Lonely Wrist: All Things Watches & Horology
Lonely Wrist is a podcast that goes inside the movement, bringing you inside the world of watches through candid conversations with the people who drive it forward.
Each episode features in-depth interviews with industry insiders including Executives, master watchmakers, designers, collectors, content creators, and historians offering rare insights into the passion, precision, and business behind every timepiece.
From legacy brands to innovative microbrands, from movement architecture to marketing strategy, we explore the many layers of horology through the voices of those shaping its past, present, and future.
Whether you're a seasoned collector or just beginning your journey into watches, Lonely Wrist offers a unique perspective on the artistry, culture, and the industry of watches, one episode, and one insider, at a time.
Tune in bi-weekly and hear the stories ticking behind every Lonely Wrist.
Lonely Wrist: All Things Watches & Horology
The Watch Brand That Gives Back: Trip Henderson's Mission at Lōcī
What if your watch could do more than just tell time? What if it could help protect the very places that inspire its design?
Trip Henderson's journey from Navy service to tech entrepreneur to disaster relief leader ultimately led him to create Lōcī (pronounced "low-kai"), a watch brand with environmental conservation at its core. His experiences at sea—standing on a ship deck in the middle of the Atlantic, witnessing a night sky untouched by light pollution—sparked a lifelong passion for meaningful places. Later, working with Team Rubicon on disaster response operations, Trip witnessed firsthand how vulnerable our most treasured environments have become.
Rather than following the traditional watchmaking path, Trip built Lōcī around a mission: to celebrate the connection between people and places while actively protecting endangered environments. Each watch line draws inspiration from a specific location, with 10% of every sale supporting nonprofits that preserve these places for future generations. The inaugural Pacific Coast Highway collection, with its three distinct dials reflecting different aspects of California's iconic coastline, exemplifies this philosophy perfectly.
Unlike many brands that offer vague promises about "portions of proceeds" going to good causes, Lōcī maintains complete transparency, even publishing donation receipts directly on their website. This commitment reflects Trip's belief that watches can be more than status symbols—they can be vehicles for positive change.
Whether you're drawn to the contemporary design, the California-based craftsmanship, or the environmental mission, Lōcī watches offer something increasingly rare: the opportunity to wear a timepiece that not only tells time but tells a story of places worth protecting. Explore the collection and discover how your wrist can make a difference.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode here of the Lonely Wrist Podcast. I am your host, as always, of course, blake Ray, and today's guest is somebody who I have met recently a new friend and he is blending purpose, design and a whole lot of heart into the world of watches. Sitting down with us today is Trip Henderson, and Trip is the founder of Loki, which is a watch brand that's all about celebrating connection between people and places, and it seems to be that this is just not about great quality timepieces, because Trip is on a mission to protect environments and communities that inspire his designs, and 10% of every sale goes towards preserving those endangered places for future generations. And from disaster relief to stargazing in the middle of the Atlantic, and it comes back to one big idea that places matter. So let's get into it and please welcome the man behind Loki, mr Trip Henderson.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Blake. That was one of the best introductions I've had. I appreciate all those kind words and it feels like you've got the brand nailed down already. So if you're looking for some side work as a brand rep, I think you're hired.
Speaker 1:You gave me a lot to work with on your About page, so thank you for that. So sometimes it's the exact opposite. I'm having to use archiveorg and it seems like I'm having to do a background check on people to even get information going. You know, there's not too many brands that are based in la in california, not to mention doing assembly in california. But let's start with loki. You know, like how did this project begin? You know like where did it start for you? And we'll start there.
Speaker 2:I mean you alluded to some of the roots of where the brand started it's. It's not a short story, but the point of it is that the entire brand revolves around its mission, which is to protect endangered places and environments, and the watches are really a vehicle for that. The watches are a way for the brand, but, more importantly, for the people who buy and wear the watches, to have a positive impact in the world. I've kind of always been one of these people who wants to be part of something bigger. When I was a kid, I joined the Navy. I went through college in ROTC, you know, went to sea a few times. I wanted to be part of something bigger.
Speaker 2:After that, I found myself living in San Francisco and working. This was kind of during the dot-com boom back in the late nineties and early 2000s, when we were building things for like the first time, like everything was a clean sheet of paper and you know I loved being involved in that. It felt again like, like being a part of something bigger. We were changing the way industries were working and that was really cool, you know. And then eventually I I found my way to the non-profit world, which also you kind of mentioned. I'll bring this all back to watches. But after a long time living in the Bay Area and working in tech and startups and media, I had the opportunity to become the first chief marketing officer for Team Rubicon, which is a nonprofit based here in LA, a global disaster relief nonprofit based here in LA, and it was founded by veterans and most of the now 150,000 or so volunteers are veterans, and the genius idea behind that organization is that veterans turn out to be really good people for disaster relief because of the experience and the skills they picked up in the military. They are the exact right kind of people that you want to rally up as volunteers and deploy into disaster areas to help communities recover. And the way that all of that comes back to watch is you.
Speaker 2:You mentioned on the about page of my website I. I have this, you know, really deep seated love and affinity for places. I've had these really moving experiences in different places and the first one ever that I can really kind of recall and put my finger on was what you mentioned in the in the run-up, which was I was. It was the very first time I'd ever gone to sea in the Navy and I was out on the deck of the ship. I came off watch in the engine room at midnight and I wandered up onto the deck the flight deck for some fresh air. And I grew up as a kid in the suburbs of Philadelphia, right, I had never seen a night sky like what I saw when I looked up out in the middle of the Atlantic Oceanantic ocean, with, you know, not so much as a candlelight anywhere around us for thousands of miles right you might reach up.
Speaker 1:Reach up and touch the stars. It seems like it. It blew my mind.
Speaker 2:You know, you can see the milky way just with your naked eye and thousands and thousands and thousands of stars, all with your naked eye and the. The reason that that left like this impression on me, and the reason that it touched off this passion for places, is that what I found myself thinking about was, even though I guess you could say I was nowhere, I was out in the middle of the ocean, but that's a place right and I found myself thinking about all of the other sailors who had stood on the deck of some other ship last year or 50 years ago or hundreds of years ago and looked up at that same sky and maybe had the same experience and the same feeling that I was having kind of just getting that sense of perspective when you see the milky way with your naked eye and like, yeah, kind of get a sense of who we are and what, what our place really is in the in the universe. Getting kind of philosophical here, but but the I tied that experience to that place, being out in the ocean there, and it lit off this kind of run for me where I I developed kind of wanderlust and took every opportunity that I had to travel, you know, some of which came in the Navy. But when I, when I grew up uh, you know, we didn't. We didn't have the means to travel Like for me a vacation was we we went to the Jersey shore and stayed at our cousin's house for for a week or two kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So, you know, my eyes were opened and my mind was blown when I started to travel to other other places around the country and around the world and that became like a lifelong passion for me. It was just exploring and finding these places and connecting with them, because I I think that when you go to a place like I think places hold all of this energy, like all the things that have ever happened in that place, all the people that lived there, all the people that have ever just passed through there, all the people that have written books or taken pictures or sent postcards about that place. I think that that all of that energy is kind of stored there and you can experience these things if you go there and just kind of listen. These places have something to tell us and it could be a great city like Paris and you're standing looking at the Arc de Triomphe, but it could be. I do a lot of outdoor stuff backpacking and hiking and sailing and skiing. The place could be out up in the mountains, could be any place like that out in the desert. All of these places have something to offer us.
Speaker 2:But my work tying this all together, my work with Team Rubicon, taught me and showed me firsthand how vulnerable all these places really are. So many places now are just kind of balanced on a knife edge of natural disasters. So to give you a sense of that, of how I started to wrap my head around that in the four years I worked at Team Rubicon we launched over 400 disaster response operations, so that's like over 100 a year and sadly it's like a growth industry. And sadly it's like a growth industry. Like every year, the disasters are becoming. The storms that drive them and other events that drive them are becoming more frequent, more intense. You know, just in 2024, there was a billion dollar in damage disaster every 11 days on average. So I started to see firsthand, going into some of these communities the day after a flood or a hurricane or a tornado or a wildfire, started to see and learn firsthand just how vulnerable all of these places really are.
Speaker 2:So I had this love and passion for places, and now I had this really like seeing all these places on their best days as a tourist or as a traveler. And then I spent four years seeing all these places on their worst days and it made me want again back to my thing of like, always wanted to be somebody who's involved with something bigger, some kind of a purpose. All of that kind of got thrown into the mix, with me being a marketing person and a brand builder and someone who loved finally, I'll throw in watches, right, finally, like, of course, I've, like I've been one of these guys who's loved watches my whole life, but like that's I don't want to say it's the least important piece of the picture, but it's the least unique and it's the least, the least, yeah, maybe the least unique part of the picture of me as a brand founder. Like, sure, I love watches, but finally I figured out how, through those three things like passion for places, desire to be purpose driven and love for building brands and wanting to someday build my own brand from scratch, throw all those things into the mix and I finally kind of figured out what the formula could be for loci, which building it all around places, right. So loci is the Latin word for places.
Speaker 2:I actually built the brand and thought through the brand before I started designing the watch.
Speaker 2:So I had this, went through the whole idea process of okay, I'll name the brand loci that's the Latin word for places I'll make every watch line will always be named for and inspired by a place and I'll give 10 of the sales of that watch to a non-profit that protects the place that inspired the watch, so that when you buy it and wear it, you have a direct connection to the creative inspiration for the watch and you have a hand in helping to make sure that place is around for, like our kids and grandkids.
Speaker 2:And and once I figured all of that out and I said, okay, I think I think I have something that has a lot of legs, and one of the things I like about it is just that it's a creative clean slate for me every time I do a new watch model and choose a new place for the inspiration. So instead of being a, you know, a vintage inspired watch brand or a military inspired watch brand or something automotive, automotive, like these are all kind of I mean, it's not that they're cliche like, I love all of those kinds of watches but yeah, I do too.
Speaker 1:But you see, you see a lot of the same, like the same design language, the same inspiration. You know like, I can't even tell you how many watches have been designed after a porthole, right, you know like, but yeah, yeah, no, sorry, sorry, I had to jump in there.
Speaker 2:No, that's okay. So, you know, I love this idea because I, you know, when I think about a as a marketing person, when I think about how to build a brand, I want to build something that has legs and something that can, that can reinvent itself. And so this idea of taking the creative inspiration in places, I'm like, okay, every time I do a new model, I choose a new place and I have a clean slate creatively to start over again and go where that place kind of wants me to go in terms of designing the watch. So I liked it for all those reasons, and those are some of the reasons why I designed the brand the way that I did. And then there's part of it, too, where I just, you know, I'm one of these people who thinks brands should, should, do more than just sell widgets and make money. You know, I think my favorite brands and and the brands that I think matter the most and that are going to be built for the future, are brands that that make some kind of an impact in the world, some kind of a positive impact in the world, and not everybody has to be like you know, hugging trees and and you know, saving, saving children and stuff like that. But, like, brands have an important role to play in the world now if they choose to. And these, you know, I really think of it.
Speaker 2:As you know status symbol brands and these brands that have been around for a really long time, I see them as missed opportunities. You know, tiny low guy, you know, just me, working here in Los Angeles, is the only company in the world, the only watch brand in the whole world, that donates 10% of every sale to a meaningful cause. So a lot of people are doing 1% for the planet, which is great. That's a lot better than nothing for the planet. But we're 10x-ing that because we're building the whole brand around that mission and I think that a lot of brands are a little bit vague about how much money they give and where it goes and what it's used for.
Speaker 2:A portion of the proceeds, or, you know, 2% of this, or 5% of this limited watch run of a hundred watches. Like, what are you guys doing Right? Like, like you're, you're multimillion and maybe billion dollar companies. Like, get on it. You know, like, if you're going to do something and make it more than some some window dressing that you put on your brand, make it mean something, and so I think that you know loci is going to succeed or fail based on whether or not we find the people who care about the brand's mission. There's so many great watches out there. You were at the show in la last week when we met whatever 50 60 brands there the watches are. You know, it's like cars and motorcycles these days. They're all great.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So there aren't all that many watch brands who are really built in my eyes as a brand, that have a personality or a mission or a purpose that goes beyond the product, and so for me, you know, lokai is a brand led a design led effort, and the products are the thing we talk about. After all of that, that was a lot. I'll zip it.
Speaker 1:No, no, no. I mean I think you have like a secret sauce, right, and something that I'm starting to notice is like there's a lot of watch brands that just exist for just the reason of existing Right. Hopefully it doesn't come off as rude, but you know, I look at like the trajectory of a watch brand, like like first of all, I look at like the people right, like how passionate are the people behind the brand right, and then I look at you know the trajectory, like what you know, what do you hope to accomplish? I mean I mean you listen to my podcast. I ask that question all the time, like what do you hope to accomplish in your tenure at this company, or x, y or company you know? And I think about that a lot. Like you know, like how far are they going to be off their, their trail? You know, or will they? Will they walk their trail? You know, and something I I never really like heard of you know, until I started doing research about and and here I have been calling it loki the whole time.
Speaker 2:So I'm so sorry, loki, it's probably a common one look, you know I'm a brand guy and I know that you're not supposed to give brands names that are hard to pronounce or easy to mispronounce. But I but no, but I knew the rules and I broke them on purpose. So I, that's my.
Speaker 1:I will forget it now, though, because I botched it. It's something I had read something about and I had never heard anything about. But you know, lo-kai is what is existing is to give back, and it's philanthropy, as opposed to just saying, hey, here's a great product, is that? Is that it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the purpose of the brand is to look at the business. My dream of the first milepost on my dream, the first way station on my dream for this brand is for it to become successful enough that I don't have to work my other, my other job as a, as a marketing consultant, right, and if I can get past that, then the question is going to be, how big can it grow? And the beauty of it is, you know, 10% of revenue is a lot at. The beauty of this is that the bigger the company gets, the more successful the brand becomes, the more impact we have. It doesn't mean it's not just a more. The more watches we sell, the more money I make and the company makes it's, you know, the more, the more successful the brand is, the more impact we have in helping protect and preserve the places that we're trying to help take care of, the places that inspire the watches. So you know, it doesn't have to be a zero sum game where, like, a brand or a company is just a vacuum design to get money out of people's pockets. Right, the brand can choose to do something more and do something better than that. And so, yeah, those are. These are called impact brands you know there's.
Speaker 2:If we get big enough, I'd love to become like a certified B corporation, which is just a series of like certifications and audits that you go through and become certified as a B Corp. These are companies that that have a big arm of philanthropy or impact baked into their brand, not just like a sort of a side thing that they do, but it's, it's at the core of what they do. So you know some of the great impact brands that I, that I really admire and that you know maybe I think about when I think about how to build and grow Lo-Kai. You think about companies like Patagonia and Cotopachi and Tom's and Ben and Jerry's and Warby Parker. Right, every, every pair of glasses you buy from them, they send a pair of glasses to somebody who needs them and can't afford them. Right, like you can build an amazing business and still find a way to make a positive impact in the world. So that's what I'm trying to do and that's what I really care about, and I think that it's not really.
Speaker 2:It's always really hard for me to go on to be interviewed and talk about myself Coming out of the Navy and the nonprofit world. It's always like you talk about the team, you talk about the mission, but the brand. It's not about me building the brand and the brand having this impact. It's. It's the opportunity that it gives for people who want to be part of that mission to jump on board and for them to have, you know, a beautifully designed watch that they can wear and love and enjoy, but to know that they're doing something more than that. Right, those are, those are our people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something too that I guess, and I'm curious, is we're both creatives. Right, we're both creatives. I find myself getting lost in the moment quite a lot. So you know you talked about being was it the uss monistars? Is that moinister uss?
Speaker 1:moinister, it's named moinister right and seeing the sky over, sky over the Atlantic. Like how did you bottle that moment? You know, like I get so lost in it and then, like it seems like almost like a dream to me, like when I'm in the most I've traveled the world and you know, it's almost like it seems like it was in a different lifetime. You know, when I was in Europe and doing all this and the Dutch Caribbean, and like you know, it just seems like it's been a different lifetime. So I mean that was a long time ago. So how did you bottle that? You?
Speaker 2:know. I don't know if I have a clean answer to that, but I think that there's. It's almost like there's. For me, there's kind of like two gears spinning at the same time. When I'm experiencing a place, whether it's a place I go to all the time, or somewhere new, there's, there's the one gear that's turning, that's kind of soaking it in and, like you said, you're, you're in the moment and taking in all the details. What does it look like? What does it smell like? Who's here? What are they doing? Am I speaking with them doing? Am I speaking with them? What am I learning? But there's another, there's like another gear turning that's thinking about what's the, what's the impact that this place is having on me, what's it making me feel, what is it, how's it changing me, how's it inspiring me? And when I, it doesn't happen usually until a little bit later when I can take those two, those two things and and merge them and kind of distill it into. You know what I would call the spirit of, of that place, like I'm reminded of. You know, there's there's the external aspect of what's happening, what your senses are taking, and there's the internal aspect of how you're, how it's affecting you, and, like.
Speaker 2:I'm a hobbyist photographer and the thing that I love most now I have a kid now, so 90 of my pictures are all of my daughter, but but you know what I get. What really stuck me into photography was was, not surprisingly, travel photography, taking pictures of places, right, it was a way for me to another way for me to connect with that, and there's a great quote by a famous French photographer called Henri Cartier-Bresson and his quote. He was like one of the early pioneers of of street photography and he had a quote that said you know, when you're, when you had the camera up, he said the with the eye that is open, right, looking through the viewfinder, with the eye that is open, you're looking without, and with your eye that's closed, you're looking within. And and I've heard that, yeah, I, what's that? I never heard that yeah, the eye that's closed, the eye that's open, you're looking without, and with the eye that's closed, you're looking within.
Speaker 2:So when you're at the act of taking a photograph, I think what he was saying is a lot like the way that I internalize or or experience places. Right, there's that, the eye that's open, I'm looking at it and taking in what's there, and then the eye that's closed is like how am I internalizing? How's it affecting me? What? What mark is it leaving on me?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, that's deep. It's deep something, something I've always like questioned and maybe we're going into like a philosophy, like podcast at this point, but and maybe I mean, maybe you can ground me a little bit, but you know, all these places, they have that energy right, that energy, that aura, you know spirit right, and I always think about like, once I've left that place, like how can I get back there, even if not physically, but like mentally or emotionally, or like how can I, you know, bring that back to present day?
Speaker 2:you know, and I'm sure that's another possible question, but yeah, I don't know, I feel like I might be out of my depth on this. You know, I do find like photographs for me. If I look at a photograph of a place that you know kind of made a mark on me, left an an impact on me, if I look at the photograph, it takes me there. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I got into photography and especially kind of place-based or travel, travel-based photography. I'm not good about keeping journals when I travel. I wish I was. I sometimes make notes and those are amazing and those transport me back because I can make notes about, like, what I was feeling and experiencing. But I wish I was better at that. I can't claim I'm like incredibly devoted to that, that way of working yeah, let's do like a real world example here, right?
Speaker 1:so I'm not sure what you're wearing. I'm wearing the pacific coast and you know, obviously, full disclosure, tripp sent me this but we had pushed the podcast back because Tripp wanted me to get an experience. You know, obviously we had met very briefly and you know I'm sure you probably saw I had my hands full, I had a lot going on at the show and in any ways, you know, we pushed back the podcast so I can get some time to experience. You know, low-key right To experience the watch, to experience the brand. So I'm curious I mean, there's a lot of design elements off the top of you know, just even looking at the watch. But explain your design process, I mean, for this, or even the watch you have on the wrist. I think you're wearing the same one, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I'm wearing the Pacific Coast Highway, this one I call the Big Sur dial, and the one you have is the Monterey Bay dial, and there's a third dial called the Surfrider Beach dial. So the way that I my camera is out of focus here and this you can get it back. The way that I approach design is I choose the place that I'm going to use as the inspiration for the watch model and I'm going to kill my camera and then turn it back on.
Speaker 1:A lot of people, a lot of people listen in, so so yeah, sorry.
Speaker 2:So the the way my process works is I I begin by choosing the place that I want to use as the inspiration for the watch, for the model line, and then I create separate dials that are like more specific areas or or places within that area. So, like this watch, the Pacific coast Highway is meant to be inspired and is inspired by the California coast. So the watches for Loci won't always be California inspired, but since this was our first model and I've been living within a stone's throw of the PCH for like between San Francisco and LA now for 27 years or something I thought I would keep it close to home for this first model line. I thought I would keep it close to home for this first model line. So the brand overall, my intention is for it to be fairly contemporary, fairly sporty, fairly design forward, design led. So these were some of the things that I gave myself in the brief to work on. You know, inspired by the California coast. You know modern I shouldn't say modern, right, not mid-century modern, but contemporary design language. And then I got started and I started with designing the case first and then started working on the dials. You know, when I think about, I mean this'll be the way I do all my future models. When I think about the place that is inspiring the model line, I'll choose these more specific either places or aspects of that place to inspire a set of different dials.
Speaker 2:So when you think about the California coast, it's hard not to think about the Pacific coast highway. So having a dial inspired by the road made sense. And then the other things that the California coast is all about is the beach and the ocean, right? So that's what we have. We have a dial inspired by the road and the beach and the ocean, or three dials each inspired by those things.
Speaker 2:And you know this was really close to home for me. I mean I've, I've ridden my motorcycle up and down the entire length of the PCH from, you know well, up in Northern California, where it starts, down to San Diego. I've done that ride, I don't even know how many times, um, hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of miles on that. I've even sailed up and down the California coast. You know car trips up and down the piece. So, like this is a place that that is kind of near and dear to my heart, and it was. It was not easy but it was natural to to come up with some, like creative expressions inspired by that Cause it's a.
Speaker 2:The coast is a place that has a lot of meaning for me and and you know the California coast is this is an aspirational place for a lot of people. You know, like you can mention the Pacific coast highway, you can mention the California coast, you can mention big Sur or Monterey Bay to people who have never been here, but, like they have a, a lot of them will have a picture in their mind of it and there's people who grow up on the other side of the country or on the other side of the world who, like, this is their, this is where the place that they want to come to, and there's a reason for that. Like, the coast is beautiful, it's inspiring. It's like you know, if parts of it, like big Sur and the lost coast North of San Francisco, you know you're just on these cliffs here and you have an immediate sense that you're just like you're standing on.
Speaker 2:Like the ragged edge of the continent, right Like the, it just drops straight off into the ocean. It's not like the East coast where I grew up, where it's a gradual yeah, so you know it's. It's this beautiful, dramatic place that was easy to be inspired by. So that was really that was kind of my process and, like any person, any watch designer you talk to, it's like, yeah, I had you have to kill your darlings, right. So you know I had. There were a lot more things that I loved and kind of wanted to do and had to whittle it down to these three. For the first, for the first go, wow, pretty deep yeah yeah, I mean it.
Speaker 1:It makes a lot of sense and you know, something that immediately comes to mind. I'm sure sure you probably heard this, but you know, like Apple right, apple vibes. Like Apple is a company that's based in California and every single operating system is based on a different place in California and people are more likely to fall in love with a place than they are a product or something along the lines of that. It's very rare, but I'm curious. It seems like you kind of understand that. And what are some places that I'm sure you probably have a list of places at this point that you're hoping to kind of capture A really long one and to like bottle into a timepiece, like give us a taste of some of the, the places that inspire you well the.
Speaker 2:I could go on for a really long time talking about places. I mean, I've been to 49 of the 50 states and five out of the seven continents and I think I've been on four or five oceans and seas, so we could spend the rest of the day talking about the places. I mean, I think maybe I could frame it in terms of talking about it with watches, right. So, like, as an example, one of the designs I have on the drawing board is basically a skin diver. You know, still using like a modern or a contemporary design aesthetic like you see, with the PCH evolving a little bit more. You know, like any good skin diver kind of a mix of brushed and polished surfaces, keeping it as thin as possible, not maxing out the depth rating, but still respectable like all these things. So, like, my idea is probably to call that model, that model line, the archipelago, and then I'll have dials that are each named after a specific island chain, right, I'm thinking about doing like a white dial and naming it after the Aleutians, right, the Aleutian Islands up in Alaska, which, like I've done some traveling up there and that's a place that's totally awe-inspiring, right. So that's kind of the idea of how the concept of the Loci's brand and capturing the spirit of place can scale through watch lines right, like I'll of course do a more standard sort of toolish diver with more depth rating, and you know, I might, I might call that one like the one ocean, and then each dial variant can be named after a different ocean or sea and I'll do something to try to capture the spirit of the color.
Speaker 2:Like for for me, like when I look at a picture of an ocean, I can usually guess from the color of the color. Like for for me, like when I look at a picture of an ocean, I can usually guess from the color of the water which ocean it is, maybe about 75% of the time. So you know there's I can't make a line full of blue watches but are sort of like shades of blue, but I'll find things that are specific and inspired by like that particular ocean, that particular sea. You know I can choose Caribbean and you know a nice bright color. I can choose Arctic and make a white dial, arctic sea, make a white dial, right, arctic ocean. So that's kind of how I'm thinking about scaling the idea through different model lines and how it'll go beyond. You know, just California.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so funny story. I'm huge on geography because I mean, I think once you travel the world like, you learn that like there's so much diversity, not only through like language, through culture, through people, but just through you know terrain, right, you know the landscape. And uh, funny funny story is like I was. I was, I traveled and I lived in europe for quite a while. But, oh cool, you know, I'm the guy that never pays for wi-fi on the air, on the airplane. So I was like, hmm, which, which app could I get that'll keep me entertained, that I could literally play. I don't have to have wi-fi. And the app is called I think it's called GeoGuessr, right? So essentially what it does is it drops you in the middle of somewhere in the world on Google Maps and you can do like a 360 pan of it and then you have to guess where it is.
Speaker 2:I'm literally writing this down because I want to try it.
Speaker 1:I figured you'd appreciate it. I think it's called GeoGuessr, I'll find it. Yeah, but it it's, and and yeah, I mean they always drop you someplace where it's like, you know, there's a unique landscape right where there's like street signs or, or you know, like a city or a village. It's freaking cool. But I really enjoyed, enjoyed playing that game, which leads me to my next question. You, you know, obviously you talked about spending, you know, quite a bit of time at Team Rubicon. I'm curious as to how that experience, you know, changed the way that you think about the world.
Speaker 2:You know, land, places, people, whatever, you know, the biggest way is something I kind of touched on a little bit already, which is? It taught me and showed me firsthand how vulnerable and how at risk these places really are. Here's an example about the PCH, about the California coast. That's a beautiful place. People live here, people come here to vacation. You can spend days on end just thinking about all the different ways that it's a beautiful and like wonderful place. Guess what?
Speaker 2:Like last year, before the San Francisco windup show, I was hatching an idea to ride my motorcycle up from LA to, to ride, and just ride right up to the show, you know, and take pictures and kind of make a make a little travelogue about it along the way for the watch company. Well, and kind of make a little travelogue about it along the way for the watch company. Well, guess what? There were huge storms two years ago, there were landslides along the PCH and it was closed and you couldn't ride the length of it from LA to San Francisco. Okay, so I ended up throwing all my stuff in the car, which made my life easier. I could throw all my gear for the trade show in the car and just drive up. I'm like I'm going gonna do it next year, which was this year, right, so this year rolls around. I'm I was even emailing with john farrer from brew. He's also a motorcycle rider and I'm like, john, here's my idea like, fly out here, rent a bike, you and me will ride up from san francisco to from la to san francisco for the wind-up watch show. He's never ridden or driven the pch before. I'm like it's going to be a life-changing experience. Well, guess what?
Speaker 2:February came along huge, huge rainstorms, the fires, yeah, well, oh, those are later. Yeah, huge rainstorms and again, landslides. You can't ride through one of the best parts of the pch in Big Sur. And what's driving this stuff is natural disasters, right, huge storms, dumping, so much rain and then the wildfire. This is all stuff I learned at Team Rubicon, right? I could go on about disaster, the disaster cycle for a long time, but that's not really what we're here for. But these things, these different types of disasters, actually compound one another.
Speaker 2:So when you have wildfires on the coast, like we just had here in LA in January but they've happened before, we had big wildfires here on the coast four or five years ago as well they burn all the trees off of the steep hills that line, the coast of California, and when there's no trees on those steep hills, when it rains, the soil can't absorb the water the way it normally would. So now those steep hills with no trees on them are just like a giant water slide for the storms, which are now much more intense and longer lasting and dump more water on the coast than they used to 10 and 20 years ago. Those storms dump all that water. The fires burn the hillsides dry, burn them clear and now you end up with landslides all over the place. So these are some of the things.
Speaker 2:You know the PCH watch the California coast. We've got the wildfires, we've got landslides, we've got coastal erosion, we've got water pollution, we've got air pollution to worry about. There's all kinds of unique marine and coastal habitats up and down the coast that are all at risk from those things. So this is the way that I see, one of the ways that I see places now, and and that was really, that's really that way of seeing places came to me through my experience working at team movecom and is central to the way that I built the brand and the way that I built the brand and the way that I designed the brand's purpose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, now that you've put that perspective on us, I don't think a lot of people I mean, we have a good audience in California, but a lot of people don't understand that. I mean, I'm in your backyard, right, I'm in Las Vegas, so, but just this week there was a wildfire and I think it was somewhere in Santa Barbara or something. Yeah, santa Barbara, san Luis Obispo area, yeah, and I wake up just doing my normal thing. I have no idea what the hell is going on in the world. But then I'm like why is it so smoky? I can't even see the mountains, I can't even see 20 or 30 feet in front of me, and just so happens that the wind took all the smoke right here to Vegas.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be. Oh, go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 1:Oh, it just goes right back to my point that it seems like California is really the right place for what you do, and I guess in a good sense, but also in a terrible sense, because there's a lot of environmental like you know, it seems like there's a lot of environmental disasters that happen in California. I mean, it seems like you guys are ground zero for that. It's almost everywhere.
Speaker 2:It's almost everywhere. I mean, when I started thinking about the brand and designing the brand, this was something I thought about, right, like am I I'm trying to think about how to say this without sounding like insensitive but like, oh, am I going to run out of places that are, that are at risk and need to be protected? Am I going to run out of places that I could choose as the inspiration for watch design and find a nonprofit that works in that area? And you know, again, like thinking back to my experience working at at team Rubicon, it's like the answer is no right. Like just about every place that you can think of has risk factors that people aren't thinking of. And like I don't want to get on my soapbox and and like bang on about all this stuff, but you know the entire. You choose any place you want.
Speaker 2:On the eastern seaboard, in the southeast, right, well, there's hurricanes, yeah, all the time. You know the entire western half of the country. You've got wildfires. You know both coasts. You've got torrential rainstorms. In the mountains, you get snows that are now like causing floods and and doing things up there.
Speaker 2:So like there there's, I guess, all I really I don't want people to go down this rabbit hole and I don't want people to like have to think about it in a dark way. But I would love for Lokai to be a vehicle or like an opening an opening, a little aperture for people to look through and just be able to think about when they see and appreciate someplace that they love, that they feel is beautiful or meaningful to them in some way, that they also just kind of like just have a moment and think about that place is not, it's not certain that that place is going to be there for your kid or your grandkid to experience the way you're experiencing it now and then I think there's an opportunity for all of us to have a hand in protecting and preserving those places, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because we want them to be there, you know, for our kids and our grandkids to to enjoy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm from the East coast as well, from North Carolina, so I can't even tell you how many hurricanes and tornadoes I've lived through and flooding and and yeah, I mean especially now, like my brother was in the flooding and Western the flooding in Western North Carolina, but he lives in Tennessee. His entire town was wiped out and he had a newborn baby. Like it was crazy, like just crazy. And yeah, I mean, if you think about it from that perspective, I mean who knows in 100 years or I don't even know, but who knows if Miami will still exist?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it doesn't look good because of the the sea level rising. Yeah, it looks like it'll be a good scuba diving spot I'm curious, you know, is there a single disaster zone or maybe a location that that kind of stuck with you? That you know, I think maybe has helped you, kind of shaped Loci into what it is now, or maybe the mission?
Speaker 2:It's really hard to choose a single one. I'll say that, something that struck me and stayed with me on like the very first disaster operation I ever deployed on. So I was a staffer. I worked at Team Rubicon's headquarters office here in Los Angeles, so I spent most of my time in the office and my job in the marketing teams marketing communications teams job was to do a couple of things. One was to help the organization raise money so that we could turn it into impact downrange for communities who needed that help, and you know. Another thing was to build a brand and build awareness for the brand, to help drive donations and to build partnerships with big corporations on a marketing and branding basis. That was my team's function, but we all deployed Everybody who worked at headquarters always deployed on operations because it was important for us to see and experience that stuff firsthand.
Speaker 2:The first one I ever went to was a tornado in Hattiesburg, mississippi. This would have been like it was 2016, in november, like mid-november and like. This is not where I'm wanting to take the story, but it was right after the election, the first of the 2016 election, and I'm like you know, I'm this guy from la right. Okay, you know, coast, coastal city, la, you know, parachuting into hattiesburg, mississippi, which is, you know, a whole, nother, whole nother world culturally down there. Yeah, and I was a little bit wondering, like what's this going to be like? Because the whole country was just kind of charged with this latent energy, you know from the political sphere. Everything was just kind of like it felt like everything was charged and I'm like what's it going to be like when I go down there? And what it was like was you know. So I linked up with a team of team rubicon volunteers and we worked for I was there for a week, but the operation was up for months and when a tornado hits a town, it's just like you've I'm sure you've seen pictures and videos, but like, yeah, it leaves a pile of sticks where our house used to be, or a church or a school.
Speaker 2:So our job was to what we did, was we found what we what were the most socially vulnerable areas of the whole area that was hit by the disaster? So we would find the places where the people were the most vulnerable. They had the lowest rates of home insurance, lowest rates of income, lowest rates of health insurance and things like that. Those are the people. We would go and help right, like we'd help the people with a million dollar house but they'd be last in line. Because if we could go and do all this demolition and clearing work right, go to their destroyed house and take all that debris away, that would cost them 30 or 40 or $50,000 to have that done. And if we come and show up and do that for free, that can make the difference for that family between having nowhere to go and become and being homeless for the long run, to being able to actually start over again.
Speaker 2:So I got down there and what I found was that nobody said a word about what was going on in the outside world. Everybody was focused on the mission. It just wasn't talked about. Everybody talked about the mission. What brought us all together?
Speaker 2:A lot of us were veterans and we had that to bond over, like I mentioned before, and all we did was focus on the mission and share our own personal backstories with one another around the campfire at night after the day's work was done, and that experience of like seeing how bringing people together around a mission can just shut out all of the noise in the world, even when it's incredibly intense, like that was one of the things that will always stay with me and it's tied to Hattiesburg because that tornado, just because that was that happened to be the first time I experienced that, but that was the same thing that happened over and over again every place I went, and so I think that's one of the things that's core to the brand.
Speaker 2:Right, like this is a way everybody everybody has the opportunity or everybody has the the potential to, to love a place like the california coast or the hawaiian islands or the mojave desert everybody could connect in those, those ways, those, with those places in a meaningful way, and everybody can rally around the cause of wanting to protect them. And this, like brands with a mission, can bring people together like that and shut out all of that noise that's in the outside world. And it's like, look, if we can be a tiny part of the solution to those two really big problems right, the vulnerability of places and the, the kind of noise of what's separating people out there, if we could be a tiny, tiny part of the solution to those problems, like I'm all for it. Like that's kind of that's the bet I took on myself when I started the brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that that's an amazing, amazing story, an amazing accomplishment and and I don't think people understand, like how I I'm sure people don't appreciate what you're doing just yet could describe yeah, maybe they do, but I'm working on it, you're helping, thank you. Thank you. So you also, you know we've talked about this, but you donate 10%, like just right off the top, into nonprofits. You know that are protecting, you know, endangered places. Choose those partners, you know. Choose those nonprofits, like you know, or maybe by how much impact they can, they can make in the world, or something like that. I'm curious as to as to what Trip Henderson is thinking about when you select those places.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I put a lot of thought into this, you know, having been on the inside of that world I have I have a very clear idea of. You know what, first of all, like at the top line, a nonprofit is. The whole purpose of a nonprofit is basically to turn money into impact in the world against whatever their mission is. That's what a nonprofit is for. People think about for-profit. You know people sometimes ask me what was it like like going to going from working for for-profit companies to go into nonprofit companies? I'm like it's the same exact thing, except in a private company all you're thinking about is profit, and in a non-profit there's another step. You have to bring in the revenue in the form of donations and grants and things like that, but then your job is to turn that money into impact. So the best non-profits are just extremely efficient machines at turning the money that people give them and entrust to them in the form of donations. Turning that money into impact, downrange against whatever their mission is. Whether it be disaster relief, like TR or Surf Rider Foundation, who I donate 10% of the PCH watch sales to, they're all about protecting the environment coastal and ocean environments. So when you look at nonprofits, there's a lot that you can do to understand. You know there are some really really good, really thorough organizations that all they do is vet and give ratings to nonprofits. You're looking at things like what's their overhead rates or how much of what percentage of the donation that donations that go to a particular nonprofit, how much of that goes to their overhead and how much of it goes to operations. So you know a nonprofit needs to pay its staff, just like any other place. But if you find, you know you're looking for places that are renting, like penthouse office space in New York city, like do you need that? Yeah, or you know if'd like them to be. So you know there are ways to kind of look at. You know, look at who their executives are. Look at how they shine the light on their volunteers in the field. Right, are they doing a good job? Telling the stories, not about themselves and shining a light on the organization, but shining a light on the people who do the real work, their volunteers usually and the communities that they support. When nonprofits are spending a lot of time talking about those things and not talking about themselves and not talking about their celebrity fundraiser galas, these are all good signs that can tell you that you're looking at a good and solid organization.
Speaker 2:And then you can pull up. Like every nonprofit in the US has to release certain forms every year. There's something that the IRS calls a nine 90 form, which is basically a financial overview of the of the organization. It has to list out all the income that they took in from donations and in kind donations Like, for instance, microsoft was a big partner of TR and they gave us a crap ton of seat licenses for MS office and they gave us surface tablet screens to put on the wall and things. So tallies up all of that stuff and then you see you know where the money got spent and how much it went to their operations. It lists out, like, how much their top executives make. It lists out the top external partners like, say, consultants or people like that that the organization paid money to. Like you can can look through that 990 and see, like you know, are they paying their CEO $5 million? Like this isn't a serious organization, right? Like that money, every dollar you spend on a salary it could be is a dollar you're not using to make impact for your, your mission. So you know these are digging into their 990 forms, digging into their annual reports, like these are. These are all things I do.
Speaker 2:And then for Loci specifically, I'm looking for organizations that are mission aligned. So I'm going to be choosing to support organizations that are connected to the locations that inspire the watch lines. So that's why Surfrider was such an easy choice for the Pacific Coast Highway Watch. Surfrider is based here in Los Angeles area. They're a global organization but a lot of what they do is focused on everything they do is focused on coastal environments and a lot of it is here in California. If I build, if I make that skin diver watch I talked about and I call it the Archipelago, you know I'll be looking for a different nonprofit that focuses on, let's say, littoral marine environments. You know, maybe something that works to preserve coral reefs or things like that. When I do a diver watch, I'll be looking for, like, a blue ocean nonprofit where their mission aligns with that place. So those are. That's a lot of the thought process that goes into, like how I choose which nonprofit to team up with.
Speaker 1:It's super cool and I thought about this before jumping on the podcast but a lot of people are ignorant. So there's a lot of people that donate, right, you know, like Red Cross, or you know Salvation Army I mean, that's a very common donation portal, right but there's not a lot of, I don't think, at least in my opinion. Think, at least in my opinion. I think ignorance, a lot of us are ignorant to to like the back curtain, right, like, like, I've heard of issues, right, and I'm not going to say the nonprofit, but you know, I used to work at a company and we partnered with a nonprofit and you know every, you know every holiday that was appropriate to donate to them.
Speaker 1:You know we would donate, you know we would do an event around it and we would donate to them, right. But then I started hearing like, like, oh well, you know, there's been some, some, I guess some issues, right, you know, like, that they're keeping, you know, 70 percent of the donations. Or you know they're buying houses and in jets and cars and Rolexes and all this shit, with it gotten smaller.
Speaker 2:Or maybe people just don't understand and and myself included, like don't understand, you know how to research those non-profits and you know, you just kind of hit the nail on the head there yeah, if you want to shortcut it, go to charity navigator or go to charity watchdog and they do evaluations and give, like you know, start basically star ratings for the non-profits and they summarize like a onepage on their website summary of each nonprofit Amazing, yeah. So find yourself Charity Watchdog or Charity Navigator or GuideStar also is a good one. If one of those or all of those are giving your charity a top rating, you can feel good about donating the money. And I think it's easy to paint with a really broad brush about nonprofits. There's a lot of people talking smack about oh, these are people who are siphoning off money and they're lazy and inefficient and bureaucratic. And sure, there's examples that are like that, but those are the exceptions and not the rule. And I could tell you stories about working at Team Rubicon. I've never worked any place, maybe except for the Navy, where people were so dedicated to the work and the mission.
Speaker 2:And when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston you know that was that kicked off again this from the perspective of a guy working in the headquarters office in LA. That was the biggest operation that the organization ever launched and we sent 3,000 volunteers over the course of months and months down to Houston, and I could go on and on about the work they did. But, like, what it felt like in LA at the office was, I don't know, 60 to 90 days of 12 to 14 to 15 to 16 hour days, people sleeping on the floor and sleeping bags under their desks, not going home on weekends. And it wasn't because nobody was doing that, because we were trying to make a shitload of money for ourselves. We were all doing that because of the work that we were doing was helping people who needed to be helped.
Speaker 2:So, like I want to, I want people to have that perspective on the nonprofit world too. There are a lot of really good, really motivated, really skilled, dedicated people doing really difficult work. You know this is not, this is yeah. So it's important to keep an eye on that. And it hits the watch world. Like you know, there was that. What was the? What's the big non-profit watch raf watch auction that they did in europe for only watch? All right, do you remember that thing?
Speaker 1:There's been so much controversy around it it's hard to like point back to a specific controversial event. But no, no, no please, please, elaborate.
Speaker 2:What I know from working in a nonprofit is like nonprofits function on trust. When people like you and me and our moms and grandmoms give money to a nonprofit, they have to trust the nonprofit is going to do what they're supposed to do with the money and without that you can't have impact without donations and you can't have donations without trust and you can't have trust without transparency. And like in the watch world, there's a lot of hand-waving and gala partying and auctioning off of you know very high price widgets to very wealthy people. That gets kind of painted with the brush of like it's for philanthropy and sometimes it is, and sometimes like that only watch auction was like I kind of dug into that because I was fired up about it, right, like I come from this world, I don't like to see a lack of transparency causing people to to have to have the kind of doubts you're talking about. Right, and like that was a weird situation. Like it was. It could have never happened here in the us because of the way that it's regulated here. I don't know how non-profits are regulated in monaco, but you know you had a situation where the person this is all like this was based on what I could find out from publicly available information and if there's anything that I'm wrong about, like that's on me, I apologize for that in advance. But like, my understanding in that situation was like the person running that auction and making all of the money had raised up to something like 100 million dollars over the course of however long that auction had been running, but but 50 million of it 55 million of it was just still sitting in their bank account and most of it was flowing to and the purpose of that nonprofit was to help find a cure for muscular dystrophy I think was the disease the guy's son was afflicted with the disease.
Speaker 2:So on the surface level it all looks great, but then they were taking that money that they were getting from the auctions people buying these watches at the auctions. Half of it was just sitting there unused and 80 or 85% of the half that had gone out of the of the nonprofit organization. Most of that was given to a biotech company that the guy who started the auction was a board director and part owner of. So they were basically using the auction as a fundraising vehicle, like if you go to a venture capitalist and say I need $50 million to invest in my biotech. Like you're going to have to have her on a term sheet. They're going to want their piece. They're going to hold you accountable to the progress of the company. And this was just like and so there's effectively like an interest rate on that money that you take. You have to give away part of your company to get the VC money. And this was like a free way to raise money as a, as a nonprofit, and then funnel it to your biotech company that you partly own.
Speaker 2:Right and, by the way, like the other 50 million sitting in the bank that hasn't been invested. Like if you're a nonprofit and you're not spending the money that people gave you on your mission. Like you have a fiduciary duty to them. They gave you that money not so it could sit in your bank account. They gave you that money not so it could sit in your bank account. They gave you that money so that you could do what you're supposed to do with it. And I can tell you, man, 50 million bucks.
Speaker 2:When I started a team Rubicon in 2016, we were about a $14 million a year organization and when I left four years later, we were running about 47 or $50 million a year. That's the entire budget of TR. That was running hundreds of hundreds of disaster relief operations a year on 50 million bucks. So like they're just sitting on that money and it's doing nothing.
Speaker 2:So I got pretty sorry it's turned into a big tangential soapbox. But I got pretty fired up about that and I think that the watch world needs to do better. They need to do better than we need to do, better than 1% for the planet. We need to do better than an undisclosed portion of the proceeds of some small, limited run of watches from a multi-billion dollar company, you know kind of being given to some non-profit and like that's the last you hear about it, like transparency is the only way all of this works, and so I'm kind of I get fired up about that yeah, I mean, I think our missions aligned, like a lot of people, at least when I started, like my project, right, whatever you want to call lonely risk.
Speaker 1:We're not a non-profit, but you know we don't take any funding from watch brands. You know, like obviously you haven't paid me any money, and if you did, I don't know where it went. But but, anyways, it's more about transparency, right? Like I want I want people to understand that there needs to be a transparent watch industry. You know, and and there hasn't been. For as long as I have been in watches, I haven't seen anything like that.
Speaker 1:And a lot of the content creators are there not to throw to throw shame or shade, but you know they're profiting off the media they produce and they're profiting off the product they sell, right, so it's like they have a full circle profit margin. And you know, I started thinking back. I was like how many creators are there out there that don't sell watches, you know? And then they're only talking about the shit they sell, you know, and like, oh, this is the best thing since sliced bread, but you can buy it from my shop. You know, and like, oh, this is the best thing since sliced bread, but you can buy it from my shop, you know, and it's like all right guy, like I get it. I see what you're doing. You know, and so you're starting to see, I mean, especially with some of the bigger media outlets that have have been, you know, ousted for for that exact reason, you know you're starting to see kind of a new shift in in media culture. You know not, not not even necessarily in the watch industry, but just in the world. You know you're starting to see a rise in independent outlets. You know people are going away from mainstream media, you know, because they just want to go straight to information, right, and you know it's hard for me to make an impact, I guess necessarily in the watch industry, but no, I want to be like an informational resource, and a lot of the mission started with that just being transparent and then helping to lower the bar, you know, because I think this is a really rewarding hobby.
Speaker 1:I hope that more people see that and I hope that more people understand that watches are, you know, not only little like you know, devices that you know you tell time from, but they're engineering marvels. There's passion put into every single watch that I think I've ever purchased or owned, or there's so many brands out there that think like you do, that are are so freaking passionate about, you know, the industry, the community and giving back and using, you know, watches as as a little time machine, you know, and I think it's just so cool, you know, because there's not a lot of objects out there that really kind of are rooted in history, that you use, right, like I mean, we all have iPhones, right, like, how much history is in an iPhone, right? You know there's not hundreds of years of history in iPhones. You know there's. There's decades of technology that it's progressed. But you know something that you know 30, 50, 60, 70, a hundred years. You know, hopefully my watches are still ticking, I hope so, but I think a lot about that and and it's cool to hear, you know somebody that has a different story and different perspective on the watch industry.
Speaker 1:And you know, let's use this as a segue, but I had a guest on yesterday and he talked about you'll, you'll know, by the time yours goes live, because I'm sure you'll, you'll have heard his, his, his, his, his mission. But but you know, he talked about jumping into the watch industry by just seeing the passion people you know, like when you find a watch that you love or you connect with, it's like like a flame or like I mean you just you don't even understand. Maybe some people do. If you're listening to my podcast, you understand the feeling that, like you love something so much and it suits your, your, your lifestyle in such a way. So the reason why I'm saying this is because he brought this out right. He talked a lot about this. Well, when somebody tries on one of my watches, I want them to think about this. Right, and then I was thinking like why have I never asked that question? So you're going to be my guinea pig. When somebody puts on a low key watch, what do you want somebody to feel?
Speaker 2:I've put a fair amount of thought into this. I mean, I think first and foremost, I want it to connect them to the place that inspired the watch. I want them to somehow, even if it's a place they've never been to, or if it's a place they have been to, it reminds them of that place. But I, you know the whole, the creative core of the brand is around capturing that spirit of place and letting people experience that in some way when they look at the watch and wear the watch. So that's the first thing, and if that's, I want people to experience the design of the watch. I want them to feel like you were talking about iPhones and watches, right, and like nobody loves their iPhone, right, the utility of the thing is off the scale, but there's no beauty and there's no passion in it. So when people have a low-cut watch, I want them to somehow see or feel and experience like that passion and the beauty of the design and I want them to attach to the design of the object. And then the last thing, which I don't I don't know if everybody will feel this, but you know, I think that, like I said earlier in the in the podcast, like if this brand is going to succeed. It's going to succeed because we find people who want to be part of the mission.
Speaker 2:And so I think, for for the subset of people, there's going to be people who buy the watch because they love the watch as an object, just as a watch, and that's great. And then there's going to be a different subset of people who are buying the watch because they want to be part of that mission, and so I want those folks to feel like they've done a little tiny bit to help right. They've made a little tiny difference against a huge, huge set of problems out in the world. And it's like we're just a small watch brand and you may only be just one customer, but here's an opportunity for you, as a buyer, to wear the watch and feel like you've had an impact in the world, instead of wearing something and just feeling like, well, my money went into somebody's pocket or me wearing this is going to impress somebody. We're showing status. I want people to feel like they've been able to kind of express their own values and have an impact by wearing the watch.
Speaker 1:Beyond telling your customers like, hey, you know, 10% of the profits go, or the proceeds go to this charity, like how do you make your customers feel proud about that? And so it brings the question. Because I'm working with a brand and they're a heritage brand, you know, like one of the early swiss I mean earlier swiss watch brands, the first brands to do in-house, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it is zenith. I've been working with zenith a lot. I think people know at this point I'm I'm a shill, not a non-paid shill, but but uh, but no, I I'm just so passionate about their story, the products.
Speaker 1:And the only reason I'm saying this on your specific podcast is one of my friends sold watches, their watches, and she had reached a certain sales goal and they bought a star and named the star after her son.
Speaker 1:And it was this nonprofit that they purchased the star from or something after her son. And so you know, and it was this nonprofit right that they they purchased the star from or something I don't know that goes towards, I don't, I don't know what it goes towards, but and so I could only imagine in that moment, right For her right, that she was like wow, this is like tangible, this is real, like I did something that is worthy of being honored beyond the purchase. Right? So it goes back to you, mr Marketing guy. How do you make people feel the impact of, you know, buying a low key watch, and, and, and, and? How do you, how do you take your nonprofits, goals and objectives, and, and you know, you talked a lot about shit I can't think of the exact word that you use but but impact, right. How do you make your customers feel the impact that these nonprofits are doing?
Speaker 2:This is something I actually need to do a better job of. So the because I'm very selective in how I choose nonprofits like one of the other metrics I use to evaluate them is how transparent are they and how much information do they share about the impact that they're making in the world and the gap that I need to close is I need to do a better job kind of sharing that impact with, with Lokai's customers. So you know including things like that in. You know email newsletters that I send out or baking them into the website. There's ways to do this that I'm just a little bit time limited on and like haven't been able to get to yet. So it's something I've put a lot. It's a good question, it's the right question, it's something I put a lot of thought into and I need I have some ideas on how to execute on it.
Speaker 2:You know, for now I'm providing transparency by posting my donation receipts on my website. So when we talk about, you know, our watch brands being as transparent as they could be, about the donations they make, I'm like I'm putting it all out there twice a year, I make the donations and I post that receipt on the website. But you know that's not. That's not interesting or exciting or or inspiring for any customers to interact with. That's just me following through on a commitment to transparency.
Speaker 2:So what I'd like to do more of in the future is making sure that and the good nonprofits the kind of nonprofits that I'm going to, that I team up with are putting out that information constantly stories of their impact, stories of their volunteers, you know, working on the front lines of their mission, things like that so that stuff is there for me to access and share with, with low-cost customers, and I need to make a little bit of space to make that happen more often, because it's important, right?
Speaker 2:This was something we worked really hard at at Team Rubicon was just making sure people had a really clear picture of what impact their money was driving On, both a quantitative, like hey, this is how many volunteers we deployed, this is how many hours they put in of free labor to help impacted communities. This is, you know, I think, all kinds of things like that and then, like the more, the more emotional side of like creating videos of our volunteers and of the community people in the communities that we were helping and sharing those like people who donate to nonprofits. They want and need to see that to sort of close the loop or to get some closure to see the ultimate end of, like the donations they make. So I've got a little work to do there but the material's all there because the nonprofits I work with put it out there.
Speaker 2:And it's on me to dig in and share it more actively with my customers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think again, I think, and I alluded to this earlier in the podcast but I donate as much as I can, you know when I can, whether through time or through money, but I always want to feel like, I want to see the outcome, right, you know? It's like you're planting a seed, right? You know you want to see that seed grow into. Whatever the seed was. In my case, I was huge I I love to grow peppers, jalapenos, serrano, habanero.
Speaker 1:So, man, I can't I didn't know this about you, blake, yeah, yeah, no, I don't talk about it too much, but I had a garden in north carolina and I would grow a lot of my own food and come, come out chickens I all the fun stuff. But there's no more rewarding part than, you know, starting off with just seeing nothing but dirt. You plant the seed, you know, you nurture it right into something that you know you put back into your body or it's just a crazy full circle moment. So the only reason again why I'm bringing this is not to to to call you out and your vulnerabilities or your lack, you know your lack of communicating that, but but something that I, that I would enjoy as a loci customer is just seeing the impact, feeling it. You know not everybody can get out there and and go pick up. You know tornado debris, right, not everybody can do that, right, or has the means or resources to do that, but you know they're $20, $50, $100 or whatever. They still want to feel like that they helped in some way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for for low-guys customers. I mean, they're, they're one step away, right, so they can always go to Surfrider Foundation's website. Yeah, you know their, their whole marketing communications team, just like the team I worked on at tr, is constantly putting out that kind of material. For me it's, it's an issue, it's the challenge is. Okay, I need to actually push that out to sure, so that they see that.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of like yeah I love hearing about things that I need to be doing better, and I love to hear questions like hey, why aren't you doing this? Or why are you doing this? So it's it's all taken in the spirit of like, okay, this is, it's something that that I can build on and a way for the brand to improve, so I appreciate it. It's just like when somebody puts on a watch and says, oh, it's great to hear people say I love the watch. It's you the things that they feel are weak points or things that they would change.
Speaker 1:So it's. It's all about kind of like running toward the criticism instead of away from it. Yeah, yeah. A final question, and so we don't talk too much about legacy, all right, independence, brand watch, brands such as yourself, impact brands, is what you know. You're, you're branding yourself, as I'm sure it seems like you've thought about a lot of this stuff, which is amazing. You know what legacy do you hope low-chi leaves, not just as a brand, but you know, as a, as an impact brand. You know, like, like. How are you going to preserve this beyond your days?
Speaker 2:I mean the. The legacy is in the continued access to the places that the watches are inspired by and the places that we support with donations. Now, that's a grandiose thing to say, right, Like we're such a we're such a small brand that I'd impact it. Unless, you know, someday we become wildly successful, and hopefully that day comes, but that impact will be tiny. But but that's a very real way that I'm thinking about.
Speaker 2:The legacy of the brand is is on the places that we're trying to protect. I think in other ways. I think the legacy, I want the legacy to be in the way that people get to be part of that mission. People get to have a role in protecting and preserving those places. I want people to have the opportunity to be a part of that. So the legacy is kind of the way that we empower. It's not about Loci, it's not about the impact we are having. It's actually the customers are having the impact, Right, and so the legacy is in, you know, that little spark of inspiration and passion and commitment that the customers make when they buy one of our watches and do a little something to protect the place that inspired it.
Speaker 1:I have a couple more questions here that I figured I might slip in. So you talked a lot about location. So, and maybe you you won't want to answer this, but you know, I'm sure there's a place out there that kind of like recharges you. You know, like hey, I can just put my phone away, I can just literally go back and recharge the batteries. What is that place?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's. There's like we live less than a mile from the beach and I'm actually not a big beach person but I'm an ocean person, so I love to spend time in the water. I'm not a surfer yet, but I've been a swimmer my whole life. I used to be like a competitive swimmer when I was a kid, so I spent a lot of time in the ocean and for me that's and now that I'm taking my daughter like she's getting big enough and old enough and strong enough swimmer that like she'd come out into the waves with me and stuff so like that's when we'll go down there and just spend, you know, even even a half an hour, but hopefully more. Spend a half an hour in the ocean Like that gets me fired up.
Speaker 2:I mentioned I'm a motorcycle rider. Like spending an hour or a day or a week on the bike. I spent two months on my bike and 11,000 miles around the U S once, like United States. But you know, time on the bike, not in traffic, but like on roads that are that are enjoyable, um, you know that recharges me. I mentioned I'm a skier spending time and a backpacker. So like especially when I lived up in San Francisco, I spent a lot more time up in the mountains around Tahoe and desolation, wilderness and places like that, that backpacking and skiing, like those places recharge me, it's. So there's a lot sailing. I don't do as much sailing as I used to, but time spent on the water, sailing like that's a. I used to do a lot of racing, but also like cruising, sailing, like those are.
Speaker 2:It's all these things that I think the key is. Like it takes your mind off of everything else. It's. This is a not a revelation. A lot of people talk about this kind of thing, but when you're doing something that requires you to focus on it and that it takes your, it takes all of your, your sort of consciousness and focus away from everything else in your life and and pours it into like an activity in a beautiful place that makes that activity possible. Like those are all things that kind of get me fired up and recharge me. And traveling, you know, going someplace I haven't been before. If I haven't been there before, then I'm interested. Like that's my rule about travel. Like do you want to go here, do you want to go there? I'm like, if I haven't been there, then yeah, I want to go. So traveling someplace. New is also another one.
Speaker 1:If you could and this will be my whoever in the world who would it be? I don't know why?
Speaker 2:That's a great question.
Speaker 1:I save the hard ones for the end. You know the people that make it this far. We got to give them an Easter egg man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lot, there's a lot.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of possibilities, I think, and a lot of these might not be possible because they're like, some of them are already partnered with watch brands. But just as a blue sky question, you're asking it like if it was possible, like I think the Oceana is a nonprofit that does a lot of work in the deep ocean, like blue ocean, and what I like about what they do is they they drive and fund a lot of scientific and deep ocean engineering research in addition to, like, preservation of habitats. So there's there's a practical that money that they invest in research and scientific development is driving future, is making certain types of preservation activities possible. So, like I like that they have that kind of one-two punch of like, yes, we're rehabilitating these environments, but we're also like helping create technology or helping drive scientific research that helps us even understand what's happening in these places. Like I think that that's a really cool approach that they have. So that's one that's kind of the top of my list, but there's a lot of others, wow epic.
Speaker 1:We spent quite a lot of time talking not only about watches but philanthropy loci. You know how you kind of wrap this all all together. It's been an amazing journey. I can't wait for this one to go live. Just to hear all the all the chatter right, I get a lot of dms and I just want to thank you.
Speaker 2:Didn't even talk about watches all that much.
Speaker 1:I hope people aren't disappointed so I, I've talked about this, but we're a watch-centric podcast, but we talk a lot about entrepreneurship, creative development and we wrap it all with watches. So, just to hear the whole loci mission impact. We talked a lot about watch design and inspirational design and your, your, I think your perspective is it's probably just, it is not, if not, more interesting than than the watches. You know, in my opinion so and I hope that everybody agrees, right, I hope that I have no roadmap for this, right, this is just all fun and and and. So, yeah, I think it'll be well-received, for sure, and everybody who is listening, if you enjoyed this type of podcast. So I started talking to some. I'm sure, probably, since you're a marketing guy, I don't tell people enough that they need to go rate my podcast. We're number six watch podcast in the world crazy, crazy, crazy stat. But you put in the work. We only have like a handful of like reviews. So I want to everybody.
Speaker 2:Please rate and review the loneliers podcast. I'll plug it for you.
Speaker 1:I know I hate to shill my own shit, you know, but no to me, and I've talked about this. You know this is an outlet, this is a platform. I'm just a custodian of it. Right, you know, it's for the community, it's for, you know, transparency, it's for passion, it's per. You know I talked a lot. You know I asked you about how you bottle. You know, your, you know that that that energy, right, this is how I bottle it. You know, this is how I bottle my passion and this is how I share it. You know, for no other reason does does the only risk exist for that? That whole, sole purpose. So so, thank you for helping me accomplish my passion and preserve it, and, and hopefully I can do the same for you passion and preserve it and, and hopefully I can do the same for you, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm sure your listeners and watchers, viewers, I'm sure they realize that you know part of the. The beauty of what you're doing in creating this platform is making it possible for brands like loci and all the other awesome startup watch brands out there independent watch brands out there to to reach people with their story and talk about the brand and talk about the products, the watches. You know none of us well, I'll just speak for myself. I can't afford what it would take to go out there and, you know, reach hundreds of thousands and millions of watch fans. Right, it's, it's people like you and the platforms that you build, based on your passion to build a, you know, a media platform that makes it possible for at least gives a shot to brands like Lokai to find success. So I think it's it's. It's a great mission to be on and, like the watch industry, especially the independent and the startup watch industry, we need folks like you doing what you're doing and I appreciate it and I'm sure that your, your fans do as well. Thank you, yeah.
Speaker 2:I dropped you that review.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll see, we'll start to see them trickle in. But, no, I've thought really hard about this too. You know, like you know, it's there's, there's no clear path. Right, like you know, we can sit here and plan for the future, all that we want, but you know you're one turn away from a whole new mission, a whole new perspective, a whole new goal, a whole new objective, and there's there's no amount of planning that can can help me kind of do what I'm doing. Right, there's, no, there's no guidebook for you know how to start a media company or how you know how to make an impact in media. Right, it's, it's all feeling based, it's all, it's all. You know, just like, hopefully, throw the line in the water and catch a fish, and, and you know consciously, like some people have even brought to my attention that I have to to do one of two things, and one of that is either stick with brands like yours, right, when we can make an impact together, or I can go up market and, and you know, get the big boys and and and do all this and start, you know, shilling for them, or whatever, and and I hope that I haven't made that choice and I hope I don't ever have to, but but yeah, yeah, so hopefully I can kind of stay where I'm at and I also like the fact that my podcast is much bigger than the rest of my outlets.
Speaker 1:The website's pretty gets a lot of traffic. But you know, I'm just starting out, starting out on YouTube and, you know, hopefully there we can, you know, reach a different audience. And you know I'm I'm not a big like megalophone guy, like I don't like to to toot my own horn. I don't even, I really don't even post my own content on my own channels, you know, because I feel like if people find me and they learn about, you know, what we're doing, then there there's going to be a longer or more stronger connection, I think, with our audience. Right, you know. So I'm making it harder on myself, possibly by walking up the mountain with the heaviest backpack you ever got, you know. But I think it's more interesting, right, you know, I think it's a more interesting approach to a traditional media outlet, if that's what you want to call me.
Speaker 2:But you seem pretty happy doing it the way you're doing it. I don't hear a lot of angst in your voice when you're talking about it. So you know you talked about. You know I'm not making these plans and stuff like. Look, people sitting around making elaborate plans are usually outpaced by people just doing the thing. So, yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. Maybe you're on the right road.
Speaker 1:I hope so. I hope so. And yeah, there's only passion behind it. You know, there's nothing else that's fueling this. There's no money behind it, there's nothing else, it's just passion. So, and I've even had those discussions, like you know, like how do we continue to preserve the? You know, because at the end of the day, like you know, money keeps the lights on right.
Speaker 1:You know, like, how do we, how do we do what you're doing in a way? You know how do we preserve, you know, the passion and keep the lights on at the same time? That's something I haven't figured out yet.
Speaker 2:Well, don't quit your cybersecurity day job yet, man.
Speaker 1:I know it pays for all this, but anyways, tripp, thank you so much. I can't wait for this one to go live and to hear all the feedback and thanks for spending time with me. Thanks for reaching out and thanks for spending time with me. Thanks for reaching out and thanks for sending me a little pacific coast highway on my wrist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, thanks for having me on the show. I mean, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and and reach your fans and and hopefully raise awareness for the brand a little bit. So I owe you on the next time you're in la. You know that dinner's on me for sure.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, I'll take you up on that. Everybody, please go check out Tripp's brand Lokai. We are going to make sure we link them here in the description. Obviously, you didn't hear it from me, but there's a really interesting story behind this brand. I can only speak for them, having great products and having a great founder and a great mission. At this point, I understand it now, but they really have something special as as a as a watch aficionado, it doesn't take much time to understand that they have a great product and a great mission. So, everybody go check them out and until next time, we will see you on the next episode. Thanks, cheers, blake.
