This is Open Work, a look inside the watch industry, a podcast from Collective Horology. I'm Asher Apkin, co-founder of Collective, and I'm going to be doing our first solo podcast interview here without Gabe, so buckle up. Collective Horology is an independent watch retailer based in Southern California. We carry a wide range of independent brands, including Chappick, Garrick, Nicholas Hacco, and more. To learn about us and check out our available inventory, visit collectivehorology.com.
Today on the podcast, I am extremely proud to have a former client, current friend, and now fellow founder on the pod, Thomas Fleming of Fleming Watches. Thomas and I met a few years back through the indie watch scene, and both Gabe and I followed the development of his watch company, Fleming, with a great deal of interest as it developed.
While Collective and Fleming are different companies, we do both share a similar origin, starting something from scratch, and that's what I want to dive into today with Thomas. Everything from what it means to build a strategy, raise funding, and develop the branding for a company, to how it feels to finally put something that you care about so much into the world. So with that, welcome to Open Work, Thomas.
Thank you for having me, Asher, and this is my first podcast, so I'm nervous but excited, and there's no one else I'd want to do it with. Thank you. Well, I'll make sure to avoid all the super hard-hitting questions. Before we dive into Fleming, I'm going to ask for just one minute or less. We both ran into each other in Geneva, as people do during Watches and Wonders. And I'd love to know, your watch aside, what was the number one piece that you saw that blew your mind?
That's a great question. I would say from a technical perspective, Cyrus came out with this. Honestly, it's beyond even my understanding to say what exactly it is. There's two tourbillons. The whole thing rotates. I think there's a jump hour. I mean, I'm not even smart enough to understand what was going on there, but I know it was developed. It took six years of development to get out, and I thought from a technical perspective that was by far the coolest thing I saw.
I mean, the RCC2 with rubies was pretty cool from an aesthetic standpoint, point sure but that's not that's not exactly a hot take there thank you for sharing that i've been enjoying asking people that if anyone's wondering what mine was it was the singer dive track and if you haven't had a chance to check that watch out i highly recommend it it's very unusual to see somebody completely reinvent something as well trodden as a dive watch with
a completely novel design so have a look there all right cool i think everyone's probably sick of talking about watches and wonders so thank you all for indulging us on that one minute i'd like to dive right in now and just start a little bit with setting the scene here. You're a relatively young guy, and we won't out your age, but you're a young guy starting a really exciting business. I'd love to start a little bit with the basics here. What were you doing before you started Fleming?
And then I'm just curious what pushed you over the edge? Because as I think most entrepreneurs can attest, we all sort of look for the perfect moment to start a business, and that doesn't really exist. So there's usually something that pushes you over the edge? And I'm curious to know what you were doing before and what pushed you over the edge to start your business? That's a great question. So all out my own age, I'm 27.
I was 23 when I started doing this and I was just about not even a year out of college. And in college, I'd started this company with some classmates where we were working on the intent of the company was to develop these all natural beverages that didn't really compromise on taste, but you could drink and not feel guilty. So just like a Hoterology watch company. Exactly. I mean, a totally natural transition. But we were preparing to launch in the spring of 2020.
And as everyone knows, the world went a little bit crazy there. And we said, I mean, it's maybe the only smart decision we made the entire time on that company, which was to say, okay, why don't we not launch this in the middle of a global pandemic? There's enough going on that's hard enough to launch a startup anyways. Anyways, let's just give it a couple months, let things calm down and see what happens. And after that, I mean, I'd been into watches for a long time since high school.
And I think a lot of people got super into watches and in pandemic to say the least. I mean, we all had not much to do and a lot of time on our hands. And I started reading up, I mean, honestly, just on everything. And it's sort of embarrassing how much time I spent researching watches, thinking about watches, is talking about watches online, photographing watches during those early days of the pandemic because there really just wasn't much else to do. You couldn't go anywhere.
You were trapped in your house. So it was a great sort of outlet for a lot of people and myself included. But I'd had, I mean, I think every enthusiast dreams of sort of starting their own company or making their own watch, but totally in an abstract sort of way. It wasn't something I ever thought I would be doing myself. self.
And I had this idea where if you were to start a watch company, you'd need to have a gazillion dollars and a watchmaking background and you'd be Swiss and you'd have to make a manufacturer where you have a thousand artisans doing a thousand different things. And. I just thought, I mean, again, it was something I thought was totally outside the realm of possibilities. And again, thought it would be cool and thought sometimes, okay,
what would I do? Or like, if I could make any wads, what would I make? But again, it was totally just a fun thought experiment and abstract. So I started reading up, I kind of got more into the independent scene and not just the independent scene, but also reading up more about how the industry actually worked versus maybe just my conception of how the industry worked.
And I started hearing about brands, which I knew about MB&F and I knew about Ming, but reading more about the backstory behind them and how they actually operated. And I realized, okay, there's actually some new brands now coming out where they're sort of doing everything in a non-traditional way compared to what you'd expect from the Swiss watch industry.
Whereas, I mean, Ming especially didn't have a manufacturer, didn't have a background in watchmaking, was from Malaysia, and he built a really successful brand. So I started thinking at that point, I was like, okay, I wasn't thinking, okay, I'm going to do my own thing. But I started thinking, okay, there's actually maybe room in the market. And also, it's just flat out, maybe possible, if difficult, to do things.
I mean, you don't need a manufacturer and a gazillion dollars and to be Swiss and to have a watchmaking making background to make a watch. There's other people doing it too. And then at the same time. The fact it's not that any one approach is better than any other one, but I think it's one of the fun things about art and watches too, is there's a lot of different approaches and they all sort of have merits and produce different outcomes and are interesting to different people.
And I mean, that really sort of took hold in me in those early days in the pandemic.
That make one thing that i i think is interesting because you brought ming up and as somebody who is also in in that space you i'm curious how you think about this because when i look at ming one of the things that i feel like makes him so successful makes that brand so successful is that they have an incredibly clear aesthetic north star which is to say that whatever ming you're looking at whether it's a two three four five thousand dollar ming or a secret project Project Cave,
you know, which can get up to $50,000 plus. There's no doubt across the room that what you're looking at is a Ming watch. And that's a very strong element that I think has helped that brand grow as significantly as it has. We're going to get to Fleming and how it all works. But I'm curious, at the highest order, what is the one thing that you feel defines Fleming as a brand? And then how did you get to that one thing? What was the process that got you to that defining element?
So I think for us, my ultimate goal is that our approach is well-respected enough that we can make any sort of watch we'd want and go into all these different areas of horology, whether it's making a dress watch or making a diver, making an ultralight watch or something completely different, and have people respect sort of our approach and the way we create it enough that it doesn't feel weird that we're sort of doing that.
Where I think a lot of brands are known for making divers or sport watches or lightweight watches or whatever it may be. And I think for us, I think the way we went into making this first watch and the way we'll go into making every watch going forward is we come up with a concept and whatever that concept is.
We say, okay, how can we approach this in a way where with all the resources available to us how would we realize this and sort of what we feel is the best way possible so for us and then for different watches that can be completely different where the realizing a diver in the best way possible isn't necessarily going to mean doing a crazy enamel dial and making the case out of solid gold and it's a hundred thousand
and then it's totally unusable underwater that that's completely different from making a dress watch.
Like this first watch where we we did use precious metals and did use a lot of hand finishing and hand crafting listening to you talk it sounds like the way you're approaching this is almost as a technical and creative lab which is to say you have yeah so you have this idea of what you're trying to get to and then you you're not limited by being a manufacturer that has a house style per se exactly and i think too we're also not limited i mean there's certainly drawbacks to
being a brand new brand with with zero history to go off of but the the flip side of that too is you're also not restricted by that history where even really successful brands they they have expectations already and if they deviate outside those expectations it's unclear whether that'll be a positive or negative thing or how it will be received by by the market and when you have a new brand i mean again you have you have no
history to fall back on which is i mean can be difficult but it also forces you into creating something new and you can really do whatever you want. So, doing whatever you want comes with a price tag. And I think everyone, again, whether you've ever started something in the world of horology or you've started any business of your own, is well aware that capital is a critical component, as is cash flow, to the development of a successful business.
I don't know if we've ever cracked this super corny joke on the pod before, but it's one that's been around the industry for a while, which is, hey, Thomas, what's the fastest way to become a millionaire in the watch business? Let's start as a billionaire. in there. There you go. So there you go, everyone. You're welcome.
Exactly. It floats around. So keeping that in mind, one of the things that we've asked lots of different people, whether it's, Xavier from Chapek or how we talked about ourselves very honestly, is startup capital and cashflow. So what approach did you take to funding Fleming? And I'm curious if you could share a perspective on what you see as the positive of that approach or what you see as a challenge to that approach?
So I was fortunate to be in a position where my family was willing to back me in this. And I mean, I totally understand that's not an option. I would say most people have. But for me, it was something, I mean, we thought about raising capital. We actually had unsolicited offers for investing later. And some of them have been interesting, but we've turned everything down so far. And sort of, I mean, my goal, and when I started out, there's no way anyone
would have invested in this. I mean, I had no background in the watch industry. I was 23 years old. I didn't even have a clear plan of exactly what I wanted to create or where I wanted to go with this for maybe a year.
So there's no way, I mean, I could have raised any money in the beginning, but outside of that, once you get a little bit going, okay, you could say, okay, we could do a subscription system, we could do a crowdfunding system, we could go try to raise capital from existing industry players or collectors or whatever it may be. But I thought it would be better to keep everything in the family.
And again, was lucky to have that option just because it meant we had total control over every aspect of it. Now, the drawbacks of that were certainly we had less capital to play with than we would have had had we gone to raised outside money or maybe done a subscription system and you have to fund everything yourself and you don't necessarily know exactly what everything's going to cost up front so it can can get more expensive than you think rather quickly.
But at the same time, there's it's so difficult to get started. And it's so difficult to even figure out what you yourself want, and sort of what your your vision is and get that clarity. And I think having 1020 even, I mean, we're selling 41 watches, we if we did a subscription system, we have 41 people that we're all trying to make happy, and they all will want to have some input.
And even if they're believing in your vision, they're going to have their own sort of idea of how to tweak your vision, that that And again, none of it's good or bad, but it's just hard to reconcile all of that, especially in the beginning.
So I thought early on, it would be really great to just have the opportunity to create the first couple of watches with one unified vision and not have to worry about investor concerns or collectors preferences or a thousand different suggestions and you're managing expectations.
Expectations or maybe you take deposits at some point and everyone who puts down a deposit is obviously happy with what the watch looks like at that point and then a couple months later you say actually we can make this change and make it better or maybe something gets delayed and then suddenly you're not maybe doing things in the way that you think are best but you're doing things in a way that sort of manages their expectations and
also make sure the watch is okay and it just gets It's much more complex than just making the best watch you can. So I wouldn't be opposed to down the line if it made sense for something we wanted to raise outside capital or there was someone who we thought could be a good strategic investor and could help us do something we couldn't do on our own. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to that. But just in the beginning, having the opportunity to do something where we operated
on our own timeline, we got to make exactly what we wanted. and we weren't under pressure to do anything except sort of just create the best watch we could. I thought it was really unique and important to get off to a good start.
That's something that I think Gabe and I can really empathize with, which is making sure that if we ever did take an investor, and we haven't yet in our business, if we ever did take an investor, that there was more than just a financial component to it, that there was a strategic component to it. And perhaps a door that we never thought would open opens or an opportunity that we had not thought of presents itself through that kind of investment.
To that end, I'd like to talk a little bit about the strategy behind the brand. So one thing that really was burning in my head as I walked around the Pal Expo last week or the Beau Ravage or Time to Watches or what have you, is that if you think about it, there's really two buckets that brands rely on for developing, at least in my mind, for developing their value. One is actual watchmaking prowess and a unique aesthetic perspective, right?
So in other words, is there a there there with the actual watchmaking, or is it just a run-of-the-mill production watch, et cetera? And then there's brand value and a clear and well-articulated strategy. I'll give an example of a brand that I think does both really well, and that's Rezance in the world of the independents.
It's an incredibly well-articulated brand that really communicates the avant-garde approach to watchmaking that is then really backed up by a legitimately creative and aesthetically driven but mechanically interesting watch. So in many ways, hat tip to Benoit because both the brand and the watch, I think, operate at a similar level. And that's not something that you generally see across the brand. I'm sure we can all think of many brands in our heads that are essentially stuffed
shirt brands, right? Where it's like all marketing and all brand and the watches are whatever. And then vice versa, I'm sure we can all also think of incredible watchmakers who have no brand to speak of. And the reason I bring that up is that I find as we speak to, as we speak to clients, that both of those things are are important. And both of those things help drive confidence in a buying decision, confidence in an investment, and confidence in the watchmaking.
So I'd love to talk a little bit about the way you approached the brand, because there's a couple of interesting things here. One, you put your name on the watch, and I want to talk about that. I also want to talk about some interesting choices that you made in marketing, which is to say, you brought a brand ambassador into the marketing world well before you had ever released a watch, which was a really interesting play.
So why don't we start at the top with your name and why it's on the dial and why you made that choice, because I'd love to get into that. And then let's talk a little bit about your brand ambassador and why you made that choice. Of course. So for the name, to be honest, that wasn't something when I started out that I wanted to do at all. And I spent months and months and months, even at some point, I had a copywriter help us try to come up with different names.
Can you share some of those out of curiosity? One of them was, they're so bad. I think I blocked them mostly out of my mind, but one of them was Louv, L-E-U-V-E, which is, I mean, it's just terrible. And so, I mean, thankfully, we didn't end up coming up with anything we liked. And everything just felt sort of contrived. And I think in some ways, that's sort of why we ended up just using my last name. It's, I mean, it's not something we're just making up.
It is a name. And I think it's important to have, especially, I mean, we're asking a lot in the beginning of a customer to wear a brand new brand. I'm very young, not a watchmaker. and we're asking for 50,000 for watches. So I think it's important to show them that there's someone standing behind the brand and sort of putting their reputation at risk there. That's interesting. So not to interrupt you, but that's unusual.
So basically you're saying part of the reason why the brand is what it is is an element of accountability? Yes. I think so. I mean, not to say I wouldn't do the best I could otherwise. I certainly would, regardless of what the name was. But I do think when you're starting out, it's helpful for people to be able to very clearly see sort of who's responsible for it and understand. stand.
I just think knowing, because especially, I mean, most of the people buying the watch aren't, they didn't get to meet us in person. They're contacting us through Instagram or through email. A lot of them aren't in the same country. A lot of them aren't going to get to see the watch in person first.
So I think at least being able to connect and sort of know the person behind it and the person responsible for everything is helpful in showing, okay, this is a real thing, even though I maybe can't touch and see and feel it right away. This is a real thing and there's real people sort of behind this, which of course is always true. But if you come up with some name like the Louvre and the just totally contrived names we're coming up with, I think it feels, I mean, people sense that it is
contrived, I think. People are smart. And also I think it sort of puts a little bit of distance between the people behind it and what the product is to where, I mean, sometimes, and I've talked with other people where they see a brand and they think the watch is interesting, but they don't really know what the deal is or who's behind it or what's going on one way or the other. And I think just having a face and a name there is helpful.
So that's actually a perfect transition into borrowing or trading on the credibility of a existing athlete. And I don't mean that cynically. I mean, that's essentially what having a brand ambassador is. So talk to me a little bit about who he is and why you chose him and why he chose to work with you. So, it's, and I think you'll see as I start telling the story, none of this was planned and none of it makes sense and certainly none of it's typical.
But I mean, things just work out the way they work out and obviously we're happy they did. But I'd had this idea since very early days even before I actually started working on Fleming for this sort of watch that's kind of what I'm calling the ultimate companion to life where I think watches to me, they get value both from what goes into them and design considerations and the watchmaking and everything but then also the way they interact with people afterwards.
Once you've made a purchase, when you wear a watch, It sort of is a companion to your life and it's with you during important events, unimportant events, good days, bad days, everything. And I think that's one of the most powerful things about watches is that over years and decades and sometimes longer, they sort of can act as vessels for these emotions and memories and events and even people. And I'm with you. I'm wearing my son's birth watch today. Yeah.
So I think for us, I mean, for me, one thing is it's obviously important to consider what goes into making a watch, but also try to make watches that will be really good companions to people's lives. And they'll be watches people will want to wear a lot and thus that they'll develop these really strong emotional connections with over years and years and years.
So I had this idea for a watch that was super comfortable, super light, shock resistant, something you could wear to work, you could wear with a suit, you could wear in the pool, you could wear playing tennis, you could wear, if you're playing with your kids, you don't have to worry about banging it around.
Just something people is super comfortable that they could wear and they would find exciting and visually captivating, but also that was just something they reached for over and over and over. And I'd had this idea and there's a marketing angle to it for sure in terms of just reaching a wider audience. But there's also a developmental angle in terms of, I'd had this idea to work with an athlete ambassador on the development and again, also marketing of this watch since I first had the idea.
Because and again it helps you reach a wider audience that that's obvious but at the same time if you have someone and like casper he's a top 10 tennis player in the world he's testing these i mean we'll be testing these and grand slams and everything and if it can hold up to that and not get broken and also be comfortable enough to not impact his play i mean he's he's able i i like tennis i can play tennis but i can't test
and validate the watch in conditions like that and And the watch will be objectively, aside from any marketing thing, better for having him involved in sort of the testing and development. So I'd had this idea for a watch, an idea for an athlete ambassador for a long time. And I've been a tennis fan for a long time and have tracked it. And I'm also half Norwegian. I don't know how familiar you are with Norwegian sports or not, but there's not a lot of great tennis players from Norway.
So when he came along, it was pretty notable. and aside from that he just he seemed to be a really great guy so he was someone i was thinking okay maybe a couple years down the line once we get a couple watches under our belt and if we do a good job with those and if we get a good reaction then maybe we can put something together and approach him and sort of tell him about my idea and work with him on that and but but it wasn't something i was thinking honestly would would happen
certainly not in the the near future and then 2022 came around and he i mean he was a good player very good player in 2021 but 2022 he made the french open final and then he made the u.s open final and he was a set away from being world number one and ended the year at world number two and i mean at that point i was thinking okay he's he's definitely going to be signed to a watch deal in the next couple months and if i don't
like i'm I'm just going to send an email or try to get in contact some way just so that when I see him on a Rolex advertisement and I don't feel bad about myself or like not trying given I'd been thinking about this for years. So I go on his website and he had like a general inquiries email. You put the contact form. I don't remember. I think it was an actual email address instead of a form, but it was, I mean, it was literally just, I mean, anyone could email it.
And I said, okay, basically, this is who I am. Everything I basically just told you. And I didn't play it up or make any big promises. I was super transparent with, okay, this is who I am. This is what I'm trying to do. And this is where we are right now, which at that time, we hadn't made a complete watch.
And also I totally get that Casper is number two in the world and probably has offers from everyone including existing well-regarded brands and if this isn't interesting like I'd like I totally get it I mean the worst startup this is a long shot I just wanted to reach out in case by some miracle it was and I forgot about it again I didn't I didn't expect any response I mean why would the number two tennis player in the world be interested in signing on with people who haven't
made a watch for a watch deal. But at least I knew I wouldn't feel bad about myself when someone else signed him. And then a month later, I get an email back and said, actually, yeah, you're right. Casper has had a lot of offers, but he's super into watches and we haven't had any offers that have really connected with Casper, but this sounds really interesting. And it's something he likes, not just from a commercial perspective, but just from a fun interest perspective.
This sounds really cool to us. We'd love to talk more and get to know you and see if maybe there's something there. So we emailed back and forth a lot. We did some Zoom calls, and then I went to Norway to spend two or three days with them.
And we didn't really talk business or anything it was more of just making sure we got along on a personal level, and and we sorted something out and and so that's kind of how it all happened the timing is super weird and the whole thing was like non-traditional and I still like don't know how it really even happened it's so crazy but but that's sort of how we ended up with an ambassador before we'd actually made a watch.
It's, it's interesting to hear you say that because one of the things that, that I, so we get asked occasionally, you know, how did you, how did you make a collaboration with this person or how'd you get into business with them? And one of the, the most honest answers I can give is because I didn't realize it was a ridiculous ask to begin with.
Yeah. Because I was, that's one of the interesting things about, about being an entrepreneur, I think, is that sometimes it is actually to your benefit to go into an industry that you don't know, top to bottom, because then you don't know, I mean, yes, you're going to step on rakes, you know, that's inevitable. And we're going to talk about that in a moment. But you also are a little bit, at least I found more fearless when you don't know what you're really up against.
For example, I don't know that I would have the proverbial balls to go to work now and ask them to collaborate. But when we did, you know, four years ago, I just did it because I think Felix and Martin are cool and we had a neat idea, which is a very naive approach, but is what ended up, I think, leading to the success of that.
That if I thought about it now, knowing what I know now, half a decade later, there are all these questions and reasons why it would be difficult and things that would make it hard and relationships I have that, you know, I might have toes that I step on, et cetera.
So sometimes I think being, you know, naive, and I mean that in the most positive way, about what you're doing can lead to the sorts of like, I have no idea how this happened, but it happened moments, which help us grow as businesses. Now, the flip side of that is that occasionally, or maybe not so occasionally, we all make mistakes. And some of those mistakes, if not all of those mistakes, are teaching moments. Some hurt a lot more than others.
I'm curious if you could share, insofar as you're comfortable, a mistake that Fleming made, the company, that really kind of knocked you off your axis. I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about that. I'd say there are probably two early on that come to mind.
And the first one I would say would be doing too much too soon where I'd had this idea and I still believe it's true to where if we shouldn't just focus our efforts on sort of making one watch and then see how that goes and then go back to the drawing board if it goes well and come up with future things where I think it was important. Way of trying to build a brand to get the first watch and obviously to consider everything and do the best job we could with it and get that out.
Also to have a plan in place to where if we got some momentum with it and did a good job, how we could continue on afterwards and not just be sort of back to the drawing board, starting at zero again. So, I mean, I'm glad sort of I had that idea from the start, but at the same time, in probably the first six months, I'd never designed anything in my life. And I'm trying to design four completely different watches at the same time.
It's scary it's scary when you sit down on a blank page and you try to you try to bring something out of yourself and it's just a blinking cursor yeah i mean and that's exactly right and i think i mean there's so much to i mean the first first certainly year of this wasn't really development it was kind of education where i had no idea what i was doing i mean i still don't really know what i'm doing but but i know a little bit now but the the but i was trying to
develop i mean i was trying to develop a lightweight watch a dress watch tourbillon and integrated bracelet sport watch at the same time in the first couple months of starting and i again i'd never designed a watch i'd never designed anything i was learning cad i was learning how to use 3d printers i mean everything and and it was like i mean i don't know what i was thinking that i was going to produce four great watches and we'd lucky to produce one okay one and i'm working
on four things at the same time and i don't know how the process works so i think i was sort of treading water for a while. Trying to do too much at once with that and then eventually ended up just focusing on the one and then once we sort of got to a good place with that then you can come back to the others but. That was a big one, I'd say, for sure, that slowed us down.
And I'd say the other one would be early on asking just random friends or family members for subjective design advice where you show them a sketch and say, what do you think about this? And everyone says something completely different.
It's like the full context of what's going on. And I think you probably, you and Gabe certainly will understand this too, where when you're working on a project, you're biased yourself and you can sort of see where it's going, even if the current iteration looks really terrible.
And you know that like, you know that given enough time and enough iterations, you'll get something you're happy with, even if you're not there now and you don't know how long it's going to take or what it's going to take to get there.
And I think just sort of dropping that on someone like something again they don't have context to what you're trying to do they don't have context to what the journey has been like or where you're trying to get and then just acting asking for design advice which is super subjective anyways.
Was was a big mistake so I sort of would ask one person that I'd maybe incorporate what they were thinking that I'd ask someone else and they'd tell me those changes I just made were terrible and And then you kind of run in circles a little bit. And then you're also sort of trying to make something for everyone and also for people that aren't you. So, but it was a good learning experience because I think too, I needed that to just say, okay, you know what? I'm going to trust myself.
I can't control what anyone else thinks. And regardless of what I make, not everyone else is going to like it. So I should just focus on making something for myself and that I'm really happy with and can be proud of. And if other people like it, great. If people, everyone hates it, then at least I know I did everything I could to make sort of the best thing I could for myself. So we're going to come back to that as we close out the conversation here.
But you are striking a nerve for me around design. And one of the things that I've come to realize, and I'm lucky in that I have a partner, and that my partner and my taste in watches is very different.
And what that's led us to is a degree of trust in one another because there are watches that we have released as collaborations that I was incredibly nervous about but performed really well because they're not the watches that I wake up thinking about and falling asleep thinking about in the way Gabe does. And that would be something like the IWC C3 or the Aorus C4. These are watches that are deeply, deeply, deeply connected to Gabe.
And I remember looking at them and the IWC in particular, you know, I was always a little nervous about that watch, which is funny because that was one of our better pieces in the long run. But it was one that I never really, I never really was able to wrap my head around in the same way, in the same way that Gabe looked at the Chapek and was like, if you say so, man, I think it's pretty, but I don't, you know, I don't know.
And it's not because we ever didn't have faith in those releases per se. It's just that some people, you know, I gravitate more towards indies. He gravitates more towards sports watches.
But to your point, if you show an independent watch that's, you know, using, you know, it's a hotology piece or uses a, you know, a certain, you know, a Mediator, et cetera, et cetera, love my French, to somebody whose primary watch collecting vocabulary dwells in the world of tool watches, their feedback is going to run through that lens.
You know, in the same way that, that when I look at a tool watch to your point, like, I'm always like, wouldn't that be interesting if we, you know, heightened this or heightened that. And it's like, well, no, not really, because that's not the point. The point of a dive watch is that you can dive with the thing.
And if you knock it against the rock, you're not going to wonder if you've, you know, effed up your guilloche, you're going to wonder, you know, you're just going to make sure that you didn't bash your hand, which is exactly the point of having a hardcore tool watch. So I totally agree with this idea that design by committee is often a very challenging road to go down, but it's a lesson I think a lot of people in any form of design learn as they go through it.
I think your point, too, about having a partner and someone who does have full context and someone you can trust, even if their taste isn't the same, is also important where there's certainly times, I mean, no one thinks of everything. And sometimes you get the design equivalent of writer's block where you get to something and you say, okay, doesn't look quite right, but I don't know exactly what I need to change. And having someone else who can maybe come back with ideas or someone who can
give you input if you do make a change and say, okay, does this look good? Does this not look good? Is also very helpful to where, I mean, I think it's good to have a unified vision and be selfish in designing, but maybe also still good to get gut checked once in a while by someone, again, who you have as context and whose opinion you can certainly trust.
Yeah, I'm thinking about that right now and I won't name check him, but he's a massive figure in the independent watch world who has handled many of our collaborations and it's always super humbling because i'll hand him the watch and he'll look at it for about five minutes then he'll come back and be like this this this and this you're like damn it you're right but in that that's it hear it and then it might take an hour and then
you go okay actually he's right it might take a week it might month now granted in that situation this is you know he is an incredible watchmaker with an incredible brand and in that instance like what and what he's pointing out what's interesting is What he's pointing out is never aesthetic choices, which is to say the creative concept stays intact, but he'll be like, are you sure about this? And this finishing here sucks.
And things like that where you need to take a step back and be like, really? Oh, ouch. Okay. But it's helpful to have that too. So there's the creative feedback and then there's the overall feedback. But then the other side of it, and this is the thing I think...
Often sort of gets lost in the mix too is in the end you have the you know the royal you have the final say and you can take everybody's feedback and listen to all of it and you can choose to take all of it or none of it but in the end you know the question becomes if it stings is it stinging because you know in your heart that it's right or does it sting because the person you showed it to just has no taste you know and it's like or i mean there's people with taste too
and it's just different, which is, which is a hundred percent. But for me with these decisions, I, I, I try to just, and it doesn't mean it's always going to be right, but I can live with myself by if there's a decision, I'm not sure which way to go. And I go with my gut and sort of my own personal view.
I can live with being wrong if it's my choice, but if I go against what I think is best and go with what someone else and then that ends up being a bad choice that's when I would find myself picking myself but I mean I think I empathize with that all anyone can do I think with design or with anything else is sort of trust themselves and do the best they can with all the information all the resources they have available to them themselves
at the time and that doesn't always mean it's going to be a great outcome but I think just for me I try to do things in a way where I can say, okay, did I do the best I could with what I knew and what I had at the time? And if the answer is yes, then there's nothing to regret, even if you did badly. I mean, you live and you learn and you adjust going forward.
But I think, to me, I think the problems would be if you go ahead with something where you go in a direction you don't feel even at the time is the best, and then it ends up not working out. That, I think, would be tough. I totally empathize with that. And on that, I want to close with one last question here. You spend years developing this. You put your family's money into this, which is, you know, still, you still owe it to them, you know?
So it's- I don't know if it's, I mean, I have no point of comparison, but I don't know if it's more or less stressful, but it's, I mean, you're, potentially they're understanding and supportive and everything, but if it didn't work out, it would feel really bad and it's going to fool you around in your closest relationships for the rest of your life. So it's not low stress on that front at all.
So you have the financial pressure, and whether that's money from a bank, money from an investor, money from family, money from yourself, I can certainly speak to that. There is significant pressure, right? Nothing is free. So you have the financial pressure, and then of course you have the creative pressure. You put all of this work into something that you, as you just said, you're proud of, that you found other people who want to endorse it, they're proud of.
You have collectors who you are literally taking personal accountability with by putting your name on a dial of a watch that they're committing to months before they receive it. And then the big day comes, and you launch the watch. As I recall, you had a pretty significant feature in Hodinkee on launch day. I want to just ask you two things. One, and this is like me network newsing you, but how did that feel?
And I'm curious if you could try to encapsulate that moment, because I know you had press prior, but this was the real deal. This launches, and now we're trying to close the sales.
And then what surprised you i'd say first i i don't know how we could have asked for a better launch in terms of if we'd gotten two or three articles that would have been super happy and we ended up getting 25 or 30 and we have some more coming too which and then and we've allocated all of first pieces so we get to going which is nice i felt in the moment super i'm pretty introverted.
And I also, I mean, you go, it's, it's when you're working on this for so long, it's, it's really solitary and you're, you're just sort of, it's kind of yourself and the designs and your own thoughts. And then suddenly it's a gazillion outlets and commenters and people on Instagram and everything. Even if it's all positive for me, it was pretty overwhelming and nerve wracking, even as it's going on, even as everything's going well.
And it's, it's strange too to sort of reconcile the fact that this thing that sort of existed only to you or maybe only to a couple dozen people over the last couple years and kind of came out of your mind is now real and now there's a lot of people thinking about it. And that was just, I mean, it's not a good or bad, it was just sort of weird and I had a hard time wrapping my head around it.
But I think looking back now, it's been about five weeks. I'm really happy with how everything's gone, obviously. And I'm excited for the future launches. And I think for future ones, I'll sort of know what to expect a little bit more. But in the moment, it was just, there's so much going on, even though everything was good. And even though, I mean, you work on it for three and a half years, you have no idea if anyone's going to care, if anyone's going to like it.
And people did like it and people did care and that's that's great and all you could hope for but even in the moment it was super overwhelming but it wasn't positive or negative or anything it was just like overwhelming and sort of weird to think about and i was in a weird headspace honestly for a couple weeks again not not good or bad but just like okay this is it's still like you see the articles you see everything out but it almost feels fake yeah i i totally understand
where you're coming from there. And I appreciate your honesty with that. It's an odd experience when you have the public eye on you in that regard. Well, listen, first of all, thank you for your candor and thank you for being so open with us. We really, truly appreciate you. And we're really excited to see what the future holds for Fleming and what your next watch is. Sure it turns out i was here the whole time i never really left hello.
I did i did really leave but i i did listen so i i edited this this pod and and gave it a lesson and i thought it was worth worth chatting because a couple of things come to to mind first of all clarification for the record we did use the billionaire joke before you know the the fastest way to become a millionaire in the watch industry is to start as a billionaire.
And we used it in the episode with Mike Margolis about watch pricing really around the same point, which is this is a difficult industry. And I think a lot of times when people look at it from the outside, and certainly I did as a collector, it's easy to make just a lot of assumptions about what goes into to a project. And I remember, you know, we saw Thomas in Geneva at Watches and Wonders, which you guys talked about.
And I had a conversation with him there where he was telling me about the launch of the Series 1. And, you know, I asked him how it went and he said, great, you know, it sold out. And that's an amazing accomplishment. And really inside the watch industry, like that's the thing you measure. And then he also mentioned something which I found strange, which is that a few people had messaged him and said, oh man, I'm really sorry this launch was so difficult for you.
And he was sort of puzzled because again, it was commercially successful. And it was because there was some negative commentary about. About the watch and the series one at, at launch as there always is with, with every, every watch. And I think when I, when I, so I went back and I looked at some of the commentary and what I see are people making a lot of assumptions about things that actually Thomas sort of shared and uncovered in, in your discussion with him.
So I'll give you just a couple of examples, right? Like one example would be the name Fleming.
And it's easy to assume, oh, naming a brand after to yourself is simply a vanity play right whereas i think he gave a really interesting and insightful explanation that the reason he went with with it and he did everything he possibly could to to avoid it was because it was important for a new brand to demonstrate that there is someone who stands behind it and is accountable and that was like something that just like never never never even occurred to me or you know the
notion that he's not just interested in making high-end dress watches and wants to explore other watch categories and take a similar approach of like kind of going all out and making the best possible version of something in a different category, which could mean totally different approaches to watchmaking and craft and material and things like that.
So I just think it's important to remember before you jump to conclusions on something, and we're all guilty of this, is that there's often more than meets the eye. I'm reminded, as you say that, I can't remember what it was. I think it might have been on the Armin Strom collaboration.
There was a comment on some coverage of The Watch that remarked that this was just a vanity play for you and me because, quote, we were both Facebook executives and therefore must be extraordinarily wealthy, which is hilarious because that just isn't the case.
But it goes to speak, I think, around sometimes how perception doesn't necessarily align with reality, especially when we're talking about starting a new business where whatever industry you're in, the absolute costs of that and the risk involved is meaningful.
Now, one thing that I really admired about the conversation that we had was a lot of, I think, humility and self-awareness in terms of things like where Thomas's funding came from and the challenges that come with the personal connections that are funding you versus a third party.
I remember when we were thinking about taking funding and we were asking a lot of people, you know, everyone that we know, whether it's a venture capitalist to other small business owners or what have you, about funding sources. And, you know, everybody was, of course, quick to say, well, you should never start a business with your own money, other people's money, OPM, like that's the way to do it.
Which I understand because obviously like playing with somebody else's or building something with somebody else's money mitigates some risk personally, but that it doesn't eliminate responsibility. And I think that's always a thing that seems to get lost. Like just because somebody invests in your business, like they're not going to go away. Investment is about turning ideally a profit. It's, it's, you know, it's a risky venture, but that's the point.
And if you're involved in that with somebody professionally, you know, whether it's a line of credit from a bank, which is highly impersonal, generally speaking, or an investment from a partner, which may be quite personal, there's nothing more personal than taking investment from family. And if you take a step back and you think about that for a moment and you realize what's involved in that, there are very different stakes there.
And I thought, taking a step back and thinking about it, it just reminds me that no matter how you choose to fund the venture that you are engaged in, there will always be risk. And that risk can run the spectrum from financial to social to familial. And that is something to really keep in mind. Yeah. When we were looking at funding options for the business, we looked at everything. We talked about this, I think, a little bit in the episode we did with Xavier from Chapek.
But it was like this Kafka-esque experience or this game of whack-a-mole where every potential source of funding would tell you that there is a better potential source of funding. right? So like I mentioned, I talked to my friend who is a venture capitalist and she told me, oh, you don't want venture money, go get a small business loan. And then you talk to a bank about a small business loan and they'll say, oh, this doesn't really make sense for you.
Why don't you talk to some investors and people who are passionate about your business? And then you think about that and you're not sure if you want your business to be someone else's hobby. And then I had at one point family offer to help support the business with money.
Wait, hang on a second, you did? I did. And I turned it down from the perspective that I didn't want to mix my business with my family because my family, unlike these other potential sources of funding, I have to live the rest of my life with my family. And, you know, doing this business as my career already puts my family at enough risk, right? As it is. So it was something I rejected almost out of hand because I thought, gosh, of all the potential places to accept money.
Family are the folks I can't walk away from, sort of, no matter how they would walk away from. But, you know, you're with these people the rest of your life, or maybe put another way, oftentimes one of the biggest sources of strain in relationships with family, whether it's your spouse or extended family, parents, whomever, is money.
Money and so the notion of of oh it's easy just to take money from from your family or accept funding from your family again it's one of those things where i don't think necessarily perception and reality align and it's often much more complicated than than meets the eye yeah absolutely and you know i think the final point you know when i took a step back and in conversations i've had with collectors just over the years a few things have really stood out and one of them is that, and I mean,
Thomas acknowledges this too, that his name is on the dial, but he himself is not a watchmaker and that that can be perceived as a liability by some. But then I also take a step back and I think, well, there are a lot of brands right now where the persons whose name is on the dial is the designer of the watch, but not the watchmaker. And it brings up a very big question, you know, like one watchmaker that I greatly admire whose design sensibilities are phenomenal is Ming.
Ming is not a watchmaker. He does not make the watches that bear his name, but his design sensibility is so strong that he's able to tell really beautiful stories and create really exceptional art under his marquee through the work of other watchmakers. So I would suggest, at least the way I look at it, in the end, different people bring different things to the businesses that they start. Some watchmakers bring incredible handwork and skill, but they're not the best designers.
And some are phenomenal watch designers who have gone out to find the people who can bring their vision to life. How you choose and how I choose to value that is a very personal decision and is in many ways like how art is, you know, where you see value in it as an individual is ultimately what motivates a purchase decision. But I don't know that I'm willing to make a grand sweeping statement and say like, just because a name is on the dial, that person has to be a watchmaker.
The takeaway for me is more, well, if the name is on the dial, then that name needs to mean something in the context of the watch, whether that's strong design sensibilities, you know, if you want to go to an extreme with like ID Genev, like values, or in the context of someone like Josh Shapiro, for example, actual handwork. But those are three very different things. And it's up to the consumer in the end to decide where that value lies.
Yeah, one one podcast topic, and we can bookmark this for a future episode that I love to do is take a look at how someone like a Ming or Thomas Fleming and there and there are others approached the Swiss watch industry as insiders because they had to go Brett great example they had to go find designers and engineers and suppliers and watchmakers and I can only imagine that's a minefield and it would be really interesting to understand like what that actually looks like,
how you actually go about sourcing all the partners you need to create a watch, and as you like to say, all the rakes that they may or may not have stepped on. So that's a topic for another time. Should we leave it there? Let's leave it there. Well, thanks for listening. This has been Open Work, a production of Collective Horology. You can find us online at collectivehorology.com, and you can find our guest, Thomas Fleming, online at fleming.watch.
Go figure. And to get in touch with your questions, comments, or suggestions, we'd love to hear them. Please email podcast at collectivephorology.com. Music.