The Business of Watches [012] Manuel Emch, The Head Of Louis Erard And 'The Numbers Guy' At Kollokium, On How To Build A Successful Swiss Watch Brand

Summary

HODINKEE Podcast: The Business of Watches [012]

Guest: Manuel Emch, Head of Louis Erard and "The Numbers Guy" at Kollokium
Host: Andy, with co-host Malaika Crawford (Editorial Director, HODINKEE)
Date: January 21, 2026

---

Overview

This episode centers on Manuel Emch, a transformative figure in Swiss watchmaking, currently at the helm of Louis Erard and an integral force at Kollokium. Through candid conversation, Emch shares his journey from his horological roots in Switzerland to turning around and reimagining traditional watch brands. He gives an insider’s account of what it takes to build, revive, and sustain success in Swiss watchmaking, with a focus on adapting to changing consumer values, brand evolution, and the interplay between creativity and business acumen.

The podcast begins with industry headlines and then launches into Emch’s personal narrative and professional philosophies.

---

Key Segments & Insights

1. Industry Headlines & Trends

(00:55 – 10:55)

• LVMH Watch Week: Coverage of new high horology releases from TAG Heuer, Hublot, Zenith, Daniel Roth, Gérald Genta, and Louis Vuitton.
• Louis Vuitton’s Watchmaking: Both hosts discuss the transformation of LV’s watchmaking, especially after visiting the Geneva atelier.
• Rolex Testimonies: Discussion about Rolex’s new "testimonies," including Leonardo DiCaprio and Zendaya, and Rolex’s unique approach to brand ambassadors.

Memorable Quotes:

• “Watching him sort of hand guilloché with absolutely sort of zero worry, zero concern... Zero Fs given by the master guilloché at LFT." — Malaika (03:09)
• “Rolex testimonies are... not the sort of tabloid celebrities. They're that real upper crust. You don't know much about them, but they have all this prestige.” — Malaika (09:33)

---

2. Manuel Emch's Origin Story & Early Industry Experiences

(10:55 – 19:27)

• Swiss Roots: Emch shares how growing up in Grenchen—through the quartz crisis—influenced both his skepticism and love for the industry.
• Creative Drive: Though educated in automotive design, Emch migrated into business, combining creativity with managerial acumen.
• Early Roles: His first major role was creating a business plan to revive the storied but dormant Jaquet Droz brand, leveraging entrepreneurial energy inside Swatch Group.

Notable Quote:

• “I always had a very strong entrepreneurial drive... being able to create things was what really interested me.” — Emch (14:22)

---

3. Rebuilding Historic Brands: Jaquet Droz & Romain Jerome

(19:27 – 35:32)

• Jaquet Droz Turnaround: Emch orchestrated a startup-like revival, ignoring internal group politics to grow the brand internationally.
• Challenges with Swatch Group: As the brand grew, increased bureaucracy and political constraints pushed Emch out.
• Romain Jerome (RJ): Joined another troubled brand, pivoting it from negative, provocative storytelling (e.g., Titanic DNA) towards playful, pop-culture collaborations (e.g., Super Mario, Batman).
• Lessons on Growth: Pushed back against “growth at any cost,” left when business priorities clashed with creative vision.

Memorable Moment:

• “Provocation is part of our industry, but negative provocation is timed. After a certain period, you can create a lot of visibility... but when it's negative, sooner or later it will come to an end.” — Emch (30:02)

---

4. The Louis Erard Revival: From Rational to Emotional

(35:32 – 49:20)

• Diagnosis: Louis Erard’s retreat into price-based competition nearly destroyed it.
• Strategy Reset: Emch steered focus away from rational (just value for money) into emotional—craftsmanship, artisanship, storytelling, scarcity.
• The Silverstein Collaboration: A chance meeting and unplanned proposal led to a successful, brand-transforming collaboration with Alain Silberstein.
• Digitalization & Lean Management: Rebooted the team and streamlined operations, preparing for a modern, post-COVID watch industry.

Notable Quote:

• “I have clients who bought 25 regulators over the last five years. When you're at 4,000 a watch... how many more regulators with the same case can I do? So, we need to invent.” — Emch (73:11)

---

5. What Makes a Watch Brand Successful?

(49:20 – 57:12)

• Key Ingredients:
  • Listening to the Brand: “You gotta listen, you gotta feel, and you gotta hear the brand because it resonates.” (49:58)
  • Creative/Analytical Balance: Emch is colloquially the "numbers guy," but he emphasizes creativity and curiosity as equal partners to business analysis.
  • Ever-Evolving Recipe: Success is about constant adjustment and not a fixed roadmap.
• Industry Trends: Moving from product as functional object to watches as emotional, even artistic expressions. Importance of transparency, personalization, and creator-driven brands.

---

6. The Microbrand Movement & Kollokium

(57:12 – 65:30)

• Kollokium Origins: Founded during COVID with two partners and no intention of large-scale business; quickly gained traction.
• “Sell off the wrist” Philosophy: No marketing spend, limited drops, and immediate sales.
• Balance Between Direct Sales & Retail: Emch believes in maintaining both, for service, credibility, and future stability.
• Ecosystem Approach: Champions collaboration and mutual support across artisanal brands and retailers.

Notable Quote:

• “I’m a big supporter of mutualization... I don’t look at us as competitors. I look at us as a small, not even industry anymore, more kind of volume artisanship.” — Emch (67:45)

---

7. Brand Budgets, Growth Philosophy, and Future-Proofing

(68:38 – 73:11)

• Against Business Plans & Growth Fetish: Emch prefers brand value, scarcity, and quality over aggressive expansion.
• Profitability as Priority: “If it doesn’t make profit, it doesn’t make sense.” (71:09)
• Resisting Complacency: Success depends on constant reinvention and understanding consumer shifts—moving from complication arms races to supreme finishing and artisanship.

---

8. Looking Forward: Upcoming Projects and the State of the Industry

(77:29 – end)

• Louis Erard: Launching a new sports line with pop-culture partnerships; developing more complex cases and movements.
• Kollokium: Upcoming Project 2, with intricate stacked dials, will launch at Watches and Wonders; more projects in pipeline.
• Personal Roadmap: Emch hints at yet another project at a different (even more affordable) price point.
• Biggest Challenge: “The biggest challenge for brands is to continuously reinvent yourself... you have to avoid to fall in traps... constantly evolving.” (73:11)

---

Notable Moments & Quotes with Timestamps

• On LV Watchmaking Transformation: "Watching him sort of hand guilloché with... zero Fs given." — Malaika, (03:09)
• On Founding Jaquet Droz Business Plan: “At 28, 29—went in to Mr. Hayek... With a business plan saying, I have something to suggest.” — Emch, (20:07)
• On Collaborations and Brand Revivals: "One product... changed the whole perception of a brand." — Emch, (47:27)
• On Surviving Industry Downturns: "Our aim is simple: we produce 10 watches a day, around three-and-a-half-thousand a year... 50% we sell online..." — Emch, (68:57)
• On Reinvention: “You have to avoid falling in traps... not redo what we do, but constantly evolve.” — Emch, (73:11)
• Future Direction: “For me, a pipeline product is probably the most important element.” — Emch, (77:43)

---

Conclusion

Manuel Emch’s philosophy blends entrepreneurial independence, sharp analysis, and deep respect for craftsmanship. He sees the future of brands not in growth for its own sake but in meaningful, transparent, and adaptive creativity. From reviving historic names to launching daring microbrands, Emch’s story lays out a blueprint for thriving in today’s dynamic watch industry—one where listening, evolving, and remaining emotionally resonant are the keys to lasting success.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the business of watches, the Hodinkee podcast, where horology meets high finance. On this week's episode, Manuel Emtsch. He was born into the world of Swiss watches, but operates very much as an outsider. He's the managing director of Louis Rard and one third of the trio behind the radical brand colloquium. He's also an active consultant to a host of other brands and entities in the watch world. His watch world is vast and he's got a unique take on the sector. But first, I'm joined by my most excellent colleague, Malaika Crawford, the editorial director at Hodiki magazine, to discuss some current news and headlines in the watch world. Good morning, Malaika. How are you?

[B]

Good morning, Andy. I'm very excited to be on your podcast.

[A]

Well, it is my honor and pleasure to welcome you. How are things in New York? How's the weather?

[B]

It's freezing, but, you know, it's January in New York, pretty bleak. So what can I say?

[C]

Indeed.

[A]

It's also gotten cold here in Switzerland. It was warming up. Cold again. Now I'm hoping we get some snow so we can have better ski conditions. So look, let's talk about the news. It's LVMH Watch Week this week in this time of year, and we get a slew of new releases from the luxury conglomerates. Watch brands, that means TAG Heuer, Hublot and Zenith, but also the recently revived Daniel Roth and Gerald Genta brands as well as Louis Vuitton watches. Now, Malaika, you know the lv, the Louis Vuitton and their atelier here in Geneva and Merin La Fabrique du Temps quite well. What's your take on. On the latest offerings that we're seeing from lv?

[B]

Well, I have to tell you, Andy, not that I was skeptical, but going to LFT in person definitely changed my whole sort of take on Louis Vuitton watches in general. So I think I'm coming into this week quite optimistic. And I think if we start by looking at the Tombor Convergence, which was kind of a hit last year, right? We had the platinum with the diamond snow set. Diamonds. And then we had the rose gold with like a very high shine. Mirror finish literally looked kind of like a little mirror that had a large space for an engraving, which has finally happened, I'm pleased to say. And when I visited LFT sort of last September, I think it was, I met the master guilloche, or guillocher, I suppose.

[C]

He's a guillotine indeed.

[B]

Yeah, he is a true wizard. And Watching him sort of hand guilloche with absolutely sort of zero worry, zero concern. He was just freestyling it, would you say?

[A]

Zero Fs given.

[B]

Zero Fs given by the Master Gyosha at LFT. Truly, like a highly, highly skilled individual. He let me have a go. I ruined it in about sort of 0.2 seconds. And I think they had to like throw the gold in the scrap basket.

[D]

Oh, well.

[B]

Yeah. But this new watch, I think is great. I'm really excited to see them fill in that blank because I think they needed to.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Because it celebrates and showcases front and center, the guilloche on the.

[C]

On the dial, on the Convergence. Yeah.

[B]

I think it's really just testament to what they're doing over there. And even some of the other releases we've got, you know, quite a few variations of the Askall. I don't know what you think of the Askall. It took me a minute to kind of get my head around it because, I don't know, I think you just have to see these things in person, obviously, and try them on. But I think the Askall case is a neat little thing and I think what some of the things that they're doing with like enamel work on their dials and the gem setting, I mean, it's very, very impressive and it's all sort of done in this amazing way by hand in their little atelier. And it's just a very romantic place and I just fell in love with it and I met all these very skilled cr and they were all just incredible.

[A]

Well, yeah, I mean, you wrote a great and in depth piece for Hodinkee magazine about that visit and yeah, I mean, I would agree. I mean, the Askall, you know, I had a look at the Escal for this offering for these releases. You know, they're really putting their metier d', art, their skills sort of front and center here with a new world timer. They're back to the world timer for the Iskall. And then also I really like this dual zone Escal, which is.

[B]

It's pretty cool.

[A]

Which is cool. Yeah, I mean, it's a very simple way of solving what's actually quite a difficult problem for dual time zone watches, which is 30 minute and 45 minute offsets. Places like Nepal, I didn't know this, have like a 45 minute offset. And you can literally truly track two time zones on this new piece. So it's quite cool innovation on the horology. And certainly on the finishing side from.

[B]

Louis Vuitton, I could Understand sort of the skepticism that might come around from sort of those who are less entrenched in high watchmaking. You know, I think Louis Vuitton has this real sort of weight that it carries around. Just, you know, everybody associates it with monograms and luggage and sort of that nouveau riche vibe. But I am truly, truly impressed by what they're doing over at lft. So props to them.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's always a challenge for a brand that is traditionally a fashion brand or in this case luggage and trunks to, you know, establish itself in high horology. But it's certainly been done and LV is certainly making all the right moves and putting out a lot of products that can get it there. Next piece of news here in Switzerland. It's kind of big news. This event that I covered for Hodinkee last year, it's a sailing race, a regatta here in Geneva called the Rolex Switzerland Sail gp, which they had for the first time here in Geneva on Loc Leman last year. It's a high level, high tech sailing league that the organizers of Sail GP are trying to, you know, basically make the Formula one of sailing. And they had an event, a race, a regatta in Geneva last year. And we got news this week that it's going to come back to Geneva this year, which is a bit of a surprise because we didn't think it would happen. And so this all, you know, got me thinking about Rolex and its sponsorship. It's very sort of focused and distinct sponsorship in both sports and then culture and the arts. I'm very focused in sporting events. It's just sailing, as we said, equestrian, golf, motorsports still, although less with its direct involvement with F1 and of course tennis. And then, you know, it got me thinking about Rolex testimonies these days, Malaika, and something that I think you pay a bit of attention to and as do I. And you know, it's interesting to me that now, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio and then Zendaya are our latest sort of Hollywood Rolex testimonies. To me, they strike me as somewhat different kind of Rolex testimonies than we've had in the past. Do you think this is a notable change or what should we make of.

[C]

This, do you think?

[B]

I mean, don't you find that this idea of Rolex testimonies sits apart from like every other watch brand and their ambassadors? It's so like prestige. And I like the way they sort of, first of all aren't called ambassadors. And I don't I don't even know what testimony. I don't even know if that's like an English word.

[A]

It's not, I don't think, but it is, it is interesting indeed. They are testimonies. They are not ambassadors. They are part of the Rolex family, I think is the way that they put it.

[B]

It's just, I don't know, with this sort of very like official judicial term, I think that Rolex testimonies are sort of like a very Rolex, very sort of classy way, you know, having paid ambassadors, which is fine. But you know, I would say that Roger Federer is sort of like the blueprint for them. Right. He is like the ultimate Rolex testimony, loved by everybody, sort of non divisive, you know, the best of the best. And I would say that Zendaya and Leo are sort of a different evolution of Rolex testimony. And maybe this is their way of signaling that they're sort of catching up with, you know, a little bit of the zeitgeist. What I will say is that traditionally, I think, you know, those top tier Hollywood movie stars are always a little bit less sort of, we know less about them than we do about pop stars. Let's say there's still a sort of little bit of mystery left when it comes to Hollywood. And I don't know if you watched the Golden Globe ceremony the other day.

[C]

But I saw the opening and that was a great. Yeah, yeah, go on.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

The host sort of taking a jab at Leo. But it did make me poor pause and think, you know, everybody always goes on about Leo and his young girlfriends and how he frequents nightclubs and. But the host literally said, well, that's all I can say because we don't know anything about you. And it did make me pause and think we don't really know anything about Leo and we don't really know anything about Zendaya. And I think that is just so the archetypal Rolex testimony. It's like we don't. They're not the sort of tabloid celebrities. They're that real upper crust. You don't know much about them, but they have, you know, all this prestige.

[A]

Yeah, I think you're bang on. That is a great interpretation. And indeed that makes me think about Leo and Zendaya differently.

[C]

Of course, they make perfect sense.

[A]

They are huge and famous, but we actually don't know that much about them. Yeah, nice.

[B]

Good for Rolex.

[A]

Well, look, I think we'll leave it there. Thank you for joining me today, Malaika. That Was fun as always. And now here's our conversation with Manuel Emch, the managing director of Louis Aran.

[C]

Welcome, Manuel Emk, the CEO of Louis. One third of the collaboration and interesting new watch company that is Colloquium. A long time executive in the Swiss watch industry, a consultant to many others.

[D]

Welcome.

[C]

I look forward to chatting with you.

[D]

Well, thank you for having me, Andy. I'm very happy to be on that podcast and yeah, let's have some fun together.

[C]

Absolutely, absolutely. So, I mean, let's start at the beginning. I mean, you are Swiss. Tell us about your sort of early, early journey in the watch industry and how you ended up on the executive side of things. Because at one point you were a CEO of Jacques DRO and working at the Swatch Group.

[D]

Well, I would say I'm what one could call born in this industry. I'm Swiss. I'm actually purebred Swiss. I was born and raised in a city called Grenchen, which I'm sure you know, which is one of the centers of watchmaking. ETA has his biggest production unit there. But you had brands like Breitling and a few others who had their headquarters. And it happened that I was raised up in what was probably the last biggest crisis of the watch industry, the quartz crisis. So I've had a pretty bad experience to the industry when I started because I saw a lot of my, you know, childhood or child school friends, which were the parents lost their job. It was a pretty difficult period because the city was one of the most affected. So I always told to myself, I love watchmaking, but, you know, I'm part of this somehow. I was born in this industry, but somehow I don't want to work there. Even though I had quite a lot of family members over the years who directly, indirectly worked for the watch industry. Anyway, I started off as I always wanted to be in the creative part of the creative industry. So I started by doing automotive design, art center. I was good, but not that good. So at a certain stage I had to decide that I want to just be an executive somewhere, lost, without a lot of creative freedom, or if I want to give myself a bit more independence. I decided to add on a few economical studies. Did I just say in Lausanne, like quite a lot of the executives in this industry, by the way, it wasn't the easiest period. When I started, I did a few internships. I worked with Alessandro Mendini in IT Italy, back in the beautiful years of Swatch Lab.

[C]

Interesting.

[D]

But then I wanted to do, you know, I didn't really want to go in the watch industry. I was working at Sotheby's for a certain period of time in the Russian department, which was very interesting. And then ended up trying to find a job where I could cumulate my, let's say creative skills or drawing skills with my, let's say more down to earth economical skills. And ended up doing business process re engineering, okay. Where you basically draw flows and then you basically restructure companies. So that's how I started. I did this for a certain period of time. Then I joined FMCG for two years and somehow I was bored because most of these jobs were very, let's say, you know, mostly marketing or business processing.

[C]

Explain what FMCG was.

[D]

I worked for Philip Morris back in the years, the good years I would say, when there was still a lot of things you could do. But I was also in this period where things became narrowed, much more compliant. It wasn't really that interesting anymore. It was well paid job. So still they are. I think that's one of the problems. But it wasn't that interesting for me for doing. Bringing in my creative ideas. I was in charge of the brand. Philip Morris was basically marketing promotion for the brand. And then I was looking for something different and you know, creative industry in Switzerland. Things where you have a lot of creative freedom, where you can do interesting products. Well, there's not many. There is definitely the watch industry. But it was a period where watch industry wasn't that appealing. And I always remember when I. When I started in the industry, most of my friends with whom I did my economical studies always say, why are you not going into banking? Who goes into watchmaking anyway? It changed a little bit over the years, but back then it wasn't very well seen. Anyway, what happened is I had very good friends in tag, like childhood friends. A lot of the executives are still friends, childhood friends. Because it was again, it was a small industry back then indeed. And it was very centered on two or three locations. I was born and raised in Gretchen, but then I moved to Neuchatel after a certain period. Also a watchmaking, also one of the hubs. And we hanged out. There was a whole generation of us where we hung out a lot together. And I could name a lot of them and a lot of them would resonate, but I will avoid that now. Anyway, I had this opportunity with Tag in one of the product lines that was very interested. But my mother was working in Swash Group back in the years and before accepting the offer she said it would be interesting or I said it would be interesting to see if it's not a problem because again, it was a very small industry, a lot of competitive, non competitive clauses and so on. And I ended up being called by Mr. Hayek himself, saying, oh, Mr. Hayek, senior, senior, absolutely. I heard you want to go to the competition. No way you're going to go to the competition. Not going to be good. You have to come to work for us. And I said, okay, not really interested back then, but nevertheless, I went for a meeting and I started with the industry because I hadn't really the choice with Rado. Not my favorite assignment, but it was interesting. I was basically taking care of part of communication events on one side and everything that we call 2D design. It was interesting but not entrepreneurial enough for me. I was never really attracted by being in, let's say, a management position. I have a very strong entrepreneurial drive, I would say. And somehow being part of, okay, establishing brand with a good position, but with certain freedom, but somehow not enough being able to create things wasn't really interesting. And what happened is one of my friends was a controller within the group and he was the one who basically somehow was in charge of the acquisition of Jaques. So we're talking in the year 2000, more or less, and we're talking about this period where Watch Group bought quite a number of. We had Breguet, obviously we had Glacity, but we also had Jaquet roll which fell into it. But Jacquet roll somehow wasn't. There wasn't any strategy, there wasn't any direction. And he told me that. I said, look, I'm in charge of this brand. I don't know what to do with it. There's no direction, there's no strategy. We only down to the CEO and the watchmaker. But the watchmaker is being assigned to Omega for after sales. I don't know we're going to put this brand into a drawer. And it happened that I knew the brand and I knew it for two reasons. First and foremost, because Jacques d' or is one of the famous names of watchmaking, I think one of the most important watchmaker of the 18th century, specifically known for his automatons that you can still visit in the chateau and that I obviously had the chance to visit in the museum. And something that really marked me and struck me back then. And also because I used to work, as I said, I was working for a certain period of time in Sotheby's, the Russian department. And the Russian department was next to the watchmaking department. Which was good for me. And these were the years where auctions happened mostly on pocket watches.

[C]

Yes, exactly. Pocket watches were the center of exactly.

[D]

So late 90s, early 2000s, that's where. And obviously Jacques was one of. And you could still see a few pieces at the Patek Museum, for instance, was one of the names and one of the. In terms of complications with the Singing Birds, it was something exceptional in watchmaking, the storytelling between watchmaking and automaton. And that kind of mix was something very, very strong and so happened that I pretty much knew a bit of the history of the brand, which are probably one of the few ones. And I told him, I said, why? Why don't we work on a business plan together, because I'm sure we can rebuild this company? And he said, okay, why not? So we started working off our normal time on a business plan and then the courage to present it to Mr. Hayek, which, and I think this is something that I really appreciated working with him, is he always had an open ear and an open door for ideas. So I went in at the age of 28, 29, with a business plan saying, Mr. Hayek, I'm not really interested in that rado job. It's nice, but that's not what I want to do. I have something to suggest you. And he started laughing and listened to it. And that's how everything started. He didn't want to give me the autonomy at the beginning. So we were a small team of three people. There was somebody in charge of sales. I was basically marketing and product, and there was somebody for the whole finance administration thing. But we kicked off this company, the three of us. I always remember that was year 2000. I did the strategy for the whole product philosophy, the whole product strategy, which had basically reinvented, which is still what they do today, by the way, the brand second and products like this. And we started off with the 200,000 turnover, which is, I would say, not even the peanuts in a company like Swatch Group.

[C]

Sure.

[D]

And it was a startup and it was very, very interesting because we had a lot of freedom because we were not strategic, we were not of any interest, aside of the fact that we made something on our side. I worked and I built the company. So after probably around a year, I took over as back then CEO, although title for me. You initially said, I'm CEO of Luya. I always say I'm delegate board member. I just don't want a title. I don't want to be CEO anymore. I don't think it's of any use or any interest. But let's say back then it was still good. So at a very young age, at 29, I took over the CEO position, which probably were the youngest back in the years. I was definitely one of the youngest executives and we built the company and it was a fantastic run for a long number of years. When I left and I left at the end of 2009. So after almost 10 years, we built the company up to close to 40 million Swiss francs. We had close to 100 people, we had a manufacturing unit. And I think we established something. I mean we can debate about Jacques Ro today, but the identity, everything was set. It was very successful. But within these years, to make it successful, I had to work out outside of the Swatch Group. I had obviously access to production, to movements, to a lot of know how. But at the same time, in terms of communication, in terms of distribution, we could not afford to work within the group because when you go into subsidiaries, you have allocation keys. Allocation keys kill entrepreneurial spirits. So I worked a lot outside and this thing, this Mr. Halek enjoyed very much to see that we were able to actually be very successful outside of the frame. That's also how I ended up joining the Extended Management Board. I got assigned very quickly all Eastern European markets because we always had our, let's say business or our brands or business units, but we also had some operational, other operational responsibilities. I was given the Eastern European countries, 27 countries set up for Squatch Group as a whole. As a whole, absolutely. And that's how I started setting up the subsidiary in Russia. That's maybe also a reason why later on I had quite a lot of things in Russia. So I initiated and obviously with the team we set up the subsidiary in Russia back then. Can debate if it was a good idea today, but back then it definitely made sense. And Mr. Hayek took me into Swatch Management when he was running it on an interim basically for marketing product. So I had a fantastic, fantastic, beautiful corporate career with a lot of independence. Built up a brand the way I saw and still partially see watchmaking back in the years. Lots about craftsmanship, artisanship. But at the same time, the more we grew, the more the company grew, the more political it became, the more constraints, the more lots of things that I somehow didn't feel comfortable with. And I would say the more we grew up, grew, the less I had autonomy. Okay, sure. Which for me didn't make sense, you know, because I thought that more successful we are, the more independence and autonomy I will have. But didn't work that way. So. And somehow I. For me, late Mr. Hayek was my mentor. I spent a lot of time and I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time. And he was really a visionary and an entrepreneurial spirit and I think I got inspired a lot by him. But somehow for me, the vision of the then slow takeover somehow didn't fit for me. It was more centralized, it was different approach and I didn't feel comfortable in this. So I decided when we set the stone of the manufacturing unit the next day I resigned, which wasn't very well received. It was a tough exit. No sense of the words. I had to sign non competition clauses. Actually didn't sign a non competition clause. I, I think I signed a phone book. It was quite constraining and I didn't really know what to do. I didn't leave with this idea of doing something else because I was never kind of. I never had this idea of a career. You know, when people talk about shallow careers and stuff like that. I found this very, very interesting. But it just somehow doesn't appeal to me. And so I left. And a lot of things came very quickly, different opportunities, including in big Corpor, which I suppose. Please. I just signed NDAs. I couldn't join and I was like, okay. I mean, I don't want to start fighting. For me, for me, I spent 10 fantastic years. I had a great run, I experienced a lot of things. I mean, probably write books about it. And I enjoyed working for Swatch group and late Mr. Hayek. And I didn't want to, you know, as someone somehow leaving a company like this after all these years with a mantra like that in the context. For me, I didn't feel necessity to go into any sort of fighting or legal proceedings. For me it was like when you end the relation, sometimes it's a bit tough, but you have to go through it. And then sometimes it's just good to let it go.

[C]

This is true. This is true.

[D]

And then rj, Romain Jerome, the owners contacted me. I didn't like the brand at all.

[C]

Right.

[D]

But I like the challenge.

[C]

Sure. And talk about Roman Jerome and what that brand was, you know, was and.

[D]

Is and, and, and, and unfortunately it's not anymore. I mean, it was a very interesting brand per se because it had, it had a very interesting concept. It had this concept of a brand without history, which is the totally opposite of what Jacquelo was. What's a brand with tremendous history? But instead of having this idea of history or patrimony, they Basically told stories on the wrists. So it was watches with stories, physical stories. Started with the famous Titanic story with pieces of the Titanic and the watch, and that just made it explode at the very beginning. But then somehow when you start off too quick, you get into turbulences. There was a lot of turbulences. There was a bit of the initial idea with the moon dust. But overall, this Titanic story, people love, either loved or hated it. And I believe provocation is part of our industry. But again, I believe that negative provocation is timed, meaning that after certain period of time, you can create a lot of visibility, you can create a lot of interest with provocation. But when it's negative, sooner or later it will come to an end, especially because of market dynamics. So the brand did very well in Latin America, some of the European countries, absolutely none in Asia because it was bad karma. So there was a lot of things in the company which were not good. They split with the initial CEO in not in good terms. There was legal proceedings. It was a big mess. But somehow I love big messes. And let's be honest, I mean, that's what a lot of people say. I got very good. I negotiated the very good deal. So I told to myself initially, surprisingly, I'll do it for one or two years. And you know, it's. It's well paid, it's fun, it's, it's. It's a brand that hasn't. Doesn't have any. Any boundaries. You can do a lot of things. And the way. And unfortunately I am the way I am, and when I get into something, I tend to not let loose until it works. And it was great years. I mean, I did 2010 to end of 2015. I left for reason that are very particular, but I'm very. I can very openly talk about it because they're public and we did great stuff. So I tried to turn around from that negative storytelling into positive. We start to be the first doing video games. Space Invader, Super Mario, Batman, Pokemon, all these watches, which you see a lot today.

[C]

Sure.

[D]

But we're talking early 2010s. We did, you know, we did the first Dia de los Muertos in Mexico. And now if you look at Mexican specials, everybody does, you know, selling a tourbillon watch with the Pokemon for 200,000. Not surprised at AP, but definitely did surprise at RJ back in the years. And I mean, a lot of people love that brand. It had a good run. But what happened is, and this is unfortunately the element. So we turned around the company. It was doing well. It was company probably around. We did a little bit less, 15, 16 million with about 3, 4 million profits. It was very profitable company.

[C]

Okay, nice margins.

[D]

Yeah, it was good. It was good. I was happy. I kind of backed. I moved to Geneva, I cycled to my job. I had a good time, I must say. It was, you know, it was a whole different thing from driving to La Chaudfond in the winter. Okay, it's nice, don't get me wrong. But Neuchatel was a bit restraining. I was happy to be in Geneva for that part of my life. And then what happened is it belonged to a Saudi investor which had a lot of means, but he had also family office which was running the whole companies, and that was based in Geneva. And there's actually a legal proceeding against the owner of the family office for fraud. Took a lot of money from the investor, at least that's what's publicly available. And he used rj, unfortunately, to a certain extent, to try to get a lot of money out. So at a certain stage when things were well, there was this request of doing much more. So there was an idea of saying, okay, today we do good, we do a little bit over 15, between 15 and 23 million profit. Let's go to 100, right? And I said, I don't think it's a good idea because I think we need time to build. You can't just invest money. But they pushed for that. And I said, yes, we could eventually categorize the business. Okay, let's make a sub brand because we were selling these story watches, these video games, Batmans. And I understood that the market was maybe thousand, thousand 500 pieces a year, but over that amount, amount we would have overproduced. And scarcity is part of our business. So I didn't want to go over a certain amount. And they wanted to push like, let's do more volume, right? And I said, okay. I had different strategies and surprisingly one of the strategy I used at Luillard with the collapse. Okay, indeed.

[C]

And we'll talk about that.

[D]

We'll talk about that. They thought that was not the right strategy and that with money we could achieve everything. I disagreed. It was a bit of difficult thing. And I decided that and I felt that the reason was not the interest of the brand, which ended up being visible now last two, three years. So I said to myself, I don't want to be there. I don't want to do something I don't agree on, which is not what is my shared vision on it. And I resigned in2015. It took a year to get to exit. It's a tough exit because, you know, I learned one thing in life is money doesn't always give you reason, but a lot of money does. And that was a bit the situation. Anyway, I ended up exiting and then I had sort of a year garden leave, trying to get everything sorted out. They put in a new management, they invested a lot of money, and then three or four years later, they pulled the plug because they understood that something was not the way it should be. And I'm a bit disappointed for that because I think, and even today, some people still tell me, oh, let's relaunch it, let's redo. And I said, okay, but for me, what is the past is the past. I don't want to go backwards, but the brand still has momentum. And a lot of people still talk to me about all these collabs and these partnerships and these iconic elements. And I think this is good. It means there's still a lot of room. Anyway, I left in. I resigned in 2015, I think, and then could leave 2016. And then I was like, okay, I do the garden and leave, but you know what I'm going to do. I don't have any fallback scenario or shadow career, as we say. Had a few job opportunities, but I wasn't really interested to work for anybody anymore because that was my second brand that somehow I built either within the big corporation or for an investor with a lot of independence. And somehow I didn't feel it to take any sort of CEO position on. So I said, what can I do? I said, well, let's be a bit of consulting, right? That's how my, I would say third career started in 2007. 6, 17. 17. Early 17. After the garden leave, I started consulting. And one of the very first clients who came to me was. Was in late 2017, it was Louis. And it's interesting because, okay, the company was in a very bad situation. They accumulated several million losses over in the last 10 years. It had a very good run when it started in 2003, when it restarted with this idea of most affordable Swiss mechanical watch.

[C]

But then again, very clear mission.

[D]

That's very clear but also very transposable because they went very quickly from 0 to 20,000 pieces, took a lot of market share. But then again, it was a small independent company, still is not highly verticalized. And obviously all the competition started to understand that there was this, you know, this new venture, this new brand taking a lot of quick market share with a simple Concept of making very affordable mechanical watches. And what happened is. Well, a lot of the brands started to do lines, aggressive lines. And when you compete with very big corporate companies with a very, let's say very vertical. Yes. Well, they obviously have access, they obviously have prices which are more competitive. And Louyard didn't reinvent itself and started trying to fight this price war and lost it. It's very simple. Meaning that more and more references starting in two quarts, women's multiple colors until it totally diluted itself.

[C]

Too many SKUs.

[D]

SKUs, too many retailers, too big margins, huge margins and basically big organization to sustain all this without making any profit. And that happened that shift. So it was very successful from 2003, I think to pretty much 2,010. And then it shifted and it went down the drain for a few years. And so the shareholders and back end CEO asked me if I basically they were hesitating to close the company. And the question was, shall we re inject, shall we clean the balance sheet or shall we close the company? And my mission was to make a strategy that could work, which is what I did. So I proposed this strategy which was basically moving away from rational into emotional, meaning that we keep that kind of accessible accessibility, value proposition, but not just for mechanical movements, which is something everybody can do or a lot of people can even do better, but to everything that makes values of watchmaking, okay, craftsmanship, artisanship, people, distribution, scarcity, every name it, second market, cp, whatever, whatever makes this kind of call it perception or values of autorelogerie but at affordable price point. And obviously collabs was one of the things I didn't want to do the same, the same collabs I did with Roma Jerome, because I don't like to, I don't like to copy paste what I do. And so they looked at the strategy. They said, oh, this is very interesting. Okay, we're willing to follow up on that strategy. Said, good, thank you. Said, well, no thank you because who's going to put this in place? I said, well, I don't know. You have a CEO, I can help. At the same time they said okay, but we would like to have you on board. They said, okay, here are my conditions. We can't afford your conditions, but we can give you shares. And I said okay, well anyway, why not? I had nothing better to do. I had two, three other mandates. One in Germany and I was about to start my mandate and Russia was pretty much at the same time. Time, but. But I would say I had time, right? So I said okay, let's do it. And interestingly enough, I think we were talking Baselworld 2018, which was probably the last Baselworld, right?

[C]

2018 or 2019. Yeah.

[D]

Anyway, so I did this strategy and one of my first meetings I always remember was together with the Japanese distributor. So the back then CEO asked me to. So we're talking end of 2017 or 18. CM got last year with time. That's not good as a watchmaker. But anyway, so end of the year I did the strategy. Beginning of the year the investment was done to asenir, as we say, to clean balance sheet and basically started to implement slowly the strategy. Baselworld happened. So we were at the very, very beginning and the back then CEO said look, if you have to come for one meeting, one important meeting, I want you to meet our Japanese distributor. I said okay, because basically 40 or 50% of our business. Okay. I said, okay, that's indeed very important. And I remember I get to this meeting. So different strategies call it back to the roots. We go to Noirmont, we decrease the references to 10 references. We talk about craftsmanship, artisanship, two line, sport line, classical line, like a Swiss cross. Sorry for that. So you have sports and classical. The classical line is animated by collaborations between the classic and collaborations. In the middle of this L shape there is craftsmanship, artisanship, which is a kind of collaboration, but not that much because you don't push people ahead. And then the other part of the Swiss Cross was sports that we are launching by the way this year, Sportsline and partnerships. So the way of animating the Sportsline is through partnership.

[C]

I see.

[D]

And in between the two is materials, artisanship, craftsmanship, know how other side materials. So pretty, pretty easy strategy. I was pretty good at that, I must say, even before ChatGPT.

[C]

Well, it certainly incorporates the important elements, as you say, of haute horology and very focused.

[D]

I'm very focused and decreasing a lot of things. I mean, you have to imagine that when I came, there was 300 reference products. I killed 299 of them. So I just kept one. We had about 300 point of sales. I closed 270. Right. Basically was a reset. It's basically a new core within the old core. Anyway, so the first, very first meeting, so all this strategy, which is obviously very theoretical, we obviously started putting things in place. We changed the organization. One of the things I found was fantastic was the team very resilient. They went through very hard times. They're very resilient. And actually within the whole team, they. We had two people. We had to let go because we were basically in the sales administration because of all the deals and invoices and pro formas and changes and margins. And I simplified everything so we could deal with one person instead of three. I added a technical constructor, as we say, a technical designer for watches because we wanted to upgrade the products and I want to have that in house. And a friend of mine joined me to support me in sales because I couldn't do everything at the same time. After the back then CEO which was very much sales took his retired within the process. But basically it's the same team, nothing changed. And most of the people have over 10 or 15 years of company history. So we didn't change a lot of organization. We got rid of every hierarchy. Everything was flattened out. And this was very good because it was just before COVID everything was digitalized. We interacted. We started to interact on meetings because I couldn't drive that much up there because of my different mandates. So I had to find a way to make it efficient for me, which happened to be very efficient for Luiya because of COVID because. Because we were hyper prepared to be very digital and that obviously been a bit of a game changer. Anyway, it was the whole strategy. But the very first meeting was very funny. So I go to this meeting in Baselworld, I meet the Japanese distributor and I've been very active in Japan. I mean I know it's one of my first subsidiaries I built with Jackie Row and I spent at least three, four times a year in Japan. So important market, important market. And understood very quickly that Japanese being Japanese in a very subtle way trying to make us understand that they want to stop, which obviously it's not that clear. No, it's not straightforward. They don't want to. I mean it's not necessarily about the truth. It's about the harmony and the balance. Okay. So they wanted to be very harmonious and balanced with the approach. But it was pretty clear where they wanted to head. And I was like there and said to myself, okay, well if they stop, it's finished. I mean the company was already losing money and quite a lot of money. This was 40%, I think back then or somewhere around that of the business, we lose that. I mean it's good. We can basically close down the company.

[C]

Turn out the lights.

[D]

I was there and I was like, okay, I need to pull out something, I need to gain time. So I said, oh. So Manuel joined us, he helps us with the strategy as a consultant, blah, blah, blah. The strategy is going to Be a lot of about classical, decrease the references, blah, blah, blah. Again, let's say high level strategy. I didn't go into the details with the collaborations and that's how everything started. And I said, okay, okay, I need to tell them some sort of collaboration. So I went through my head and somehow Anna popped up. Okay. Because I know Helen Silverstein, Helen Silverstone. And I knew him from the past. I knew how kind of a cult status he had in Japan or has in Japan. And at the a collaboration with him back in the RJ times, which wasn't that successful. Terrible one. Anyway, not all collaborations work out successfully. But I said, okay, I just pulled a name. Okay. And I said, look, yeah, so the first collaboration, I jump on what he says, the first collaboration is going to be with Alan Silberstein and obviously Japanese are, you know, they. And at least I short term killed the idea of stopping. So they, I started wondering okay. And then they said, okay, okay, this was April. And I said okay. But then they pulled the thing and say, but if by the end of the year it's not delivered, we'll have to stop because for us it doesn't make sense anymore to continue.

[C]

Oh, you've got a deadline.

[D]

Then I got a very narrow deadline. I was like, April, December, let's say end of November because still have to ship the things. And I was like, okay.

[C]

And you still haven't spoken to Alan Silberstein?

[D]

I haven't spoken to him for a few years. Years. So. So, so the back then CEO looks at me and says, I didn't know this part of the story. And I said, me neither. I just pulled it up. Anyway, I somehow saved the moment. And then I took my phone, I. I called Anna. I said, so this like five minutes after the meeting said, oh, how. What are you up to nowadays? And he said, oh, you know, I'm retired and you know, just occupied sometimes, you know, I'. Something. I said, how about making another collaboration? And he said, yeah, sure, with you, anytime. And he says, but for which brand? And I said, well, who you are. And he said, I don't think I know the brand. I said, doesn't matter, Alain, you know, it doesn't matter. Just trust. And he said okay, let's do it. So we did it very quickly on existing material, on existing cases. So we basically just redesigned an existing watch with the dial hands with the story and it's been boom, okay, so.

[C]

Of the collection ever since.

[D]

It was the game changer. It was the initial game changer and it's interesting because it reminds me of what I did with the Volcano Watch in rj where suddenly one thing just changed the whole perception of a brand, one product. Even with rj, it was even a virtual watch by which it was one of these. I have a few of these very moments where you say changes everything just on a concept. And we did the watch, it just boom. And then from then onwards it was basically building that strategy step by step. We talked about the classical line. We still have a sports line to set in place. There's still a lot of work to be done, but it's been very quick. We changed everything in 2018, 19, we changed everything. And from 2019 onwards it started to be profitable.

[A]

Right.

[D]

So we turned the company with the turnaround was spectacular, I must say. We basically just managed to. You know, we have a very interesting thing in Switzerland. When you accumulate losses, you can keep them a certain number of years and deduct them from your taxes. So we managed to basically use the entire joker in the last three, four years. We just decrease the capital of the company and pay back all the investors, which is great. So I would say it's been a very, very successful story with Louisa and then obviously has to continue. And like everything else, it needs to evolve, it needs to adjust, it needs to watch. Brand is a very organic company. You have to adjust, you have to adapt. The markets are changing, environments are changing and you can, you can't just go on with the same logic all the time. You have to have a vision, a strategy, but you have to adjust it over time.

[C]

Indeed, we've gone through much of the history of your career here. What you've obviously done has been successful at building brands. And indeed there's another brand you're involved with called Colloquium, which has had quite some success among certain parts of the collector community. You know, if you could sum it up, what does it take to build a watch brand? Is that anything that one can answer in a concise way?

[D]

Actually, surprisingly, yes, I think I can. That's probably my trademark today. I think it's pretty easy. All the brands have been involved. I either built them up, turned them around or made them successful. There are a certain number of ingredients in the recipe, but I think the most important ingredient is to understand the brand. You gotta listen, you gotta feel and you gotta hear the brand because it resonates. And then there are a certain number of over time, call it experience, call it know how, call it network. That obviously helps. But again, as I said just before, it's very organic, so you gotta adjust. It's a recipe, but it's an ever changing recipe. Okay. You have a certain number of ingredients, but some new come to it, some you have to let go and you have. Again, it's not a roadmap that you can apply. But I don't know, maybe I think the fact that I have this dual. Some call it schizophrenic logic of being very down to earth, very, you know, in colloquium they call me the numbers guy. Although I believe I'm the creative one, but definitely I'm not for them. So I think I have this duality between, you know, very business oriented, business process engineering, optimization, organization. I'm very known for that. I'm very efficient with this. There's also the way I live and then at the same time this capacity to find solutions, to have creative ideas, to be open minded, to try and to bring in new things. Because maybe what is important is to have a kind of curiosity.

[C]

Sure.

[D]

And my curiosity goes beyond watchmaking, goes into lots of different fields and I nurture myself from this. So, so I think it's a bit of over time, a bit of expertise, experience, know how, network and then it's a capacity to, to, to basically listen to the brand and try to resonate with it and understand how this brand or this project could evolve and, and what, what may make it successful.

[C]

You, you men talking about Louis Orard, the rational part of the decision making for the consumer and for the brand. And Louis Arard was a brand that was simply the most affordable, most approachable mechanical Swiss watch versus the emotional element of decisions that brands, project and consumers make. Where do you think we are on that pendulum? Yeah, on that journey.

[D]

Because it is a journey. I think, I think we left the rational and we're steering towards the emotional. We are, you know, we're not a time giving instrument anymore. We're not, let's call it a consumer product anymore. But somehow we are not the art yet. Okay. We're not the full emotional. We're somehow in between. And this is something very interesting in the watch industry because we're between, let's say a discretionary good, an art. We're not there. But we're not there. But we are on a journey. And I think we all agree and we see this when the cycles are kicking in, nobody needs a watch, nobody buys a watch for purely rational reasons. But at the same time we see that evolution from. Especially also when you look at the major trends, okay, consolidation, the one that Takes it all independent, which are more people than brands. Personification, the artisan, the craftsman, the owner, the watchmaker. And the micro brands kind of cool popping up different extremely agile and reactive products. And everything that doesn't fit in one of these categories somehow will have a hard time. And that shows that these major trends are happening. And, and that shows also that today the consumer looks at watchmaking different.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

So we long gone any sort of instrument or time giving device. Status still there. But status is changing and the status is changing very quickly. The importance of the creator, the person. We see this Max is a very good example or others the kind of the personification behind we're buying a part of the artist, we're mapping his studio or his atelier or his manufacturer, whatever you want to call it. But we want to be part of the tribe, the family, we want to support the artist. And then the micro brands where we just want a cool product, we want a good price, cool product. We don't want brands, we don't want retail. And obviously all these elements have been enhanced by. By how the market dynamics have changed, how communication has changed, how distribution has changed. Transparency is kicking slowly in, maybe could go a bit faster.

[C]

Transparency meaning the buyer, the consumer understanding a lot more about how watches are made and how the industry works.

[D]

First and foremost educational, obviously much more know how much, much more knowledge, but also being more curious about what he sold. We see the scandals, what happened just recently in Italy with some of the luxury brands. People are not willing, they want to know and they want to know more and more and they want to share the values as well. So I think these are all elements additional to social media and so on, which has been a game changer. These are all elements that are changing. Internationalization of the watch industry is very interesting. Swiss made. Oh great. But come on, if it's not honest, if it's not transparent, if it doesn't values, it's just a tag, it's just a name. And we see how quickly we started with the German, the Japanese grand Psycho, now the Chinese, but the Russians, the Finnish, the British, the French. There is a certain internationalization of watchmaking where people are not buying a brand. Distribution, network marketing still a bit, but a marketing capacity or regional routing or a national routing, but they're buying a product. So fundamentally what has changed a lot is we're on this journey, but in this journey we're also moving away from brands to products. And even within the biggest brands, people are focusing on certain products. And you know, Royal Oak probably What everybody is more striving than certain other products or Nautilus or Aquanaut or, you know, it's even within the very, very strong brands.

[C]

So products versus brands, indeed.

[D]

It's the products that take the lead. These are logical things that happen because of the way the watchmaking is evolving where again, it's down to what you have on the wrist, who is behind it, how it's done and what it stands for.

[C]

And so what does that mean? As someone who's both worked in, you know, major manufacturer, big industry groups and also for much smaller companies. And then basically colloquium is a micro brand that you're a part of. Where is the industry going? What does that mean for the big brands, for the Richemonts, for the Swatch groups?

[D]

Well, you can see if we talk for the big groups, I mean, you first see results of two of them, very recent. One is a major shift to jewelry, high jewelry, I mean, which is totally.

[C]

Meaning what Becheme is doing. Yeah.

[D]

And I kind of shift into the second row of watchmaking. I'm not talking of all the brands, but a lot of the brands. Let's say the focus is shifting away, which I think is a very strong meaning. And then we see the results of the Swatch group, which are definitely largely negative, but. But still somehow slightly positive.

[C]

They are an optimistic bunch.

[D]

Oh, and I must admit the AI move to put the focus away from the reality that I think is a bit afraid and as a former part of it, somehow also heartbreaking. It is what it is. I mean, if they're not capable to recreate, to put back into the center, not managing, not business plan, not forecasts, not volume, not distribution, not retail. But what really matters, the product, the value proposition, the attractivity, the scarcity, they will be on losing ground. I mean, that's some more than others, some shifting into other fields which were, I would say, these values. Values where distribution, marketing, retail is still more important than in watchmaking. That's why I say, I mean, the market is clearly, in a way either the leader or the challenger, or then you have to be super creative, super personal. You got to offer something different. And I see making this little footnote how I don't like to use the word easy, because it's never easy. But how many impactful. We managed to do a colloquium, although we're just the three of us, although it was a Covid project where we were basically stuck and then started talking about what we would like to do for us instead of doing for Others because both of my partners in crime used to work with Bacht. I know since I'm 15 or 14 childhood. He has been my creative counterpart on all the projects I did in my career. We've been working on all the brands together. And Amer, which happened to be a client of mine when he was 19 and on Jacky Row times to have clients on Lausanne which are less than 20 or around 20 years old are very uncommon.

[C]

Exactly.

[D]

Somehow stick close to these people. And then had one of the first, if not the first community manager, social media and so on. And basically helped me also with turning around Luya because when I came in, there was no Internet. There was not even an Excel database, there was nothing. It was business cards in a file and some sort of Internet page or not webshop. And 80% of the people on the Instagram account were basically, sorry to say, without any. But basically either from Indonesia or Pakistan, which most of the time means what it means. So basically bought. And it's just there was nothing we had to build. And he helped me a lot for this. And basically both of them challenged me saying, okay, we help you, we do things together, we help other brands. Let's do something for us. Both of them independent because they didn't know each other and sorry for my English, but both of them broke my ears not to say anything else. And I said, dude, that's perfectly clear, dudes, you know what? That's probably better if we meet all the three of us. And it was very, very funny because the very first meeting, which was at my place, so they come on time, but basically they took the train, they came to my place. I ring on the door, I open the door, my phone rings. It's the Swiss Confederation saying I have to quarantine because I have Covid right away. So that's why I say it really is a Covid project. So I had to quarantine. And then we started talking over the phone and all these things how they happened and we never wanted to do it was never. And we call it the project, not the brand. And the idea was just to make a few watches for us and our friends. So we did our first prototype. We had, we. We made a lot of innovation in. In watch designs. Lots of things have never been done by before with a lot of.

[C]

In terms of the loom and the. And. And the, you know, the way we.

[D]

Just wore it on the wrist in Geneva watch days. 2020, 22 years ago, 2023. And people started to ask us what is this? I Said oh it's just a project for us. And then we just. That's how we started. We sold off the first 100 pieces basically off the wrist. People say off the shelves. We sold it off the wrist without any marketing, nothing. And we never have invested one single cent into marketing. So basically untrue. We did a nice research. Yes, the film was fun. We obviously but social media Amar is doing Internet site we do together we do everything ourselves and we're just the three of us. And it's interesting because we started to be in a mode of we make a drop every three months, four months depending obviously on the development because the three of us are perfectionists. So that doesn't make it easy. And in general there are runs of 300 to 500 and we tend to sell them in a few seconds or maybe minutes which is great. I mean we have to obviously continue develop it over time but from day one also said we need to have direct consumer only doesn't make sense. We need touch points and we onboarded retailers 10 or 11.

[C]

So you do. I mean it's interesting to think of colloquium and retailers but tell me why retail still needs to be even for a very specialized, very insidery brand.

[D]

Because I'm a strong believer lever of a business model that's balanced. Balanced obviously what means balance but if I take Louis It's 50% of our revenue are online which is a lot for long brand which is a lot and actually surprisingly this year we're ahead of like I think we're at 12 or 13% above last year. Wholesale is down to retail. Yeah but online saves us and I always said I just sell an online enough watches per year to pay my organization to be fully independent. I don't want to be dependent on anyone. Maybe I've been. I've been burned over the years. So now I want to be like we have our destiny in hands but then again distribution points. And it's the same with colloquium because it's very interesting because both of them said why should we give anything to retailer? We have the demand, we can sell it. And I said because this is an investment, this is is not giving away something, this is building something for the future. First and foremost you can negotiate good margins because when you hold the knife distribution is always a bit of a. Is a bit of a power game. Of course makes it much easier because you tell them what they can have, you allocate them what you decide you basically I should say that as a percentage you're in the driving seat and that's obviously good, but you're in the driving seat today. Who knows about tomorrow or after tomorrow. Things are changing again. It's organic, you can have ups and downs cycles. We have a fantastic run. Yes, it's great. But who knows. And then there's another very down to earth point is a watch is not commodity to certain extent. It's a very sustainable long term product. It needs service.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And when you're sitting in your little ivory tower in Switzerland with all the problematics of exportation currency, blah blah, blah, cost of FedEx, which is probably in Switzerland four times more expensive than anywhere.

[A]

Else in the world.

[D]

If there's a problem, how you solve the problem, okay. And for me, retailers are touch points. First and foremost you can go there me trying to to have a network that covers somehow the world that at least you can send your watch, that they can take care of it, they can repair it. So that's the whole touchpoint element in terms of service. It's a touch and feel because there is a certain amount of people, understandably who for spending 3, 4, 5,000 without even touching the project, without even ever having had in hands is not easy. And this is also something that is very important. So these are possibilities. They can go and touch. And we asked all our retailers to have always one piece available, not for sale, but for. So that we can create database, we can create interest, we can create activation because yes, we can go through our database. Surprisingly, we sold in I don't know how many countries. We said, oh, let's choose the places where we want to go. So with Amazon, oh, we want to go to Copenhagen. How many watches we sold in Denmark? Seven or eight. Okay, we already have a community ask them to invite. So we can do Tupperware. But okay, this is good, this we can do ourselves. But to do it with a partner is also creating a lot of credibility. And we did so far one single event in Saudi Arabia. And we flew down, Amar and me in this particular case and our partner Yasmine invited about 35 clients. We or 30 clients we invited 10 we had on our database and we sold 40 watches. So you go like, okay. And there are a certain moment in time where there's momentums we have that kind of yes, we can sell everything direct. Yes, we don't need distribution. But today I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. And I think as they're watching this reality, an ecosystem. For me the ecosystem is what makes our strengths and the ecosystem is between the brands and I'm a big fan I'm a big supporter of mutualization I try to mutualize brands when we do events like Geneva watch days or watches and wonders with 10 brands, 12 brands, different brands, we open up, we share Because I don't look at us as competitors I look at us as a small, not even industry anymore more kind of volume artisanship where if we hold together the kind of together we're stronger it's very important Same with the collaborations, same with the artisans, same with the retailers it's an ecosystem and I think the more we can support each other the better it is because what you give comes back. I'm a big believer of that kind of energy what you give away comes back.

[C]

Absolutely. And so how many colloquium watches have you sold so far?

[A]

And then what is.

[C]

I mean, do you have a business plan for this brand or. I mean, you know what, there's two.

[D]

Things I stopped in my life. The first is titles. I hate titles.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

The second is business plans. I hate business plans. So with Louisah we have the same.

[C]

There's a lot of people who've written business plans for their watch business who.

[D]

Are thinking oh, budgets and business plans. So obviously I had to do a business plan for Luyap because I was requested otherwise Consulting is a bit hard without business plan but we didn't do any for colloquium we'll never do but even for Luya I know I never do a budget I have the same budget since 2019 I say to my investors this is the budget. I said yeah, but we saw the same budget last year. I said yes, and we'll see the same next year. And they said why? Because I'm not going to lose my time and not your time in giving you kind of expectation, aspirations. Our aim is simple. We produce 10 watches a day, more or less, let's say around three and a half thousand watches a year based on a pipeline of products we obviously do a pipeline toward more towards 4,000 because we always have some rejection and things that don't work in suppliers that maybe are not able to deliver certain elements or quality that we are not happy with but we have that framework of minimum three, maximum four and it's planned through the year. We know 50% we sell online so we in terms of values, in terms of units, about 1/3 these 1200,000, 500 we know we're going to sell them because the products are good enough or at least so far it happened be to to be like this and then we work on the wholesale and all this means, okay, this is more or less the target. If we do more, we do more. If do less, we do less. But generally we do more. But anyway, the most important thing is that expenses are under control. So this, the marketing budget is always the same. This is for the pictures is always the same. Sometimes you have a bit more free room or we make a bit more and then we can take it. And then it helps me after three, four years to basically pay back back my investors. Which I think if I'm an investor and somehow in the watch industry, this is a bizarre thing. Investors in the watch industry means like more like me means more like you know, investor investing means you give and something comes back. Okay, well you maybe get some watches, a dividend for a lot of brands. But I don't get that concept.

[C]

It's not an industry known for generating return on investment.

[D]

But I, I'm a big believer of return on investment. I think that's what if it doesn't make profit? That doesn't make sense.

[C]

And so Louis Roh has been profitable basically since what? 2019?

[D]

2020, yeah, 2019. Basically we probably just around zero and then since then it's been very profitable. But also because we are lean less than 10 people, 50% online. And that's where I tell you that's why I don't do budgets. But I don't care about growth. For me I care about brands value, I care about brand attractivity and I care about scarcity. So for me more is often less or is probably the enemy of better. So when I tell this to my shareholders, look, we might grow when another wave comes. Today we're not in a wavy situation. It's pretty flat. Nothing is really moving. The markets are, are a bit difficult. So yes, by just being steady and keeping the momentum and being worst case at the same level, best case a little bit better, we already gain market share. But if you push too hard now, we will put a lot of efforts when the market is not reactive and better wait for the next wave. Maybe the next wave is tomorrow, maybe it's in three years, maybe it's in five. Five years. But I to be ready. Yeah to scale I think you need.

[C]

The context that is the real challenge. I mean you have all this experience with all these brands. Colloquium is a brand that was launched in Covid times has done quite well. But what is the biggest challenge for a small watch company and or launching a brand these days? And how has that changed from what it used to be, because as you say, I mean Louis Arard was actually a differentiator behind by making well priced mechanical Swiss watches back in the day. Now not so much. What is the biggest challenge these days?

[D]

The biggest challenge for brands is to continuously reinvent yourself. I wouldn't even say reinvent, is to constantly adjust and being creative. What is the challenge for Louis A. Well, the challenge is we did phenomenally well with one concept. Now we need to evolve the concept. I talked about the sports line. This is a risk, you gotta be risk taking. But even within the classical line, I mean I have clients who bought 25 regulators over the last five years. Okay. And when you're at 4,000 a watch 25, you start to say that's not affordable anymore in the sense that it's quite an investment. But how many more regulators with the same case can I do? So we need to invent. We constantly need to tell ourselves, okay, we need to anticipate the next step, not fall asleep, not redo what we do, but constantly evolving. And this is difficult because that means you constantly need to be on momentum. It means you need to have the energy, the time and the availability to reinvent yourself. And you have to avoid to fall in traps. You know, you see a lot of the brands are struggling today because of the market environment. They basically focus on how to survive and that's probably the worst. At the same time it's very necessary because if you don't have back, you're not back to the wall. If you're too comfortable, you're human beings. I'm lazy, so if I have no reason to do something, why should I do it? But I think it's this kind of capacity to innovate. Call it innovate, whatever it means create push boundaries to basically that organic, to give space to this organic element which is the brand. And I think this is the most challenging and really put creativity and product into the center, because that's what it is. People want to buy a product, a cool, very well made product. See, very interesting thing. If you take complicated watches 10, 15 years back, it was all about the complication, the tourbillon, the minute repeater, the QPS. And if you can put 25 tourbillons on top of each other, it was great. That was the strife. Today it's all about finishing artisanship. It's all about simple three hands with extremely high level of finishing, the number of introvert angles or the hours spent on revealing and so on is what counts. It's totally different it could be more opposite. And this happened, this shift happened in 10, 15 years. So we, we went from crazy three constructive watchmaking with as maximum complication on top of each other, very particular cases, forms and high end to simple, pure, very highly finished, very asymmetric if possible, very independent and lots of craftsmanship and low volumes. Two different worlds within the same. And that's what, what I mean with the whole concept of watchmaking. I don't think you have to change all the time, but you have to adapt to the market needs. You have to adapt how consumer trends are changing, how you know, and I think it's a mistake that a lot of the corporate groups are doing is they don't understand that because they're not close enough to the client. This kind of strengths they had in the past, which was the number of intermediates. Okay, we have our subsidiaries, we have our retailers, we have our teams and brand managers and so on. Today is a huge. Which back then was a great, how do you say, innovation Funnel. Funnel to bring back things and to be as close as possible to the markets. But today the market is. There's no distance anymore between the client or the collector or the consumer and the brand. And when you build over the years, such a number of intermediates, that's where they're weak today because their strengths of 10 years ago is their weakness of today. And I think that's what I mean. Things are changing all the time. And then I think the most important thing is to just basically constantly reinvent yourself.

[C]

Excellent. Last thing. I mean, what will we see next? From Manuel Emk and from Louis Arar from Colloquium, Maybe something else. What should we be looking out for and yeah, what's next?

[D]

Plenty of things. I'm a pipeliner in the sense that I think for both brands we have projects for the next three or four years because again, we like to create, I like to create. We like to do projects. Projects change, evolve. Sometimes you pull them out, change them. But for me, a pipeline product is probably the most important element. So getting back to budget and forecasts and strategies. Product pipeline is just the only thing that really matters to me. If it comes to liar. I told you about the idea of sports line and then the activation through partnerships. So we start. I'm sorry, some people will bash me for this, but we get back into, you know, classical line was collaborations, artisanship. So it's a human element. Okay, so there's a human touch. The person. The person, the watchmaker, the artisan. While the sports line will Be actively through. That's why you call it partnerships and not collaborations towards. I don't like the word brand, but towards philosophies around thematics and surprise. We're going to start with anime, with video games, things like this because I think they're fun. So that's something that will hit. And then we're going to evolve the collaborations. We're going to change all the cases now. We're going to move away cases going to be different in the future. So we're not just making the dial and hands and story now. We're going to go go into the cases more and more, more and more complex, more and more refined and into the movements as well. So not just sellita regulator or three hand movements, but we're going to see some historical movements, maybe some special movements that we found that we refurbish if you like, or readjust. We might find some executions more personalized because we. We believe that we need to build. Because today we have watches at 4,000 and watches 15,000 with the tourbillon and there's a whole gap in between. Now distribution is not saying the price is going to go up, but our distribution network is more a AAA distribution network. And obviously when market's a bit more difficult, a retailer who has only AAA brands will focus on what he can make the most money on and very normal. So selling a 4,000 Swiss franc or a dollar watch when you can sell a 20, I would say the incentive is not as big and that we understood we have to give them. Give them also a bit more complex and bit more premium products. Yes. At the same time we would not want to stay where we are in that accessible price point. We don't want to leave our territory, but we can extend the territory and if it comes to colloquium, while we have the project two that we actually wanted to launch initially three or four, four months ago, but we haven't managed. And it's very interesting because we kept some philosophies diecast new case and we are again did something totally crazy. So when we did this on the first project with the pins, with the 468 pins on the metal pins and 488 on the Lumicast or lichblock pins. So it's not the same watch, by the way.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

It also has a different case and has a different sapphire crystal, but you have. You can't see it. That's the beauty about it. Very geometrical. We're moving into something totally crazy, much more organic and the dial and then something we really struggled with is composed of. It's a stack up of 64 dials. So we put 64 dials stacked up to create a dial.

[C]

Wow.

[D]

So that's a bit of a. It's a bit of a. So we will have the friends and family project ready in one watches and wonders. It's going to be 199 pieces. We're not going to do any marketing which is going to be. It's off the wrist. It's going to be for those who supported us but also for those who see it. And we start with that. And that's project two. We work on project three and four. So mix and match. As you can see, I have another project that I'm very interested to develop totally other price point. Another in this different brand.

[C]

Different.

[D]

Yeah. Different protocol I like to do. I mean at a certain stage I don't know if it becomes too easy, I wouldn't say that. But I see what could work and where there is a market and I think there is something that I have done in the past with the more high end products that I haven't done for a while that I want to redo and I would love to do something much more affordable. So for me it's really, you know, I have ideas now. I need time. I know don't always have time. That's probably the thing. But I would say colloquium is on track. Louis is doing well. We need to readjust a little bit. Will take a bit of time to evolve the strategy. But then I have time for other things because I stopped a lot of the. You know, I used to be chairman of Raketa, the Russian company which when they came to see me was really not in a good shape. 2018 I did the strategy for, for them. They did I think 15 fold. We did 15 fold over the last few years. But I also. We really built something quite incredible. But when the war started I decided to step down because for reasons which are personal, I didn't want to continue like this. But I had to do kind of an exit and step away from it, which is done. But it took a lot of my energy until then. I spent one week a month in Moscow for the project. Then I helped a bit Chaikin at the beginning I did some other projects. So I was quite busy and I decided that I want to concentrate on new course, new projects, new brands and Lu Yaha is doing very well. But colloquium is just. I don't know how to say this but you asked me how many watches we do. I don't know yet but probably this year about 1,500 which is honestly from and everything sold in a few minutes and really sold out. I mean there's nothing available so this is pretty amazing. So I want to concentrate on the projects that work or that need maybe a little bit support right now to rethink or to evolve and then I want to do new projects. Excellent.

[C]

Thank you for your insights and this great chat and we'll obviously be watching and following. Thank you Manuel.

[D]

Thank you very much. Andy, thank you for having me.

[A]

And that's the business of watches for this episode. We hope you enjoyed. Please head on over to Hodinky.com where you can join the discussion and and leave any comments or questions about this episode or the business of watches in general. Who knows, we might even answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

[D]

Sam.