Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / The Watch Founder Who Built Demand Through Nostalgia and Emotion (ft. Adam Hodge)

Transcript

The Watch Founder Who Built Demand Through Nostalgia and Emotion (ft. Adam Hodge) · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  Today, I'm joined by Adam Hodge, founder of Fair and Sweat, a
• 0:02
  watch company that continues to rapidly grow even though there
• 0:06
  are millions of other watches and we can all tell time on our
• 0:08
  smartphones now or Apple Watches.
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  But instead of competing on utility, Adam's playing a
• 0:13
  different game, turning products into memory, identity and
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  meeting and building a brand and a company around that.
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  Adam, welcome to the Founder Talk podcast.
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  How you feeling? Alex, thanks for having me.
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  I'm I'm happy to be here. Cheers.
• 0:25
  And leave that drink up there if you want.
• 0:27
  It's up to you. Or.
• 0:28
  Get away here. All right.
• 0:30
  So let me give a little bit of context.
• 0:31
  You can if you can't, if you're watching on video, which most of
• 0:33
  you are probably just listening to audio, but if you can see
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  this, you'll see we got some bad ass watches here on display.
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  So because Adam runs a watch, you know, he creates watches for
• 0:42
  a living. That's what his company does.
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  So we're going to go through some of this stuff in a second,
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  but just to give you guys context in terms of some of the
• 0:47
  things that we're going to discuss today on the show #1 how
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  founders can dominate in a wildly competitive industry.
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  Are most great brands actually just similar products with
• 0:57
  better marketing and branding? How brand is massively
• 1:00
  misunderstood and under executed by most founders and how Adam is
• 1:04
  thoughtfully designing his business to be ran without him
• 1:07
  at some point, as I am, without being the bottleneck.
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  So let's start by talking about these watches here.
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  We got a lot of watches in front of us.
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  My first question is why do people still wear watches?
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  Oh, that's a huge question. So I have a whole elevator
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  speech because I tell people like think about I got the cell
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  phone thing, right. Everyone's like I got AI got a
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  cell phone. So I tell you, well, check the
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  time on your cell phone. You pull it out.
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  You and I are sitting here talking face to face.
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  You pull it out right now. You got a notification.
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  Oops, I forgot about that. You basically you're sucked in
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  immediately and then like the face to face conversation is
• 1:40
  killed by you checking. And I do it myself.
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  All of a sudden I'm like, oh, someone texted me, I forgot to
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  text him. Boom, it's gone.
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  So it wouldn't be much easier to just be like this.
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  And then the guy goes, hey, that's a nice watch.
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  And then you guys talk about the watch.
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  So for me, I need to, I need to disconnect because like I'm on
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  Instagram all the time for work, for, for fair and sweat.
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  And it's, you know, you're always checking your numbers,
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  you always interact with people. But to have my smart watch not
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  buzzing to tell me to stand up, not beeping to tell me someone
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  wants to get a hold of me. I like to just have it totally
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  separated. That's for me, That's the way,
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  that's the way I like to live. So I like to try and push that.
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  And even with digitals I like to have, I don't need the heart
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  rate like I'm going to be OK. I don't, I don't need to know
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  how many steps I got. Honestly, I did.
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  I did back in the day when before Fitbit, or maybe it was
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  when Fitbit was come out, it was this like jawbone.
• 2:31
  It was like a jawbone thing that and I wore it for two years.
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  I could track everything I ate and I could track all my steps.
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  You know what, it was constant. So I feel good that I don't need
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  to know how many steps I take a day or what I'm eating.
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  I just pay attention, you know? So that's why I kind of like to
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  cut the cut the cord, I guess it's a cord, It's a Bluetooth.
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  So cut the Bluetooth and wear and wear something that's that's
• 2:52
  actually means something and has a connection to you or has some
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  type of memento or it just makes you smile when you check the
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  time. That's kind of what I like.
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  Well, I think you hit on something because outside of
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  just the time, people aren't really buying the ability to
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  check the time necessarily. What are they really buying when
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  they're buying a watch? Like why are people spending
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  thousands or hundreds on watches when it, you know, it tells the
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  time? Sure, there's a functionality,
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  utility behind it. And I agree with that.
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  It's nice not to be distracted, but there's got to be more than
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  that. Oh, there's a ton more than
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  that. And I'm going to I'm going to be
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  on a I'm a soapbox here. But before we get going,
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  Speaking of of jumping on a box. Here have some fun.
• 3:31
  If you guys don't know, slip it in is a game by great matter
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  Games and Joe was on here and Joe's a friend of mine as well
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  and I play this at party. So the trick with this is Alex
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  and I are each going to take we'll take a few cards, take 5
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  cards, pick one. And if you can somehow slip that
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  phrase in, which is just going to be hard because we're
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  one-on-one. If we can slip it in, I owe you
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  a beer. All right.
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  And and same goes same goes. I'm just going to take a hope I
• 3:58
  don't get a weird stack here. So the the I'll explain a little
• 4:01
  bit about the game from what I know is that basically you do
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  pick these phrases and then throughout the day, I think
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  right, is like a 24 hour type thing.
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  We're going to do it here in the next hour.
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  Yes, you have to slip in one of these phrases in normal
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  conversations. And if someone doesn't call you
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  on it within what, a minute? Yeah, I usually do.
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  So I usually do. I do.
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  I do a version of it where I I shorted I do with my family and
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  you get 5 cards and you play it forever and if you can throw it
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  in and count your head 30 seconds boom you passed right
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  And then if you need to you can go back and grab another one.
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  Oh, I got some good ones here. Oh, hold on.
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  OK. People are like, why are you
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  doing this? Because it's fun.
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  This is the. It's fun.
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  Yeah, this is. I've got some really good ones.
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  I've actually got some easy ones.
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  Here now, do you normally get to pick which ones?
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  No, usually you get your 5 and then you're like, if you got a
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  really bad one, you got to burn it because you're going to get,
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  you're going to get hit. But man, you know.
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  What's going to be tough for me as I'm trying to like guide the
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  conversation all. Right.
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  So what I'm saying, So I don't want to disrupt you too much.
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  I know we're rocking the boat if you need to grab one.
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  Yes, I got mine. I'm good.
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  I'm going to get you. Man, you probably will get me.
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  If you want to grab another one, like I said, grab a.
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  We have a whole stack of these, and what's fun is he's coming
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  out with one that's going to be movie quotes and music lyrics,
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  which I think it's going to be way more fun.
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  Take something. Pull something out of there.
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  All right, let me get it. I got to get a good one that I
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  can actually slip in with these. But the cool thing about this
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  game, and I love it so much, I'm actually going to try and bring
• 5:28
  it to watch shows and stuff, is that you can play it anywhere,
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  anytime. It's ongoing.
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  It's the game within a game. Yeah, it is fun.
• 5:36
  It's. Simple too, and I think great
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  games are simple. So just like an example if
• 5:41
  you're wondering like what do these things actually say?
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  Like one of them says, how many push ups do you think I can do
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  one handed? You could have used that one.
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  Another one. Another one is the gummy has now
• 5:50
  kicked in. Another one is I've mastered the
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  humble brag so you can see they're not like out like crazy
• 5:57
  some hard. Ones but those.
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  Yeah, there's some tricky ones in there, but some of them are
• 6:00
  just like, yeah, you could probably slip that in.
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  So alright, let's remove that off we can.
• 6:05
  All right, I played. I played this at Thanksgiving
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  with an entire my entire family and it was it was getting rowdy.
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  So as we go through this, you guys, you guys also try and
• 6:15
  guess and drop in the comments and let us know and say I think
• 6:18
  this was, I think that was, I think this was it.
• 6:20
  Yeah, if you got it right. Let us know if yes, that would
• 6:23
  be awesome. I'll send you a watch if you if
• 6:25
  you hit it. So your question was what?
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  Like basically, why do watches exist, right?
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  Yeah, 'cause you know, now I've been thinking in the, in the
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  past, it was partly the look, but it was also like the utility
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  of the time. Yeah, but now it's like we have
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  so much technology and Apple Watches, we're tracking this and
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  this. And So what is still the appeal
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  with with watches? Because they're bigger and
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  better than ever? Yeah.
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  And so there's there's a couple different ways to go about this.
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  I mean, you got the male jewelry, right, which is some
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  people love it because it's a decoration.
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  It's a reflection of your style, which I'm totally on because
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  like I sell cheap stuff and expensive stuff.
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  And it really is all about your style, like reflecting who you
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  are and what's personal to you. There's the guys who get it all
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  wrong and they use it as like a status indicator, which I think
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  is just missing the boat completely on why you're buying
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  a watch. But I, I, I tell people like you
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  can have a lot of watches in your collection.
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  And the ones that are going to stay with you the most that
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  you're not going to trade off or sell are the ones that mean
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  something. So the ones that either your
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  grandpa gave you or you bought because you got a promotion or
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  for graduation or because you had a child, like anything that
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  has some type of Thai connection to your life, those are the ones
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  that are going to be the most meaningful pieces ever.
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  Because these things I say like they're magnets from memories.
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  So let's say you wore this and you went on, you went on a hike
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  or you went climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or something and you
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  had this watch with you the whole time you were checking,
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  you know, that watch is always going to remind you of that
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  experience. So it's like the adventures, the
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  experiences, the life, the important life moments.
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  They all magnetize to the watch you're wearing.
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  And then I also love them because they're conversation
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  starters. So I was saying that the phone's
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  a conversation distractor, right?
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  Like you can't I can't count the number of times I bumped into
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  somebody and just said, Hey, I like your Omega.
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  Like I was the DMV one time randomness place of all older
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  guy behind the counter was wearing like a date, just Rolex.
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  And it is an old like 80s style. And I was like, hey, I really
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  like your watch. He's like, Oh yeah, I got a
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  couple of these. I'm a kind of a big collector.
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  I used to collect the turn into a whole like conversation
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  followed up with e-mail and like talked about that stuff.
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  He buys watch. It's just that in the watch
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  community, like when you see someone watching, you comment on
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  it like it's an immediate conversation.
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  And my goal is to get everybody to somehow be interested enough
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  to wear a watch that they like that someone comments on.
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  And then they get like hooked into that.
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  Holy cow, this is awesome. It's kind of like, I think Jeep
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  owners, you know, when they drive their Jeep and they see
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  the Jeep guys and they wave to them and all that.
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  Stuff. Yeah, yeah.
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  So it's like it's a community, it's a culture.
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  And I think it's so fun and welcoming that I want everybody
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  to get in at some capacity at some level.
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  And that's where, yeah, it's an accessory.
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  You got to respect time. You got to have a watch.
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  I always say, like it's the old thing.
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  Like if a guy comes to a meeting without a watch, like he you got
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  to be careful because he doesn't respect time enough, you know
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  what I mean? Now are you breaking the rules
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  of branding a little bit with a product that is, you said a
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  little bit cheaper on the cheap side and then in products that
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  are, you know, seven, $800 more on the high end, although I know
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  there's a whole other level of watch.
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  Yeah, yeah. Because that like kind of
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  interested me. I was like, oh, I was like,
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  what? Now I try to think about where
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  you position yourself in the marketplace and you can, you
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  know, position yourself as premium or very affordable.
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  You got like Walmart, Amazons, and then you got like Whole
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  Foods and, you know, a bunch of different products.
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  But I'm curious, you guys kind of went both routes.
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  Yeah. And it was almost like more of
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  an accident that where the our line of the retro digital like
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  took over. I want to say almost.
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  So we've been making. That does look old school for
• 9:56
  you guys and that's what see this here on camera.
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  This is like what I wore in like the 90s maybe except like the
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  speed wide tie myself running and stuff you.
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  Know what I tie in even more is I put a cassette tape on it.
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  So the dial is actually a cassette tape and it comes in
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  this box that looks like a cassette tape for back in the
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  day. So I mean, I started with Swiss
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  automatics like so I started with our seaplane, which are the
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  the black and the steel up top. Those are like a Swiss made
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  movement in them. I mean, it's like a diver pilot
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  combo. It's like a $800 watch
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  basically. And it's amazing.
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  I think that checks all the boxes for the specs.
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  So if someone's like, Oh yeah, I want a really nice watch, I
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  don't want to spend thousands like this gets a $1500 watch on
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  your wrist for a lower price. And that's kind of where I was
• 10:39
  originally starting, was trying to get people access to a really
• 10:43
  nice time piece at an affordable price that was within range.
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  So when I launched that it, it hit pretty well.
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  It hit well. But I realized my goal of
• 10:53
  targeting people that don't like watches, that's not the way to
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  go. Because if you tell someone who
• 10:57
  doesn't like watches or doesn't wear watches, like, hey, this is
• 11:00
  like, you know, it's like 700, seven, 150 bucks, they'll be
• 11:02
  like, Oh my God, are you kidding me?
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  Yeah. So then I, I came out with a
• 11:08
  version of this which glows in the dark.
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  The whole thing glows in the dark.
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  It's it's nuts, but we are able to put a quartz in it and we
• 11:15
  brought it down to about 3:50 with coupons, we'll say.
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  And that got us kind of really rolling while I was like, hey,
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  there are people interested in watches, they're just not ready
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  to jump to the 700 level. That's still.
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  So you get a man with something fun, something unique that
• 11:30
  doesn't look like anything on the market, still has like a
• 11:33
  familiar shape and everything is a dive watch.
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  But that's kind of the route I was going.
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  And then I went more funky with the vice, which is our like kind
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  of looks like the 1980s synth wave.
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  And I know this is a long answer your question, but that's what
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  spun me into wanting to develop a cassette tape watch because
• 11:51
  that was having such a success. So I had this cassette tape
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  watch in my head and I had simultaneously I buy my kids
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  watch all the time. I bought my son and daughter
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  like a Casio FW 91 W very similar to this and my son loves
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  it because it has an alarm and it has a stopwatch and tells the
• 12:09
  time that's it right, you know, or beeps every hour if you want
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  that. And he was like, dad, these are
• 12:15
  these are this is so great. Like he'd never wear my watches.
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  I got him a moon Swatch, which is like from Omega and Swatch
• 12:21
  and he like wouldn't wear that often, but he wanted to wear
• 12:23
  this, this, this, you know, plastic 80s watch.
• 12:26
  So long story long, he asked me to make one of those and I
• 12:32
  thought about it and I was like, you know what?
• 12:34
  I've got this cassette tape theme.
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  I can squeeze this in and if I can somehow make it all
• 12:38
  transparent. And I had this idea of like the
• 12:40
  cassette tapes have a black box back on some of them.
• 12:43
  So I have these, I have these two basically designed on a dog
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  walk. So I already had it done.
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  I went for a walk with a dog, came back, boom, sat down, got
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  it. And then I explored like
• 12:52
  different suppliers. How can I get this done?
• 12:55
  Got a bunch of test models, found the ones I liked, and then
• 12:58
  I wasn't telling anybody this, like my son or my family or
• 13:02
  anybody, and I just kind of made 1000 of them.
• 13:05
  Jeez. Yeah, Well, that's the minimum
• 13:07
  order quantity when you get to stuff like this.
• 13:09
  I'm. Gonna ask you about that too,
• 13:10
  yeah? So when you get to, I was just.
• 13:12
  Going to say there's something about like a new pair of shoes
• 13:14
  or a new shirt or a new watch. Like it just makes you feel
• 13:17
  better. Maybe you had a rough day.
• 13:18
  You had a case of the Mondays. You're just feeling down.
• 13:21
  You look back, you're like boom, you got something nice, you got
• 13:23
  kicks on, you feel good. I think like it's the feeling
• 13:26
  that it gives you. So let me ask you this because I
• 13:29
  know a lot of founders listening, like a lot of you
• 13:31
  guys are into watches, but a lot of them probably aren't and
• 13:34
  that's totally fine. This to me is interesting
• 13:36
  regardless because it's branding, it's marketing, It's
• 13:38
  how you think about positioning your business in the
• 13:42
  marketplace. Were you concerned that because
• 13:45
  I would be concerned if I made like a a lower end or a cheaper
• 13:48
  watch and then I made a higher end watch, would people
• 13:51
  associate that brand? Would they be like, oh, I see a
• 13:55
  higher end watch now, but at this brands like a cheaper
• 13:57
  brand. So is it a cheaper watch?
• 13:59
  So devaluing the entire like, I don't think Rolex does that.
• 14:02
  Do other brands do that? They have a lower kind of, you
• 14:04
  know, more affordable style and then they have a premium.
• 14:07
  Not, not to this extreme, I don't believe.
• 14:10
  If they do, they launch a digital model, which is it for
• 14:14
  $400. So when I did this, I was
• 14:17
  actually very worried. So usually my first
• 14:20
  communication goes out to my subscribers.
• 14:23
  Boom, got a new model. I wasn't ready for that yet.
• 14:26
  So I was like, I can't pull that back, you know?
• 14:28
  So I was like, again, I had done this kind of rogue and I was
• 14:31
  just like, well, worse comes to worse, I keep these in their
• 14:34
  giveaways or something. I don't know.
• 14:36
  You know, it wasn't a humongous investment, but I posted it just
• 14:41
  the cell phone photos on Instagram and like, I'm like,
• 14:46
  great, now they're going to hit me.
• 14:47
  All the watch guys are going to be like you stealing, like
• 14:50
  you're trying to be Casio or you're trying to be, you know,
• 14:54
  Timex, good luck. Look at this guy.
• 14:57
  And it wasn't it was a complete opposite.
• 14:58
  Like it would it buzzed so fast and people were loving it.
• 15:02
  So then I was like, OK, I can launch the e-mail now.
• 15:04
  So I launched the e-mail and then you bring these to shows
• 15:09
  that kind of caught fire with the news.
• 15:10
  I think everyone in, you know, you know, art, what they call
• 15:13
  journalists love that something different.
• 15:16
  So they were it was people were jumping on it.
• 15:17
  So like, wow, you are the first micro brand company to really
• 15:21
  launch a digital watch and a digital watch that's like 35
• 15:26
  bucks. So it's like completely out of
• 15:28
  the realm. So I was worried I was going to
• 15:30
  devalue my brand, but I had in the back of my head, my goal is
• 15:33
  to get people in the watches regardless, right?
• 15:36
  So if I can get them in with this, sprinkle all these seeds
• 15:39
  right like Johnny Appleseed, and they start to bloom into either
• 15:43
  my model or my model down the road, then it all works.
• 15:46
  Yeah, Apple seed, was it? Yeah, it was not.
• 15:49
  It was not. It was not.
• 15:50
  By the way, I already got mine in Oh my, it was the case of the
• 15:53
  Mondays. That was very good.
• 15:55
  All right. I owe you a beat.
• 15:56
  I snuck it in. Dang, that was smooth.
• 15:58
  That was smooth. Holy cow.
• 16:00
  All right, Mine just. A whole watch makes you feel
• 16:02
  good. I'm like, all right, I got a
• 16:03
  couple steps ahead. That's a pro move right there,
• 16:05
  you guys, you guys pay attention.
• 16:07
  To that one, you know, it's tough when you're running the
• 16:08
  podcast 'cause you got to be, you know, lasered in, but.
• 16:11
  Yes, that was all. Right, so I thought maybe Johnny
• 16:13
  Appleseed was. No, no, but I'll get you.
• 16:15
  So you had a -1 on that one for guessing wrong.
• 16:18
  That's. Right Dang it.
• 16:19
  OK. No, but so, yeah, So basically
• 16:22
  like I went so low. I went from, you know, 5350 to
• 16:26
  800. And then so drop the $35 watch
• 16:29
  in which in most terms would devalue an overall brand.
• 16:33
  It would be like, you know, it would be like you have the you
• 16:36
  have the Lexus and the Toyotas, but you can't have the Toyota or
• 16:38
  the Lexus that's sub Toyota. Like Apple doesn't make, you
• 16:42
  know, $100 or $250 laptop, right, Right.
• 16:44
  You know, because they're positioning in the marketplaces
• 16:46
  that were premium. Yeah.
• 16:48
  So I was curious for your take on that because, well.
• 16:50
  One thing I did do, I continued, I continued to do this is I have
• 16:54
  a logo which is on our, our main watches and on our main page,
• 16:58
  which has the directional symbol.
• 16:59
  Now that our, you know, trademarked logo is never used
• 17:05
  in any of the digitals. The digitals always have a
• 17:06
  different font on everything. So it's never like that one
• 17:10
  doesn't bleed over. And these ones are officially
• 17:11
  called the retro digital line. So they have their own logo.
• 17:14
  So they have a they're a sub brand.
• 17:16
  But what I'm going for is a difficult thing to hit.
• 17:20
  And that's it's in terms of non tangible, it's fun and cool.
• 17:26
  And if you can hit both of those, I think you'd knock it
• 17:28
  out of the park every time. So if I can get that low and I
• 17:31
  can get that high, that's the best thing for any company in my
• 17:36
  opinion. And it's hard.
• 17:38
  Sustained sustainability on fun and cool is fleeting, right?
• 17:41
  It's novel. So you have to keep fresh.
• 17:44
  So not only am I going for a very difficult results, but I'm
• 17:48
  going for something that you have to really work at to be
• 17:52
  sustainable. Legacy is easy, right?
• 17:54
  Now what would be the difference between this watch here that I
• 17:56
  have in my hand? This is $35.
• 17:58
  That one's 40, a little bit more money.
• 18:00
  What would be the difference here between I go on Amazon, I
• 18:03
  buy a $40 digital watch, what's what's?
• 18:06
  So you go on Amazon, you buy a $40 watch, that thing is getting
• 18:08
  pumped out like crazy, right? Those guys are just putting
• 18:12
  this. Feels nice, like yeah.
• 18:13
  Yeah, they're, so they're they're basically just putting
• 18:16
  it in a little box or putting it to Walmart.
• 18:18
  They want people to just buy it in volumes, right.
• 18:20
  I spent a lot of time in design work.
• 18:22
  So you're not going to have like people will notice the colorways
• 18:25
  that we use. They'll notice the cassette
• 18:27
  tape. I mean, this one is probably our
• 18:28
  biggest attention grabber. People wear this clear one and
• 18:32
  you can see the the transparent plastic and then you've got the
• 18:35
  cassette tape and not only does the colors grab you, but then
• 18:39
  once the cassette tape is seen, it's a huge conversation.
• 18:42
  Oh my gosh, You got a cassette tape on your watch?
• 18:43
  Do you remember? We used to make mixtapes and
• 18:45
  it's called the mixtape. And I'm sure you were probably
• 18:48
  more of AI think I'm just guessing you're young than me.
• 18:50
  So you were more of a mixtape, but it was on the CD.
• 18:52
  So do you know how many CDs you'd make?
• 18:53
  And they'd have like, Oh yeah, 5 or 6 of the same songs were on
• 18:56
  every single mix because they were bangers.
• 18:58
  And you can't leave that one off.
• 19:00
  So the mix tape and even on the cassette tapes, the feel of what
• 19:06
  I used to do, which was listen to the radio.
• 19:09
  Like we couldn't just download a song.
• 19:10
  I listen to the radio, wait for the DJ.
• 19:12
  Oh, I think I hear in the background DJ, stop talking,
• 19:14
  stop talking, boom, hit record and then you've got it.
• 19:17
  So it was like it was a whole different work ethic for getting
• 19:21
  the music you wanted and making a mixtape.
• 19:23
  And then if you had someone like a girl you lying to, you'd
• 19:26
  create a mixtape for them. Or if you had a special like
• 19:29
  skateboarding, we're gonna have a skateboard mixtape.
• 19:31
  You'd have like a special theme of songs, which we do know with
• 19:34
  playlists. It's just they were called
• 19:36
  mixtapes back then and they took a heck of a lot more work to do.
• 19:40
  I. Do remember some of the kiss
• 19:41
  'cause that's when I was really young too, of like trying to,
• 19:44
  yeah, you had to like, oh man, it was oh really tough.
• 19:47
  It's very tough. Recording on the radio and
• 19:49
  stuff. Yeah, it was, it was wild.
• 19:51
  So. That's this where this I want
• 19:53
  that watch. I wanted that watch to bring
• 19:55
  nostalgia and a feeling. And that's where, you know, you
• 19:58
  buy a. You buy an Iron Man watch,
• 20:01
  they're awesome. Great.
• 20:02
  It's going to time you running right.
• 20:04
  You can check a second time zone, set an alarm.
• 20:06
  This. Like I said, I want people to
• 20:08
  look at the watch and smile or get that that little.
• 20:11
  Yeah. Puff of, of, of nostalgia and
• 20:14
  joy. So if I can make people smile
• 20:15
  and have joy when they look at their time, that's what this did
• 20:18
  and I think it hit. Hard.
• 20:19
  And just to be clear, the difference between those types
• 20:21
  of watches is obviously a different style than what we
• 20:23
  have in this case to my left, these are you say Swiss made or
• 20:26
  what? What makes these more like 7-8
• 20:28
  hundred dollars? What?
• 20:29
  And then what makes a How does Rolex sell a $15,000 watch,
• 20:33
  which is not even their most expensive?
• 20:34
  Well, so, so Rolex is, is unique.
• 20:36
  Think of it when you got Rolexes, Omegas, long jeans,
• 20:39
  Rado, all these guys out there, when they're selling a very high
• 20:42
  end watch, they're selling part of the money that's in that per
• 20:46
  cost is their advertising. So when you got, you know, Rolex
• 20:49
  advertising everywhere that has a cost to it.
• 20:53
  In addition to that, they've Rolex is the best at playing
• 20:56
  this game. Like they're awesome because
• 20:58
  they can make small tweaks and color changes and it's like a
• 21:02
  brand new watch, a brand new model.
• 21:03
  They can take a model and drop it from 42mm down to 41.5 and
• 21:08
  change the bezel color. And we're going crazy for it.
• 21:11
  It's in all the publications. It's brand new.
• 21:13
  It's awesome. So I, I totally applaud what
• 21:16
  they've been able to do. But that's where it's like same
• 21:20
  thing with with cars, same things with clothing.
• 21:22
  And there's no way a piece of thread can cost someone, you
• 21:25
  know, a $200 like Polo versus like a $20 Polo.
• 21:29
  I mean, there's, there's definite differences in terms of
• 21:32
  I've been, I've been to, I used to work in industrial stuff.
• 21:34
  So I understand like the cost factories, like they have a very
• 21:38
  protocol set up folding, like quality control, top of top of
• 21:42
  the line, they care about the details.
• 21:43
  That's a lot of stuff. So when you get to these high
• 21:46
  level brands, especially where some of the Omegas are like, you
• 21:48
  know, there's there's one person makes that watch, you know what
• 21:52
  I mean? And then so yeah, when you get
• 21:54
  to the the upper echelon totally makes sense.
• 21:57
  But is it like the what's the quality factor with these?
• 22:00
  Is it like they tick smoother? Like what?
• 22:02
  The inner workings are smoother. Here, I'll grab one of these
• 22:04
  right here. So this one.
• 22:07
  Those teal color are cool as hell too.
• 22:08
  Or turquoise, whatever they are like this color.
• 22:10
  That's a cool color dude. I'll pull I'll pull that one
• 22:12
  down next. That one, that one's awesome.
• 22:14
  So for example, this one, you can actually see the back of
• 22:16
  this one. So this one's got the automatic
• 22:20
  movement in it, right? So when you move, it's going to
• 22:23
  charge the watch. So automatics or charge the
• 22:26
  watch, Yeah, yeah. So there's no batteries.
• 22:28
  That feels heavy. Are they like high?
• 22:29
  I've never touched a high quality watch.
• 22:30
  Yeah, like these ones, we put a lot of a lot of effort into it.
• 22:33
  And it's water, it's water resistant is 100 meters.
• 22:37
  So it's you got to make thicker crystal on it.
• 22:40
  And we use sapphire crystal on the bezel on the back.
• 22:43
  So yeah, it's it's a lot of like there's a lot of weight that
• 22:45
  comes to it. But for like the examples, like
• 22:48
  for this, it's going to sweep. So if you see how that hand, the
• 22:50
  second hand yeah is sweeping, that's kind of that's the
• 22:57
  automatic movement. So either you have automatic or
• 22:59
  mechanical. Mechanical, you're gonna hand
• 23:00
  wind like this everyday. Yes, and people love that
• 23:04
  because the purists really like that.
• 23:05
  And then this is your automatic where it's got the rotor, which
• 23:07
  then charges the release here and then that ends up powering
• 23:11
  the wash. So the amount of parts in this
• 23:13
  and the complexity in here is huge.
• 23:15
  So this compared to that total different story.
• 23:18
  Even this with just a standard quartz is a is another level,
• 23:22
  but. Now, do you know how to assemble
• 23:24
  all these different watches? Or building this, I'm not the
• 23:26
  best at like I, I, I'm more of the designer.
• 23:30
  I like to draw it out and then have someone hand me the
• 23:33
  finished product. Changing batteries is about as
• 23:35
  far as I go now because I don't want to mess anything up
• 23:37
  anymore. But but yeah, so like that's
• 23:39
  like the kind of the different thing.
• 23:40
  And again, you can have like a Rolex, which they're going to
• 23:43
  have. Would it feel heavy like that to
• 23:45
  a Rolex? Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 23:46
  Unless they didn't want it to. If they didn't, if they wanted
• 23:48
  to use different materials like titanium, then you can make it
• 23:50
  super light, which is which is awesome.
• 23:52
  But what you can do then is like they'll have soft, they'll have
• 23:55
  they'll just have so much time they spent on the case, all the
• 23:58
  additional steps that it takes to to get all the small details
• 24:01
  to work right. So there are definitely reasons
• 24:05
  why the higher end watches cost more money, but there's also
• 24:08
  market conditions where if they're not available and hard
• 24:10
  to get like Rolex right now, you can't go in and say, hey, I want
• 24:13
  to buy a Rolex. It doesn't work that way.
• 24:15
  You gotta get weightless. Gotta get weightless.
• 24:17
  It's kind of like think of like Ferraris.
• 24:19
  You can't just go into Ferrari dealership.
• 24:20
  Even Porsche, I think now you can't just show up at Porsche
• 24:22
  dealer out of the blue, never had a Porsche, and be like, I
• 24:25
  want to buy a Porsche, a GTR3. No, they don't.
• 24:28
  They're not going to let you do it.
• 24:30
  Is that partly marketing and branding, just the scarcity
• 24:32
  factor around it? It's the whole, yeah, it's the
• 24:34
  whole exclusivity. And when you do that, I mean,
• 24:38
  think about it when you show up at A at a store and there's
• 24:42
  like, oh, this is a, a brand new, we'll say fruit snack,
• 24:45
  right? Shelves full OK, one later yeah
• 24:50
  there's like 2 left and it said and you saw you saw someone show
• 24:53
  up and they grab the last two and there's one left on there.
• 24:55
  You don't even maybe not eat fruit snacks, but you're like,
• 24:58
  well, this maybe I'll grab this. So it's just a fact.
• 25:01
  I say a line always makes a crowd, always brings a crowd,
• 25:05
  and a line makes a big a line bigger.
• 25:07
  That's so true. So that kind of stuff is what
• 25:09
  gets watches that are hard to get.
• 25:11
  You want them more. Yeah.
• 25:13
  So that's that's kind of a different there in, in terms of
• 25:16
  quality. Yes, there's definite steps of
• 25:18
  quality where Rolex can go way beyond what I can do.
• 25:21
  But there's also a lot of similarities and you can kind of
• 25:24
  get within the ballpark of a great automatic watch from a lot
• 25:28
  of micro brands like myself. Do you think you'll continue to
• 25:30
  move up in price point or have certain lines that go up in the
• 25:33
  thousands? So I've got, I had a Northern
• 25:36
  Ireland university master's program did a, a project on me
• 25:40
  and they had actually told me I needed to go up more.
• 25:43
  So they've given me good advice. If I do go up, I'm going to try
• 25:47
  and do more of our style exclusive and more of an
• 25:51
  exclusive piece. So limited runs, smaller runs.
• 25:53
  And that's why they're higher monies because we really spend a
• 25:55
  bunch of time on this, use expensive movements and still
• 25:57
  kept our vibe in it. I mean, I'd love to do GMT and
• 26:01
  which is a complication that has a second time zone.
• 26:03
  And then when you change it, it's awesome.
• 26:05
  So usually you pull this out and then you change the, the whole
• 26:09
  thing, right? It stops and you change it with
• 26:11
  the GMT one, you can pull it out and your hour just moves.
• 26:15
  So if you're just joining check on an airplane, changing to a
• 26:18
  different time, boom, click, click, done.
• 26:20
  It's awesome. So those cost a little more for
• 26:22
  the for the movements. So I've I've had my eye on doing
• 26:26
  one of those just hasn't clicked yet.
• 26:28
  So that one will be I'm trying to keep it under 1000, but it's
• 26:31
  probably going to bump with everything right now the way
• 26:33
  everything's going, prices keep going up.
• 26:35
  Yeah, we're going to. We're going to have to be above.
• 26:36
  I bet, yeah, Tesla did a similar thing.
• 26:39
  I wrote this down to talk about with the Model 3.
• 26:42
  They've done it with the Cyber Chuck, but I think it was the
• 26:43
  Model 3. They had $1000 deposit.
• 26:45
  There was waiting lists before the product even arrived, before
• 26:48
  it was even finished out of the factory.
• 26:49
  They get 325,000 in reservations in the first week, over $300
• 26:54
  million in deposits collected instantly.
• 26:57
  That's incredible. So there's something to be said
• 26:59
  about, and I think this is a good marketing tactic that
• 27:03
  people can use B to B, companies can use B to C company can use
• 27:05
  is you create a waiting list and you say, hey, this is going to
• 27:08
  launch. We're coming out with this.
• 27:09
  We're doing a live workshop or launching a new product or
• 27:12
  service or whatever it is. There are only X amount of spots
• 27:15
  available. Join the waiting list now or put
• 27:17
  a deposit down. Now, if you've got that kind of
• 27:19
  brand that they get to have brand to be able to do that.
• 27:22
  And then once they sign up, there's more scarcity around,
• 27:24
  OK, There's only so many of these.
• 27:26
  And then that gives you actually data on the front end to know,
• 27:29
  is this something we should build out?
• 27:31
  Like I'm doing that right now with the workshop where I'm like
• 27:33
  feeling people out and putting it out there and say 20 spots
• 27:36
  available, who wants in? Here's what you're going to get
• 27:38
  out of it. If you get a bunch of people
• 27:39
  that say, yes, it's easy then to say, well, we only have 20
• 27:42
  spots, let me go through the people carefully and see who I
• 27:44
  want to decide to come on. But if you get no sign ups or
• 27:46
  people aren't, you know, going after it, then that's a signal
• 27:49
  in your marketplace that, OK, maybe this thing needs to be
• 27:51
  tweaked. Maybe it's not as high value,
• 27:53
  maybe it's the wrong messaging, positioning, whatever it is, but
• 27:57
  that's a case in point right there.
• 27:58
  I mean that's a they knocked it out of the freaking park, man.
• 28:00
  And what's funny is I haven't. So I haven't done the pre-order
• 28:03
  route in a while because I understand when people order
• 28:06
  stuff they want it and it usually shows up late.
• 28:08
  But I didn't even bring the model.
• 28:09
  I did a version I'm grabbing here.
• 28:13
  I did a version of this in like a teal green and the story
• 28:18
  behind this one is I had done this.
• 28:20
  Take a look at this. This is this is this is a fun
• 28:22
  one. This is called a Vice edition.
• 28:23
  Yeah, it's cool color. I love this turquoise color.
• 28:25
  What is turquoise? What would you call it?
• 28:27
  Teal Turquoise. I call it one electric blue just
• 28:29
  cuz I'm trying to keep it trying to keep it fun.
• 28:31
  So we have the original 1 is the vice limited edition.
• 28:34
  Then we have a bubble gum, which is that pink one and then that
• 28:36
  one's the electric blue. I almost called it blue razz cuz
• 28:39
  that's cool man. But so when I had done the
• 28:41
  original 1 again, this is a this is a mistake.
• 28:45
  I actually tell people that I made.
• 28:46
  So I had done an auto 1 and I had made a couple of different
• 28:51
  prototypes of this, two of them and but it was a different
• 28:53
  colour as teal and it was had a teal band.
• 28:56
  It was it was actually awesome, incredible.
• 28:58
  I nailed the pinks and everything perfect.
• 29:00
  But I shared it with my group of friends.
• 29:02
  No one had really seemed to like it.
• 29:05
  So then one time I did like a little pop on like Instagram and
• 29:09
  it went nuts. And so people were like one of
• 29:11
  my friends, random Rob, who does like YouTube reviews is like,
• 29:13
  dude, you got to launch this. What's going on here?
• 29:16
  So I say, all right, I'm going to play it safe.
• 29:18
  I'm going to just do a 85 limited, excuse me, 85 limited
• 29:22
  edition run, see how this goes. If it doesn't go well, no big
• 29:25
  deal, right? So I did that, got some press
• 29:29
  quick and I launched a pre-order and it was the first day like
• 29:34
  70% sold out. And then by the next week
• 29:37
  someone wrote another thing and it was like sold out.
• 29:39
  And I was like, God, the I keep getting pinged back in stock,
• 29:42
  requests back in stock, requests back in.
• 29:44
  Is this in stock? Is this in stock?
• 29:46
  And I was like, Oh no. So then press hit big and I'm
• 29:50
  sold out. You know, I did nothing I can do
• 29:52
  about it and I haven't relaunched it because I've said
• 29:56
  it was a limited numbered 85 edition.
• 29:58
  Yeah, so I'm coming out with a version in that colorway that's
• 30:01
  going to look similar to this, so I'm going to try and drop
• 30:04
  that out. And that's you.
• 30:05
  Can't really come out with more if you.
• 30:06
  Say no, you can't. You can't.
• 30:07
  You cannot. The value of that watch for that
• 30:09
  person who? Got it right and you can come up
• 30:10
  with a version 2, but I'm like, I just feel like I know if I did
• 30:13
  a version 2, it would sell like crazy, but I'm going to try and
• 30:17
  and and do something different and keep that.
• 30:20
  So that was a mistake I made. But that's also a full on
• 30:23
  example of what you just said. Like once people I think saw, I
• 30:26
  mean once my stuff goes low stock 10, they sell.
• 30:29
  Yeah. It's so weird.
• 30:31
  Yeah, even on the Amazon when you go in your scroll and you
• 30:33
  see something two more only two left limits why you're like I
• 30:37
  get better get this now yes the motion stock available tomorrow.
• 30:41
  It's like, all right, well, I can probably just come back and
• 30:42
  get this and that's come on the store.
• 30:44
  You see a huge packaging and a bunch of different products like
• 30:48
  now you'll get it next week. But if you see that one or two
• 30:50
  left, you're like, I bet there's probably a bunch of studies that
• 30:53
  have been done on that, like the psychology.
• 30:55
  Oh my God, think about Nintendo thinking that it's a Switch.
• 30:58
  Yeah, or. No, no, it's the Wii.
• 31:00
  The Nintendo Wii you couldn't find anywhere.
• 31:04
  So if you found it, it was like someone you'd buy it.
• 31:07
  You just, you know what I mean? Like it's crazy like that.
• 31:09
  Same with Pokémon right now. So that's right.
• 31:11
  My son will go to Target and he'll like dad, he just did this
• 31:13
  Pokémon. We got to grab it.
• 31:14
  I'm like, that's like 50 bucks, dude.
• 31:16
  He's like, we can buy it, buy it, buy it.
• 31:17
  Like OK, we buy it and then turns out now it's worth 150
• 31:21
  tomorrow. What the heck?
• 31:22
  Like that's insanity. Like.
• 31:25
  That's crazy, how do you think brand is misunderstood when it
• 31:28
  comes to founders? Like what are they
• 31:30
  misunderstanding about brand? Like the the brand that they're
• 31:32
  creating? Yeah, regardless of the
• 31:34
  business, what do you some of the things that you see 'cause I
• 31:36
  think you're in a heavily brand based business, you know, just
• 31:39
  like it's so apparent. Yeah, if you do consulting or
• 31:42
  staffing, recruiting, it's still, it matters big time.
• 31:44
  But I think it's like kind of get a secondary thing or if you
• 31:47
  sell like a product I that's why they like business.
• 31:50
  Yeah, I know retailers. I'm trying to take it this way.
• 31:54
  So retail, I think, I think the founders all know it.
• 31:57
  Yeah. Because that's like it's, it's
• 31:59
  either they're associated with the brand is a reflection or the
• 32:01
  brand is like you're living breathing entity like that's it.
• 32:05
  I think Sean Riley, dude wipes. Yeah, exactly.
• 32:08
  Understands brand at such a hot. Level, yes, he was, absolutely.
• 32:10
  I know, I know, I know. He was a great episode.
• 32:12
  And he just, yeah, he's a, he has a mastermind full of
• 32:15
  information there. Yeah.
• 32:16
  But that's where like I think retail understand like the brand
• 32:19
  is huge, like you live and die by the brand.
• 32:23
  And then B to B is difficult because a lot of times you come
• 32:25
  out with a generic terms, right, generic names, almost hard to
• 32:28
  remember names. And it's the people that are the
• 32:32
  ones that really become the the product, right?
• 32:34
  Is the people in the group. So it's hard because it could in
• 32:38
  terms of like a Consulting Group, like XYZ consulting, you
• 32:41
  know, but if I like working with Alex, I know Alex is running the
• 32:44
  show and Alex is the guy I think is the best.
• 32:46
  Then the brand, the product is actually the people.
• 32:49
  But if they can figure out and this is where B to B, it's
• 32:51
  really hard. How do you turn the, the quality
• 32:55
  of the people and the reflection of the people into that brand,
• 32:58
  that logo, that icon, like IBM, you know, a gun.
• 33:01
  They, they've got IBM consulting and that kind of stuff.
• 33:03
  And some of the consulting groups have a McKenzie, right?
• 33:05
  When you got thoroughbred like that and pedigree like that,
• 33:09
  you're good. But I think I think you've got
• 33:12
  to come up with something that's memorable, that's short and
• 33:14
  that's quick. And if you can have an actual
• 33:17
  logo attached to it that you can slap on golf balls and that kind
• 33:20
  of stuff and then focus your people and have your people
• 33:22
  reflect that. And then yeah, like B2B is tough
• 33:26
  because you got to like have your logo on all the time.
• 33:28
  And if it's just the boring words with.
• 33:30
  It's not as sexy as a Watch I'll.
• 33:32
  Tell you that. But I think it starts with if
• 33:35
  you want your brand to be unique and you care about, you know,
• 33:38
  taking making something out of your company, not just like, oh,
• 33:41
  we do XY and Z consulting. Like if you really want to build
• 33:43
  a brand in the marketplace that stands out.
• 33:45
  Yeah, I think it starts with what is your unique
• 33:47
  differentiator? What are you actually doing
• 33:49
  different than other companies in your space?
• 33:52
  Yes, and I think that's what gets lost.
• 33:54
  Like you can look at your watches, the design, the
• 33:57
  sexiness of it, the the names, the how they make people feel.
• 34:00
  It's it's more physical. It is more sexy, right?
• 34:03
  We're a consulting firm or a staffing and recruiting firm or
• 34:05
  maybe even a certain type of software.
• 34:07
  It's not as sexy like that on the surface, but behind the
• 34:11
  scenes, what are you doing differently?
• 34:12
  So I'll give you an example. We started a company called
• 34:14
  Podcast builders. Most podcast agencies all the,
• 34:17
  they're like editing studio design, that kind of stuff.
• 34:21
  Ours was focused on revenue. We're like, hey, editing the
• 34:24
  contents. Great, sure, yes, great content.
• 34:26
  Build a brand, post on social. But we're gonna design A podcast
• 34:29
  around revenue and generating clients for your business.
• 34:33
  It's a very systematic approach and there's some AI in there and
• 34:36
  there's some back end stuff in there and it's the guest
• 34:38
  experience. And that is what makes us
• 34:40
  different where if you go to another marketing agency or
• 34:43
  podcast agency, it's like studio editing, post production
• 34:47
  thumbnails, all that stuff matters, but it's not designing
• 34:50
  a revenue system that you can embed in your business.
• 34:53
  And then you and then you think about, you know, we got that
• 34:56
  sign back there, you guys can't see it, but then you know, the
• 34:58
  name podcast builders. You think about what does that
• 35:01
  mean? What does it look like?
• 35:02
  Ours. We wanted ours to feel like a
• 35:05
  physical kind of, you know, building shit like yeah, yeah, a
• 35:09
  revenue system, you know, or podcast in your company and, you
• 35:12
  know, so our kind of logo and colors kind of match that.
• 35:14
  A little bit more rugged, you know, it's real.
• 35:16
  And so I that's how I think about it.
• 35:19
  And I've learned by the first company I picked, I think the
• 35:21
  name would have probably changed the name, you know, impacts
• 35:24
  marketing. It's not Alec Sheridan it.
• 35:26
  Can be lost impacts kind of a buzz?
• 35:29
  Yeah, right. But like just something and also
• 35:30
  a little bit of SEO and AEO where people search and it's
• 35:33
  like podcast builders right away, if I say you're right or
• 35:36
  podcast builders, you go, you probably do something with
• 35:39
  podcasts, right? You know, so that's how I think
• 35:42
  about it is you have that the epicenter because I think a lot
• 35:44
  of people try to create something and then say, well,
• 35:46
  how do we brand it into some differentiation in the
• 35:50
  marketplace? And the reality is it's hard to
• 35:52
  do do that. But if you start with something,
• 35:54
  you say, how are we going to uniquely serve our customers?
• 35:57
  How are we really going to be different in a way that's
• 35:59
  valuable to the people that we serve?
• 36:01
  And it generates an outcome or a result or a transformation.
• 36:04
  Then let's build everything else, the content, the branding,
• 36:08
  the color, the logos, the, you know, the feel, everything else
• 36:11
  that we do, the things that we put out, let's make it reflect
• 36:14
  that. Yeah, I think that's.
• 36:16
  No, it's huge. I think what I think you hit it
• 36:18
  right there with revenue, like people get so focused on
• 36:22
  creating stuff and that happens with my watches like something
• 36:25
  and if I'm it's not going to sell, then I'm really spinning
• 36:29
  my wheels for nothing. But yeah, especially with
• 36:30
  podcast, this kind of stuff is very, it's difficult because you
• 36:33
  can create really great stuff, drop it on social and it doesn't
• 36:36
  hit. But if you're like, our goal as
• 36:38
  a company is to get you money out of that, we're going to get
• 36:41
  there. That's a total different take.
• 36:43
  You like, boom, this one wasn't working.
• 36:44
  Pull it down and tweak it, bring it back up versus Oh, we made a
• 36:47
  really pretty, you know, really pretty like real.
• 36:50
  Let's it let's it was great. Let's just try and but if you're
• 36:53
  like, no, we're taking this, we're going to figure out why
• 36:55
  this isn't making money and, and make it and make it generate
• 36:57
  revenue. And then building the builders
• 36:59
  is one of the guys you got to have like in your, you're like,
• 37:01
  there's the personality types, the builders, right?
• 37:04
  The builders are the guys that they bring the business.
• 37:06
  Yes, they make it. They make it grow, they scale
• 37:08
  it. Yeah, and our thing too is like,
• 37:11
  you know, we that's why we focus on the get who, who you have on
• 37:13
  the show, your guests, the relationship with them.
• 37:15
  Because ultimately, even if the content does nothing, if this
• 37:18
  show goes out and 0 people watch it, we're still making a
• 37:21
  connection. We know other founders, right?
• 37:23
  And some of the people that come on the show are great clients of
• 37:25
  ours. Not every single person, but you
• 37:27
  can design it so every single person is, but it's more built
• 37:30
  on relationships rather than I have to get something in an
• 37:33
  algorithm working the certain way.
• 37:35
  Now we want the algorithm stuff too, amplifies the brand over
• 37:38
  time and it actually brings more people to us.
• 37:41
  But in the short term, 6 months from now, we can design A
• 37:43
  podcast where it actually generates business for the
• 37:45
  company. And that's what most I haven't
• 37:47
  seen other companies he's focused on that.
• 37:49
  No, neither have. I If you got to find your
• 37:50
  uniqueness, that's all. It's important.
• 37:53
  Totally agree with the network. I mean 98° of Kevin Bacon, you
• 37:56
  know, dude. It's everything.
• 37:57
  It meet. That's a lot of stuff that I do.
• 37:59
  Even working with schools like doing, playing part of programs.
• 38:02
  It's like I'm here to help them and meet people and I guarantee
• 38:05
  something happened. Totally, man.
• 38:06
  Something happens. Yeah.
• 38:07
  And organically too. It's not even, you don't force
• 38:09
  it, it's just organically it happens.
• 38:11
  Taking care of people and meeting people and things like
• 38:13
  that. And organically I dropped in my
• 38:14
  slip it in which was 90° of Kevin Bacon.
• 38:17
  Dang, that was good. That was good.
• 38:20
  You set me up man. You're like teed it up and I
• 38:22
  just you. You knocked that one out of the
• 38:24
  park. That was good.
• 38:25
  I got you some props on that, all right.
• 38:26
  So we owe each other a beer. We both got it in.
• 38:28
  Yeah, we both slipped it in. What was I gonna say?
• 38:31
  I didn't mean to rock the rock the boat too hard.
• 38:33
  No, you're fine. I was just like, I just think
• 38:35
  like B to B companies can learn a lot from B to C That's why I
• 38:38
  want. Yeah, no, I think you're right
• 38:39
  because. I think they don't think enough
• 38:40
  about brand. We're like for you guys, it's
• 38:42
  all brand like it's a product. It's like if you don't have the
• 38:45
  brand and something different, unique and it doesn't like pull
• 38:48
  people off and they want to buy it, it doesn't sell or B to B is
• 38:52
  just it's more it's each of them has its own challenge, right?
• 38:55
  It's hard as hell, right? Like you got to sell a bunch of
• 38:58
  units and you got to get it in front of it.
• 38:59
  And so there's that and it's every ticket is lower ticket
• 39:03
  where B to B1 customer could be 30 a $100,000.
• 39:06
  Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
• 39:07
  Each of them have their challenges.
• 39:09
  I just always look at like, what can we learn from, you know,
• 39:13
  fair and sweat? What can we learn from a dude
• 39:15
  wipes? What can we learn from a Rolex,
• 39:16
  you know, a Tesla? And then what can those
• 39:19
  companies also learn from B to B?
• 39:20
  Companies that do things in a certain way that are unique, No.
• 39:23
  Absolutely. I think I think the B to B also
• 39:25
  have like I was saying, it's the people, it's the culture.
• 39:27
  So like that's huge. And and since I'm like,
• 39:30
  basically I have like floor who works with me.
• 39:33
  She lives in Argentina. And then contractors and and
• 39:36
  interns, like I've got to figure out how to get people when I'm
• 39:38
  building the people to have the culture reflect everything.
• 39:42
  The brand. The brand is in everything.
• 39:44
  Yeah. So, no, I, I think you're right
• 39:46
  both sides, B to B, it's hard to, I think it's an afterthought
• 39:49
  a lot of times with the brand name and you, you hit it right
• 39:52
  when you got to come out, you could come out the gates with
• 39:54
  that. Like when we designed a company
• 39:56
  like our, our brand name was the hardest thing to create.
• 40:00
  I mean, like I had run through probably 100 different names,
• 40:03
  like the words in Swiss, in German.
• 40:06
  So it's attached to Switzerland like I I was.
• 40:08
  Going to ask you like what the name is?
• 40:10
  Yeah. Yeah, so like, I'd run through
• 40:11
  all this stuff. It just what?
• 40:12
  Nothing was working. I mean, like to the point where
• 40:15
  you forget it. Like if it sounds too generic,
• 40:17
  like if you go to a, if you go to AI, and I love AI, but if you
• 40:19
  say, create a brand name for me, they're going to spit out a
• 40:21
  bunch of stuff. Oh, it's terrible.
• 40:22
  Yeah. And.
• 40:22
  You're going to be like, wow, I just forgot half of these and
• 40:24
  this sounds like somebody else's name.
• 40:26
  So I went the route of I had brought two friends in.
• 40:29
  I had brought in my friend who designs.
• 40:32
  He designed my he designs. He's an old Wheeling Julie
• 40:34
  designer. He designed my wedding ring.
• 40:35
  He designed rings, custom stuff. His name is Andy Paitzel.
• 40:39
  And then I pulled my other friend Zach Switalski in both
• 40:42
  those guys. I'm just like, hey, I'm starting
• 40:43
  a watch company. I'm going to create a watch.
• 40:45
  I'd love to have you guys come on board and be a part of it,
• 40:47
  get this worked out. My middle name is Farrand.
• 40:50
  So that's why I got the Farr, which sometimes is called far
• 40:53
  and Swit and you'll hear me say far and Swit.
• 40:55
  That's just to make sure you guys spell it right.
• 40:58
  So far is from or far is from my middle name Farron and from Andy
• 41:02
  and Swit from Satoski. And it balanced nice. 3 letters
• 41:06
  or 4 letters on each side with the logo in the middle for Andy
• 41:09
  that we turn into a directional symbol with a plus sign.
• 41:11
  So that thankfully people have told me they remember the name.
• 41:15
  They may mispronounce it and they say foreign swift or
• 41:17
  something like that. But for the most part,
• 41:20
  everyone's like, oh, I always see your logo.
• 41:21
  I recognize your logo. And I splashed my logo on men's
• 41:24
  soccer teams and I put it Westmont Yard and I put it in
• 41:26
  the newspapers like the global that I've got like that
• 41:30
  trademarked that one. I'm push everywhere and I I do
• 41:33
  think it sticks with you and that's and that's designing that
• 41:36
  the fonts was hard even that that's all it's a it.
• 41:39
  I'm from the advertising world so it's a little bit in my
• 41:42
  background, but. Do you think the brand story
• 41:45
  matters for a company or do you think that's something founders
• 41:48
  just kind of? I don't know matters me.
• 41:50
  Maybe it's me personally as a founder, when I find somebody's
• 41:53
  like let's say I'm scrolling through Instagram, doom
• 41:54
  scrolling, find some cool products.
• 41:56
  Oh, these guys, these guys, it's a bag for your cleats or
• 41:59
  something. All right, I'll look it up.
• 42:01
  If I don't have a good about us, especially on a company I never
• 42:05
  heard of, I usually am done because then I'm like, oh, you
• 42:08
  know what this is? This is a made in China.
• 42:10
  No, no offense to that, but you know, just something they're
• 42:13
  pushing to me for 60 bucks, which cost them a dollar to
• 42:15
  make. So for me, if it's an unknown
• 42:18
  company, the about Us is huge, right?
• 42:21
  I think that's a huge deal and I always love it anyway, even it's
• 42:23
  a large company, like, you know, you go to it and you get to see
• 42:26
  the people that started it and why they started it and what's
• 42:29
  behind it. That's the brand, the passion
• 42:31
  that goes into it. I think a good brand story
• 42:34
  matters when it connects with the audience.
• 42:37
  Yes, that mission is aligned right.
• 42:39
  So it's like if your story is like, oh, I was like homeless
• 42:41
  one day and like, you know, then I sleeping in the car and then I
• 42:43
  like started this company. It's like that's a cool story to
• 42:45
  tell, like maybe on stage or something like that, right, But
• 42:48
  like as a product or a service, I'm not sure like I don't make
• 42:50
  the connection. Like give a good example.
• 42:52
  There's a guy I found his videos on Tiktok and then started
• 42:55
  buying his gum. It's called underbrush and he
• 42:57
  makes like all the gum is not made with plastic.
• 43:00
  So a lot of if you get a pack of gum, I won't name any names.
• 43:02
  I I chew a lot of gum. It's made from gum base and if
• 43:06
  you look into what gum base is, it's lot of synthetic plastics
• 43:08
  and shit. It's.
• 43:09
  Not why it doesn't dissolve, it's.
• 43:10
  Exactly it's not great for you. This guy makes it all of like
• 43:13
  tree saps and chick all that natural stuff.
• 43:16
  It's expensive. It cost more so you don't like
• 43:18
  you're not chewing a pack a day. But I found him on TikTok and
• 43:22
  the reason I was drawn to him is because his mission and his
• 43:25
  story was I'd found out that I was, he was having teeth
• 43:28
  problems and stuff. And he was like, I looked into
• 43:30
  the gums I was chewing and I realized, holy shit, we're
• 43:32
  talking about micro plastics and all the stuff being bad for you.
• 43:35
  And here we are just chewing on plastic all day, you know, and I
• 43:37
  was, I was always a big gum guy. Like I like having gum and this
• 43:40
  and that kind of stuff. And so I was started watching, I
• 43:42
  got interested in the creative aspect of how he mixed it
• 43:45
  together and how he got the ingredients from the trees.
• 43:48
  And I just thought it was like good organic cool gum.
• 43:51
  But his mission of like, and then he had a villain in the
• 43:53
  story, which was so good. He was like, the villain is like
• 43:55
  the plastic and the big Gump companies, they don't care about
• 43:58
  you, you know, And it was like he had a really good story, but
• 44:01
  it wasn't just like him. It was like a mission that he
• 44:04
  was on and he wanted to bring you on the mission as the one of
• 44:07
  the heroes in the story. That's what's important to land
• 44:11
  in a brand story, is the customer has to see themselves
• 44:13
  as the hero in that story, as the the person that overcomes
• 44:16
  them, defeats the villain and becomes, you know, Luke
• 44:20
  Skywalker, right, the Jedi. And so anyways, that's what got
• 44:23
  me into that. And I think you know it, it tied
• 44:25
  back into his personal stuff, but it was more about the
• 44:27
  mission that he was on and the the greater good that he wanted
• 44:30
  to provide. So I'm I'm you're fully like
• 44:33
  speaking my language because I honestly, my mission was
• 44:36
  starting a watch company was to get watches on people.
• 44:38
  Yeah, not necessarily my brand, but something so like even you
• 44:41
  wear an Apple Watch is a step in the right direction because
• 44:44
  you've got something tied to your wrist that keeps time.
• 44:46
  Yeah. So like, that's why I think when
• 44:48
  I do content, I had a, I brought a kid on Nathan and Danny who do
• 44:53
  full frame social. I signed up with them.
• 44:56
  They're like, they were out of high school.
• 44:57
  They were starting this new like video program thing.
• 45:00
  They're trying to, you know, make it in the world as, as
• 45:03
  videographers and, and I, and they, they're like, Hey, we want
• 45:05
  to make you the subject matter expert of watches, you know, and
• 45:07
  talk about Seikos, talk about Oris, talk about all the other
• 45:11
  brands. I was like, you know what,
• 45:12
  you're right, because that's what I was doing beforehand.
• 45:13
  I was, I was a watch collector. So once I started doing that and
• 45:17
  pushing out that information, I would bump into like big time
• 45:21
  content creators and they'd like, dude, I love that your
• 45:23
  brand that talks about buying someone else's watch like no one
• 45:27
  else does that because they're always like pushing some type of
• 45:29
  propaganda where honestly I'll just be like, check out these
• 45:32
  Seikos. Like for 150 bucks, not so much
• 45:34
  anymore, but 300 bucks, you can get an incredible starter watch.
• 45:38
  Like may not be mine, but you can get some starter watch or
• 45:40
  watch for your kid for graduation high school.
• 45:42
  Like I think that is huge. It's the mission.
• 45:45
  You know why that works so well? No.
• 45:47
  Because it's, well, you do, but it just, it's, it's trust.
• 45:51
  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. People trust because you're not
• 45:53
  just talking about your own brand or your own product,
• 45:55
  because when you're doing that, it's like, OK, obviously you
• 45:57
  want to sell more shit. We all do, of course, right?
• 46:00
  But when you're saying, hey, actually this is really cool,
• 46:02
  this is a good watch. I found that's was on a
• 46:04
  celebrity. I've seen some of your videos
• 46:05
  and you're breaking down different watches and they're
• 46:07
  not yours. You're not making anything from
• 46:08
  them. Gary Vaynerchuk did this back in
• 46:11
  the the wine days where he was, he was, you know, reviewing
• 46:15
  different wine. And since some of the wines he
• 46:16
  reviewed, they had a lot in stock at his store.
• 46:19
  And he'd be like, this one's not worth 15 bucks.
• 46:21
  It's more like an $8 wine. And his dad would be like, who
• 46:24
  owned the liquor store that I was like, dude, what are you
• 46:26
  doing? Like we got to sell this shit.
• 46:28
  He's like, but dad, I'm building trust.
• 46:30
  If people know that I'm objective and I really give it
• 46:32
  to him real. They will come here and buy from
• 46:35
  us regardless, right? Some people don't mind.
• 46:37
  They want the $8 bottle of wine, whatever it is.
• 46:38
  But that's what it is. It's building trust.
• 46:41
  People see you as like, wow, this guy's really legit.
• 46:43
  Like, he cares about the industry and what, you know,
• 46:45
  watches. Yeah, not just selling his own
• 46:47
  stuff. And so they're actually more
• 46:49
  likely to buy your stuff now because they that integrity
• 46:52
  carries over to your product. Yeah, I, I think people buy from
• 46:54
  people, Yeah. And especially watch shows,
• 46:57
  which has happened this weekend. I got one that people love and
• 47:00
  they they see me, they get to talk to me.
• 47:01
  We get to talk about the stuff, handle the stuff.
• 47:03
  Yeah, yeah, I, I and I fully like buy watches from, from
• 47:07
  people. That's why it's that's where
• 47:09
  they're like the gap is between the Rolex.
• 47:11
  Like when you go to the store, it's a cool experience.
• 47:13
  You're usually the people are the jewelry store that you're
• 47:16
  buying from. You're not necessarily buying
• 47:17
  from Mr. Rolex, right. So that's, that's the, that's
• 47:20
  where the micro brands like myself, the founders are really
• 47:24
  awesome because you get to the guy who cares.
• 47:27
  You can call and people can call me and it'll run through and
• 47:29
  it'll eventually hit my phone and I'll answer the phone like,
• 47:31
  hey, what's up? What's going on?
• 47:33
  Like what do you have a problem with?
• 47:34
  Yeah, good point. What's what's the the watch on
• 47:38
  your right hand? I assume has something to do
• 47:40
  with one of your daughters. Oh, no, this one's actually
• 47:42
  this. So this was a.
• 47:44
  This one is is. Looks like a it's like a small
• 47:47
  pink looking watch. It's like and you have two
• 47:48
  daughters. Right.
• 47:49
  I have two daughters and a son. Yeah.
• 47:51
  So funny thing is, I had these watches, these two right here in
• 47:56
  in Toronto for a show and these two guys come up and they're
• 48:00
  like kind of video gamer guys. I forgot what they're wearing,
• 48:02
  but they're like, dude, this would be awesome if you had this
• 48:04
  in atomic purple and with a negative display, which means
• 48:08
  black with white numbers. Is that what?
• 48:11
  That is. That one's not.
• 48:13
  So that's my new re release. But so I was like, what's Atomic
• 48:16
  Purple? They're like, oh, it's a Game
• 48:17
  Boy Color from back in the day. It was like it was kind of
• 48:20
  purplish, transparent. So I went back after that show,
• 48:24
  tried to tool it the best I could with the colorway, made it
• 48:28
  and then I did the verse first release.
• 48:30
  I did the negative display and I basically found them on on
• 48:32
  Instagram and I hit him back. I was like, dude, send me your
• 48:35
  address and look what I made. And like, no way you made the
• 48:39
  thing we just talked about. So I was like this one I've I've
• 48:41
  put a little is a new one. That's why I'm wearing it,
• 48:43
  because it's got a bit of a a pink little purple on the on the
• 48:46
  actual display. Very cool, man.
• 48:49
  And then what's the other one you got?
• 48:51
  This one is. I should show you guys this one
• 48:53
  in the dark. This is my wave Finder.
• 48:55
  Where's my keys? Oh, there they are.
• 48:57
  This is my wayfinder diver. And this whole thing lights up.
• 49:01
  Like, it's hard to see it right now, but like, that whole thing
• 49:05
  is 4 different loom paints. That's a differentiator.
• 49:08
  Yeah. Like this thing you go outside
• 49:09
  in the sun and go into that's cool.
• 49:10
  Movie theater. It like, glows the whole time.
• 49:13
  I guarantee you people will ask you.
• 49:14
  That's why I keep one of these with me at all times.
• 49:16
  Let's say I walk into a restaurant.
• 49:17
  I charge this thing up. I'm standing in line for the
• 49:20
  bathroom. Someone's like, hey, what watch
• 49:21
  you wearing? Yeah, that I can.
• 49:23
  I can sell one of these. I can I.
• 49:25
  Can sell one of these just by lighting it up in the dark.
• 49:27
  That's so cool, man thanks. So where, where do you want to
• 49:30
  take the business then over the next five years?
• 49:31
  Like what's your vision? Because I know a lot of a lot of
• 49:33
  us on the show listening, you know, we have aspirations or
• 49:35
  have already done it or are on the way to building a business
• 49:37
  that eventually can run and grow without us, even though it's not
• 49:40
  easy to get there. Yes.
• 49:41
  Is that your path as well? And what are some of the things
• 49:43
  you're doing right now to put you in a position to do that so?
• 49:46
  Confession, I don't have an exit plan.
• 49:48
  I've had people who like they told me your number one thing
• 49:50
  when developing a company is have an exit plan.
• 49:51
  I don't have that yet because I want to still be doing this.
• 49:54
  Like my son has some interest in and he's like 12 so it'd be
• 49:57
  awesome if he wanted to step in. Summer internship.
• 50:00
  I'm doing the summer internship. My two daughters, they're 12:00
• 50:02
  and 9:00. And going to.
• 50:03
  Pay them. They're going to do video work
• 50:05
  with me marketing stuff over the summer, like two days a week.
• 50:08
  They'll make a little money, I'll show them how to invest a
• 50:09
  little bit, and there we go. Experience.
• 50:11
  They'll build some skills, we'll bond.
• 50:13
  Yeah, he packages with me. So sometimes we get through a
• 50:15
  big run, he packages with me, that kind of stuff.
• 50:17
  And he comes to shows. But I know he likes to shop.
• 50:18
  That's the problem. He like leaves the booth to go
• 50:20
  shop. But in terms of like growing the
• 50:23
  business, I need to get, I need to get some more people on.
• 50:27
  So I've my problem is inventory right now.
• 50:29
  So for example, this just I just got a little, it's out of stock
• 50:32
  at the warehouse. So I use one of the things that
• 50:35
  I took a step in this direction was it's just me basically for
• 50:39
  the most part here doing a lot of it.
• 50:40
  And that turns sometimes that's like putting these together, the
• 50:43
  packaging together, folding the stuff.
• 50:44
  So I use I work with an entrepreneur group called
• 50:47
  Innovation to page if you guys have.
• 50:49
  Heard them good for sure. Yeah.
• 50:50
  Awesome. Joe Baron.
• 50:51
  Yeah, yeah, Joe. Came on.
• 50:52
  I'm actually in Alina too. I'm actually going on going into
• 50:56
  event there next week. OK, is it the Wednesday thing
• 50:59
  or? OK, I probably see you there.
• 51:00
  Yeah. Cool.
• 51:01
  So it's Mike Veron had introduced me to Yeah, he
• 51:05
  introduced me to a school called the Seal, which is a school for
• 51:07
  excellence and learning. It's an autistic school.
• 51:10
  So they've got the actual school main campus in Lombard.
• 51:13
  And they've got kind of a graduation side, which is 17 to
• 51:16
  22. So that's the one where they
• 51:18
  kind of teach them life skills. They try and figure out how to
• 51:20
  get these kids to be able to like keep be employed and and
• 51:23
  live on their as close to as on their own as they can.
• 51:26
  So Mike can introduce me to Kim Sacks and now these guys do all
• 51:32
  the packaging of this and this model.
• 51:34
  So they package which is taking a lot of off my plate.
• 51:38
  And then I got a warehouse set up.
• 51:39
  This is all like last year, like at the in the mid last year.
• 51:42
  So then getting the warehouse, a third party warehouse, then I
• 51:45
  can keep that stock and then the stock can flow.
• 51:47
  So my goal is to do a better job of gauging like right now I know
• 51:51
  my things. I need to figure out stock
• 51:53
  levels, which ones do I need to continuously order and have come
• 51:56
  in 'cause I get lost as a designer making something new.
• 52:00
  Like I want to make this new shiny color right where people
• 52:03
  like that. You're the creative.
• 52:04
  Mind, right, right. But people are like, where's the
• 52:06
  clear? Where's the original 1 you made?
• 52:08
  You're out of stock again. So then I've got to be like, all
• 52:10
  right, I've got to keep these models flowing, get them in and
• 52:13
  then time it properly to get it packaged and then get it to the
• 52:16
  warehouse and then have the warehouse on a continuous thing.
• 52:18
  So my step now is to help get is to get inventory constant where
• 52:24
  people can buy stuff online. Maybe they're buying, maybe they
• 52:26
  love it because of the scarcity, but I know a lot of people want
• 52:29
  to jump on the site, buy a third dollar watch and call it a day
• 52:32
  and come back. And then it's to continue to
• 52:35
  grow my the, the culture of the fair and swit like subscribers
• 52:38
  and followers. And then I want to bring on a
• 52:41
  couple more people, one to help me build like the operation
• 52:44
  stuff it and you know, I got a bookkeeper, but I could probably
• 52:48
  use some financial, some CFO advice to help guide me.
• 52:52
  So I just need like two or three people and I think we could
• 52:55
  really, then it would allow me to kind of do more of this type
• 52:58
  of stuff, do more of the selling, open up a retailer too,
• 53:01
  because retailers are a lot of work and you got to make sure
• 53:04
  you're really on it. So retail does help.
• 53:08
  And then I can spend more time designing because I have like 5
• 53:10
  models and I just, you know, to get them and then cash flow to
• 53:12
  get it out. So within the next two years, I
• 53:14
  want to have a couple more people brought on, grow the
• 53:17
  business by another 120% and I love it.
• 53:21
  I think we'll be in a good position do.
• 53:23
  You think that at some point another company will want to
• 53:25
  come in and buy you guys because that could with a product based
• 53:27
  business and if you have a good brand, I feel like depending on
• 53:30
  units sold and things like that, of course, But I feel like
• 53:32
  that's more, it's more of a, a path that you could see
• 53:35
  happening regardless of almost how many people you have.
• 53:38
  And you know, services based businesses, like if it runs, if
• 53:41
  I'm the only person that's running this business, if I'm at
• 53:43
  the epicenter and if you Take Me Out and it doesn't run well,
• 53:46
  then no one's going to buy that shit, right?
• 53:47
  It's going to be, we're going to have someone on site here doing
• 53:50
  the podcast and working with clients.
• 53:52
  We got editors in Philippines and we got AI agents were built,
• 53:55
  you know, so there will this thing will be able to run by
• 53:57
  itself. But if if it can't, then no
• 53:59
  one's going to buy it. But I think with you guys
• 54:01
  especially, it's like, hey, if they got the supply chain, they
• 54:04
  got the branding, they got the products, they got a creative
• 54:06
  designer that can keep this thing going.
• 54:07
  Yeah, that's a potential opportunity.
• 54:09
  Right. No, no, absolutely.
• 54:10
  And I think some like I'm not like the mastermind who comes up
• 54:13
  with the best watches in the world.
• 54:14
  I mean, I got good hits here and there, but you can definitely
• 54:17
  like, like I said, company culture.
• 54:19
  If we can get the right people in and working together, I think
• 54:21
  it could definitely. What do you want to have?
• 54:24
  If we could flash forward five years, 10 years.
• 54:28
  I'd like it to be large enough where I could help point
• 54:31
  directions of ideas. Like here's this idea for this
• 54:34
  watch that's themed on the World Cup or something like that.
• 54:37
  Let's go that route. Here's a couple things and have
• 54:39
  stuff people work with me and then I don't want to have to do
• 54:41
  the warehouse stuff. I don't want to have to manage
• 54:43
  the inventories like that stuff. I do it because you got to do
• 54:47
  it. I would love to be able to in a
• 54:50
  position where I can, I can do the selling like I'm an old
• 54:52
  salesman when it comes down to it, like I like the, I like the.
• 54:55
  Selling I like. Yeah, I like the building of the
• 54:58
  brand and coming up with the fun stuff, like our crazy kill count
• 55:01
  watch. I mean, that kind of stuff I
• 55:03
  like and I'd like to have more. I need more walls to bounce off
• 55:06
  of. Like my ideas I don't have.
• 55:08
  Like I don't have a room where we sit down and do a brainstorm.
• 55:10
  Like it's usually me, sometimes one other designer that I bring
• 55:14
  on, but usually it's me like, and then it I'd spend 2 hours
• 55:18
  and like a design work like with the logo.
• 55:20
  I'm sure like you understand that like design is not linear.
• 55:23
  Like it's not like you put in four hours and you get 4 hours.
• 55:26
  Like editing, you put in four hours.
• 55:28
  You could scrap and have zero. In fact, you could have negative
• 55:30
  because you just killed that that whole thing, it's not
• 55:32
  working. So that's right, that's
• 55:34
  creative. So if I can get more to my focus
• 55:36
  on my creativity and less on the boring LLC or you know, S Corp
• 55:42
  stuff like I need help, I need, I'd rather have someone to grab
• 55:45
  that who knows how to do that and really loves doing that.
• 55:47
  I need the builder. I need the builder to come in
• 55:49
  with operations, bring this thing up, tell us how to do
• 55:51
  better cash flow so I can focus. Because if I don't focus on the
• 55:56
  design, we start to become irrelevant, right?
• 55:58
  Like in the in the watch world, if you just push out the same
• 56:00
  stuff over and over and over and over, like at our level where
• 56:04
  I'm a micro brand. Done.
• 56:06
  Yeah, thankfully these these hit a lot and they'll continue to
• 56:08
  sell and my watches are popular, but I always need to have
• 56:11
  something fresh. Yeah, for sure, man.
• 56:13
  Well, I think it's cool that I can tell that you have a passion
• 56:15
  for the business and the products and what you do.
• 56:17
  And I do too. And I think it's really
• 56:18
  important to have cuz I would, I would listen to an interview
• 56:21
  with Mark Zuckerberg. They were talking about how he
• 56:23
  got like at one point he got like a billion dollar offer to
• 56:25
  sell Facebook. And he was like, well, I thought
• 56:27
  about it. That's a lot of money that's
• 56:29
  obviously life changing, like for many, many generations if
• 56:32
  you're smart with that money. But he said, I thought about
• 56:34
  what I would do if I took the billion dollars, and he said I'd
• 56:38
  probably leave, obviously, I'd leave Facebook and I'd probably
• 56:42
  go start another business that connects people together and
• 56:45
  community. And he knows the soul.
• 56:46
  Yeah, basically. So I kind of just do the same
• 56:48
  thing I would do. So he's like, why wouldn't I
• 56:51
  just continue running the business that I built and that I
• 56:53
  love? Why would I quit this to go do
• 56:55
  the exact same thing somewhere else?
• 56:56
  Yeah. And so it's kind of like, I
• 56:58
  think that's an interesting thought for founders because a
• 57:00
  lot people are like, I want to sell my business, get the
• 57:01
  three-year 5 or tenure, whatever it is, and have the exit plan
• 57:04
  and all that stuff. And that's great if you want to
• 57:05
  do that. We all may do that one day, but
• 57:08
  I think the other side is like, is that really what you want to
• 57:10
  do? You know, is it the best thing
• 57:12
  for you? Wouldn't you just want to go
• 57:14
  start something else? And so it's something to think
• 57:15
  about. Yeah.
• 57:16
  No, for me, like, I, I love this.
• 57:18
  Yeah. Granted, I do get burned out a
• 57:20
  lot. Yeah, but I love it.
• 57:22
  The watch shows the people. Yeah.
• 57:24
  The day-to-day. Like I always tell people when I
• 57:25
  have a bad day, I asked for this.
• 57:27
  Like I tell myself, you asked for this.
• 57:29
  This is what you wanted to do. You stepped away from the
• 57:30
  corporate stuff to do this. So do it.
• 57:33
  Yeah. Like and and we were talking
• 57:35
  earlier. Like I love that.
• 57:36
  Hard work like nothing. Nothing that's easy is going to
• 57:39
  be good. And the really good stuff are
• 57:41
  hard, yeah. So you got to deal with it.
• 57:44
  Yeah, I think I'll step away when I don't feel the passion
• 57:47
  for it anymore. Yeah, I'm sure there's a time
• 57:48
  when you're like, I'd rather be surfing or whatever.
• 57:50
  Or just start a different business or something.
• 57:52
  I think you go through phases where you're like, I've done
• 57:54
  this for 10 years, whatever, 1520 years and you're like, all
• 57:57
  right, I'm ready for another chapter or there's something
• 57:59
  else that excites me that I'd love to go do.
• 58:01
  And then that's where it's important to build your business
• 58:03
  as an asset, not just ran through you cuz you do have that
• 58:06
  flexibility to say, I actually could walk away or I could
• 58:09
  continue running from an advisor level, but have somebody else
• 58:11
  run the actual company day-to-day.
• 58:12
  And that's where it gets exciting.
• 58:14
  So, Adam, this is an awesome conversation, man.
• 58:16
  I had a lot of fun having this conversation too.
• 58:18
  I appreciate you bringing everything out too and
• 58:19
  highlighting all this. Where can people find you,
• 58:21
  connect with you, buy from you guys, learn more about.
• 58:23
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 58:24
  So our website is fair and sweet and I'm going to spell it out.
• 58:27
  FARANDS wit.com that's where most of our transactions happen.
• 58:34
  You can always e-mail me at adam@ferrenswit.com.
• 58:37
  Follow us on Instagram. The handles Ferrenswit as well.
• 58:40
  Find us at Cottage Hill Diamonds is in Elmhurst.
• 58:45
  We've got Delzelle, which is in Crystal Lake, Jack's West End in
• 58:52
  LaGrange, so I've got different retailers in the area if you
• 58:54
  want to get hands on. And you can always ping me and
• 58:56
  I've, if I can meet you at the library or for coffee and show
• 58:59
  you the watches in person. That's another great, great
• 59:01
  thing I like to do. But yeah, follow along with the
• 59:04
  journey. Love it, man.
• 59:05
  Pick up some watches, guys by from a local business.
• 59:07
  Adam, thanks for being on the show.
• 59:08
  Thank you guys so much for watching and being here.
• 59:11
  And we'll see you on the next one.
• 59:12
  Thanks.