buy a p A tech at twenty and sell it for sixty, sell it for one hundred and sixty, which the Nautilus was trading at first, really fifty seven eleven A. And so that that changed the dynamic completely. It used to just be like, hey, I like this thing, I'm going to buy it. I may make money, I may not. Then it became if you're not making money, you're a fool. And that's whole a lot of people in finance.
Is it just five years ago?
Is it that reason? I would say, I would say pre COVID, Before COVID, it was not a concern. It really wasn't. Okay, Daytona, you knew you'd get that an awkward I'm sorry, Nautilust maybe you'd get that, but it wasn't that way. I mean. I bought my fifty seven eleven R from Tiffany here in New York in twenty thirteen.
Tiffany Blue No no, No, this is a rose could one.
One before the blue one, and they it was sitting in the case, and that's it and there I'll take that. And that watch at its peak was probably four hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, I probably bought it. Would you pay forty five something like that?
Ten X is not a bad exactly, but that's a change left ubs. Yeah, this is where So here's the crazy thing. I have slowly warmed up to the north. It's not my favorite watch. I don't some of the design I don't. I don't get the Royal Oak. I know people who are like have eight of them. I just can't wrap my head around. And I know I understand the historical significance.
What what makes the Royal.
Oak and the noaut you So, first of all, I'm ten years older than both you guys. So I remember the seventies as a horrific decade of all around hollester and disco. Right, that's the seventies to me, and the design ethos. By the way, I have a very contemporary house. I love mid century modern. So if you go back to the some of the designs of the I was just in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Valley Hoe Hotel that like the rat pack should be washing it. Just that sort of design ethos it it's before I was born, But I'm like, I get it. But I remember the seventies as just like a horrific era. Maybe it's the same thing as the Samarana. I just associate it with. So I look at the Royal Oak and I'm like, yeah, it's got that kind of Remember the giant Porsche Carrera glass shirt.
They were horrific And.
I know the historical significance what makes the watch so special?
Well, And the first of all, it was my first high end watch. I bought two roll exes and then after that I saved up when I bought a Vinta JP and a Series Royal Oak. This is probably twenty What year was the watch nineteen seventy two? It was okay, series, the first really early one, and box paper is the whole thing. And it first of all, it was the AP was the first high end manufacturer ever visited. So that opened up my eyes to what watchmaking could be, if that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah, to see how a Royal Oak is finished, polished the case, you mean, not a boutique. You went to the mids Switzerland.
Really we should all get such a trip.
It was amazing honestly do that.
I know guys that go to Modena and do the Ferrari exactly and they come back and they say, whatever on the car wasn't enough.
I'm gonna yeah, so precisely that. I know someone with a five point.
Fifty just came back and bought a fourth thirty.
Coues he could. Yeah, it's it's that experience, you see what it really goes into the stuff and you fall in love. And then the royal look in particular the jumbos, the thirty nine millimeter watches wear some that's hilarious, that's what they're called. Yeah, they wear so amazingly on your wrist, and it's just it really, it is just I think like the chicest, most elegant watch a man or a woman can wear.
I mean I've loved them forever. I bought one as recently as a month ago, two months ago.
It's just an amazing thing. And then all of a sudden they're actually cool. And I think ten years ago they were not cool, and that was kind of fun. But it's a lot more fun when they are cool and people know what they are, and people are excited to see a royal oak on your wrist. And then you got like our friend John Mayer who's very close with them, and Ed Sheeran and Kevin Hart, all these like kind of cool interesting people started to get kind of hip to the royal oak thing. And now it's fun. It's part of like a cultural phenomenon.
Well, I love the idea that if you know, you know, meaning so I could I could wear any of my eclectic watches or the langa. Nobody says a word, but every now and then someone at like some event will come up and say, is that the moon face?
Yeah? If anybody knows what that long it is, that's a very good sign.
Yeah, because then they're like, oh, this guy, that's the real stuff. This guy's plugged into what's going on in that space. And it's not just a matter of you have money, you could go out and buy the most expensive car. It's you're picking something very very specific. So so one of the people here has this nautalis he sat on his wrist for thirty years, and it's the blue leather band and the blue face and it's not the full chrono, but it has the offset second hand calendar and I've kind of warmed up to it. Is the Every time I see it, I'm like, I just appreciate it a little more. Yeah, and I didn't feel that way when I first spotted that.
The natalist in the and I'm sorry keep saying awkward. Not a lot notalists and Roy. Look, if I may say, I think they belong on bracelets. They were conceived on bracelets by drill genta. So ones on strap I've often I haven't had a super strong affinity towards, but those on bracelets I think are just fantastic. They're not They're not a rolllex like. You're not taking them swimming, you're not taking them diving. You can't go chopping wood in them. You know, Jeff and I both live.
Well, you shouldn't chop wood in any so you shouldn't. But sometimes I learned the hard way. Again, I can't even throw a ball with this. That's how I the rehired meal.
I always the result. I would just go back to the resharch, go straight.
Off at half a million dollars when you're acting. So so as long as we're talking about specific watches, what are some of your favorites and what are your grail watches? That man, you haven't gotten, but you would love to have.
Yeah, I mean my favorite, my favorite watch is the Omega. My grandfather gave me. No surprise there, that's the one. As I said, I.
Put clearly a family emotional connection question, and all these watches have an emotional component outside of something like that.
Outside of something like that. Look the Moonwatch, the hand one Moonwatch for seven thousand bucks. You can buy it on Hoodinky all day. Get it is the best watch in the world for that kind of well with the speed Mast Speedmaster, so my speedy.
I just refused to get the hechs Alike because I know I the beauty of Rolex and I just had this after almost twenty years, fifteen years. I just had this repolish because I destroyed this watch. It's actually tight since they repolished it.
But I this is a.
Platinum yacht Master and I bought this in eight from a mortgage broker that was just liquidating everything. So that's my as I'm writing bail Out Nation, I buy this watch from a mortgage broker, So that's my emotional But you know, you could beat the crap out of these. The same thing with the Speedmaster, but the hex Al I was terrified about So I got this. I paid up for the Sapphire.
Got it.
Because you know, when I smash it into something, I don't have to worry about a dent, a dent scratch or whatever. So that's a great entry level sub ten thousand dollars watch.
It's both an entry level and exit level, if that makes any sense. Like some of the wealthiest guys I know that have owned every paddock, every long but whatever, they end up wearing a handwab moon Watch. And I guarantee you when I retire from you know whatever, this is, that's the watch I will wear every day Handwab.
Lie So when I wear so my two sub ten thousand dollar watches that I wear pretty regularly. One is the Monica with the gray face from Tag. The other is a Speedmaster, And every now and then someone will say I go speedy. Yeah, yeah, And it's just like you know, if you know, you know sort of thing it is. So let's take how about you, Jeff, what are you wearing sub ten Yeah?
I mean my so my two sentimental favorite watches again both have a connection to my my family, and one is my great grandfather's pocket watch. It has his initials instead of the numbers. So it's Jay Virgil Allen and we named our third son Virgil after my great grandfather. This's got his name on it. A beautiful one hundred and twenty year old American mad pocket watch. And then I have my father Saeko, which you wore every day, and it's a quartz siko on a on an elastic strap, a little bit like this one bracelet. I should say, uh, this is a hood Inky limited edition I'm wearing today. This was under two hundred dollars, even under ten. That was under two hundred dollars time X collaboration we did, and I love it because of that that that's sort of you can't see. It's a pretty bulletproof. Yeah, I mean, this is this This I literally don't have to think twice to put it on my wrist. I wear I Ben knows. I'm on a quest to kind of get as many hood Inky limited edition watches as I'm happy.
To help with.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it feels like it special to me to kind of own a little piece of our history as a brand. And again we've done limited editions with everyone from time X and Cassio, g Shock all the way up to Vastron and you know crazy independent brands like Grunfeld and and and and Lauren Ferrier and others like that. I guess my, yeah, this this, this is like one that I'm wearing a lot currently, but not to copycat. But I love the will make a speed Master And again the hood Inky limited Edition speed Master is a personal thing.
It was anniversary with the Snoopy. Yeah, that's a great little watch, although that's kind of going ballistic.
And price also. Yeah, so if you go to YouTube.
You can find the old sixties and seventies zero commercials for time X takes a looking and keeps on together. I remember they would strap it to a front of a boat with a bunch of navy seals out and the boat would be slapping the water and they'd pull the watch out and still still going. They were great commercials, and the washes last forever. So fun fact, did you know that the very first television commercial ever aired ever worldwide was a watch brand?
And what was all of us?
Oh, no, nineteen forty one. I want to say, during the World Series game or something like that. Nineteen forty one was nine seconds. It cost them nine dollars.
That's unbelievable. So let's let's take a step up above ten grandy, what would you guys look at. I'll give you a budget ten to fifties, so easy for me. And we talked earlier about like, you know, you saw a watch, you fell in love with it. On this you decided not to pull the trigger, and then you regret it every singce it kind of got away from you. For me, it's actually it is a Lunga one, but it is a special series of long ones they did.
Called the Swarre series. Swarre dial. It's a mother of pearl dial and it's this one in particular. Phillips had it in their watch auction last November. Bend, myself and another collie of ours were at the Phillips headquarters in Geneva, saw the watch before it was under the hammer, loved it, just everything what to look go for. I want to say it only went for about well only went for thirty five or forty thousand Swiss francs. So it's definitely within the budget you've just given this. But and again Lunga ones, there aren't this is not a ubiquitous product. There aren't that many of them. It's one of those if you know, you know, I love the aesthetics of the dial. I love everything about the Lunga brand, but like this one in particular, this the dial just totally CAPTU. I would look at it and I would just get lost in the dial every time i'd wear it.
I Oh, so, so you didn't pull the trick, didn't pull the trigger?
How about you?
What what got away? Uh?
Well, the stuff that has gotten away is generally a little bit higher end stuff.
So I have one of those that I've never even thought about pulling the trigger on, and recently, well I'm asking you the question. But so before we get to the crazy higher end stuff, you know, under one hundred over ten, Yeah, what would you wear?
Weirdly, the watch that like I really kind of hated when it came out, now I love and I'm just never pulled the trigger. As the platinum Daytona, I'm a hardcore Daytona guy. I'm with you. I just never I was. I was actually witch color combination. So the platinum one is only the ice blue with the brick the brown ceramic.
Do you do you like the new I love the back, but I kind of like the face of the older one.
Interesting like if I could mix those two. Yeah, I prefer the new one, honestly, and I may it's great. That one I really disliked in twenty thirteen Minut launch, mostly because I was sour. I was sour that they didn't give us the steel watch with a ceramic bezzel. That was the big thing that that came out in twenty sixteen. Got that, So that's to watch. I'm just like weirdly never owned, which is strange because I love platinum watches. I love Rolex and I love the Daytona. I just never did it.
And now you know, we'll see that's really can I tell you that blue brown and again dating back to the fifty sixties sort of fashion. So my wife used to teach fashion illustration and design. She's a colorist, and you show her that light blue with the brown, and she's like, wildly underrated, perfect combinations. People miss it. And when that came out with the display case, I mean, what what can you say?
Yeah, I mean it's look, it's an eighty thousand dollars chronograph. So at that level, your little price, well, look you're intil You can buy a Langa, you can buy a Pat Tack you can buy a lot of stuff for eighty dollard bucks. You get the platinum bracelet, which is expensive for sure. So it's it's a I've got a I've got a complex relationship with that watch.
So let's let's talk rail watches regardless of price. What's the one that's out there that that is the killer for you?
There's a there's a few, I mean there are several. Really, you wouldn't be surprised to learn a thirty four to forty eight Paddock, which is their first self winding perpetual calendar, in particular in white gold. Those were kind of trading in like the mid two hundreds for a long while. Gold.
What's the face collar?
It's silver?
Kind of all right, because they've run the they've done the salmon, they've done the watch.
So this is way earlier. This is nineteen sixties, nineteen seventy oh really, yeah, So the very first ones, those were trading the mid twies forever. The minute I could afford one, I kind of hamm them hot. And now they're trading for about eight hundred two million.
So as a Daytona guy, what do you think of like the Newman Daytona's in the sixties era. They're not crazy. They're like, for the same seventy five, you could get a nineteen sixty nine.
Yeah, sixty three nine. I've had many of those. I've had a bunch of Paul Newman. So no, no, it's not a Grail watch. Look a sixty to sixty three Mark one Oyster Paul Newman, which is kind of like the big bad Paul Newman. I had one of those. I sold it too soon. Wish I still had that. But a gold Paul Newman I've never had that. That'd be something fun. But these are crazy watches, you know, I mean really expensive watches that I like. I don't. I don't live in Manhattan anymore. I live upstate. Those just don't fit my life all anymore. When I lived in Manhattan and it was kind of out and about, it kind of made sense. But now, as a father in particular, it just doesn't compute this terrible for chopping would yeah, you know, it always goes back to chop riding my canoe, you know, things like that. So what T Grail watched? Jeff? Money is no object? It would it would?
I think I'd go with a watch that comes from a craftsman from a craftsman's hand. So I probably a Roger Smith or Philipe du four, you know, knowing that I do own a piece of art from an artist, somebody who individually made this piece by hand, put a stamp on it, saw it from birth to basically like conception. I mean, yeah, that that that would be it for me. And again I think Philipe dufour is turning seventy five, not getting it oneah, and he's still making every part of the component, every piece by hand. Roger Smith, you know, kind of next generation. But yeah, Reshap, these guys who are making these watches, just you know, it's incredible what they do. It's a it's a one man operation start to finish, and I just think like something like that. It's yeah, it's like you're buying twenty watches exactly.
It'd be like you're.
Buying an original picassa from the man himself while he was still painting.
Like and you know that Roger in particular, and I'm lucky enough to own one. I've known him forever. His story is amazing. He makes ten watches per year, Roger Smith, all by hand. He does not own one of his own watches never has because we can't give up ten percent of you know, he can't take one watch out of the line of ten per year, you know. And these watches are phenomenally expensive that you know, new and they're there worth even more kind of secondhand. But his watches, as Jeff said, are just to me. It's the ten game.
It's a great story on Hood of Geek today about his second pocket watch, which there's a whole backstory to it. Basically was he made a pocket watch and presented it to his master, George Daniels, and George Daniels rejected it and said to go back and work on another version and do it better. Took him five years of his entire life livelihood creating a second pocket watch, And then Georgia said, did you make every part by hand? He said, yes, congratulations, Now you're a watchmaker. He then sold that pocket watch to a private buyer to fund the creation of his next series of watches. And that watch is going to be auctioned by Phillips and I imagine kinds of records.
Oh yeah, easily, for sure. I mean his wristwatches, like just generic risk watches now.
Trade for about six His generic wrist watches if you can find one. I mean, Jacobs and Co. What do you do with stuff like that?
There are half a million, a million.
It's a different thing.
He did that out thing that went for thirty million rights like these are just insane numbers.
It's a different corner of the market. It's a very real corner, a really trade for sure. You know, he he tends to, he designs it, he does the setting and all the stone work. But the movement is a jeweler. Look, he's Jacob, Jacob the jeweler. He's the guy in all the rap songs. Literally, So it's a different corner of the market, but a very real one. And like you know, he is selling those watches for crazy numbers all day. Huh amazing.
Yeah, so so let's talk a little bit about talking watches. This has become a super popular segment of Oh Dinky, I know the first one was with John Mayer.
How did this get started? Yeah, so kind of taking a step back in twenty twelve, when I launched Straps online to sell straps, I got an email that said, Hey John Mayer here, love what you're doing. Let's hop on the phone. And I was like, Okay, like, I wonder who this is, some guy named John Mayor, you know, some accountant in Texas named John Mayer. So got on the phone. Turns out of John Mayer, the rock star, and we just became kind of fast friends. You know, we were about the same age at the time. We were both living a really weird life. Mine was on the road, traveling around for watches, take pictures, writing. He was an actual rock star, and we just became like true, true, very close friends, very quickly. And so in twenty thirteen he called me and he's like, Hey, I'm in town doing Letterman or Leno or something like that. I've got a bag full of watches. Do you want to just like record a conversation about watches? And I said sure, and we had wait. So this was Mayor's doing his idea. I mean, we'd always talked about doing a video together some kind, but never premeditated, never storyboarded or anything like that.
And I've got a bag full of watches. Sounds like he just knocked.
He used to roll pretty heavy with stuff, not so much anymore, just for security reasons, but you know, to to to our credit, like the first really the second person we ever hired at Hodinki was a full time videographer. So I said, who I went to Columbia with Will? Who's still with us? I said, actually, I got a video guy right here, and so we went. We were on Verick Street. We went over to a place called Little Prince, which is a little cafe there on the Spring or Prince rather and uh. And we walked in and we said, hey, I got John Mayer coming here in twenty minutes. Can we shoot? And they were like, sure, we're not open yet. We don't really care, you know, And so we shot for an hour, one camera, one never man, and we just talked about watches, no makeup, no anything, no, you know. His assistant wasn't there, and it just became Internet magic in a bottle, as things can happen, you know, can do well.
It was very authentic. Here's a guy who's who's a rock and roll star. Yeah, this generation's Eric Clapton, singer, songwriter, guitarist touring with the Dead Post Jerry.
Yeah.
And if you find out there's a whole nother dimension to him, is he's really into watching.
Oh you you really have no idea?
So when you record this, you have any idea.
This is going to blow up.
Now. Look whereas you're doing you're thinking, oh, this is great stuff.
It's John is an amazing person. He's the most well spoken, most creative, oddist thinker of anybody Herman. I say that lovingly, like he's just got a different mind than the rest of us, truly. And you know, we were recording it, We're like, okay, like this is going to be special for us. But like there's a little watch blog. Three guys sitting in a we work, you know, sure, and uh we put her online and it blows up, I mean just explodes. And then from there J. J. Reddick basketball player who was a friend of mine at the time as well still is and said, oh, like I would do that. He was into watches. And then John Goldberger, this great collector, and then as he's I'm sorry, and Jack Nicholas and you know insert. It has just been a run of celebrities.
Most recently I saw Kevin hartny six, Tobias Harris, I just saw that was really kind of yesterday Kermit the Frog.
That was what I was going to say. Yesterday we had Kermit the Frog, who I think Trump's everybody.
Ye.
Celebrity.
I can't say I've ever spotted a time piece on his off free and wrists exactly.
To get them.
Especially so there is a Kermit watch from Warrist that and he's out promoting exactly.
Yeah, so it was part of that.
So the first of every month instead of a one showing a Kermit. So so as long as we're talking about it, that was shown it Watches and Wonders twenty twenty three.
What did you guys see? What'd you like?
Would you think of? Uh?
What took place?
I mean, I'll say this, this is my second TI I'm going to watch his Wonders. I had been to previous iterations of watch shows Bazzle World and Siah. Watches and Wonders kind of was the mash up, if you will have. Bazzle World and Siah went in dormant for few years of course because of COVID. Came back in twenty twenty two, and I think it came back with a bang. It was almost like this pent up energy, pent up, like just this big release of actual release of tons and tons of watches and some really incredible watches. I think two through there were some standout watches for sure, probably less across the board just wow affect than there wasn't twenty twenty two. I think some of that was that again builds up post pandemic. I mean for me and I will say this, and he's sitting here right next to me, not trying to blow a smoke, but like for me, one of the most special things was getting a chance to walk around with Ben. I'd been working with him at that point for a little over a year. A year prior I was in my third week and he had just had his first child, so he wasn't able to attend. He was at home with the baby. But walking around with him was really special because you see a lot of people who instantly recognize Ben come off to him. These guys, well, they say, they're like, you're the guy with Kermit the Frog. Now they say some version of the reason I'm in the industry is because of you, or the reason I fell in love with a category is because of you. And that's I said something to someone later that week, because eventually it rubs off on you. I have this association with Hodinki now simply by being an employee of the brand. For the last year, we host a kind of a community meet up event on the Thursday, the last night that many of us were in town, and we just did an open invite RSVP through the website through Hodinky, so anybody who was in town was welcome to join. And I must have had a dozen people at least saying thank you to me. And I thought, I've never had never worked for a brand or a business, and I worked for some great brands, I mean Cardier, Louisvistan tac Quire. Never had someone come up to me and say thank you, and again, credit to this guy who started it all that that's the impact he's had, that's the effect he's had, and that's the effect Hodinky has had as a manifestation of all that Ben's you know, created to this point. And now I get to sort of be a part of that, to be, you know, part of in some ways like serving this broader watch community and helping to kind of continue to further curiosity, knowledge, passion, enthusiasm, and and it's it's really a wonderful feeling for someone to come up to you just be like, thank you for all that you're doing.
Huh.
And we don't take that for granted. I don't take that for granted, certainly. I just think that's a really special.
Yeah, that's a rare what struck you at Watches and Wonders Besides the Oris kerrment.
The Oris kerment was a fun one and I think, you know, echoing what Jeff said, it was my first time there because a my daughter was born last year and then COVID so three years, so it's been four years since I was in Swiss. You've gone to the ones before, oh for fifteen twenty years. Yeah, So getting back there and seeing people still appreciate what we're still doing. I've been doing this for fifteen years. This is not like a two year old startup. So exciting to feel that energy and that appreciation. Again, definitely in person. But in terms of product, look, Langa, we've talked about a lot. They make some of the best watches on Earth. They introduced one watch and they're only doing one hundred of them, which is crazy. Odysseus Chronograph, It's one hundred and fifty thousand dollars saying.
So flex to launch one that is a flex and ps gone girl hated.
I mean, you couldn't even never hit.
It, never hit the shot.
But by the way, you mentioned the the blue and brown Daytona, which came out any other new watches. I mean, I understand the entire Tutor thing blew up. I'm not a giant Tutor fan. They just feel like they're lesser. Rolexes. Well, I know that's blasphemy to say.
I mean, look, it's it's not blasphemy, but I understand it. I haven't a love Tutors.
I think at don't have the same proportions. They just feel like they're.
And I do it too. I tried to. I really was, went in to buy put them on, and it just kind of you gotta buy what you like, you know. But they had a pretty strong year. Rolex has a new titanium watch, the Hot Master in titanium. I really like that. That's cool that. I like that more than I thought that I would. It's big but lightweight. Patech had a new travel time watch. So wait, you brought this up? Is it possible that? How is it possible?
Protect Philip has not introduced a brand new watch in twenty four years?
How is that humanly possible? Well, I mean that's a little bit of parsing of word. They're a little bit and so.
They're always doing variation. Yeah, so this is a new model line, brand new. What other industry could go two decades plus and not introduce a new anything.
You know, Portia, I mean they haven't. I mean, I guess they did.
The Taykan, well, the Tykan, the Panamara is fifteen years old. The Macan is twelve years old that they've remember. It was blasphemy for them to roll out in suv of course fifteen years ago.
But I mean again, I mean, so like the Tykan, I'm sorry, the Cayenne was two was the year two thousand, right, so that's twenty three years ago. The Taikan, which is the electric car, was probably what six years ago? Five?
You know, I think it's less than that.
Okay.
It's like Paul McCartney, right, he hasn't released an album in thirty years, but he can sell out.
To read it.
But if you're a Beetle, right, if you're one of the two surviving Beatles, you can probably the tech is the tech and I guess that's the parallel. So, since since we're talking about cars and I know you have to run soon, you spent the pandemic rebuilding three thirty GP.
A slight, A slight exaggeration of my role in that. So I was I was working with somebody that was helping to do it, So I wasn't rebuilding. This was literally barn find a garage find it. They call her barn find but it was in a garage in Rome. That's all original, all original, untouched. It was on Bloomberg a few weeks ago. My friend Hannah wrote that story.
So he's been a guest here a couple of times, so she was actually I actually visited her and Magnus in their shop in La It's.
So tying it all together. Hannah was actually my editor at one of my very first freelance jobs for Forbes exactly, but not for watches. She was editing a literary blog, like a book blog. I was writing for that unpaid. Oh that's crazy, but I just wanted I wanted to buy. Yeah, so she's amazing. But yeah, So I'm really in the cars, and I spent a little bit of time and a lot of money doing that during during COVID. But that's what I'm into. I'm intofying these things that have direct connections with interesting people and keeping them going.
What other cars are you playing with?
I've got drive an E thirty nine five almost every day, so I know.
The spe convertible six. I the last year they made the sticks and I couldn't find it. I had to fly out to Indianapolis test drive it, and then my wife and I drove it home.
That's fun.
Stopping off at Falling Water is the first day they were open for the season.
I'm not kidding. I did that in a GT three touring. I stopped off at Falling Water. Yeah, truly.
I have a client that has a GT three that he wanted to sell, and the dealer said, give to us. We'll take a twenty percent consignment. I'm like, we know people that bring a trailer, let me list it for you.
So that's what we're That's that's really funny. GT three stick Ship.
It was the touring right, no wing, but the stick, which is now becoming increasingly rare. We were there the first day it was open, and I'm driving this six hundred horsepower monster and there's like a light dusting of snow, so I am like feathering the throttle because with just the slightest touch you're going sidew so but it was spect what a spectacular place.
It really is. Nowhere it really is.
It's amazing in into Porscha's you know, stuff here and there, so a little blasphemy. I have two nine to eleven's. One I'm keeping stock. That's a cabrio. By the way, before they went crazy, I picked these up for pennies and I have so the eighty seven is in a cabrio. The I'm sorry, the eighty eight is a cabrio. The eighty seven is a three hundred thousand mile car that I'm pulling the engine and the transmission out, dropping Tesla motor and completely kidder a nine to eleven E with Moment Motors in Austin.
That's cool.
And I've been on the weight so all these guys are booked a year, Yeah, Valley, I've been on the wait list for almost a year. It goes down to Texas. By the time this broadcast, it should be in Texas getting a heart transplant. And that's kind of a funny.
And by the time I'm done, I.
Would have been able to walk into a dealer and say give me that nine to eleven for what this will ends up costing. But it'll be the only electric nine to eleven in New York by the time It's done super cool. So if you're a BMW and a Porsche fan, I feel your your your taste. The one thing I have to ask in terms of Grail watches, so the and I'm not just a longa person, but the and I am going to mangle the pronunciation. The hand work best stuns anork s guns step tourbiyon. Yeah, that just has the numbers and that sort of carved.
Yeah. The aperture at six, Yeah, what the hell does that thing go?
For?
The stage?
You, by the way, complete you can't see them anywhere. If I saw one was somewhere at auction I found out about afterwards, I would I would ballpark three hundred, okay, yeah, and that was eighty ninety when it came out.
Probably more. I mean if I know a website that would probably be able to tell you. I think we covered it. I know we covered it.
When I came out a buck and change, Yeah, I would get one forty oh so it's only double.
But those are those are the airs thin in that world.
Like I saw one of those go for about two hundred about a year ago. And again I'm still wrestling with a thirty forty thousand I'll watch two hundred is like next level.
Yeah, it's just I mean, it's just said earlier, really earliest in this in this session, like it's just applying to man, there's a lot more guys that want a Nautilus or an aquanat yeah, because they know what it is, or Daytona. Nobody's ever heard of a Handrick skin turbion from longag even if it is that much.
Oh my god, that could be the like if I have a rail watch, that's it.
And once I do that, then I just you know, you've done it. Probably not where do you go from that? I mean that.
So that's listen, that's the same problem with the Grand Longo one. Where do you go from there? It just you just struck going full OCD and backfilling and it's crazy.
So I have a bone to pick with you guys.
I'm speaking at some event in Aspen. It was the International Luxury real Estate and I've been about real estate my whole career. So they invited me, and you know, they say, get there a day or so early because the altitude is you know, you don't want to stand up. And if you've been to Vail, it's the same sort of thing sor right, I get there, I get a day to kill and I go into Aspen and what is this a Langan Zone shop? So I go in and I see the Langa one, which is their famous nineteen ninety four watch that's asymmetrical, which was a radical departure from Marches, and I think there's just like March April. And I get back home and I don't know if you've ever experienced this. You see a watch and it just starts to haunt you again. Yes, right, we're talking about Yeah, I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. I have a big round birthday coming up in October, and so I make an appointment to go into the Langa boutique in New York and I try on the longer one and look, I'm not a little guy mill What is this a toy?
I need a real watch. And so the woman says, oh, we have the grand Langa one, sure, and I try on.
It wasn't the one I fell in love with, and it wasn't the one I ultimately really wanted.
But have a bone to pick with you.
It was it was a Grand Langa but without the moonface and that sort of chocolate, silver gray. I don't even know how to describe the color. Sure, And so I start looking around and looking around, and now I find I find the Saxonia with the moonface black watch pink face, and I'm waiting on I'm trying to decide if I want that, And then I see the platinum Grand Langa one. What is that?
Forty one and a half something like that? Yeah, exactly, and and it's on you.
It's sixty six new but new papers box on Hodinky forty two, and I'm trying really hard to wrap my head around forty two.
It's a lot of money for a watch, yeah, and I can.
Afford it, but it's it's just a lot of money. So I make the decision.
I don't remember.
It was like the end of August or the end of September. Hey, my birthday is in October.
I'm gonna go.
Get that watch on my birthday, even though it's gonna kill me to spend that much money. Yeah, just it's I have way too many cars, I have a bud like, I'm not afraid to spend money, but to strap a BMW on your wrist, you have to mentally brace yourself for that so my birthday rolls around and I I'm gonna do it, and I go to the whole dinky stot gone and not only is it gone, you can't find them for sale anywhere. Wow, they just have disappeared. I have Buddies on forty seventh Street and I'm like, find me a Grand Laga one the I think it's the one thirty five twenty five.
We should talk off air, yah yah. Yeah.
So so you can find them new in Switzerland for retail and you still have to pay like a nine percent. It's insane. So this was my other longa chop which, by the way, this is even more dressy than the Platinum. That's almost like a sporty version that watch. And I don't want to order it from a site I'm not familiar with. Ye, And it turns out that the guys that have this watch are an Aventura. I'm at a different conference in Miami, and I do my gig. I come literally off the stage into an uber run to Aventura, look at the watch. They wouldn't take a credit card, but I mean it's a whole room full of well if they take a credit card, they could charge a credit card for you, blah blah blah. But they weren't set up to do it there, and so get home wired and the next day the watch showed up. So this is my I couldn't get my grin langa one but and it was forty two. And I'm like, now, how often you kick yourself.
With ye all the time? Yeah? Runs out all the time.
We can help get that watch even and the the other Daytona. And I don't want to make this all about my watch shopping, so so I do this with cars. Yeah, I have way too many cars. I'll watch a car come out, I'll watch the price wobble, and I'm like, come to Papa a little lower. And I bought a couple of nice things during the beginning of the pandemic when people are freaking out, and I'm looking at the Daytona in the white, golden blue face, which was I think twenty six, twenty eight retail, it was twenty, it was nineteen, it was eighteen. I'm buyer at sixteen and then the lockdown happens and it's forty five, fifty five, sixty five. It just goes nuts. I'm like, for two grand, and look.
What you did? You free. Nobody ever could have guessed though.
Yeah, so hold aside these million dollar watches, these one hundred thousand dollars watches, A newbie interested in watches, how did they get involved in watch collecting?
Where would you send somebody like that?
Really?
I think, you know, kind of riffing off of something Ben said earlier, which is this kind of there's a sense of like the imitation culture, like you want something because you see other people having. For me, I personally think the best way to build a collection is just really follow your passion. Get out there, educate yourself, learn read, visit a few retailers, you know, maybe maybe check out an auction, you know, catalog to see what's what's considered to have a history or provenance of Just do your research and then ultimately, you know, pick something that.
Really speaks to you.
If there's a way to again weave some sort of milestone or personal aspect into the watch. I think one thing I often think about is, of all the things you put on your person, a watch is one of the very few that will actually typically have a story associated to it, like your sneakers, your jeans, or your sweater typically will not. So I don't know, then there's something just special about that. Like like Ben said, they're sort of like totems of our lives in some way, and a collector, I think, you know, we'll always remember her his first watch. I think it's just, you know, it's worth it to take the time to do the research and really wait for that thing that so to speaks your name.
Yeah, and I would certainly echo all that, but I would also say listen to actual experts in a field, not the guy you found on YouTube or the gal you found on Instagram or TikTok. There's so many people out there that are purporting to be experts in this space, mostly on social media, YouTube, TikTok, etcetera, that have no idea. I mean, they're just kids that think they understand things. And to be clear, I was one of those kids. I've since put in fifteen years to ensure that I'm not one of those kids. And there are people out there that really know watches, and then there are people out there that really don't and pretend to understand the source. I mean, going back to journalism school, like know your source, know who's saying what and why, know who's a retailer, of so and so, you know who owns twenty of these, so they're trying to build it up. Really understand why people are saying things that they.
Are, and any particular brands you would send people, Just like I always tell people someone asked me about to watch, I'm like, hey, go look at Saco.
Say if you're.
Wrong, YEA, spend four hundred dollars.
Yeah, Sekos Watch System fifty one self finding watch for one hundred and fifty bucks. We sell them on Hoodinky. They're amazing, they really are.
And and the next step from there, and then we'll go then then Hamilton, Hamilton field Watches really handsome. Wow, great watch, solid, solid, long lasting. I agree, all right, Now I'm going to take you one last one. I keep saying last one. So you go past Hamilton, where do you go?
Tag tag Hoyer, Uh huh, you know a Tag Hoyer, Aqua Racer, a Tag Hoyer, Monaco.
Even those are great watches. Carreras, they're a little bit more money, but great watches. Great, Jeff, anything from.
You, I would say, you know, I love the Hamilton pick. I think the Hamilton field Watch is like a total classic.
I bought their new Krono by the way, is really crazy handsome for what it is. Yeah, and very reasonably priced. Yeah.
I bought the Field watch for my brother and one for myself kind of when I joined Hodinky as a nice little celebration of that moment. And then if I were going to go one level, I'd say the Tutor black Bay fifty eight, and we talked a little bit about.
Nine to keep up.
For me, it's perfect kind of size, it's it's a great everyday watch.
They have a very vintage vibe to it. That's kind of what attracted me to them. Guys, thank you so much for such a generous spot with your time. Next time we do this, I'll have a camera crew, we'll do talking watch U I'll just do I'll just grab a dozen watches from people here and thank you guys for being so generous with your time. If you enjoy this conversation, well, be sure and check out any of the previous four hundred and ninety three such discussions we've had over the previous nine years. You can find those at YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you find.
Your favorite podcasts.
Sign up for my daily reading list at ridults dot com. Follow me on Twitter, at rid Holts follow all of the Bloomberg Family of podcasts on Twitter at podcasts. I would be remiss if I did not thank the correct team that helps put these conversations together each week. Paris Wold is my producer. Samantha Danziger is my audio engineer. Sean Russo is my researcher. At Teak of al Bron is my project manager. I'm Barry Ridolts. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
