Function-Driven Minimalism: How Justin Walters is Reinventing the Tool Watch with Marin Instruments & Alterum Watches

Join us on a captivating journey through the world of watchmaking as we sit down with Justin Walters, the innovative mind behind Marin and Alterum. See how Justin's unique experiences have shaped these brands, offering insights into the surprising hurdles of showcasing watches in big cities like New York and the rapid rise of Alterum's limited-edition world timer. With an eye for design and a passion for high-quality timepieces, Justin provides a window into the philosophies that drive his creative process.

Our conversation explores the fascinating origins of Marin, from its maritime connections to its inspiration drawn from a vintage Seiko dive watch. Join us as we trace the evolution of a watch case design inspired by vintage skin diver models, and delve into the dynamic world of design and production challenges. Uncover the trade-offs between cost and quality when collaborating with manufacturers from China and Switzerland, and the meticulous attention to detail that goes into the creation of Marin and Altarum's timepieces. From innovative bezel mechanisms to the art of aging watch dials, Justin brings to life the stories behind his brands.

Looking forward, Justin shares exciting plans for Marin and Alterum, including Marin's ambitions in the sports scene and Altarum's focus on minimalist design. We touch upon the influence of iconic brands like Tag Heuer and Longines, and the future aspirations of creating accessible models without compromising on quality. Ending on a high note, our guest inspires with a call to embrace more opportunities to connect with enthusiasts and share the captivating stories behind these exceptional watch brands. Tune in for an enlightening episode that promises to engage and inspire watch lovers and creative minds alike.

Checkout Justin's Watch Brands:

https://www.marininstruments.com/

https://www.alterumwatchco.com/

We Just Coolin
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Listen on:   Spotify

Chapters

• 0:00 Marin and Alterum Chat on Design
• 12:58 Origin and Philosophy of Diver Watches
• 14:01 [Ad] We Just Coolin
• 14:41 (Cont.) Origin and Philosophy of Diver Watches
• 21:36 Minimalist Design in Watchmaking
• 33:17 Brand Identity and Material Selection
• 43:04 Design and Production Challenges in Watchmaking
• 52:49 Manufacturing and Design Collaboration in Watchmaking
• 1:02:12 Future Plans for Fieldmaster Watch
• 1:07:40 Design Concepts and Material Innovation
• 1:20:04 Future Plans for Micro Watch Brands
• 1:27:18 Brand Promotion Through Podcast Interviews

Transcript

Blake Rea: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Lonely Wrist. Sitting in front of me is Justin Walters from Marin and Altarum. What's up, brother?

Justin Walters: 0:15

How's it?

Blake Rea: 0:15

going. It's going. I'm hanging in there. I'm hanging in there. I'm glad to finally get you on. It's been a long pursuit of trying to get you here.

Justin Walters: 0:26

It's been a long time since we've talked to each other too. It's almost been like a year, I think.

Blake Rea: 0:32

Yeah, we connected let's say it's about. So I mean, uh, I still, you're still see, you're doing awesome things.

Justin Walters: 0:38

So trying to, trying to, trying to stay, which is good.

Blake Rea: 0:45

Yeah, we met in San Francisco and that was the first time I'd ever heard of your brand, specifically Marin, and I was really impressed with your product, your presentation, just the build quality and really what you get for the money. I'm a tool watch guy at heart and I was particularly impressed, uh, so much so that I purchased one yeah, which I don't think I purchased anything else at san francisco, so that's right.

Blake Rea: 1:13

You came back a couple times I did I did remember that yep and um, all right, one more, look, one more. Look, yeah, I, yeah, my, my wife was, uh, was there with me, and you know I, literally we had committed to do kind of like a dual trip, like I pitched it to her as like, hey, I'm going to san francisco, I'm taking you, and, and you know, I'm gonna do a little, a few things at the watch event. But you know, um, and so the first day I like went around to all the brands and was like, all right, I'm gonna buy a watch, I'm not sure what, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

Blake Rea: 1:44

And then yeah you know I finally convinced her to like, because it was only supposed to be one day I watched stuff. You know the rest of the time was supposed to be. You know relationship time and yeah.

Justin Walters: 2:02

San Francisco was cool. I enjoyed San Francisco. It was a good time. That was my first show we did and we had a great time. It kind of ruined the expectation for me a little bit because we sold so many. And then I went to another show and I didn't do so well and I was like sucks, but San Francisco was good, so many. And then I went to another show and I didn't do so well and I was like it sucks yeah good yeah, um, it's weird.

Blake Rea: 2:33

So I've noticed too, and from because I've done the new york, I've done the chicago, I've done the san francisco twice, and it seems that that's in New York, in San Francisco, or the the big sellers. So if you did Chicago as your, your other one, then Chicago is a hard one it's actually New York.

Justin Walters: 2:53

Oh, really, dude? Yeah, we did New York at the end of the year, last year, in October, I think it was. I think it was October. Um wait, no, yeah, it was October, because we did the show for two days and we didn't sell a single watch my gosh we, we went out there and educated a bunch of people on the brand, but we didn't sell a single watch, which was crazy.

Justin Walters: 3:19

and so I was like man, I was kind of sour after that, but I love worn and wound and we're we're going to do more shows with them. But yeah, we left, we went to New York and then straight from there I went to Hong Kong to launch the other brand, alterum. So it's kind of a busy weekend.

Blake Rea: 3:39

Yeah, yeah, I know. So this is going to be a first for us, because we have two brands. We're going to be talking about Marin and Alterum. I had never heard of Alterum until you, I'm sorry to say, is as knowledgeable as I try to be.

Justin Walters: 3:56

Well, it's a very small brand. So, like, like Marin is, alterum is just me as well. Like, like Marin is Alterm is just me as well. Um, so, yeah, it's, it's, it's. I understand that. You know it's. It's hard to get the the views out there on this watch, and we've only launched well, we've launched three so far. So, but the same model, different variations.

Blake Rea: 4:20

It's a bad-ass little watch. I mean it's um's um I'll definitely, I'll definitely link. You know both of his brands and in the description here, but I mean to see the execution on a world timer like that is is awesome. So it's very creative um, and I thought, you know I was going through the website trying to do some, some research here and you know, saw your inspiration, you know board and everything, and I was like man, you know this is kind of cool.

Justin Walters: 4:50

So yeah, it was interesting. I mean, I think a lot of people are inspired by like architecture and and different things, but for me it was just about making something that looked different. I love Braun, I love the brand Braun and I love their watches and I have one. There wasn't something on the market that felt luxurious as a minimalist piece, so this was kind of the idea with Alterum was to make something minimalist. That really was serious.

Blake Rea: 5:26

Yeah, I think you did an awesome execution. I love the. I love the watch Is there. There's only is there only 50 or so of them in existence.

Justin Walters: 5:37

So there were a hundred, so this is the first world timer.

Justin Walters: 5:43

This is like the reference one um that we did and we sold out of these in about two weeks um prior to launch, and so that was really amazing. I did not realize that that would happen at all. And then we just launched the gold pbd version, the la um, and we're gonna have some news coming up with that um soon. We're working on some some good stuff. Um, we did the la version and then we did the new york edition, which is the black pbd with like a gilt dial and, uh, gold crowns, so really cool and what was it about?

Blake Rea: 6:25

like you know, usually you don't see brands kick off. You know, obviously, if you look at marin right, we're trying to juggle these two. You have a practical tool watch, yeah, you know, very sporty. And then I mean the altarum watch is non non-debatably, uh, sporty as well. But in a world timer complication, which, you know, usually you don't see brands shoot after a world timer for their first watch.

Justin Walters: 6:55

You know yeah, the first design. So what's funny about these two brands is I started working onarum about 10 years ago and did the design work and, you know, had this vision of what it could be and then it just kind of died, Like I couldn't find the right people. I didn't know anybody in the industry at that time. I was living in Florida and didn't know anybody. I worked for Honeywell at the time and I was just kind of designing something I thought was cool and it sat there for like 10, like well, it sat there for about eight years Until Wei Ko messaged me and he was like, hey, I've got this project that we're working on.

Justin Walters: 7:58

And he messaged me and he was like, hey, I've got this project that we're working on. It's kind of an incubator system thing that you know we want to help two separate kind of design brains. I've got the dressy architecture side and then I have the tool watch side, but you know you go get dirty and muddy and scratch it up and whatever kind of more the old school rolexy side yeah of design, and so I think these two brands are exactly like who I am or who I want to be.

Justin Walters: 8:32

You know what I mean.

Blake Rea: 8:32

Polar opposites. No pun intended.

Justin Walters: 8:35

For sure. Yeah, for sure, but it's like it's funny, because when I design a watch, it's more about me designing something that I. When I design a watch, it's more about me designing something that I. It's more about me designing a product that man. I don't even know how to describe this. This is really hard for me to describe, because it's like I've been thinking about this concept of when I put something on, when I put a watch on. I want to become this person. I think we all do it, you know, and I do it with shoes a lot too. Like I have a pair of vans and it's like if I wear my vans, I need to look like it's kind of poser. It's just like I need to look like I'm skating. You know what I mean.

Justin Walters: 9:17

Like a skateboarder, but I grew up skateboarding, so it's like it's just a style thing.

Blake Rea: 9:26

It's just like who do I want to be today? You know I don't. I used, I grew up skateboarding and to be fair I still wear lakai's dude. That's a cool brand.

Justin Walters: 9:32

Yeah, dude, they're awesome they're so comfortable, like I used to work for uh, for girl the people that started like yeah yeah, oh shit, I didn't know that the um krail tap is that. I think that's who the krail tap guys?

Blake Rea: 9:44

yeah yeah, dude, super cool brand I did a board design for Sean Malto.

Justin Walters: 9:50

This is when I was living in Kansas City and he was he was the pro in Kansas City. I mean, he was already with girl and and so I was like I need to do a board for Sean and it happened, which was amazing he's.

Blake Rea: 10:03

He's one of the very few skaters that, like I since I don't skate anymore because I'm getting old like I, I still follow sean online and I mean he dude, he's still crushing, it still crushing it's crazy.

Justin Walters: 10:15

He's crazy, his style is just crazy. I mean, he doesn't do crazy.

Blake Rea: 10:19

You know tricks, but he's just so smooth yeah, I mean, he's not like throwing himself down like el toro or something like right, exactly there's but he's just, I mean he's just crushing, you know, rails and mani pads, and I mean he's great, all the yeah, yeah, he was up to when I went, when I was skating and I actually got to skate his like private park.

Justin Walters: 10:41

I had friends that were friends of his and we'd go and skate with him sometimes.

Blake Rea: 10:46

So amazing skate park, amazing indoor skate park it was crazy is it the uh, is it the barracks spot, or is that a time out, or?

Justin Walters: 10:55

no, but he had the people that built the barracks build one for him in kansas city, I think it's still his private park um, or he. Maybe he sold it or something, because now he lives in la, but it was an insane skate park wow, really fun.

Blake Rea: 11:10

Didn't know he had his own little skate park. I guess that's probably what he preferred to keep it.

Justin Walters: 11:15

It's secret. Yeah, it's a secret.

Blake Rea: 11:17

It's sean's secret skate park let's talk, uh, so I'm gonna see if I can juggle between the two um, tell me about, like, the philosophy behind marin. You know, I, I know, you know, and I I took some of the questions from your website and you know you talk about building watches for a journey. Uh, yeah, you know, and talking about, like you know, the, the things that you incur on the way to your destination. So, like, tell us about the philosophy of marin and tell us why you decided to kind of build a watch brand yeah, um.

Justin Walters: 11:58

So marin's philosophy is we are built for the journey and that doesn't necessarily mean, you know, we need to covet these items. You know, like I designed a watch to be used and I wanted, I didn't want to take like I wanted to take like an old Rolex approach, like one of my favorite watches was the 16, six, 10, which is this is heavily inspired, and the Seiko, the old Seiko divers.

Justin Walters: 12:32

I don't know reference numbers, sure, sure, and so I wanted to blend that together and create something that was a little more, a little better built than Seiko or at least the Seiko that I had, that I knew but it wasn't quite as expensive as Rolex. And so I wanted to kind of mesh these brands together and make something. And a lot of people ask me like you know what about the name? You know where'd the name come from? And I was like, honestly, I liked the word Marine and I took the E off. And I was like I liked the word marine and I took the e off and I was like marin, okay, that sounds cool, it's not like super, it doesn't really have I mean, it didn't have a direction. When I first came up with the name, um, I didn't know that marin county was a thing or marin county, uh, and I also didn't know that in French it meant of the sea.

Justin Walters: 13:27

So, it kind of like, kind of fit. But my whole philosophy was it needed to be centered on the dial, it needed to look good, it needed to have like five or seven letters, something that was a little little offset but symmetrical. Seven letters, something that was a little little offset but, um, symmetrical. So literally why I picked the name? It wasn't anything special, it didn't mean anything to me, it was just something that you know.

Blake Rea: 13:55

I didn't want to put my name on it or anything, so something that could be something in the future it, it makes, it, makes sense and uh, and yeah, I didn't even think about it at first, um, but it's a solid name. I mean it, it, yeah, it, it, it. To me it feels like the name is the utility as well in a weird way.

Blake Rea: 14:53

Like I can't think of it as being like a dress watch, you know um I mean maybe, maybe because I know the brand, I've seen your watches, but you know, I can't ever imagine a watch being called a maron or a skin diver like what you know. Obviously, hence I don't know what, what the fuck I'm talking about right now, but uh without, without having utility, being a maron watch like you have to just do sports watches now.

Justin Walters: 15:19

I think at that point that's and that's exactly where we want to go, like we want to stay in this. I I don't plan on making dress watches. I don't plan on making ultra complicated watches. It's something I want. I want these to be used and the goal is to get them scratched up and you know I I'm really excited to see what these look like in like 10 years or 20 years, however long they last. Hopefully they last longer than people are still wearing them.

Blake Rea: 15:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin Walters: 15:48

So the goal is to just keep it on your wrist. It's not something that what you know. Rolex used to be. This I mean, I love Rolex. This brand that was like this tool watch brand. Right now they just do jewelry pretty much.

Blake Rea: 16:02

Yeah, pretty much.

Justin Walters: 16:04

But like Rolex early 90s I mean back in the day, for sure Rolex was making like these amazing pieces, but like the early 90s period was really cool. They started getting like I mean you know, know, it was rolex.

Justin Walters: 16:18

right, you can't say shit about rolex you can, but I don't know, but I can't promise they're doing it right canceled they're gonna cancel me I did an ad one time, um, that was aimed towards rolex, and a lot of people, a lot of people like, messaged me they were you're going to get in trouble if you do this. And it was some service ad that I did and it was like you could send your watch to Switzerland and it'll be gone for six months, or you can send it to us and it'll be done in a week. And then it was like the Rolex kind of this person would be if you were doing this, you'd be wearing a Mariner or something like that. No, no.

Blake Rea: 17:01

What you should do is you should try and take a page out of the Patek marketing book where you're like, oh, you take care of it, you know, and then you pass it down, but you're like, no, you should beat the shit out of it.

Justin Walters: 17:12

And then you pass it down for them to beat the shit out of, exactly the shit out of it and then you pass it down for them to beat the shit out of. Exactly that's what watches are for.

Blake Rea: 17:19

Yep, except for some watches those are some watches are for yeah, yeah, I would say, uh, I, I agree, I agree, yeah, um, I want to talk about, you know, obviously not only it being a tool watch, but when you first got the idea for the skin diver, did you automatically know that you wanted to do a diver. Or, like you know, how did you land on okay, cool, I'm gonna do a diver's watch, um. And then you know, obviously when you have diver's watches kind of in mind, you have like a kind of a pre-built-in utility, like you can't really you know it's not like you're seeing people who are doing like world timer diver watches.

Blake Rea: 17:56

They they do exist, but you know that's not the primary utility.

Justin Walters: 17:59

So how did you decide?

Blake Rea: 18:01

okay, cool, we're just going to jump into a diver, let alone a skin diver, Um and and how did you land on that kind of kind of design functionality?

Justin Walters: 18:12

So, trying to think back, I think the first idea I had to make it I mean, I was wearing, I bought this seiko. And this is where it all begins. I bought this seiko dive watch and it was from the 90s, I believe, or early 2000s and it was like faded and I wore it on a nato strap every day for like five years. This was when I was in florida and the dial kind of actually started turning colors as well. It started like ghosting a little bit yeah and my nato strap was just destroyed.

Justin Walters: 18:50

I mean it wasn't destroyed, the color of it was just gone. It turned to like a khaki and I bought it when it was like a. Just gone. It turned to like a khaki and I bought it when it was like a. It was like a, it was like a dark tan color and it just the sun and the salt just wore away. But I wore that thing like every single day and I used it to time my lunch breaks at work and I was like this is like really simple. Anybody could use a dive watch. Not everyone understands chronographs and chronographs are hard to see and they're kind of. I mean I love chronographs but like they're not super utilitarian.

Blake Rea: 19:28

Definitely not.

Justin Walters: 19:29

And the dive watch just made sense to be the first to produce, to be the first to produce, and so I did this Seiko-inspired dial. And then I did this weird kind of big long line on the bezel, because my lunch breaks were like 30 minutes but everything was over 15 minutes. So I was like who just times something for like 10 minutes, I mean you don't need to do that much mean so that's why I did that on the on the bezel.

Justin Walters: 20:00

But yeah, dive watch just seemed. It seemed like the first. I mean, everyone does a dive watch first. I think it's kind of your step in right yeah, um, maybe.

Blake Rea: 20:10

Um, you just see people work from like a like, a subsection of like okay, they're gonna start off doing sports watches, then they'll work their way backwards into dress watches, like you generally will never see somebody start off with a dress watch and then go backwards into a sport watch right um, because uh, just in terms of like, it's just more challenging execution.

Blake Rea: 20:33

You know, I talked to uh a lot of designers and they're like oh, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to dip my feet in the dress watches, I just can't do it, you know.

Blake Rea: 20:43

And uh, it's tough it really is and and yeah, so they yeah, I mean you either. You either start at either side of the sandbox and you work your way inwards. Um, I would say divers are definitely the most popular, um, because if you look at some of the most iconic watches in the world, I mean, they're all dive watches, you know. So there is that just nostalgia wrapped around, and uh, and so yeah good stories.

Justin Walters: 21:13

Man like, yeah, a lot of those, a lot of those tool watches have good stories.

Blake Rea: 21:19

That was another reason. I would certainly agree. Let's see if we can try and pivot into Altarum. What I read about the brand was you said that you were working at honeywell, which was weird, because whenever I mean even address this in in the article or the about page, like honeywell, doesn't make watches but, you said something about like was it your boss that had a long jeans comet that kind of like you were stoked on, yes, and and the long jeans comet dude was a badass watch and I think they should come back out with it because it's so cool.

Justin Walters: 22:01

It would I mean, it would kill today to for long jeans to redo that watch, um, but that was kind of my first introduction into like these weird complicated disc kind of style watches, and with alterum I was like, okay, let's do something flat. The goal was to keep it thin, um, and yeah, I was working for honeywell at the time so I started designing this. Uh, dude, I should show you, I should send you some of the drawings I did with this, or first, first god awful, they're horrible and I don't really draw.

Justin Walters: 22:41

I draw on illustrator with like shapes and stuff yeah so but yeah, this it's.

Justin Walters: 22:49

It's kind of funny how this came about. But um, yeah it's. He had this launching comment and this was when I was first getting into watches. I didn't really know much and then I started learning through other watchmakers that worked at Honeywell, like kind of how watches were put together and built, and that got me introduced into Eikapod and Mark Newsome and it kind of just went from there. It kind of just went from there. I finished the design pretty quickly but then I had to tweak it a little bit and make it better. It was very. The first watch wasn't a world timer, it was a dive watch for Altair and it was quartz. It was quartz and I was trying to get Casio to help build me a module where you have your dive watch right and it has a pusher and you push this pusher and the bezel automatically rotates to where your minute hand is.

Blake Rea: 23:55

And then your dive time starts. And then then your time starts, and then it resets back to zero.

Justin Walters: 24:00

It would be sick. Yeah, it'd be so cool, I still want to do it, but I've got no money, so yeah, I mean I'm assuming uh, how so?

Blake Rea: 24:10

how did that? So you? So what did cassio say? Like you kind of left us on the cliffhanger there I got no response. Okay, so your concept? You pitched it to Casio and just never heard from them. Yeah, they were like who the fuck is this guy? Yeah, Well, it's still a cool idea, it's dude, it would be awesome.

Justin Walters: 24:30

It would be awesome to do this. Even Tag could do something like this. I also pitched it to tag um for their aqua racer. I think that'd be, you know, something cool, because they're some of their watches are quartz, I believe yeah um. So it'd be a really cool quartz aqua racer you should pitch it to wes.

Blake Rea: 24:56

I'm sure wes will know how to make it work, or I should actually, I really should.

Justin Walters: 25:01

Yeah, it's been an idea that's in my head. It's been there for a long time, um and and then we kind of I kind of backtracked and kind of went to this world timer idea and started messing with, you know, the disc layout and yeah, and then it turned into this, which is which is really cool. Super, super happy with it, if you can see it.

Blake Rea: 25:22

Yeah, it's kind of oh, yeah, yeah, I'll, um, I'll definitely link everybody, I mean you guys you guys have to check this out. I mean, it is beautiful, beautiful watch, um, and then yeah, in terms of uh, so for I mean, I generally don't think about honeywell as a watchmaker and you know, the way that you just made it sound like, you made it sound like there was a bunch of watch designers there, you know, is that there's a bunch of watchmakers there, okay, okay, um they don't put watches together, um they work on my instruments yeah, classified projects yeah, okay, that makes sense that's how I ended up at the lab.

Justin Walters: 26:04

Actually, because I my day job is I work at los alamos national lab and that's how I kind of was introduced to uh the lab here in new mexico oh wow, los alamos, that's.

Blake Rea: 26:15

Uh, isn't that where they did the the bomb site thing?

Justin Walters: 26:19

yeah, the manhattan project.

Blake Rea: 26:20

This is oppenheimer yeah, yeah they were filming out here for a little while damn, that's pretty awesome yeah I saw that movie and uh, and then I sort of went back and did some research, you know, because in the in the movie you see him kind of like, you know, like, getting the town together because he owned, oppen, like own that land apparently. And then, uh, and then he builds Los Alamos like all around it, which is kind of a cool little like little side story. Um, it's cool Like.

Justin Walters: 26:49

I, I love like world war two history and kind of like secret history and CIA stuff and um, yeah, so it's cool working there, it's interesting. I mean it's, you know, it's way more boring than you think, but yeah, so that got me out here into the desert. And then Marin came about during COVID, which is interesting.

Blake Rea: 27:16

Yeah, I would never uh a dive watch brand to come out of new mexico.

Justin Walters: 27:21

New mexico, yeah right there's dive shops here, really like, yeah, we do high altitude diving. I'm not a diver, but, um, I like snorkeling and whatever and just staying on, staying close to the surface.

Blake Rea: 27:38

Yeah, yeah.

Justin Walters: 27:38

Because it hurts my ears. I'm a little baby when it comes to water.

Blake Rea: 27:41

Sure sure.

Justin Walters: 27:43

But yeah, we've got some really really pretty high alpine lakes and a couple lakes on the backside of some mountains. One I visited last year. It's called Wheelereler Peak and it's the tallest mountain in New Mexico it's 13.1. It's not anything to boast about it's. It takes like four hours. But I went down the backside and camped, set up a camp and just kind of snorkeled around the water up there. I was cold.

Blake Rea: 28:15

Yeah, I live in Vegas and yeah, I mean we have obviously a little bit of water around us, but I think I've drove through Mexico, at least like once, and I don't remember ever seeing any water. I mean, you got to find it.

Justin Walters: 28:33

You got to search for it. It's liquid gold out here. I mean, you live in the desert, that's what it is. It's hard to find. Um, we also have the blue hole, which is really cool. It's like uh, 82 feet, uh deep hole, a spring-fed hole that's. The water's like 62, I think, year round, but it's super clear and it's awesome. A lot of people dive there it makes sense.

Blake Rea: 28:59

Yeah, um, yeah, no, I mean I, I, yeah no no water for me.

Blake Rea: 29:06

Thank you, um, let's see if we can jump back into, uh to marin. And and then not only that too, but your design background. I've noticed between between the two watches, um, they're very minimalist. Yeah, like that, you follow very minimalist design, uh, aesthetics, and how important is that for you? Um, I mean, it seems like you're one of those form follow function designers. Um, so do you ever see yourself kind of ramping up in terms of kind of the design or do you just plan to kind of do the less is more? Addition by subtraction.

Justin Walters: 29:54

Type of design principles I think it depends on the product. Really, it depends on you know what it is that I'm designing? Um, because I've designed. I've designed a couple of things. I've designed chairs, um, I've done nothing, none that were made like, I haven't made any money off anything. But I've designed a couple more watches and I Think Legibility is the big thing for me.

Justin Walters: 30:27

Yeah, I have to be able to read it and even like I, you know this Rolex that I have, it's kind of hard to read and so that comes first. When I design something, you got to be able to like, visually see the dial or visually see you know what it is, um, that's. Yeah, that's a little difficult for me to answer. Yeah, it just depends on the, on the um, the thing I want to design. I think now what I think about more than I think about the piece is the space that it's in, and this was big with Alterum, because I think Alterum is this minimalist brand and so is Marin. Like the goal is to keep it simple. Um, design, designing something simple is really hard and I don't think you know I'm saying I'm designing something simple, but minimalist design I and I hate that word, I hate minimalist design.

Blake Rea: 31:22

Sorry, that's my word, not yours.

Justin Walters: 31:24

No, no, no, it's fine, like I get it, like we don't have a better word for it, but it's um, I think of the space that it's in more than I think of the product itself, because, you know, know, people are going to be wearing fancy things and whatever, and I want this to stand out, and so it has to be simple, it has to be clear, it has to be clean and, um, yeah, with Marin it was just kind of, you know, a dive watch needs to be easily read, even when you're like you know you don't have your glasses and you're like, what time is it? You could still read it.

Justin Walters: 31:59

So that was the main thing it was just make it legible. And then, if you make it legible, you know you start taking things away from, you know what's not needed and you start getting rid of you know flashy stuff and you know, just make it. You know I'm not going to say dumbing it down, but just getting rid of the nonsense.

Blake Rea: 32:20

Well, you also mentioned brands like IcaPod. I read something about Rescent, you referenced Rescent Leica and then you know, you obviously earlier in the podcast talked about Braun.

Justin Walters: 32:46

You obviously earlier in the podcast talked about Braun as some influential brands to your now branded identity between not only Marin but Alterum Apple's in there as well.

Blake Rea: 32:50

Yeah, yeah, I did see that Apple. You had the Guggenheim, I mean you had a bunch of stuff.

Justin Walters: 32:54

Yeah, I mean you had a bunch of stuff.

Blake Rea: 32:56

Yeah, what specifically about you know? And we could, just to make it easier to stick with the watch brand?

Justin Walters: 33:08

What specifically about those designs, kind of spoke to you. So when it comes to Ikepod, it was kind of ahead of its time. Ikepod was, and I don't know if that For me that's why it kind of failed a little bit. It was too out there. It was like I don't know, I think it was ahead of its time for me. But I loved the discs.

Justin Walters: 33:31

I loved the disc concept that Mark News, mark newson came up with and it was really simple designs and the case shapes were really weird, and so for that it was, you know, the disc dial. Um, for leica it was the aluminum, and this is the same with apple, it was the aluminum case that they use. Um, and I mentioned this, it's with.

Justin Walters: 33:59

When I'm designing alterum, I'm usually thinking about materials more than thinking about design. Uh, and I want this material to stand out. More than you know, more than it is a watch, it needs to be beautiful. You want to wear it, um, and so that's first for me. I was talking to Alfred Chan when I was in Hong Kong and he was like you know, what do you think of first when you design something? And for me, it's the material. That's number one with Alterum, with Marin, it's legibility, and so I want these materials to be beautiful as well as the actual piece. So, yeah, for Leica it was just. You know, they make the most beautiful camera bodies ever, and so Apple makes beautiful products. That's why we buy them all. Sure, we can't deny that. They're just amazing. Even their watches are Not enough. People talk about their watch design, they talk about the functionality, but I don't think they get enough credit when they, you know, people talk about their watch design. They make beautiful pieces of you know consumer wearables beautiful things, you know consumer tech.

Justin Walters: 35:11

Yeah, they make them, they're, they're gorgeous and so gorgeous and so um, yeah, there's just different things that these companies kind of bring to me. Like vans was a big one. Vans has had like this same uh shoe design for like 60 years or 70 years or how long they've been around I think it was like 1962. They, they were, they came um, which is just incredible. Like you design something that simple, it'll last.

Blake Rea: 35:41

I noticed too. Um, if you look at and Vance is a great example, and I don't think they get enough kind of credit, but they really attach themselves to culture, right, skateboard culture, and now it's synonymous with that culture. Like you cannot, it's impossible now to meet a skateboarder who doesn't know vans, let alone now. I mean you can go to any outlet store or I mean pretty much any mall and see a van store. Yeah, and people associate vans with a cultural, like identity and it's all wrapped around like that, like hesh lifestyle, like just shred everything, like whether you're, like you know, in the streets or in the water, like just rip everything.

Justin Walters: 36:30

and yeah it's, I love vans. I love vans for that reason, like they did a really good job of they. To me, vans is very much like uh, hoyer used to be. They would just go and get into the scene like hoyer was, um, so that they're. Those are two brands that I look up to a lot.

Blake Rea: 36:51

They kind of uh they're, they're pushers, you know I think hoyer's getting back to that now too um like especially with some of the the newer releases, like the new monza, um, you know, I'm I'm excited for them. I mean, the skipper, did you see um? Did you see the skipper? Really I mean that's sick, super sick, um, and now they're glass box. I mean I I think I think now we should be able to see that from from tag, you know yeah, I hope so, because yeah, they're really cool.

Justin Walters: 37:26

I mean I like tag wear, I do um, but yeah, they need to, kind of that's a brand. They need, kind of you know, go back to their history a little bit more.

Blake Rea: 37:40

You're, you're starting to see it now too, like you've seen kind of these brands go all go on these little weird kind of like paths, of like trying to figure out what works in the modern, you know, the modern, uh, the modern culture, the modern scene, the what the modern consumer wants, but we never really wanted anything different than what they already had. So you see a lot of brands now, um, that are essentially just copy pasting from their archives and and those watches are just performing really well, you know, in terms of terms of sales, I think, like long jeans is doing that as well, a little bit um.

Blake Rea: 38:14

Longines is a great example. Longines is a great brand. Uh, I was talking to my friend about it yesterday. He, um, he, he, he won a watch at work uh and and anyway.

Blake Rea: 38:26

So I, when I sold watches, I sold Longines and I would push Longines so hard uh, you know, because you know you're not paying for that that, that brand association, like you know, when you look at an 1100 quartz watch from tag heuer or you can get yourself like a uh, like a conquest or like a hydro conquest for like 995 bucks, an automatic diver, that like will go down, you know and do anything you want it to automatic.

Blake Rea: 38:55

And it was a really hard proposition to turn people away from, you know, because you're clearly paying for an identity with Tag and so I had earned and I pushed launching so hard. And every time you sell a watch or you know you meet some type of sales goal, they would give you like a little like point system.

Blake Rea: 39:15

You register the sale, they give you points and then you can use those points to to buy something, right, you know, on their store, kind of like a reward system and uh and I, yeah, I bought some cologne from there, I bought a record player like my first record player and uh, and yeah, yeah, it was uh, it was a fun little way that you know, and I told them. I was like you know, like you need to make the cause. They had long jeans watches on there and I was like you need to make the long jeans watches more affordable so we can wear them and like, afford them, you know.

Justin Walters: 39:45

Yeah, for sure, for sure it is. I wish the lab did something like that. The lab needs to do something like that where we can like. I don't think they. You know you spend 10 years or something at a at a job. They used to give out watches like I bought. My first omega was a southwestern bell omega from like 1975 and uh it's. It was inscribed on the back. It was like thank you for your 25 years with a name. I wish more companies did that today yeah, um, they're getting away from it.

Blake Rea: 40:18

I think I don't, I don't know, but if you look at like culturally too, like it just I mean, look at like all the cool brand, like the cool brands have done that, like pizza hut used to do that, you know, like you could get the pizza hut explorers or ops there's actually one here at a pawn shop. It was a pizza hut, uh or I think it was a oyster perpetual or maybe a vintage jay chest or something, um, but legitimately had like the pizza hut logo in the bracelet. Really, yeah, and then they what's the pizza logo?

Blake Rea: 40:50

I'm trying it's just like the little pizza hut square, or. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, dominoes, dominoes, dominoes, dominoes dominoes.

Justin Walters: 40:55

Okay, I was like what is the pizza? Shit, sorry, sorry. I literally just wrote a whole tangent box thing no, no, it's like the yeah, sorry so, dominoes.

Blake Rea: 41:05

Uh, yeah, legitimately had like the little dominoes square there on the bracelet and then that's cool. Whatever, for whatever reason, the pawn shop removed it and so there's just a huge hole there and I'm like dude, you need to keep that that domino's little pizza box. I don't know, I was just thinking about it wouldn't mean something. And then, and then, yeah, on the case, back of course, this you know, thank you for opening. You know a franchise I think they did it for like franchisees or something.

Blake Rea: 41:30

Yeah, yeah for sure, but but so cool and and yeah, I mean it's such a great way to kind of reward your employees. I would, I would love to see it again. It's great. Um, as as a self-employed contractor, I I get myself soft, nice things all the time there you go. I'm curious, too, about something that I don't think I've ever heard you talk about, but I think you probably should be talking more about. Is the case structure specifically for uh, for marin you?

Blake Rea: 42:09

know, something that that stuck out to me, like when I was in san francisco, where, you know, obviously, uh, when we first met, uh, what was so unique was the case structure and the case shape and the case form and the way that it integrates to the strap. Uh, I had never really seen anything like that. It's uh, it's like sharp, but it's not, and it's like rounded but it's not. And it's like rounded but it's not. And it's like angular but it's not. And I don't really know. I'm not really good at describing things, obviously, but it was a very unique shape. That that was particularly what stuck out to me the most and attracted me to the product. How did you get there? Was that something that you designed or was that something that you know? Obviously, like you, you had sourced, or yeah, so I designed the case.

Justin Walters: 43:06

Um, it's obviously inspired by old, um, you know, skin diver cases. Uh, it's, I mean it's a flat case. It's pretty flat but it fits my wrist, so, like it worked, um, as this watch. I mean, it worked as a watch, but the um, the case shape was just, yeah, inspired by old skin divers and I wanted to keep these. I wanted this, these crown guards, to be uh, pretty bulky. Um, I didn't want someone to, you know, knock it on something you know, walking past the door, and I wanted it to be kind of like, you know, pro, prof or however you say that omega, um yeah, pro prof yeah like that style case um yeah, I don't, I haven't really talked about it much um but like it's it's

Justin Walters: 44:00

it's inspired a lot by bell and ross, like our strap. Um, the way the strap fits, the case is very much inspired by bell and ross. Uh, they, they, their straps are really cool, but their watches are too big, um, yeah. So, yeah, we worked with our manufacturer of into hennex. Um, the bracelet took a long time because, you know, we're trying to get these case lines to come down and then you're matching a bracelet which kind of has these, or a strap which has these wings, um, and so the goal was to just keep everything in line. So it had to like kind of you know, flow with your wrist to. You know, the line was really important, um, to keep, and you know, a lot of these watches they just kind of their lugs end and then it's just bracelet or strap, whatever it is I didn't want that to happen.

Justin Walters: 44:54

It needed to flow, um, and so, yeah, we. Well, I worked with uh, ravinta, hennex and they they helped me a lot with the engineering of that and, um, I think it came out pretty nice. A lot of people comment on that.

Blake Rea: 45:08

Actually, yeah, I don't talk about that much yeah, you should, uh, you should upload some of the, the render that'd be cool for you to do. I mean, here I'm not, this is not a marketing pep talk, but you know, I mean some of the, the. You know you talked about sending me over some of the, the sketches and stuff. Like, I think people would really be kind of interested to see that type of stuff. Like, for sure, you know, because you know a lot of brands now, not not necessarily micro brands, but they kind of, they kind of hitch their, their, their hat on like legacy, right, they talk about, oh, we were founded in this year, in this date, and uh and uh, and obviously, like you know, micro brands, they don't, they don't, they don't talk about that as much there's no legacy, right, you know.

Blake Rea: 45:55

but but you're, you're, you're making it right, You're making it right now, so you know sharing as much as much of the inside process as you can with, uh, you know, with your, your perspective customers. You know it's almost like uh, it's a part of the customer journey that people don't really get anymore. You know, and you know we talked about Peter off stream, but Peter from Jack Mason like he has an entire series where he talks. You should go back and watch it. But you know how he goes through and he shows you the design process from zero to finished. I might have seen a couple of these.

Blake Rea: 46:40

And it's so cool. I think it's just such great material, it's just so enjoyable to consume. I think more brands need to take a page out of that book, because your heritage is now right and in the future. Right so spin it like that.

Justin Walters: 47:02

I'll try to do more of that.

Blake Rea: 47:04

Yeah, yeah, I mean just my opinion. No, no, no.

Justin Walters: 47:07

That's good. That's good because getting feedback is always good.

Blake Rea: 47:14

Yeah, getting getting feedback is always good. Yeah, I'm sure, if you, if you leave a form up on on your website. People will be happy to chime in and give you all the positive or negative feedback they can for sure it's funny running a brand um talking about feedback.

Justin Walters: 47:29

It's funny because you get really good at taking horrible criticism is that what you just did?

Blake Rea: 47:38

you just took my horrible no, no, no, but it's.

Justin Walters: 47:45

It just reminded me of like I. I try not to go on like review websites and like look to see what people are saying, although it's important, like you should. You're, you should like definitely take what people are saying and like if you want to change your product, change it. You need these changes. Change it, um. But it's funny when I get these, you know people saying like, oh, that'd be cool for 200 bucks. You know that'd be good 300 bucks.

Blake Rea: 48:11

I'm like dude, it costs more to make I, I, I thought about doing like one of those I thought about doing one of those, uh, those serieses, uh, where, like, have you ever seen the series, especially with particular luxury products, where they'll like, they'll buy like a, like a birkin bag or whatever, and then they'll cut it open and they'll rip?

Blake Rea: 48:32

the leather out and they'll do all the stitching and do all that. And then they'll be like open and they'll rip the leather out and they'll do all the stitching and do all that. And then they'll be like, ok, this is, you know, the material cost of the product, right, yeah, and then here's how much they have to kind of to kind of wiggle in for labor, right? I mean, you know, people need to understand that you're not Seiko, like you're not able to scale. Like Seiko, like you know, I, I don't know how many watches you're making, but I'm assuming you're not making more than a thousand watches a year, you know?

Justin Walters: 49:01

no, no, no so we, we started with 500, and that's that was two years ago. Two years ago, I think, three years ago, 2021, we kind of launched 500 watches and we still have a few, because I'm a small brand and so I don't have the marketing or the expertise to push out thousands of watches. Sure but yeah, a lot of people. Most people don't know the cost of running a business the cost of running a business and I think it's an important.

Justin Walters: 49:37

I think more people should be talking about it because it's it would lend some insight to some of these people on these forums and chats and whatever about. You know how much these things actually cost I think.

Blake Rea: 49:48

I think they've gotten spoiled by brands like orient, who you know puts out an in-house movement, you know bambino for like 200 bucks, or like seiko I mean, you can get a seiko gmt for like 350. I mean, like it's hard to beat. You know, at scale, like you, you just can't. You can't put your product and that's, that's the, the ideology that we need to get away from, where we're saying oh well, I'm gonna compare it to a 350 seiko or like, like what like we're talking about? You know a limited production.

Blake Rea: 50:25

Uh, like you know, micro brand, you know and I'm not talking about something that's producing millions of the same thing.

Justin Walters: 50:34

You know and I know uh, a lot of people just think you know this, these things cost 50 bucks and we're, you know, pricing them thousands of times more than what it costs. And it's just not true. It's like we're. We're barely making any money. On what?

Blake Rea: 50:54

we sell.

Justin Walters: 50:56

So that's why it's been so hard to like make the next watch. Honestly, it's just because you know lack of resources and time do you do um?

Blake Rea: 51:09

do you ever see yourself so? So something that, like um, I'm curious about is you know like you're clearly using, like swiss movements. You know um, a lot of the guys you know, I guess. I guess if you had gotten in the same inner circles that I'm in, they probably would have told you like look, you can get a miyota to run just as well as you can a solita. You know, right, um, and so that would have kept the cost down, um. But you know, not only necessarily, but you know, uh, taking production outside of switzerland.

Blake Rea: 51:47

You know because, you know you are producing watches in switzerland, uh, albeit through a supplier, uh, but I mean this the stigma of having a great watch built outside of switzerland, like it used to be a stigma that, like you know, office japanese or or something else is a piece of shit, and that's not the case anymore. Um, like, so where? Where was your thought process about like okay, I have to get it done in switzerland? Like, why did you choose that path?

Blake Rea: 52:19

uh was it just that, that stigma, that that said, okay, well, people are going to want a swiss watch, or it was first.

Justin Walters: 52:26

Um, definitely, I think a lot of people still, like the swiss, made you know watch. I think a lot of people still you know, like the Swiss made you know watch. I think a lot of people still you know, like the Swiss, made on the dial and it means something to them. And but, yeah, definitely it's, it's starting to turn. Um, and there was a. There was a uh symposium in Hong Kong that actually, when I went there for Dubai watch week, there was uh, they, they talked about this exact topic, about how, you know, chinese watchers are becoming more popular and it's not because you know it's, it's because they can make really really good stuff and people are making really, really nice things out of china. But yeah, it was.

Justin Walters: 53:11

You know, we actually went to China. First there was a couple of guys, one person that I think ran Timex or something or worked for Timex, and then another guy that it's been so long. But I was talking with these people in China and they told me that nobody builds dive watches anymore. No one wears dive watches. You can't sell this for $1 dollars. There's no way they wanted me to make like a daniel wellington, you know, cheap watch to sell millions of and I was like no, like, if that's what I'm going to deal with, I'm going to go to switzerland, and so I I you know kind of put my feelers out there with a bunch of different people, and the swiss people were just the most honest. Honestly, I'm not saying they're dishonest in China, but it's like the people that I spoke with were just.

Blake Rea: 54:02

Like more supportive of the idea. Yeah, they were more supportive of my design.

Justin Walters: 54:09

When I was speaking to the people in China, I could have found the wrong people, but yeah, we worked with Reventa Henex and they've just been amazing. Um, it could be I could have found the wrong people, um, but yeah, we work with for Venta Hennix and they've just been amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. So, and they do cost more, like, they cost a lot of money. It costs a lot to make a Swiss made watch, um, but the amount of like communication that we have and you know, although I have to be on their time zone most of the times, or most of the, you know, some of the meetings I have, it's way past midnight super early yeah and everything else just runs so smooth.

Justin Walters: 54:48

So that's really why I stuck with RuntainX and I will continue to use them, because they're just so amazing and they're really supportive and right now we're working on a watch, we're trying to figure out feasibility, and they've been really, really, really open to the different ideas that I have with the build and how many we're going to do. It's a great relationship.

Blake Rea: 55:15

Do you ever come at them? Because I've heard two different design sides where you say look, I'm just going to design a watch, uncompromised, uncompromised.

Justin Walters: 55:25

Here's what I want roventa deliver or you go that was this, that was, that was, that was the merit okay, okay you should see the drawings first. It was. It's crazy how similar they are. Do you need to?

Blake Rea: 55:41

you need to. You definitely need to upload those, um, and and then, and then the other. I've heard the other side where you say, hey, I want to design a watch within this budget. Here is kind of a couple of things that I have on paper, and then you know the, you know the manufacturer will come back and say, oh, we're have to cut this or cut that, or cut this, or like, we can't do that or we have to. You know, use this movement or that, like did you ever, ever find yourself yourself, uh, approaching manufacturing like that or like, could you ever see yourself kind of going in the into that direction, where you say, hey, look like we have such a strong demand for, uh, the skin. Divers thousand dollars is a lot of money, you know it is it?

Justin Walters: 56:29

is there's a lot of money.

Blake Rea: 56:30

It's a lot of money for people to spend. It is and, uh, you know, ever saying, hey, look, I want something more aggressively priced. Uh, you know, but still, you know, obviously corners have to be cut. But you know, since you're in charge of this brand, you get, you get to decide what corners to be cut. You know, um, and the ones that that compromise on on you know, creating a quality product or having quality design or things like that, you know that would be those corners you decide not to cut. So does that right? Does that ever cross your mind? Or?

Justin Walters: 57:08

so I've kind of dealt with both sides. I've dealt with with marin. It was, you know, build. This is exactly what I want. I want it to be this way and they did it perfectly. Um, I didn't have any complaints. Actually, we went back and forth on the bezel first because it was shiny. Um, the first bezel we did was a stainless steel, polished bezel and I was like, no, this needs to be matte, like people need to be able to see this when it's, you know, super sunny out here in santa fe.

Justin Walters: 57:36

Um, with alterum, we kind of we went back and forth a little bit because it costs more to make. It costs a lot more to make than the marin. Um, and we had to go back and forth on um the bracelet a little bit. We did back and forth on the rubber strap, which we never offered because it just didn't turn out. For the first one it didn't turn out very well. The construction was just not right. I went back and forth with them a couple times on what we can do. They were like, well, it's going to cost this much, it's going to be an insane amount to do. And then I actually went to um. Before I spoke with Raventa Hennix about Altarum. I went to Voshea. If you've ever heard of Voshea, I have.

Justin Walters: 58:21

And they built. You know they're building like Richard Mill watches over there they're doing some crazy stuff and you pay for it. Um, but yeah, talk to them a little bit. But uh, revenge annex was very open with you know what we could do and what we couldn't. And they actually ate some of the costs too, just like I did so they were like you know what?

Justin Walters: 58:45

we'll take a loss because this project is important to you and it's important to us, and so they're just just an amazing manufacturer. So I know they don't want to be known, but they're known.

Blake Rea: 58:58

Yeah, I mean they're.

Justin Walters: 59:00

Jerome was up there with me in Hong Kong, so Jerome's a good guy. Shout out to Jerome.

Blake Rea: 59:04

Nice, yeah, yeah, they're really known for what they do. There are other brands out there that are essentially swiss made, chinese brands. I'm sure you probably know what I'm talking about. Yeah, um, but, and they go around and they market stuff as they ship it to switzerland. They produce it all in china, ship it to switzerland final assembly takes place in switzerland and they call us what's product? You know, that's not what roventa is doing, you know no, to be fair.

Justin Walters: 59:33

I mean we make stuff in hong kong like yeah, there's nothing wrong with that every watch brand does it, but we, our goal is not to you know, we're not saying we are swiss made, that's you know. This is why you buy our watch like you buy our watch you're built for the journey. That's more important to me than than the swiss made mark. But uh yeah, we'll continue to go with preventanics for as long it takes yeah, um, and I'm curious too.

Blake Rea: 1:00:02

so you talk about, you know, building watches for the journey and you just said, like I can't wait to see some of these aged. Have you tried, like doing any of the rug, like the durability testing, like I'm curious or like you know, like I think there's ways that you can advanced age them too?

Justin Walters: 1:00:24

So we did a special series called the Odyssey series and I don't know if you've clicked on that or read the story. There were 10 watches found in Mexico. This is the story. Okay, this is all fake. Um, there were 10 watches found in Mexico in this dive shop that was closing down and I go to Mexico a lot with my buddies and so I was like we need to make this story about these dive watches that were found that you know there's not a lot of history on them, but there was. They were part of a program where you know they didn't really know the program details, they thought it was. You know they were testing underwater breathing apparatus for aqualung or they were doing something with recording devices, you know, 80 feet under the water. So that's the story of this. It's kind of fake, you know.

Justin Walters: 1:01:17

I just want to write something cool something yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, uh, it was inspired by damien hurst, his treasures of the lost world, or something like that.

Blake Rea: 1:01:30

Yeah, yeah something like that.

Justin Walters: 1:01:32

Um, yeah really cool idea. The artwork was really weird. Um, he could have made something really really amazing like cool coins and whatever found at the bottom of the world or bottom of the ocean, and so it's kind of playing on that idea with the dive watches and I aged them. You know, I aged the dials, I scratched up the cases and beat them up a little bit and so, yeah, I have messed around with kind of, you know, faux aging and it was fun and it looks cool. So that was the Odyssey series that we did, but the story is pretty fun.

Blake Rea: 1:02:11

And you said you only did like 10. Did I understand that correctly?

Justin Walters: 1:02:13

We did 10. We have one more that's going to come out soon. That's kind of gives a little more detail about what they were doing at the bottom of the ocean. So, yeah, we're going to come up with that soon Still writing and getting it finalized, but we have the watch and it's really cool, Really really cool.

Justin Walters: 1:02:32

That's super cool. It's a fun story, man. It's like you can't always, you know, for brands like us we kind of have to fake it Sometimes. You know, we don't have 100 years of you know watch history. So I think doing things like this and coming up with fun stories that people can be a part of I think is really really cool. Yeah.

Blake Rea: 1:02:55

I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you know, we just talked about how you know your, your legacy is now right and, uh, you know, 20, 30, 40 years from now, like you know, there'll be talking about the things that you did. Uh, you know, you know that will be your legacy, like the founding days, right, the founding father. You know they'll be talking about the things that you did. Uh, you know, you know that will be your legacy, like the founding days, right, the founding father. You know, um, and no, I haven't, I haven't heard about that, I haven't seen that. Um, I, I am ashamed to say I need to pay more attention.

Justin Walters: 1:03:26

So it was a quick story that we did. Um were only 10 watches, but this you know. You should give it a read.

Justin Walters: 1:03:33

It's pretty cool and I had a lot of fun writing it and I'm trying to write more, just as an adult. I'm trying to just put my thoughts down on paper. This was a fun way to kind of create this story, where these watches were were found in this old dive shop and I think that's oh, I mean they sold out like crazy. I mean it was quick. There's only 10. You know, yeah, you know, make a hundred of them or anything but um, so it was a lot of fun, it's cool what was this new?

Blake Rea: 1:04:03

this other one that's coming out is going to be really cool to kind of finish off the story we'll have to go back and check what was some of the, uh, the things that you did to, to to expedite the aging process uh, baking.

Justin Walters: 1:04:19

Okay, bake the dials in an oven. Um, there's like a couple of. See, I don't know what I'm doing, really, I'm just trying different shit, you know?

Justin Walters: 1:04:30

yeah, yeah, that's all right, I'm just trying to see what works like. I put the watches in a bag of rocks, just shook them around. See what would happen. Um, I, you know, use different paints and paint removers and different chemicals to to kind of age the dials a little bit more. That was about it. I took the bezels out. We did the steel bezels on these Odysseys. We did a steel bezel with an orange seconds hand which looks really, really cool on the standard. It just trashed them as best I could without removing too much. The steel bezels look good when they're all beat up, so it looks pretty cool steel ages.

Blake Rea: 1:05:17

Like awesome I know it's great it. Yeah, I just love, love the way it looks.

Justin Walters: 1:05:24

Yeah, there's a lot of projects was cool, you should, yeah, definitely check it out and I could send you, like um, either photos, or I could send you the one that I have, because I kept one um, so you can take a look at that and just kind of get your opinion and the one that I have.

Blake Rea: 1:05:38

The bezel doesn't click, it's so it's actually like it just slides yeah, yeah, I'd be happy to uh, to get hands-on with some of that stuff. So, yeah, um, so, yeah, yeah, I mean I have obviously told you like I'd love to get some of the watches in for content, um, you know, to help how I can um what's what's next for the brand?

Blake Rea: 1:06:07

so, um, you, know I guess we're gonna start with marin. You know, I guess we're going to start with Marin. You know, what do you plan for the future? I mean, obviously you said you're planning a couple things and you know you're trying to get some ideas out, but you know funding is difficult. Yeah, so what's next For the?

Justin Walters: 1:06:28

project we're working on right now with Marin. We're working on the field master. It's been ongoing for a while we released when we launched the skin diver. We actually I actually put a picture of the field master on Hodinkee as well. I took it off our Instagram because people kept asking me about it and I was getting annoyed because it's such a slow project. Like, I'm not annoyed People are asking me about it. I was getting annoyed because it's such a slow project, like I'm not annoying people asking me about. I know it's gonna be really awesome and I'm very, very excited for it, but it's. It's a project that's taken a long time. Um, because we're creating a module on top of the movement and so we're working with salida to see if it's, if this is even possible, and so we're still getting. We're still going back and forth on what we can do and what we can't do, but yeah, so the Fieldmaster is next. We're still a ways from it. I'm hoping in the next year and a half we can have Fieldmaster sales. So that's the next thing.

Justin Walters: 1:07:33

I got a. I've got a bunch of watch designs for marin. Um, I have a quartz watch that I want to do. I think quartz is cool, uh yeah, so I've got a bunch of different. I got a tide indicator watch, that's pretty cool. And for altarum we've got a couple different variations of the world timer. We're coming out with um right now we've got the gold pvd and we have the black pvd, the one that I have the original sold out, so we're not selling any more of those. We only made 100. We're doing 100 gold, 100 black and then we've got two more watches that will come out later on in the year. But I've got another design for Altarum that I'm working on. But again, it just takes time to come out with these things. This one's a time-only watch, so you know, updated bracelet. It's going to come with a integrated bracelet, um, kind of the same sort of construction as the world timer, but thinner and and more elegant.

Blake Rea: 1:08:40

So yeah, that's, we're just working on a couple different things yeah, most people understand too, because the the time that you come up with like a proof of concept and then you know, start getting doing pulse checks to see if it's possible, if you could execute it, how much it'll cost like you know, lead time, I mean you're you're years out usually and and people don't understand that. And and now you know you see a lot of brands just painting a dial and then re-releasing it and then calling it a new release.

Justin Walters: 1:09:16

Um, it's funny you mentioned that because that was my biggest like calm with the watch industry. They're like you know, these brands will come out with a different dial color and they'll be like, yeah, this is completely different.

Blake Rea: 1:09:28

Yeah it's doing something new what? It's red, it's all yeah yeah, um, I know I I pulled up the the field master here and uh, yeah and this thing is badass and I'm assuming thanks. It's kind of inspired by the flight master. Is that kind of?

Justin Walters: 1:09:47

yes, very much so. Flight Flightmaster inspired. It's got the Flightmaster colors on there the red, blue and yellow. We're doing the plan is to do three models or three variations 300 each. That's what we're working on right now is trying to lower our quantity and just do 100 each, because these are going to be they're not going to be cheap, and that's what we're. I'm a little nervous about how much it's going to be, um, because I want to be able for people like me to afford it, like I don't make a lot of money, um, and I want people to wear my watches. That's the goal, um. So yeah, we're just working with revendanix. I'm trying to get a, a quote and get all the all the back end stuff engineered and figured out.

Blake Rea: 1:10:40

So do you ever see yourself kind of uh like stripping down, kind of, because now that you have your, your pre, I will call it a premium product. Uh, do you ever see yourself kind of scaling back and doing something more? Uh, I don't know if mass market is the right word to use, but more, more obtainable yeah, definitely that's what we.

Justin Walters: 1:11:06

So, before we started the field master, I wanted to do a quartz model, um, and that would be kind of our sub 850 model, you know, something under 850 dollars. That's the goal, so but yeah, I definitely see us doing something like that. It's just, you know, we're still young and still getting our feet on the ground and trying to figure out exactly where we fit yeah, no, I um this.

Blake Rea: 1:11:34

This is badass, so I I love it it's cool, I, I think.

Blake Rea: 1:11:39

I think it's weird timing too, considering now if you look at what omega just released. I mean, we're talking now in january, uh, of 2025, but they just re-released the flight master and uh, and I wasn't, I was a badass watch, though it's cool it it is, I'm, I'm, I like vintage omega. I just I feel like they fuck it up when they you know kind of, do you know re-release? I mean especially the new one. The new one, like it's so far away from the original flight master yeah, it is that it.

Blake Rea: 1:12:15

It just I don't know. It just gets lost for me.

Justin Walters: 1:12:17

So yeah, I think it's a cool piece of design, um, very legible, very. I think it's cool. I like the design of it, um, but yeah, it's. I don't know what movement they use in that. I'm not sure it's in-house, yeah, in-house, yeah, but I've heard it's really thick and so it's.

Blake Rea: 1:12:31

I don't know what movement they use in that.

Justin Walters: 1:12:32

I'm not sure it's in-house, yeah, in-house, yeah but I've heard it's really thick and so it's like make it thinner. It's chronograph yeah make it 50 meters.

Blake Rea: 1:12:39

No one needs to go diving with it yeah, that's the thing like, if you look at like going from the 50s to the 60s to the 70s, like they were using, uh, the 861 calibers. Well, in the 50s they were, they didn't exist but uh, they were using lamania stuff and then they went into the 321 and then they went the 861 and yada, yada, yada. But anyways, you know, back in the day they were using a lot of manual winding uh movements which were kind of. Now you don't see a lot of brands, especially in chronographs, doing manual winding chronographs anymore, um, and they're kind of like I've, I've uh kind of um, kind of coined them as kind of the, the v12 of the chronograph, you know um like you just you just don't see a lot of v12 like cars anymore.

Blake Rea: 1:13:34

You know, like maybe like a twin turbo v8 or something you know, and some of the you know, like crazy car but um, but no, and and now because they've started, you know, scaling up and and using, uh, you know, going automatic, like the market has demanded that they go automatic. And now you see them definitely pushing up the case size and um, and thickness, and uh, and omega is a weird brand because you know everything they do is in-house, right and and yeah, what they, what they did was I. I went at length and kind of went on a rant about this, but they essentially took one of their, their core uh, they took one of their existing movements and just popped a little, a little module on top of it and that's what. That's what brands used to do back in the day when they wanted to make chronographs. You know, yeah, they took a base movement, put a module on top and then released a chronograph.

Blake Rea: 1:14:29

You know, yeah, um, and and now you know, you see, you know brands they're doing. You know zenith got credit for the fully integrated chronograph without a module, but but it definitely adds to the bulkiness of the watch and uh, and yeah, it's, it's a weird release to me and I mean I think it's like it's like it's, it's a thick one, it's like I think it's a weird release to me and I mean, I think it's like it's like it's a thick one.

Blake Rea: 1:14:54

I think, it's like 14, 15, 16 millimeters thick.

Justin Walters: 1:14:57

Holy cow really.

Blake Rea: 1:14:59

Yeah, it's up there, if I remember correctly.

Justin Walters: 1:15:04

But yeah, our goal is to keep it under, like if we can keep the Fieldmaster under 14,. 14 is huge, 14 is huge.

Blake Rea: 1:15:14

13 is big, it is.

Justin Walters: 1:15:14

If we can keep it at 13 or under. You know, however, we can kind of cut space and, um, make it thin. We're going to do that, cause that's the goal. Like with both of these brands that I have, I want them to be thinner, um, I want them to be to hug the wrist better, and I want them to be thinner. I want them to be to hug the wrist better. And thin is cool. Thin watches are cool. I mean, you don't need a big chunk of steel on your wrist. So you know, like, the Skin Diver is 11 and a half millimeters, the Alterum is 10. So, you know, if we can go lower, that'd be great.

Blake Rea: 1:15:50

Do you ever see yourself kind of, uh, having fun with materials? You know, I know, right now you know, using steel, um, you know you're you're doing pvd bezels, uh, and even you know you talked about some of the, the all theorems, where you did the, the gold pvd do you ever see yourself experimenting with. You know some of the more commonly used materials you see now titanium, ceramic uh carbon fiber, I mean, those are all kind of pushing the the envelope now.

Blake Rea: 1:16:24

And you see brands I would love to do like a carbon fiber marin.

Justin Walters: 1:16:28

That'd be cool, that'd be awesome. And then I'm actually looking at doing some really high-end materials for altarum, um, which is different, like some of the precious metals, um, but that's kind of way out there. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do that because it's so expensive. Um, yeah, I would love to do a, uh like a forged carbon fiber case for the mariner. I think it'd be awesome.

Justin Walters: 1:16:55

Titanium would be badass um, and you know what, I haven't really done much research into titanium. I don't really. I don't have anything that's titanium, and so maybe I should get something that's titanium and just kind of play around with the material a little bit before we kind of dive into it. But the carbon fiber thing is really cool I've heard.

Blake Rea: 1:17:15

I mean I'm not, um, I'm not into the manufacturing side, but I've heard it is relatively easy to transition from steel to manufacturing, uh, from steel to titanium, um, because from my understanding, you can use the same type of cnc machining machines and then, um, the only thing is, from my understanding, you can use the same type of cnc machinings, uh machines and then um.

Justin Walters: 1:17:35

The only thing is, from my understanding, it's just harder to get the same finish yeah so I can do, like a lot of titanium cases are, just do a matte finish blast it with some beads and be done with it.

Justin Walters: 1:17:48

Dude, that's I mean, I want to do a bead blasted marin case. I want to take one and bead blasted, like we did the alterum. The alterum is a bead blasted glass bead blasted case and it looks. It needed to look like, you know, the leica case that they made. It needed to look like the apple keyboard or the you know the apple computer. Um aluminum. That was the goal and so, yeah, it'd be cool, it'd be cool to do like a v-blasted titanium watch case for marin that'd be awesome.

Blake Rea: 1:18:21

Yeah, I would love to see that. Um, I don't want to take any more of your time here. We are running up on almost a feature film here, almost an hour an hour and 20, 20 minutes.

Blake Rea: 1:18:31

Um, we've been doing this thing where we've been kind of turning our platform over. Um, so I know we talked about a lot. We talked about the early days, kind of up until now. You know the future of the brand, you know the things that you hope to do. Um, is there anything that you feel like we didn't cover? Um, that maybe we didn't talk about? Uh, if so, now is the chance, or forever.

Justin Walters: 1:18:53

Hold your peace I don't think so. I think maybe doing a podcast later and I've talked to uh wesley with uh standard h about this topic of cost money I'd love to do a podcast with a bunch of people. Just talk about, like, what it costs to to do things because more a bunch of people, and just talk about what it costs to do things Because more people need to know. I think that's what's on my mind. Nowadays, I get these Instagram messages and I go on Reddit sometimes, which is a mistake, and people are like your watch looks cool, but I'm not going to pay over $300 for it. People need to understand how much it costs to make, to start a brand first of all, and then, to you know, make a watch, which is super expensive. So I think doing a podcast like that in the future could be cool. Um, but no, I don't think we missed anything. I think, uh, I think we covered most of it. You can do this again sometime soon.

Blake Rea: 1:19:49

Yeah, yeah, we, um, we definitely try to follow up. Uh, obviously we'll be in communication the whole time, but yeah, uh. Final question too is where, where do you see your brands in the next decade?

Justin Walters: 1:20:05

it is so hard to think about like 10 years, maybe like three years. In three years maybe I see marin coming out with the field master eventually.

Blake Rea: 1:20:17

Um, I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you have okay. Well, maybe we can spend it a little easier. Maybe you have some, uh, like a bucket list of accomplishments that you know, might be a little bit more easier to obtain.

Justin Walters: 1:20:28

Yeah, for marin, I'd like to get more into the sports scene. Um, get people, get it on someone's wrist that, you know, kind of exemplifies the brand or, you know, speaks, speaks the brand language and you know that's the. That's a goal of mine for marin. Um, and to build really cool tool watches to just improve on what we've, what we've built already. Um, do more shows. I want to do more shows. Uh, I'd like to do some private events with people, but hasn't really the opportunity, hasn't really come up. I think you know I had this idea of doing a gmt. Um, well, we're going to do the field master, but doing this launch in a, in a hangar, an airplane hangar somewhere, which would be cool, like you go look at a bunch of planes and then get to play with a watch and but that's like having having ideas like that. They're fun. Um, just doing some fun stuff. Um. Getting more into talking to people I need to talk to more people. I'm pretty shut out of everything here yeah there's no watch scene in santa fe.

Justin Walters: 1:21:38

I have two friends that are like watch buddies and we talk about watches and that's it. Like I only have two friends. Everyone else does like construction and everything else. Um, but for altarum is to work on the next model, try to find an investor really, I'd like to find someone that could help me. It's like an investor-partner kind of deal, so I'm looking for that but also just to come up with some really cool thin, minimalist pieces. You know, I see this brand being, you know, kind of I don't want to get into whatever we talk about later. Um, it's a long story but, um, I see I see a bright future for altarum and so trying to get into um, different design magazines and different, you know kind of more design oriented stuff, is that's the goal for altarum is to be more in that zone. Yeah, kind of do the Resin's thing. I met with Benoit I think is his name, benoit yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin Walters: 1:23:02

Yeah, I met him in Hong Kong. First of all, he's huge, he's tall. I'm a short dude. I was like dude, you do not look this tall online, but anyway, it was like it was really cool to meet him and to talk, watch just a little bit with him. So but like residence is doing something really really cool. I can see all term kind of getting into that uh kind of design zone, if you will. They're not really. I mean, they're a huge watch brand, they're known, but like they don't make much, you know they don't make many watches a year and they're just incredible.

Blake Rea: 1:23:42

And so low numbers, really high quality yeah, yeah, restaurants is an amazing brand and so, as a watch, I've been trying to to bring into the collection at some point. But you know, obviously affordability is something, the one that I picked up in geneva was like eighteen thousand dollars.

Justin Walters: 1:24:02

It was like their type one or something like that. I can't remember what it was, but the oil filled, yeah. Yeah, it was the oil filled one and I was like like it's so cool.

Blake Rea: 1:24:12

Yeah, it almost looks like an analog watch, like a digital watch, but it's not yeah it's cool, it's badass. Yeah, I like the Type 3. I almost picked up a Type 3. You know, I'm just waiting for the right time. I usually buy watches when I get a good deal on them and then I'll plunge and uh, but no, we'll definitely have to check back with you um and see and see you know how things are going.

Blake Rea: 1:24:44

I definitely want to, you know, kind of help make that video that we talked about. You know, just understanding. Uh, you know, I don't, we talked about it. I talked about a series, that series, but I don't know how much I'll do it, but I mean, people definitely do need to understand.

Blake Rea: 1:25:01

You know, when people aren't, micro brands aren't able to scale like, you're not able to cut the same corners, you know you don't have the same type of money you can't buy in the same quantities that seiko can buy in or produce in the same type of money. You can't buy in the same quantities that seiko can buy in or produce in the same quantities that seiko can produce in. Or I mean, just people have these unrealistic expectations from these micro brands and uh, and I have a hard time understanding that. You know, um, yeah, yeah, it's, it's weird, it's a it's a weird, weird, weird thing uh, but I also get pissed off at things that are expensive.

Justin Walters: 1:25:40

Yeah, I'm like what it costs that much? That shirt costs that much.

Blake Rea: 1:25:44

That's ridiculous have you ever looked at? I do the same thing have you looked at grills recently? Like grills are, oh my god, grills are like up there in price, like really, um, yeah, yeah, it anyways. Yeah, that's a conversation to have.

Justin Walters: 1:26:02

That's another podcast that would be interesting. It's like you know how we determine, like the psychology of cost it would be interesting yeah all right.

Blake Rea: 1:26:12

Well, I want to thank you for coming on, thank you for spending so much time with us. Uh, I am hang out for a little bit. I am going to link every uh, every all your projects. Uh, gonna link the marin uh website, gonna link the altarum website. Uh, everybody justin, as you can tell, is passionate about what he's doing and uh, I'm I'm definitely humbled that you came on and uh and glad to have spent some, some more time with you.

Blake Rea: 1:26:43

Uh, just you and I, and not had a at a crazy, a crazy, crazy watch festival. So uh yeah and I'll definitely be keeping my eyes, uh, on your projects and anything that I think I can do to to support projects. I think you know that.

Justin Walters: 1:27:00

So yeah, for sure. Yeah, thanks for having me on, man. It's, it's nice to catch up again after you know a year that we haven't really we haven't really chatted in a long time, and so, yeah, it's nice to come on, it's nice to be on.

Blake Rea: 1:27:11

This is my first podcast that is epic for you to come on my podcast.

Justin Walters: 1:27:17

I don't do the, I don't do the rounds or I don't do any of that stuff, so I'm kind of hidden away in the desert. You should, you should do this more.

Blake Rea: 1:27:26

I mean, this is a part of the you know getting out there, right people. You know these are, these are your products, these are your children, right?

Blake Rea: 1:27:35

and your, your, your products are an extension of you, and, and the more that you have. You know dialogues like this, or, or you know, put yourself out there and you know answer these questions or or help people understand more about you know the brands. It's just going to translate to the back end. You know you may have more supporters or more purchasers, or it just all kind of feeds the same funnel.

Justin Walters: 1:28:05

Definitely for sure. I'll try to do more.

Blake Rea: 1:28:08

All right. Thank you so much for coming on and we will see you very soon, thanks man. All right.