Switzerland Trip Made Me Rethink My Watch Design

Early start, long day today. We're just off to the airport to go to Switzerland. We've got two meetings today. After all, we're going to a box company that will make watch boxes. And they make for some of the biggest watch companies in the world. I'm excited to go and see the box company. I mean, they make really, really incredible stuff. So hopefully, we can work something out and make something pretty special for our watch. Don't want it to be standard like everything else we've done with this project. So yeah, really interested to see what they can do. I think with this watch, it is about finding the best people in Switzerland to make the watch. There's not one place where you can just go to and make everything. I think if you've got that kind of watch, it's not really what we're looking for. Every single millimetre of that watch has been handmade and thought about so much. There's thousands of hours of thought gone into like where every bit of metal is going to be placed, what bits are going to be polished. We are at this stand for one day. We're literally coming, we're going to have these two meetings from Basel to Geneva, fly back this evening. Really excited for these meetings. I mean, they're two big things I've really wanted for our first meeting for the lapping machine. This is something we can take back to the workshop and sort of up our level with our prototypes. That's what this machine's for. So we can get that finish in what they do get in Switzerland. So when we're refurbing our watches, if people bring them back, we can sort of make sure that we've got the same standards that they've got in Switzerland as well. So this machine's quite important to get them super sharp edges, what we get on watches. And if you are going to be one of the big boys in the watch industry, we need one in the workshop. It's no question really. Bibbing is driving me insane. So every new car now, when you go over the speed limit, it bibs. So every car I get in now, it's constantly bibbing me. Even if you go like one mile an hour over, we're not even going fast. I mean, it's just bibbing the whole time. It's driving me insane. We're looking for the best people. That's why we drove all over Switzerland, trying to find the people who make that cog the right, the people who make the glass, the people who make the cases, the people who make the rubber straps. They're all different people who are really passionate about that one thing about the watch. And that's what we've been looking for. That's why we've come to Switzerland so much and done so much driving, meeting people, just to try and get all these people to collectively working on this one amazing timepiece. You just stand over your idea, they make your watch and give you it back. It's not what we're looking for. We're looking for something special. And I think these companies who just make everything and just print your name on it, it's not what we're looking for. We're looking for the best people make the product and collectively put it all together. That's how you make something which is quite special. And that's what we're looking for. We're not looking for a mass production watch. We're looking for someone who spent hundreds of hours on one timepiece. That's what we're looking for the best. So we wanted to bring like these people were meeting something English and got on some tea and biscuits, very English because we had a meeting a little while ago and they was from France and they brought up some French chocolate, which was really, really good and I thought what a nice touch. So now we've sort of nicked that idea and we'll see where we go now. We take them saying like tea and biscuits from England. Yeah, we're four minutes away to our next, first, well, first, next, next, first meeting. Beep, beep, beep, beep. I'm not even that fast. It's quite funny like building this watch. All these places that we're going just literally, I'm not in the middle of nowhere, but like in these middle villages. We're in Lange and Volstrasse doing a meeting. It's just like all these little tiny little villages all dotted around Switzerland who specialise in like even a screw. You think about a little tiny screw wherever you made it or it's a custom made, but there's a little factory who make them in a little man in somewhere in Switzerland. All these funny places. It's quite cool. If we don't like the machine, we take the tea and biscuits back and have them ourselves. I think it's this one in the corner. There's a sign there for it. Where? In there? Yeah. In there? Yeah, I think so. Is that it there? Yeah. No. Let's have a look. Yeah, it is. Oh. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Yeah, so just finished the meeting. The machine's quite incredible. We're getting it. So they're delivering it actually like about three weeks time. On to the next meeting now. Two and a half hour, three hour drive to the watch boxes. But yeah, they don't like letting you over in Switzerland for some reason. So we need to get some, yeah, we need to bring like a GT3 out here, I think, for when we do these watch journeys. We need something a bit faster than what we can rent from a rental company. Yeah, that is the, or helicopter. That's the bigger dream. You have to dream big. I mean, you've got to get their son out. It was always a bit of a dream to make a watch, but actually being here now and actually having this watch in production and literally sold out before we've even launched it, when I wore it once, quite amazing. So that's, that's been really incredible and I can't wait to actually get it launched properly and see what the reaction's going to be to it. But yeah, it's been so exciting. I can't believe we've actually got to this point where we've actually got a watch what people really want, which is quite, quite fascinating. Then you are getting to a point where the wider audience is going to see it. They're going to look at it. They're going to have their judgments on it. And it's all these choices you've picked over these years. People are going to start looking at and sort of, I mean, probably comparing it to other watch brands and stuff like that. So yeah, it is a pretty nerve-wracking thing. But yeah, I'm excited on the other end too. I never design to keep people happy or design what I think's right and what I think looks good. I think if you're designing to try and make a certain person happy, you're never going to get the design that you want. So I always design, the watch is basically everything I would want in a watch. And hopefully when people like that, it's, this watch is not for everyone. It's, it's a very bold statement watch. It's about, we're holding back on nothing. We've held back gold. If we want to use gold, we use gold. Nothing's been held back. It is a real, real extravagant timepiece with the amount of work that goes in it. And at the end of the day, all the work, the gold, the precious metals, the way it's polished and finished, it's just to tell the time. So yeah, it's not going to be for everyone. An Apple watch is quite good for some people, but some people want something on their wrist, which has been made by all these amazing people who took like years and years to learn a craft and that's what they want on their wrist. We're nearly at our second meeting now. It's been about two and a half hour drive. I've got some ideas in my head, but the box again is really tricky because I don't know what things can be used, what they can't, and these people are the best at it in the public world. So yeah, I can't wait to meet them and see their thoughts. Three and a half hours, we're in now. I'm literally speechless on what they can do with boxes. It's just incredible, like the wood veneers. I mean, everything they can do is insane. The most amazing brands, they do the best boxes in the world. We were speaking to them and I was talking about, I really want this special for a rubber strap and this, and they said, oh, we've got a department for that. And I was like, okay, this is going to be another rubber strap, but they took us down there and sort of explained what they can do. And that's going to just up, just going to put another level on our watch now. I think they do like this process of a rubber strap, where they hand make them and they put leather on the back. And yeah, it's going to be incredible. And I think that's what we're going to go with now. We're going to change what we had, the idea we had originally of just a rubber strap and use these custom handmade ones. They are next level, I think, on luxury finishes. This company works with just the biggest brands. I mean, every big brand I can name they work with and they do rubber straps and boxes and they do other things as well, but we didn't even get into that. But yeah, they're the people we need to be with if we want to be the best at what we're trying to do here. Definitely not going to be sleeping this weekend. I've got to go and design literally another rubber strap with them. We've got to design the boxes with them. Yeah, and it's all made in Switzerland. There's nothing made elsewhere. This is the best of the best stuff. It's endless and I can't wait to just get on that road and just keep working on developing this watch, making different versions, getting people excited, building that sort of club of people we're enjoying.