Lonely Wrist: All Things Watches & Horology
Lonely Wrist dives deep into the intricate world of watches, unearthing the stories, craft, and passion behind every ticking piece. From timeless classics to modern marvels, this podcast winds through the history, mechanics, and cultural significance of timepieces. Whether you're an avid horologist or just someone who admires the beauty of a well-crafted watch, Lonely Wrist offers a unique perspective, uniting enthusiasts and curious minds. Join us every episode as we explore the art of watchmaking, discuss the latest trends, and interview watch industry experts, all while appreciating the silent yet profound voice of every watch's lonely wrist.
Lonely Wrist: All Things Watches & Horology
Abingdon's Journey from Pilot to Pioneering Watchmaker
As we lift off with Abingdon from the Abingdon Watch Company, her story of ascending from an aspiring pilot to a trailblazing entrepreneur at 22 is nothing short of inspiring. Her commitment to designing watches that marry luxury with functionality speaks to the heart of adventurers and professionals alike. Our conversation takes us through the skies of ingenuity where each watch in her collection offers a narrative of both history and innovation, like the flight computer-equipped Amelia or the ADIS alphabet-laden Catherine.
Imagine a watch that not only tells time but becomes an essential tool in your daily life. That's the reality Abingdon has created for her clientele, Abingdon Crew Members—a community where passion for precision meets the thrill of the adventure. In this episode, we explore the microbrand revolution that Abingdon Watch Company epitomizes, crafting watches with unparalleled utility, such as a strap that doubles as a ruler or timepieces with interchangeable straps for divers. Their dedication to exceptional service, like complimentary battery changes, solidifies their reputation in an industry ripe for change.
Finally, we chart the course of Abindon's future aspirations, where innovation meets empowerment, and every watch is a badge of honor for the wearer's journey. The Abington Foundation's efforts to elevate women in STEM fields echo throughout our discussion, just as their watches echo the spirit of their diverse and daring crew. We're reminded that every tick of the hand is a second filled with potential and every story shared strengthens our connection. Join us on this horological expedition where history is made, one wrist at a time.
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What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Lonely Wrist. You guys are now been coined the Lonely Wristers.
Speaker 2:I think that sounds sounds appropriate.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I just came up to it with where they on the last podcast and just clicked and I was like that actually sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about it the other day and I'm like we call ourselves Lonely Wrist, which means like no watches, but we're watch guys. So like is it really lonely?
Speaker 1:I don't know. Well, the name, the name. Yeah, we were. We were going to talk about your double-wristing here soon, but no, the name came to me because, no matter how many watches you have, like, it's never enough. So that that is where the name came, Not because we don't wear watches, but because we never have enough.
Speaker 2:Because they always feel lonely.
Speaker 1:First world problems. So so today we have a very, very, very special guest gracing us with her presence Abington, from the Abington Watch Company. Say hi, introduce yourself.
Speaker 3:Hi, happy to be here, definitely not gracing me with your presence. You are gracing me with your.
Speaker 1:That's arguable and debatable. I know how busy you are. I see things on the internet, so so yeah, yeah, thank you for for taking the time to spend it with us, and we've been talking, obviously, for a long time. We've known each other for a really long time, but we've been scheduling this and talking about this and dreaming about making this happen for a long time, and so it's finally happening.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, this is actually really neat because I knew about the Lonely Rest when I met you in person at the Windup Watch Fair in San Francisco in 2023, like springtime and you were kind of surprised because I was like oh yeah, blake from the Lonely Rest and you were like that hasn't launched yet.
Speaker 1:It's not an idea yet.
Speaker 3:It was. I know, yeah, it was. It was just kind of brewing at the point at that point. So it's really been just super exciting to see what you've done, how you've grown it, how it's become this big thing. I love it.
Speaker 1:It is surprising, and I was having a conversation today with my friend and he was, like you know, he's been watching from the sidelines for a while and he's kind of was like you, like I was talking about it before it even like manifested or became a real thing, and he was just like we were kind of reminiscing about, like how it's grown so quickly and how it wasn't even a thing like about a year ago, like and now you know, here we are right. So we've been very lucky. We've got a lot of support. We couldn't have done it without, you know, our listeners and our community and I think, for the right reasons, we've been able to grow it, because there's really no incentive for us. As you know, like me and Justin are talking about like this isn't something that we're making money from, this is just a passion project, you know, that has manifested into something something different, you know.
Speaker 3:So I think it's great. Keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1:We're working on it. Less about us and more about you. Tell us about your brand, Abington Co. Tell us about its roots. Tell us about how you got started. Give us some background.
Speaker 3:Sure. So it's kind of neat. We've been. This is our going to be our 18th year in business, so we've been around for a hot minute. But the watch industry has really just started to take notice of us, which is very, very exciting because it's like this whole new market and, just like you said, enthusiasts people who are really into watches has has never been our customer, because when I started this company I was 22 years old. I just learned how to fly and I had my private pilot's license and I wanted to be a career pilot. That was my whole goal, you know, ever since I was like 14, I was like I'm going to be a pro pilot and it's going to be great and I'm going to fly all over the world and get paid to travel and, and when I got my pilot's license, I wanted to gift myself a pilot's watch.
Speaker 3:One of the reasons, by being is the the thing that come in thread that all my flight instructors had said was you have to protect yourself. You know safety first is always a big thing in flying and and it comes down to even your, your body. So, like your headphones, you need to have a good set of headphones, noise canceling if you can to protect your ears, because you only got two, two years. You need a good pair of sunglasses. You need a good watch that would be a backup to the instruments in your flight deck or your cockpit so if you had a failure of anything pedostatic or whatever it might be, you could figure out time, speed and distance or fuel consumption or any of the things that that flight computer E six V slide rule, whiz wheel bezel that they call it on flight watches, aviation watches, could help you with.
Speaker 3:And so I had the headset, I had some glasses, I wanted to gift myself a watch. This was back in 2006. And nothing, it was just absolutely nothing was out there, and especially for somebody like myself, my, my body frame I'm five foot six and 110 pounds, like there's you know anything over a 42, 45, anything like that. It's just, it just looks crazy on, ridiculous.
Speaker 1:So the 48 Navitimers didn't work.
Speaker 3:Well, they didn't quite work. I'm glad they finally come out with smaller Navitimers now, but at the time, you know, 1718 years ago, nothing like that existed. So I ended up getting together with a bunch of girlfriends who also flew airplanes and this was in Santa Monica airport, which is where we all flew, and I was a member of a group called the 99s. So the 99s is a group of pilots that was started by Amelia Earhart and 98 other women back in the early 1900s and it's still an organization today.
Speaker 3:I am an active member I think I'm a lifetime member and and we were all having our Christmas dinner and this was maybe like two or three months after I got my private, so I had given up looking at this point and everybody was talking about what they wanted for Christmas and, of course, you know, one woman's.
Speaker 3:Like you know, I've always wanted a pilot's watch made for women, and they'll just never make anything. And you know what was me? What was me? And they and we all just kind of started talking about it like why, why isn't the industry making aviation watches for smaller risks? And it was like well, because pilots were only 7% of the industry. So when you look at the FAA statistics, women were actually at the time about 6% and in 18 years, almost two decades, we've risen to about seven. Yay, but we're, you know, less than 100,000 people in the United States. That's not a market that a watch company is going to create an entirely different product for right. So I was like okay, I had this idea a couple months ago. Would can you hold on a second while I get my cat to like stop.
Speaker 1:The cat is having a blast back there.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:This is going to be our ad break, which we don't have podcast ad break.
Speaker 3:My husband's back here, so I don't quite know.
Speaker 1:Dad just said all right, I'm done with it.
Speaker 2:He got the zoomies.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sean, would you mind? I don't, I don't know, I don't quite know what to do.
Speaker 1:And it's a cat.
Speaker 2:It's a cat, it's not. It's not like a dog where you can just like put it in like a corner. It's like it's going to do what it wants.
Speaker 3:So, and while she wants to play, that's Sean, that's my husband.
Speaker 1:Hi, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Well, we're going to, we're going to kind of work with it as we can. So this is the fun stuff about the YouTube.
Speaker 1:You know the people that that really watch our YouTube, get some of the nuggets that you don't get from listening.
Speaker 3:So as you know, cat views always elevate a video.
Speaker 1:The chances of vibrality is, that's the 100% higher now Because your cat is in the podcast.
Speaker 3:Hashtag cat.
Speaker 1:I'm sure we had to be tag it.
Speaker 3:Perfect.
Speaker 1:So not just.
Speaker 3:So, so, yeah, so, like I was saying, so I was. I was like, oh gosh, I had this idea A few months ago. I was looking for a pilot's watch when I got my private and and maybe this is something that we should do. And so they were like, okay, sure, you know, young one, you're, you're just starting out, and they're all in their 50s and 60s and I'm like like early 20s, like, oh, gung-ho, yeah, let's do this. I basically said, if I figured out how to do this, would you guys help me design it, Because you have a lot more experience in flying and what would be actually useful to a pilot? I just know the whiz wheel. And, like GMT, I want to have GMT because we always use that for flying. And so they're like, yeah, sure. So I set a deadline from that Christmas dinner to my birthday November 3rd the following year. So it's 11 months and basically that's how I did it. That's how I launched the Abingdon Watch Company.
Speaker 3:I started out as the first pilot's watch for women. We ended up getting a lot of traction. Right at the very beginning I was, I was shocked because really what I was doing was just making this almost as like a hobby, like a watch for my girlfriends and I, because we had all bemoaned the fact that the industry had ignored us, and it turned out that that six, seven percent of women that also fly felt the same way. So it was amazing the reception of starting this you know, micro brand in 2007 when I launched it, which really wasn't even a term back then right, independent watch brand or small watch company. However, I didn't really hear the word micro brand until just a few years ago and when somebody called me a micro brand and I was like I am and we've got just so many thousands of customers worldwide.
Speaker 3:And it turns out that women who fly airplanes often will also scuba dive, or they'll ride motorcycles or race cars, or maybe they're shooting enthusiasts, or maybe they're athletes and you know something, or they're they're truckers, they're hikers, they're travelers and they're doing these incredible things that require tools like a tool watch, to be a part of their gear. And so we don't quite make watches for women as a fashion statement. Yes, they do look beautiful. Pearls, rose crystals, steels, golds all of those things are definitely incorporated, but our concept is to build watches for women who do more, and when I say build watches for women who do more. I mean, we're not designing it, women are designing it. We ask them to design it for us, we just build it. I know how to build a watch. I just need to know what are you going to use it for? So that's. We're very, very like deliberate insane. We build them.
Speaker 3:And then for women who do more we've we've outgrown the aviation side so much and really, if you do look at market research, I can understand why all these watch companies decided to never make a pilot's watch for women, because it's just a small market. You know, it's less than 100,000 people that you would be making a watch for. But if anybody is into like the entrepreneurial or the marketing market research side of potentially starting a brand, a lot of times a brand, a watch brand especially, is started because of one of two reasons. Either one the person who's starting it just hasn't found what they want in the industry, and so they make it themselves. That was my situation, that was my story. Or they see a need, that there's a huge market that has been ignored or left out of the game or whatever it is, and so they make something for them, and so it's.
Speaker 3:If you tried to do market research on hey, let's make a pilot's watch for women, pretty much would be laughed out of every room and that's probably why I didn't raise a lot of money when I was starting out the company. But but I ended up raising my own, you know, using my own money, and friends and family that just believed in me and so it was just a. It was something that blossomed into. I just had no idea it was going to take it this far and I love it and I still fly. I'm still very much an active pilot and I used to fly at the airlines and I've done corporate and I've ferried airplanes around the world and I've got, you know, 4,000 hours and I've the biggest plane I've flown. I have a lot of time in the Airbus A321 and I've flown the 747 and a bunch of different things, and so I still very much do what I am passionate about in flying.
Speaker 3:But when you really do get down to like the foundation of watchmaking and flying, they're actually very similar. It's mechanical there's, you know, not a gremlin hidden inside, as much as sometimes you find a watch that you're like what the hell is going on. But airplanes are kind of the same way sometimes, but you can always break it down to just parts. You've got a power source, you've got reliability that you need, you've got function in both, but yet they are both artistic, they're both beautiful, they're both. It's both a piece of art. I think an airplane is absolutely sexy, as much as I think a watch can be very, very sexy as well. So it's been a pleasant marriage of two things that I just I never in my wildest dreams thought that this would be my life 18 years later.
Speaker 2:I love. I love that most guys take like the automotive industry and they push that envelope with watches and you were like, screw that, we're doing planes, Like. I love that, though, and I'm curious where you added in you know, walk us through some of your collections that you guys you know cater to some of your different customers that have different personas. Can you give us just like a rundown of all those different collections? Definitely?
Speaker 3:So I mean, I know, you know risk checks are a thing, so like I'm wearing an automotive watch actually my left wrist. This is. This is not a Jordan. This is actually.
Speaker 3:Las Vegas race watch during Formula One. And then this is the Jackie. So this is one of the original styles and I wear this watch every day on one of my wrists. And so we've got eight core styles. You've got Amelia, you've got Jackie, Elise, Catherine, Marina, Jane, Nadia, Jordan, and so out of those eight core styles, each style is a like three I think is the minimum. Jackie comes in three colors, up to eight colors and variations, and that could be a steel strap or a leather strap, that could be a different colored dial or a pearl or a non pearl, things like that. So there's variations, which gives us over 50 skews.
Speaker 3:Amelia, Jackie and Catherine are very much aviation oriented, so they've got the flight computer, They've got GMT. Jackie and Amelia have the flight computer. Catherine has something really unique. If you're a pilot you would get this right away, and if you're not, it's totally fine because you can still use it if it's non aviation function. But it has the alphabet on an inner chapter ring and what that is is it's for what's called ADIS. So when you pick up weather at an airport, you are picking up automatic transcribed information service A-T-I-S, and every hour it's updated by a different letter from the alphabet. So if I were gonna be calling, I'm here in Las Vegas, so I was gonna call North Las Vegas Tower. I would say North Las Vegas Tower, November 2, 1999. Or Sierra Romeo is ready to taxi with information Sierra. Or tango or uniform Victor. So the ADIS bezel on the Catherine is a memory aid to help you remember what is the weather information for that hour. Super, super cool function that is?
Speaker 2:I was wondering because I so whenever I was taking you know, I'm taking a look through all your watches and everything I personally really liked the Catherine's probably one of my favorite models that you guys sell and I was curious what the alphabet was for and I was like wait a second, this isn't a dive watch. Like what is this?
Speaker 1:For teaching your newborns the ABCs.
Speaker 3:There you go.
Speaker 1:More uses than you could ever think of.
Speaker 3:And somebody told me recently, if I remember, what they use the alphabet for. I was like, oh gosh, that's brilliant. But we had a C-130 pilot in the military. She's based out in Hawaii and when we first debuted the Catherine and you can read it in the description of the Catherine on the website I asked her. She was one of our pre-orders, when we just had it as like a concept and she had ordered it and she actually ordered a custom combination. And since we didn't have it available yet and we were like, yeah, sure, we'll put a black case with a purple dial on it and do a purple chapter ring. That sounds great. So we did that for her.
Speaker 3:And I asked her about a year later I'm like how do you love the Catherine? What are you using it for? How are you using it? And she's like you know, the Aida's thing is really cool and weather, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great when I'm flying around the C-130. But I use it more at the bars and at different events, when I'm trying to remember people's names and I get introduced to them and then I just rotate the first letter under the Cyclops window and I'll glance at my watch if I forget their names. So you know, like B B Blake, that's pretty smart Right? Yeah, I know that was cool.
Speaker 1:You know, what I think about, too is like every time I'm traveling through the airport, like I always will have to check a million times like what gate I'm at.
Speaker 3:Definitely. Oh yeah, Totally interesting.
Speaker 1:Phase two, like you get another inner bezel with like a little 60, little great gradation, and then you'd be like you set the A and then you'd be like A52, boom gate.
Speaker 3:And then I'll end up with a roulette wheel on there because we're Vegas based, we're gonna have like a whole gambling thing. It's gonna be, it'll be fun.
Speaker 1:I like it. That's so cool to see that, you know, not a lot of people have fun with their brand and something I will say is a lot of micro brands. If I can and that is not a derogatory term, it's actually probably more of a compliment and I went on the record publicly and said micro brands would not exist if the big brands gave us what we wanted. You know, imagine if that 36 Nava Timer was under $4,000 and Abington may have never been born.
Speaker 3:Even if it wasn't, even if it was over 4,000, it would have been an aspirational purchase for me. Maybe I couldn't have gotten it after my private, but I would have put it on my you know vision board or whatever to get it after my commercial rating and have it be my gift to when I could enter the work field as a pilot right. Exactly, it didn't exist at the time.
Speaker 1:And something that stuck to me, that you know, obviously airplanes are very complex and safety is a huge thing on airplanes, especially now with people are kind of realizing now the importance, especially with the Alaska airline door that blew off or whatever.
Speaker 3:Crazy.
Speaker 1:Like Jesus. And then I think they did like some type of audit and they saw like this was prone to happen on like 60 more jets in their fleet or something crazy Like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, united found a bunch of loose bolts on some of their doors and, yeah, it's a good thing that the FAA grounded everything so quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but obviously this goes back to having like a single point of failure. Like everything in an airplane is designed to have redundancy in place for that purpose, right, and you know I've thought about watches as like at least you know, like Navitimers just being like a cool little gadget to kind of complete the fit, right, you know, it's just, it's just the persona. You got to have a Navitimers, something you know to be a pilot, like jokingly. But you know I never thought about it from the redundancy perspective.
Speaker 3:Had you ever heard the saying two is one and one is none?
Speaker 1:No, I haven't. I haven't. I've heard of that.
Speaker 3:I learned that I don't know. Justin, where did you first hear that?
Speaker 2:I've heard that years ago, like back in high school, like I couldn't even tell you where I've heard it from, but I've heard a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3:I heard it first when I was doing my dive certifications. So they because very much your dive equipment it's all about. Two is one, one is not.
Speaker 2:So one of my best buddies, he actually went to school and he took diving classes and everything. That's probably where I've heard that from.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, I always hear it.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so, but kind of going back a little bit, you were asking what are the different kind of groups and how do we group our models? You know over 50?. The dive watch is Nadi and Marina are two automatics, and I will this. It's funny I always get a little like odd look every time I say this from the watch industry, but I stand by it. I will stake my foot in the ground or whatever it is.
Speaker 3:I will always make dive watches automatic. I will always make pilot watches courts, and the reason I do that is because you can't have anything more accurate than a course and when you're flying in the soup, as they call it, when you're in the clouds, your intersections are timed. If you're not on a GPS and instead you're on like VOR navigation or NDB navigation, which is still something that is used especially internationally, then you are one minute and 13 seconds to the next fix, and then you are, you know, 58 seconds to the fix after that, and if you are off, then it could be a very, you know, scary situation. So where you'll see the Jackie, amelia and Catherine are gonna be courts movements.
Speaker 3:I used Japanese and Swiss movements there. The Marina and Nadi of the dive watches are automatic. I'm using Seiko movements there, so it is kind of interesting. People are like, oh, why don't you make Amelia is a beautiful watch, make it automatic. And I'm like, oh, pilots, nope, sorry.
Speaker 1:So there is that, but I had that question for later and obviously we've had this discussion off stream, but we're just gonna check that one off now as answered Spoilers Spoiler.
Speaker 3:You see I can even answer review the questions. I'm sorry, blake, I messed up the flow.
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 3:We're all gonna be provided.
Speaker 1:Everything happens very naturally here. This is just a guide. This is not a Bible. So you know you got it out.
Speaker 2:I love that you have your reasons for using courts or automatic. I don't feel like many people would really think about that, and you're right, as much as a lot of watch snobs would not like to admit courts movements are always more accurate. So I love that you've kind of implemented that reason into designing these watches with those movements in mind, and then vice versa for those dive watches. That's really cool, and I just noticed that I was looking through. I didn't even take into account. Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I know I was going to say I do make it easy for people that own a court's watch. So if you ever see us at an event whether it's a wind up watch fair or it's like the Women in Aviation Conference or a dive show, wherever that we're at we always do free battery changes on site. So if you always attend the Oshkosh Air Ventures show in Wisconsin every year, you just come in and bring your watch over and make us one of your first stops. We could do it in five minutes and then give it back. And if you want to hang out with us for a bit, shop for a new strap. All our bands are interchangeable, so they could do that.
Speaker 3:But it is something that we try to make it so that you don't have to go find a jewelry store. That's probably going to mess it up, because we always recommend go to a watch repair store, don't go to a jewelry store if you don't see us at a show. So I mean I do try to make it. The worst feeling in the world is putting your watch on and having a dead battery and then we just wear it as arm candy. Then at the end of the day it's still a good looking watch. I want to wear that watch. I'm going to wear it. But we do try to make it a lot easier for people that have the quartz styles to just keep them running all the time. And yeah, batteries are going to last two to three years. But if you see us every year at the same show, just get the battery changed once a year. It's free, we're going to do it. It doesn't take a long time.
Speaker 1:So you're saying I should stop taking my watches to the random person in the Malkiask?
Speaker 3:Blake, I would be in a cold if that is what you do.
Speaker 1:I know, I know, I know I've thought about it though, especially considering convenience right.
Speaker 3:Maybe you should film a funny TikTok to see if they damage it. Will they damage it or not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got some content ideas, but that would be a good one. That would be a good one.
Speaker 2:I saw a really nice Rolex in the mall the other day for $500. And it was a quartz, oh, not more. That's a nice Rolex, that's a cheap.
Speaker 1:Rolex. I feel like I don't need to ask this question for me, but I feel like I need to ask this for everybody else. So, obviously, tell us what makes your brand so unique Beyond the underserved market, and I know what you're gonna say, and I'm hoping you say it so go ahead, tell me.
Speaker 1:I think that it the fact is, the functions of your watches, the fact that every single watch does like 8,000 things and it's not just a watch, is actually a tool. And so the first time, the first time I saw some of your Abington watches, I Put my hands on them. You know like, obviously, as a watch nerd like you can pick up a watch in telephus like a cheap watch and.
Speaker 1:I think something that impressed me from my original Time that I've gotten my hands on one of your watches was how well it was built, especially considering, in my opinion, what I would consider to be an approachable price segment. You know you don't have to to save up for years to buy one of your watches. You know you can. You know buy one and put under the Christmas tree, or you know a little late for that, but you don't have to have a special reason to buy a watch like yours. And Then you know something that again kind of circling back, was like your rubber strap on I think it was the Nadia or just in your rubber strap in general had a ruler on the back of it.
Speaker 1:Yes and I was like that is crazy, like that's something, like is it's dead space on a normal watch brand. But you're looking at these watches from the perspective of like how can I make this more useful, instead of just saying how can I? Can I sell this watch Like how can I redesign this so it's the same watch, but how can I, how can I sell it differently to a different customer, right?
Speaker 1:That's the way most brands think they're like all right, here's, here's, here's our foundation. Right, here's our design language. Like how can I repackage this in a different way that it'll cater to a different customer? Yeah but you're, you're really thinking in your lab like hey, like how can I add more utility?
Speaker 3:Yes, a hundred percent. And yeah, that Jane watch that has. It comes in a rubber and a leather strap. And we kind of experimented with the leather strap to Stamp the ruler on the back of that one as well, and it has held up. The Jane's now been out for about two years and that's the one that I was most concerned about the ruler markings coming off. But a genuine leather strap, if you're wearing it on the daily You're gonna get a Year to two years out of a genuine leather strap. So the strap itself is a wear and tear item, especially for my customers who are out in the field.
Speaker 3:And Jane was built as a tactical watch for women in the military. When we signed on with a fees the army Air Force exchange and the Navy exchange, the Marine Corps exchange we wanted to offer something to the Women in service. So the Jane was our answer to that. And and not only does it have, I mean, on the movement side, we're using the AmeriCorps movement, so by FT S and Phoenix, so it's an American movement, which is pretty cool. But then, like you say, blake, what, what utility could we build into this? I mean, I want to build stuff into the buckle. I haven't figured out yet what we could build into the buckle, but like there's something there I know there is I'm still working on that part but there's. There's so much unused space on a watch, and I do also like Watches that are minimalist, but that's a completely different type of timepiece, something that's very I mean when you think of like a scoggin or a Mavado or something that's like clean dial, no markings, even some of the ones that are now Handless right, that just have the little balls or orbs that are moving around for hours and minutes you, you, you're wearing Something completely different.
Speaker 3:I'd say what makes our brand, the Abingdon company brand, unique is we are the only and I can I can say this was without knowing every other brand in the world, but our focus is to make purpose-built watches with women as the fourth thought. We have lots of men who wear our watches. Watches are inherently genderless. However, women are often the afterthought. You make a watch first, you introduce it to a market that's most likely going to buy it because men do buy watches more than women for themselves and Then you think how did I sell this to women? This watch did very well. Now we want to offer it for women and, unfortunately, the path that leads to the destruction of their female Choice is they usually come up with this idea of let's just pink it and shrink it, and so they'll make it pink, they'll make it smaller and then they'll introduce and they'll wonder why it fails.
Speaker 3:And what we do at the Abingdon company is we build these watches for women by asking them what do they want. So, for example, like with the dive watch, the Marina, we came out with that in 2014 and that's the first watch, blake, that I put a ruler on the backside and that's a 20 millimeter. It's a 40 millimeter case with a 20 millimeter strap and and it went off like amazingly, people loved it. And what we did as I Went to our Facebook group, to the Abingdon company Facebook group, and I just made a post and I said hey, for all of you women who are owners of the brand, not just fans but if you own an Abingdon watch and you're also a scuba diver, please message me privately and or you're in the dive world. And I had probably about a dozen women hit me up and I narrowed it down to a recreational diver, a professional diver, instructor, dive shop owner, somebody who was in the military diving. So I kind of got a diverse group of different types of diving and I said, okay, sign this NDA first, please, and then I'll tell you why I'm doing this. And so they all signed the NDA and I basically said I need you to kind of be a volunteer for like 30 minutes a week. It's not a lot of time I'm asking for, but it would be for about six to eight months. Would this be something up your alley? And I think most people could probably figure out why a watch company would say that to you. But but so they signed the NDA and I said, okay, I want to make a dive watch. I keep getting requests for it.
Speaker 3:A lot of people love their pilot's watches. You own the watch, so you know the brand intimately because you wear the product. Help me design the dive watch, the first dive watch that we're going to come out with. Because I'm not a diver and I ended up getting my certification after I fell in love with this whole idea and I also now use it to like, test my dive watches, which is cool.
Speaker 3:But the first thing that they said after we all introduced each other on, like this secret Facebook group that I kind of started with just the seven women that I selected for this program, and we call it our test pilot program, as they said two things which I kind of chuckle at. They said can you not make it pink or purple only? And and can you not make it battery operated? And I was like, yeah, sure, that's easy to do. What colors would you want? And they're like colors of the ocean blues, greens, oranges like make it, incorporate abalone in there, incorporate pearl in there, like you know, make it reminiscent of the ocean that we love. And I was like, oh, yeah, absolutely. And then one was like can you also make it glow? And I was like, yeah.
Speaker 3:I was like are these things that you guys are finding in the dive watch world that they're like are you kidding me? Look up women's dive watches and see how many have a mineral crystal in our battery operated? And I'm like what? Why would you have a mineral crystal when you're in saltwater the whole time like microabrasions, and then you're on coral or you hit rocks or drop it in the sand. You get onto the sand, you know Afterwards after your dive, and the boat and everything. And they're like, yeah, we don't get it either. So it took a year. They tested it.
Speaker 3:I made it titanium as well, so it was lighter, because to make us a 330, that's not the right 200 meter. So 200 meter dive watch, you really got it. Got it. Got to beef it up. I mean I I Love when micro brands like when they start getting into the water testing and the water resistance testing and what you can do on the interior to like make it just a stronger case so the crystal doesn't pop or the crowns don't pop or you don't have points of failure. Strange thing, if anybody has this, there's only been one or two that I've seen and I really want to talk to them. On an engineering level, an Exhibition case back on a 200 meter dive watch makes no sense to me, and I've seen a couple companies do it and I'm like, wow, how that's really neat, but that's a point of failure right there on a 200 meter dive watch. So it's a it's. It's really Fascinating to me when you sit down with your consumer and you find out what their pain points are and how you can fix it.
Speaker 3:And I think that's one of the more unique things about how we operate is we're constantly trying to Make them purpose-built. I'm probably not that minimalist watch. If that's kind of your style, that's not really an Abingdon watch. But if you want to watch, that does four things other than just tell time. Every single one of our watches does that. If you want to watch, that's only gonna have a sapphire crystal on it, only Going to be using surgical grade steel or titanium. All have interchangeable straps so that you can use them for different environments, and that's kind of more our brand so and we're we're asking women what they want. So I think that's that's probably the most unique thing about the Abingdon company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the. The next question that we had was what's your approach? Designing watches for under surf market? How's it different? Let's check. No, let's just check that one off.
Speaker 2:She is on a roll like you are. You are so good at how you speak and everything to you very eloquent. I Can't wait to see somebody post up in some thread somewhere where they're like hey guys, I built a house using the ruler on the back of my Abingdon watch there you go. That would be amazing.
Speaker 3:That would be so cool.
Speaker 2:We need to have that somewhere where people like challenge themselves to do you know out of the ordinary things measurements. But I love that. I think that that's a great touch as well.
Speaker 1:It goes a little further, a little further, because even on the the case back of the watch, the ruler continues. Yeah, absolutely, I was like that's such a small cool touch.
Speaker 3:There are two reviews, I think, on our website, where one woman says that she uses the ruler in a crocheting. So that's where she'll use the ruler. And then I had another person use the ruler when they went lobster hunting. So if you know anything about lobster hunting or even kind of hunting in general, but in the ocean year the tails have to be so long or else you have to throw it back. It's too young of a lobster, so so, yeah, so they she's like oh, I, just I use it when I'm underwater and that way I don't have to waste the time of, you know, coming back up after she catches. She'll measure and if it's long enough She'll keep it and if it's not, she'll let it go.
Speaker 1:That's really cool, something that we've never asked on our podcast and you're gonna be the first one the honorary question. And so obviously when you started the brand, you know you had it just seems like you were building like one watch right for you just to To have something, that you need it as a tool. But how has the brand evolved over its lifespan? You know, obviously when you started it, your mission was totally different for what it is today. Yeah, so I want to understand that evolution. I, if you can, if you can put it to words, if it's possible.
Speaker 3:So when I first started the company I wanted the ultimate pilots watch, and the ultimate pilots watch would be a GMT Plus a multi-function chronograph plus military time Plus a flight computer Plus glow in the dark, all packed into 40 millimeters or less and not 15 millimeters thick, kind of a tall order. So I I ended up I don't know if you could say settling, I think it was a. It was a happy circumstance that that Movement just didn't exist on the consumer market a GMT multi-function Chrono with a date and military time. So I had to. In talking with my original suppliers they proposed two watches in two different cases and Said make one a GMT and make the other one the multifunction Chrono. Both you can find a GMT with a date and you can find a multifunction chrono with a date, and so you'll get all of your functions. But you'll get them in two watches. And so when I started in, when I launched the company in 07, I had the. Jackie and the Amelia were the very first two styles that came out and Amelia only came in like a black and a white, and then Jackie came in pink, green and white pearl dials. So and Amelia was only leather band and Jackie was only metal band, metal strap. So that was Kind of my my intro, because I really didn't know if this was even gonna work. And I Talked them down to 300 pieces, 300 cases, moq for each one. So I think I did like a hundred and fifty Amelia white, a hundred and fifty Amelia black and then 100 of each of the three colors of Jackie. So I started off with 600 watches and it probably took me a couple years to sell through that.
Speaker 3:But again, this was more of just a hobby for me. I was on my way to becoming a professional pilot. So I was doing pilot jobs, working on my ratings, like all of those things. So I didn't really care if I sold a watch or not. I wasn't going after it with the intent of like, oh, I'm gonna be, you know, the next fossil right. So so that was. That was just something to kind of serve my community and say, hey, there is an option for you. And Then what ended up happening about seven years later is I got accepted for shark tank and and at At that point I had a third model out called the Elise.
Speaker 3:Elise is one of my favorite watches. It's a three time zone watch, swiss movement, pearl dial, 33 millimeter case. It's very classic looking and it just goes. It just goes with everything and and it's a super useful watch for somebody who has family in Europe and then who might travel flying If I'm taking a plane somewhere so I can have all three time zones Las Vegas, europe and then wherever my destination is and we had come out with that watch in 2010.
Speaker 3:So I only had the three styles at that time. I had the Amelia, the Jackie and the Elise, and shark tank said alright, you're gonna come on, you're gonna pitch your, your company to us. Well, I couldn't pitch that. I'm making aviation watches for women Because they're going to do the same thing that all the other watch companies had probably done, and the reason why they had ignored the women in aviation group is they. It's just not a big market, and so I had to talk to some of my mentors, talk to some people who ran very successful product-based companies.
Speaker 3:One of them was a good friend of mine, alex Borla, who if you're in the automotive scene, you would probably recognize Borla exhaust systems. He started that company. He was very, very Just a good person to bounce ideas off of, and I had a few people like that in my, in my world. Oddly enough, alex and I both flew airplanes out of Southern California, so that's why I knew him. I know a lot of people in the automotive world because they also flew and I I had this like fork in the road of do I continue the Abingdon company as a?
Speaker 3:I don't talk about this very often either, so this is a really interesting question actually, like Do I continue the Abingdon company as kind of a travel accessory, like could we get into other products leather goods, passport holders, sunglasses, luggage eventually, you know, just kind of like keep carrying on the travel and aviation side, or Do I come out with more watches? And I would tell Alex like, well, I do get requests from women who fly airplanes, who also scuba dive. They want to see a dive watch. And he was like, well, do you know what the cost of a watch is to make? And I said yeah. I said do you know about the percentage of what it would cost to beef it up to make a dive watch? Yeah, I do. And he's like, okay, well, do you know how much it costs to make sunglasses? Do you know how much it costs to make, you know, travel goods, passport holders, small leather, leather accessories, and I was like, no, I'd have to go research. That he's like. So you've done seven years of watch manufacturing, you've got different styles out and you know your cost and everything related to watches. I think you know what your answer is.
Speaker 3:When you go into Shark Tank and it was such a it was such a pivotal fork in the road of like, which way do I go?
Speaker 3:I'm going the watch world because I don't. I know how hard it was to go through different suppliers and go through negotiations and and my first order I spoke about this on stage a few months ago with here at in Vegas at a business conference my first order of watch boxes was 3000 pieces, because that's typically a minimum order quantity for a watch box. But if you recall what I had just said about how many watches I started off with, it was only 600. So imagine how long it took me to get through 3000 watch boxes. But I just didn't know at 23 years old, having never done this before, that I could have negotiated that down and I just said, okay, that's, that's what it is, and so it To have to go and learn through those potentially mistakes. If I had made a mistake again. I mean I consider that one of my mistakes, but it was a great learning lesson and I always believe that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 3:I would had to have done that for all the other industries that are all the other products that I wanted to come out with.
Speaker 3:So to To really determine how we were going to take this company and how I was going to make a successful pitch on Shark Tank and not sound like an idiot, you know, to the nation and then the world, I started pitching dive watches. That's what I pitched on Shark Tank. I pitched automotive style. I pitched watches for women who are in all of these niches but together that small sliver of women in the automotive pile and the Pie, and then the small sliver of women in aviation and the small sliver of women in diving and the small sliver of women, you know, in these, in these male dominated industries, altogether make a really big pie. And if you just make watches for that one group of women who are in very similar Purpose, built need industries, then you're going to it's going to be a successful brand. I didn't get a deal on Shark Tank but I still went with that direction on the company and that's when we really started to Get some traction if anything, it helped give you the direction and purpose and there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2:Like you said, you know you learn from your. You know not from your. You know Succeeding at things. I mean I think that's a great story and you know help it gets you guys rolling in that direction. So we all know, you know we've talked about this. Your brand has been around, you know, for for quite a long time. I think you said 18 years earlier, um. Are there any particular challenges that you have faced um? Or you know maybe, as your brand has grown and evolved, Um, over time?
Speaker 3:Uh, well, right now, our focus is getting into retailers. So we are in Macy's we're, we just signed on with nema marcus, we've been in all the military exchanges, all four of them, the ones that sell consumer products I'm not talking about the coast guard and and we have some really, really big retailer accounts. But there's always the more the family owned watch stores or or those. It's funny, those stores are harder to get into for my brand than a Macy says, and so I um, I think one of the challenges is I would love to be in more retail locations. That's. That's really been one of the biggest uh kind of focuses in the last two years that I've had Uh with the company and I'm I'm okay with online or in store. I think both is great because it just provides more visibility and uh, and so I would say that's one of the challenges. Um, I am not looking at and I'm very vocal about this I'm not looking at just having this be my passion project For ever and ever, until I'm so burnt out on making watches. I don't want to do it anymore. I want to employ a lot of people here in vegas. I want to, um, make a ton of watches and get them on women's risks, because I do feel that, like a watch, when you're wearing a brand and you're a crew member that's what we call you when you are an abington watch, you're a member of a group of really strong women and it's a daily reminder of who those women are and you're part of that, and so, if you know, if you go into a macy's and you see the ambassadors Charlize Theron or natalie portman or some of the actresses and celebrities that endorse watch brands what I would Really love to see Is where the abington co watches are. Have an older woman who is a captain on a triple seven? Have a transgender woman who is a woodworker carpenter? Have a, you know, a black woman, an asian woman who Are just killing it at life setting genus, but the world records, you know. Have the women that are more relatable to us as everyday people and and that's one of the things that I I really look forward to when I can afford that billboard At times square those are the type of women I'm going to be showing. I'm not looking at ever having natalie portman or charlie's or, as much as I love them, I don't. I don't need them to be ambassadors for me. They can go be ambassadors for other watch companies, um, so so yeah, the retailers.
Speaker 3:I would say I want to get into more and I'm finding that to be Challenging, but I like the challenge. It's just growth of the company. I would also say that, uh, I really want to focus on bringing things american made. I'd like to bring more and more parts of each watch, and I love what fts is doing down in phoenix and I wish more companies were using their movements because I want to see them succeed. Um, but I I definitely want to uh see more american made watch parts.
Speaker 3:And there's some other companies that do things. I work a lot with hadley roma, who's a strap manufacturer out of florida. Um, and you can get your straps made in florida or they'll do it overseas as well. So I try to do as many as I can in florida and I'm just trying to Bring as much more in in the the country as I possibly can. So if anybody knows how to make dials In america, please like drop it in the comments on this podcast. Reach out to me, let me know. Uh, that's like the. The big mystery is who can do it dial in america?
Speaker 1:We'll plug your socials um in the description of the podcast so you can reach, because I won't even know. I mean, obviously I can convey that to abington, but I'm sure she's gonna have more than one question for you, so I'll.
Speaker 3:I'll pull your socials. I'll buy your coffee to vegas. We'll have a chat yeah, um, obviously I.
Speaker 1:I'm really fascinated about the design process I know you've talked about. I'm literally just asking your, your current customers, like what do you want, what do you need? You know, um, but, but can you walk us through that adventure of like Building a watch and like what inspires you? I mean, there's got to be some inspiration other than the utility side. Like, hey, here's what we wanted to do, but like, like how does that all come together?
Speaker 1:You know, I'm sure that's a challenge in itself, that process yeah yeah, yeah, it's trial and error, right, um, but what does that look like for a brand like yours, right, I mean?
Speaker 3:So I'll definitely I'll let you behind the curtain on this one. So right now, I'm designing a new watch for a completely different industry. It's for the medical field, for first responders, and what I'm doing is I'm using a case from one of my other styles that I think would work well on a first responder watch. Now, first responder is one of the big things that they have to do is they have to take time. So if you look at my styles and you see a diver's bezel or a you know the clicky bezel right on the outside, you can guess exactly what case I'm using. And one and this is this is something that I found post COVID that the first responders and the medical field was just, they were just strapped. I mean just mentally, physically, everything was just harder during 2020, 2021 for those in the medical field, and and I started hearing a little bit of like the bemoaning of we just don't have the right tools at our at our resources as part of our resources, and so I'm thinking, okay, well, a watch is definitely a tool for the pilots, the divers, the automotive world and the military.
Speaker 3:So what could a first responder use on a watch? So it starts off with that conversation. It also starts off with me reaching out to our customer base and asking them, is anybody in that industry? And bringing them in, so getting first hand feedback from them. And then what we do is we just kind of I just kind of throw spaghetti at the wall to begin with, meaning I do something super outlandish with random colors, I'll do something super strange with like weird looking hands or luminosity, like I'll. I'll go to the extremes first, and then people will be like, oh, I didn't know that was an option to put a laser on a watch, you know something like that. And then you can kind of narrow down.
Speaker 2:James Bond.
Speaker 3:You can kind of narrow it down from there and find out what was the thing that everybody liked, that everybody found useful, and because you can make the function a lot easier than you can make it look beautiful. Incorporating purpose, incorporating function into it, is the easy part. Making it then look like something that you would want to wear to work to on a date or just on a Saturday afternoon with the kids. That's something different. So that takes a lot more. Because people are, so it's so subjective. You know, function is objective, but the design is really subjective to people. So that was Do you hear her?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm good, I'm going to keep going.
Speaker 3:So that's where that's where it starts. After that I narrow down color choices, I narrow down functions. So for the first responder watch, definitely having a countdown bezel as well as a count up is very important. I look at also what some of the industry has already been offered, and I'm going to pause real quick, sean, I don't know if that's a good idea because she'll get super loud in there.
Speaker 2:Do it all over again Sean Adbreak.
Speaker 1:Adbreak number two. We insert cat product promotion here.
Speaker 2:Does she? Does she meow at the doors like if she's stuck in a room Sometimes?
Speaker 1:Miss Chimi is a little one.
Speaker 3:So so all right back from our commercial break. So I'll start to to look at what is being offered in the industry not not to incorporate any of those things in ours, because I've got the feedback right there from my group of people they're the ones telling me what they want to see but to see what their pain points are and to see what's lacking. So that's that's kind of the next step in the process. Then it's a matter of getting prototypes made. The prototypes are usually about a 90 day deal and to to go from a CAD drawing on paper to actually physically holding it in hand. And then what I'll do is I will take those prototypes and I'll distribute that.
Speaker 3:I'll say, ok, you know, wear these for two weeks, tell me what you think, wear it every day. I'm not giving you a manual, I'm not giving you any how to on it. I want you to just figure it out. And if you can't figure it out, you're going to tell me that in two weeks. So, but it's going to come in an empty, you know, basic box. It's going to come with nothing, no instruction book or anything. Because how many times do we just get super excited whenever we open up a watch and we're like shiny, and then we put it on and we're like cool, and you have no idea how to actually set the watch. And I could see Justin Smiley is like yeah, that's never happened to me before.
Speaker 1:He's like that every day.
Speaker 3:Right and so it's a mistake.
Speaker 3:It's just a human thing. We just we just do that. So I know that there are those that do read the manuals and there are the. There are most that don't. So I want to see, can we figure it out without and you'd be surprised the reason I did this. I realized how important this was. It's just this one little testing module is with the Amelia.
Speaker 3:The version one of Amelia has a Miota GMT movement in it. It's called the GM 17, Miota GM 17. It's a horrible movement. If you have one of the first of the 300 amelias, I will gladly change out your movement for you if you want. But it's kind of become this like collectors item because there's just not many of them out there the Miota GM 17,. You have to set the GMT hand first, then you have to set the minute hand second, then you have to set the hour hand last and then you set the date, I think, after that. It's so backwards, so I changed it to a Rhonda. I changed it to a Rhonda 505.24 H, which is a. It's so intuitive and it's such a better movement. So anyway. So I found that out because people were coming up to my booth saying I can't figure out how to set this watch and I'm like, oh, did you read the manual? And they're like, yeah, it's still doesn't make any sense, so that's how you know it's bad if they read it.
Speaker 2:and it still doesn't work, so I give it to them for two weeks.
Speaker 3:I also have this questionnaire, and it includes everything from what did you use it for to, did you figure out how to work it? And then if you were to name this watch, since it's been on your wrist for two weeks, what would you name it? That's one of our big questions, because definitely our all of our watches are named after female names, and so we want to also decide on the, on the name of the watch, and then we incorporate the changes based on the feedback of how it was in the field, and then we do our first big supply, our first big order for it, and we start preparing to introduce it to the public. And with this first responder watch, I'm to the point that I'm I'm pretty positive where we're done with the design. Like the design is pretty finalized. The the one thing, though, that I just changed and it was actually meeting a paramedic at windup in San Francisco when I met you, blake is they were very interested in a silicone hairspring, and this is something that I won't be able to do in the first run of this of the first responder watch, because of magnetization in different parts of the hospital that it makes your watch wonky.
Speaker 3:But I'm also a member on Facebook of female first responders group. I am not a first responder. I sit there, I listen to what they talk about and I ask questions if I find it to be appropriate for me to ask questions and they've accepted me in the group. I'm not like lying about. Oh yeah, I'm a first responder, so I should not fly on the wall. Yeah, I'm just flying on the wall.
Speaker 2:And you're conceptualizing.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I've been a member of this group for almost two years.
Speaker 3:And it's amazing, when you listen to what they say, what you can learn. So one of the questions I asked is when you do a pulse check, do you do a 15 second pulse check? Do you do a 15 second count or a 30 second count? Because you can probably bet that there's going to be a pulsation ring on this watch. And it was about even about 50 and half and half the. I think I had like 40 answers on that question those that said 15 or those that said 30. So that's good information to know, because this is how they would use that watch.
Speaker 2:That'll segue be right next to to money. It's a question, if that's okay. Are there any new collections or new releases that adding in customers or future customers could be excited about the near future?
Speaker 3:You know so.
Speaker 2:Definitely the first lay out.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely, and we are going to be introducing a Kickstarter for this this year. We're still, you know, working out all the details of what kind of materials we're going to use. I'd like to make it titanium. If I could really make this, watch how I want it to make, how I want it to be made. I can't say it yet, but it would very much upset a lot of people that are, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:The cat people are upset.
Speaker 3:I'm just so the cats excited to join her space. But there is something that I definitely want to incorporate in into a watch that has never been done before and I would have to. I would have to file a patent for this one, but that's the only thing that probably won't be released maybe on the Kickstarter, but might be a surprise afterwards. It's going to be super cool, but, yeah, look for that later this year. Follow us on the, on the company website and everything, so you can get announced when we, when we do launch that newsletter subscription required please.
Speaker 3:Yes, follows on socials and subscribes and YouTube's and all those things.
Speaker 1:So ultimately we now understand nearly everything about you from your past. We know a little bit about the future, but and you've kind of hinted at this already but in the next decade, like when is Abington gonna be Like, where's the brand gonna be Like? I'm sure you have some milestones that you wanna like check off. You know you talked about employing people in Vegas. You talked about, you know, getting further distribution. Like what are those milestones for you in the next decade.
Speaker 3:I would really like to build a Swiss Army knife meets a Chanel. So if we can continue making purpose built watches for women, building them to the spec that they need, making sure that they hold up, never decrease on quality and that's just not quality of the product but also quality of the customer service and the customer experience those are then I know I will be doing a lot of work, then I know I will be doing the right thing. In 10 years it's a I mean, I'm almost two decades now in we are gonna have some more limited edition pieces. The racing watch that we debuted during Formula One last year was year one of the racing watch, so we will have a year two. We've got Las Vegas has a 10 year contract with Formula One, so we're going to at least make 10 watches. And that's just when it was incredible it was limited to 40 pieces only and I'd really like to. We've come out with a five year and a 10 year anniversary watch. We will be coming out with a 20 year anniversary watch, and those are just some new products down the road, but just the idea of building that community of like-minded people, cause if you find somebody who flies airplanes and somebody who races cars, you'll find that they actually tick this very similarly. They really are into kind of the same things. At the end of the day, it still goes fast. Just ones in the air and ones on the ground.
Speaker 3:If you find somebody who's a diver and a ship captain, I mean, we work very closely with Captain Kate McHugh. She's a huge influencer on social media. She went viral a few years ago and she's captain of one of the largest ships in the world and I sit and talk to her about how we have to, like cut our epaulets on our uniform shirts to make it fit the more narrow shoulders that women's shirts wear we have to wear on our uniforms. And even though she I took her for her first flight in an air bus simulator She'd never flown a plane before, she completely understood cardinal directions. She completely understood there was so much just crossover. And when you bring these types of people together and the community on social media, the brand building and getting a, we have clocktail parties where we get everybody together. I really want to build that kind of club. Like I said, when you own an Appington watch, you become a member of the crew, you're a crew member and so your crew could be a pit crew, a flight crew, it could be any of those types of crews, but when we all come together then we can, as the saying goes, high tides raise all ships, and I think that's really the goal of this company is.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, we make a watch, but the watch is really that one thing that you put on every single day, regardless of your clothes. A lot of times we'll wear one of like our three daily watches and it goes with every outfit. It goes with every place that we're going. We have a few that we always pack in our suitcase, that we take to wherever we're traveling, and the watch is kind of that constant for you. It's that anchor that keeps you grounded.
Speaker 3:And with our brand, the women that wear these watches there's so much meaning behind them because they got it when they passed a certain test or they got that job promotion where they became a first, from a first officer to a captain, or maybe they just became a colonel in the military or had something that was a milestone that they achieved. And to have something that kind of symbolizes all these other people that also hit milestones, it's an incredible feeling that they're a part of that type of community, even though they don't know half of the people. It's that whole club. When you see Porsche drivers or many drivers driving around and they wave to each other on the street like I got you, and that's where I see the success of this brand If we're still doing that and building that community and having more and more people in that club and I don't ever want it to. I actually don't like the word club because I find that that's a little bit more closed office, like oh, you're a member of a club and how do you?
Speaker 1:It's a cult movement.
Speaker 3:But if they're just a member of that community of women that support each other, that build up each other, that empower each other and that are doing really cool shit, you know, I think that's where the success of this is going to be.
Speaker 1:It's a real thing and I guess I never really talked about this, but Abington took me to Chicago and I got to see kind of how she sets up for some of the trade shows. She needed some help at Wind Up and she brought me out of Chicago. It's been a whole week hanging out with her learning about the brand, like literally studying up on the brand, trying to figure out you know like how I could translate it to the customers that I can get into, because I am more of a technical person, and that's what I respond to like hey, this is a tech. You know I can talk tech, right, but no, like so we met a customer that bought a watch on the spot. You know, she's just like I love this. It's amazing. You know, she walked around, she came back, she bought a watch and she was talking about how she was an interior designer and you know all these weird little things.
Speaker 1:But eventually I was like, hey, like you know, like let me introduce you to Abington, because I think Abington was. I mean, she was busy, obviously, and I was trying to talk to so many people as I can, but anyways, later on, you know like I was texting this lady and I was like, oh, I don't know what's going on, but we're just looking for something to do. She said, hey, we'll come out on the boat with us, take us on the boat and in Chicago, like took us around like a little mini architecture tour and it was crazy to see. Like you know, you're not just talking about it, but it really happens that, like you would have never known, like that this wasn't somebody that Abington had just met, like two hours ago. Like this looks like it feels like a lifelong friendship.
Speaker 3:And you don't know this, Blake, but her and I were just messaging last week.
Speaker 1:She is an amazing person. Yeah, and yeah, it's not just. It's not just something you say, right, like people just say that, like you know, brands will say, oh yeah, we listen to our customers and we have a community, right, like we have a Facebook group and that's the extent of their community, right, but no, it's a real thing and yeah. So I saw it firsthand and it was kind of crazy, like really crazy it was.
Speaker 1:It just happened so naturally. And yeah, I mean, you would have never known like they were like high school buddies, by the way. You know, it seemed like for my eyes.
Speaker 3:And but you do see this, you guys both know this that when you meet somebody for the first time that says into watches as you are, it's like a long lost friend. Immediately they're in your fold. And for a lot of women we kind of have this. It's very hard to find women who understand power tools on like a torque level, that understand you know water resistance from a usefulness like carrying a tank of air, why you would use nitrox versus just air for diving or a rebreather like using some of these, what a BCD is Like if you're using some of these terms that are that are in the industries that you have a love and a passion for.
Speaker 3:And the women that you're talking about, Brandi, she has like this huge warehouse where she's like building custom cabinets and doing all of this like construction for home interiors. It's incredible. So when she saw the ruler on the back of the watch, she was like but here's what actually stuck. Have you ever noticed on a ruler that you have metric going down one end and then you have standard going down the opposite end, like they both won't start at the same end?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's just like a tiny little difference between the two.
Speaker 3:Well, there's the difference, but what I mean is like the zero point isn't at the same point.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh, like you flip it over, you gotta over yeah.
Speaker 3:It's the it's opposites, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so on our watch strap, because we make those straps extra long for Wet suits, dive suits, like if you're going to, you need the silicone to wrap around maybe 10 inches, so based on what you're wearing. And so what we do is we say we will make it extra long, but you can cut it. It's silicone, it's fine, you know it's it. These are wear and tear items. No problem, just get a new one if you, if you use that one to bits and.
Speaker 3:But what I did on the rulers of those is I made it so that both metric and standard started at the buckle and Ended at the long part of the bottom end of the strap. And when I show that to her she's like Are you f-ing with me? I don't know if you remember her saying that, but she said it super loud and I kind of looked around cuz I was like was that okay? She dropped the app off pretty loudly and she's like get that f out. And she was so excited at the cuz she understood. Oh, my god, yeah, rulers always put it on opposite ends. You did it at the same, the zero points at the same part of the ruler, going all the way across. So if you do cut on the end. All you're doing is shortening your ruler from nine inches to seven inches or you know whatever it is, and she just she got it, she absolutely got it. Just like when you have that conversation with watch people and they get it, and you're like guess this, this right here, that click and Magic just happened.
Speaker 3:Yes, it does, and a little electricity. Electricity sparks in the air and it was love. It was love at that point. So, yeah, no, she's, she's incredible.
Speaker 3:All of our crew members are incredible and and it's it's one of the biggest challenges, justin you were asking about challenges is Keeping up with them, because they're so discerning, they're so constantly making decisions and and investing their mental prowess into their job and their hobbies and all the things that they use all these things for. And so to be able to create a product that helps with that and that, just like, takes it to another level for them, they're not just saying some pink, bedazzled watch that they don't care about and they're probably gonna break. And you know, we've got stories of people dropping it in their washing machine and forgetting about it, thinking it was changed and it came out fine, and People getting in the helicopter crashes and it was the only thing that survived. They lost their dog tags. I mean, there's so many Stories of how these things get beat up, but how useful they still end up being, and and it is, it's. It's a, it's a point of connection for all of us.
Speaker 1:I have an idea, right, so maybe, maybe hit back your crew members and and obviously you have stories like that and not only do you tell the story of the watch, but you tell the story of the person with that watch, where you're like, this is the helicopter, this is the watch that survived a helicopter crash and Whatever right.
Speaker 3:And then we do, we do.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:If you go to our website and right up at the top you see shop, you see brand and you see support. Under brand there's a link called crew stories and if you read Colonel buff Brachelle, you will see what her helicopter looked like After the crash. You'll see her in a halo because she had four screws holding up her head for about a year. Well, she went through therapy and she's, smiling, given a thumbs up, wearing her Abingdon watch. You'll read her story. You'll read the stories of I think right now we have about nine different crew members, nine or ten and and and their stories with their watches. It's awesome. Yes, I love doing that. I love telling the stories of our crew.
Speaker 1:It is a real thing, is it's totally a real thing? I'm looking at it now. That's a, that's the stuff that people really like respond to, like we talked about this, like it's the small things that make the big strides for, for, for customers, right, you know, like we talked about with Brandy the, you know the metric and standard being on the same size, that people respond to, and and that's what owning watches is all about, you know.
Speaker 1:I think personally the you know, if we, if we weren't obsessed with the details, then we probably wouldn't be a watch collector. You know, I mean. Right. I mean, not all of us are collectors, right. Not all those are collectors, but watch people, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:We have reached the end of our time. I would like to give you the floor if there's anything that you feel like we didn't talk about.
Speaker 3:The only thing that I'm still very passionate about is our foundation. So we do also have 501c3, a nonprofit called a Appington Foundation, where we are providing sponsorship opportunities to women 18 and above. We're giving them a full ride, airfare, registration, everything included, no matter where you are in the world, to a leading conference in steam. So we've taken women to CES, the consumer electronic showcase. We've taken them to shot show, shooting hunting, outdoor trade show. We've taken them to women in aviation and some of the dive shows and just help them meet the people that would help them Get to where they want to go. So we do that. A portion of the proceeds of every watch goes towards that.
Speaker 3:We also make these brilliant books. If you look on Amazon for Appington brilliant book, it's a $10 book, $9.95. It's for kids around 10 years old. There's two kinds of books one where the girl, the silhouette on the front, has pigtails, that's for 10 and below. And then if the girl has like the one, single bun, that's 10 and above. And it's activity books based around steam. So there's horology in there, there's engineering, there's mechanical, you know, there's construction, there's all sorts of the different things. So if you want to support that foundation or if you want to give something to like your daughter that's, that's younger than you know, 15 or whatever. I mean some of those puzzles in the 10 and above one. They stump me, but but we do. You have that.
Speaker 3:Go towards our scholarship program, towards our sponsorship program, and, and then otherwise, if you're in Vegas, we are opening a brand new facility in downtown. Should be happening about About mid 2024, so get on our mailing list. Definitely, crew members have first invites, so if you do own a watch, you're gonna have the first invite. I mean, we're inviting everybody. The mayor is coming, so it's going to be a pretty big event. It'll be our second clocktail party of the year. Otherwise, next month in March, we're going to be at the women in aviation conference in Orlando. So if you want to come see the brand, you can visit us there. We'll be at a couple of the wind-ups.
Speaker 3:This year, I think, we're coming to Chicago, back to Chicago, and then we'll also come out to New York as well. So we're not we're skipping San Francisco this year, but visit us. Super approachable, come up. I'll show you all the bells and whistles of each one and Definitely follow us on YouTube, instagram. We're kind of kicking off a tick-tock deal. So we're working with some influencers that Wear our products. This is the fun thing. I've never paid an influencer. It's the influencers that buy our watches that want to work with us. So we do influencing a little bit different but but some of them are pretty big on on tick-tock so we're getting more involved on tick-tock. So you'll see us there, but, but otherwise, yeah, just Just give us a call. Our phone number is all over our website. Crew stories are all over the website. It was a great idea, blake. We did this like a year and a half ago, so I love it. Got lots of reading to catch up on. We post about two a month.
Speaker 1:If you can't tell by now. We're over 80 minutes into this podcast and no, no, I mean it's an amazing brand with amazing stories, with an amazing founder, with amazing customers behind it, with an amazing purpose. And yeah, I mean I can say that confidently that there's very few people that are doing what you're doing and same to you, keep doing what you're doing. So we're gonna keep doing what we're doing. I know you'll do the same. We're. We're definitely not as mature as you in terms of the, the duration that we've been doing things, but but yeah, I mean, once, once lonely wrist makes a decade. If that happens, it's all due to people like you and our listeners and if it happens, then we will certainly have some type of milestone.
Speaker 1:Sure it will and, yeah, I'm just glad that that you took the time to share with us and to To give some of our our listeners a different perspective on watches, because it's been all brand new to me since, you know, since I met you and since I really Really looked at what you were doing like under a magnifying lens. You know that I've ever, I've, I'm still still blown away.
Speaker 3:So thank you, I appreciate it. This has been an absolute treat. I I'm sorry if I went a little bit too long.
Speaker 1:No, no, like I, like I said.
Speaker 3:About it so we it's fun.
Speaker 1:We, we don't, we don't want to to tame you Like, tame your, your, your, your brand and your stories and everything. Well, I will be looking forward to the invite for your new, your new your new facility opening.
Speaker 3:You'd excuse to come out to Vegas.
Speaker 1:I Thankfully I'm here. I feel like I I'm in a weird way. I feel like I'm a part of the crew because I was able to represent your brand in Chicago and I can't I can't wait to see what happens here in the next decade, will be laughing at the time we record this podcast. So Alright, guys, well, let's wrap it up here. Thanks for listening and, to let it, I'm not yet another episode of the lonely wrist.
Speaker 1:I, this time next week, will be in Geneva filming some content. So I'm letting you guys know publicly for the first time I've never talked about this yet I'll be working with multiple brands working on some YouTube content. Not, we're gonna kind of be shifting a little bit of our energy into YouTube Still gonna have some of these podcasts. We've got Iso taupe watches coming on. Thus, that'll be the next. The next one, if you're listening to avington, will be isotope and Look forward to to hearing all the comments and feedbacks, and I'm waiting for you guys to send me all your DMs, like you always do, and we'll see you on the next one.
Speaker 3:Thank you guys.
Speaker 1:Thanks, I've been doing.
