← The Real Time Show
The Real Time Show
Benjamin James Founder Benjamin Adams Talks Building A Watch Brand From Scratch
00:57:45
Loading summary
Transcript127 lines
- [00:00]
Rob Knudds
I'm shirtless, if that makes you feel any better. That's why the video's not on.
- [00:05]
Benjamin Adams
That makes it even better. Yeah. All right.
- [00:08]
Rob Knudds
Yeah. Hi, and hello, watch fans, and welcome to another edition of the Real Time show with me, your friendly neighborhood watchmaker, Rob Knudds. Today I am joined by Benjamin Adams, founder of Benjamin James Watches, to discuss the origins and his long backstory in the watch industry today. Ben, welcome to the studio. It's good to have you here on a sweltering July afternoon.
- [00:32]
Benjamin Adams
Thank you very much. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me.
- [00:35]
Rob Knudds
You've got some history in podcasting yourself. You used to be the host of a podcast that was running prolifically throughout Covid. Tell us more about that.
- [00:42]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, exactly. So I used to be one of the co hosts of the Watch Gecko podcast that was possibly for a couple years, mostly running during COVID So I've got a little bit of experience, but it's been a while.
- [00:54]
Rob Knudds
So you used to work for Watch Gecko, or with Watch Gecko, if we prefer. And now you are a brand owner. But let's go back before both of those things, right to the start of your watchmaking journey. Journey. I notice on your website, on the Benjamin James website, there's a lovely picture of you as a child supporting your grandfather's watch, correct?
- [01:13]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. My grandfather was really the person who kind of like catalyzed the passion of watches in our family. So he's really into watches, and my dad's really into watches, and I possibly align with his tastes more than. More than my dad's, because my dad's into gigantic watches. But, yeah, my. My grandfather was always really passionate, and I have just crystal clear memories of being a kid and him walking me through his watch collection and just the passion of which he spoke about watches and the designs that he was into really captured me. So you can see in that. In that image that's on my website, he was wearing a Jaeger Lecoultre Reverso, and that was, you know, kind of the style that captured him, and that went on to be kind of for early formation of my tastes as well. Rectangular watches were always his thing, and I can remember him always speaking about the Rolex prints, if you know, the. The watch from the 1930s, which was, I think, nicknamed the doctor's watch. It's the little rectangular watch that has the hour and minutes at the top of the dial and the sub. Seconds at the bottom of the dial completely separated and the way he always talked about the stories of that. Even though it was an incredibly elegant watch in gold you can imagine in the 1930s, very expensive. And the reason it was called a doctor's watch was because it was so prominent with the sub seconds that doctors would be able to essentially use it as a pulsometer.
- [02:49]
Rob Knudds
I mean that is an incredible watch and it's the first time that the Rolex Prince has been name dropped on.
- [02:55]
Benjamin Adams
It's quite a niche one.
- [02:56]
Rob Knudds
It is super niche but it's also a wonderful, wonderful piece. Much more interesting than a lot of stuff Rolex does these days. But how did your grandfather find himself wearing watches like a JLC Reverso and idolizing pieces like the Rolex Prince? What did he do? What was his career?
- [03:14]
Benjamin Adams
So he, he was self employed, he ran a business servicing and selling like fine examples of classic Rolls Royce and Bentley. He was like a completely self made man who started off, he started working at 14 actually in, in the racing stables and eventually he went into being a car mechanic. I think he worked for the co op and his career kind of unfolded over like 50ish years. But his passions were always in like high end luxury motor vehicles like the classic Rolls Royce and Bentley. He had a real keen eye for engineering and mechanics and I think that the, the crossover between watches and cars is obviously undeniable and I guess high end luxury in a quite an elegant package then you go more towards dress watches like the JLC Reverso and like the Rolex Prince that was, was his grail watch for many years.
- [04:16]
Rob Knudds
For some reason. I can't really explain why but I'm getting the feeling that your grandfather himself didn't come from money but it was a passion that pushed him into these industries that resulted in him obviously moving in some quite high circles if he's selling fancy cars and trading in beautiful watches.
- [04:33]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It was, it was passion that led him really which was you know, a good lesson for me as well to see how him and my father also he runs his own business that's kind of ran by passion and it's, it's something that when I was growing up I could always see, you know, how, how much they talked about what they, they loved and what they were doing. You know my grandfather, he didn't come from money at all. It's not like he's ended up incredibly wealthy but he's, he's done really well for himself and, and has definitely moved in, you know, good circles and he's become really knowledgeable and passionate about things that he loves. And that's just a. Just a kind of like a driving force behind what he's always done.
- [05:22]
Rob Knudds
So walk me through your youth as you grew up. When did you realize you wanted to get into watches? What did you study in? What did you have as your first job? And when did you decide to make the leap to start? Benjamin James. And then what is your family? A family of watch lovers with quite some experience in the field. Think of that.
- [05:40]
Benjamin Adams
So I'd always been around watches, as I said, you know, with my grandfather and my father being into them, but I didn't necessarily like, have or wear a watch myself is more something that I knew the stories of and appreciated and was kind of, you know, just slightly outside of. And that was until my 18th birthday when the family kind of co gifted me a watch. It was a Tag Heuer Aquaracer. And from that day, I pretty much just wore that watch every single day and slowly fell into the rabbit hole of, of the watch world. And that coincided that timing of, you know, receiving the watch for my 18th, and that was at the time where I was finishing my A levels. I'd already decided that I didn't want to go to university because, know, I've grown up around entrepreneurs all my life. And that was kind of the path that I saw, you know, something a bit more personal. So I wanted to go into the working world straight away and ended up actually working at Watch Gecko. So that was my first ever job was in the watch industry. So it was a pretty immediate segue. And that, that time of my life where I was just getting into watches and then also having my first job in the watch industry, that really catalyzed the passion. And it was, it then turned from being, oh, you know, watches are cool, I'll apply for this job to, to getting it. And then being like, okay, well I better start researching and learning more. And then it hasn't really stopped. And it's been almost 10 years now.
- [07:12]
Rob Knudds
So when you were working for Watch Gecko, obviously the podcast, but you wrote for them as well, were you in the back office? Were you working directly with John?
- [07:19]
Benjamin Adams
Yes. So I first started with photography. So I studied photography at A levels as well as programming, but more of the creative side, which is why I took photography, because I liked Photoshop and digital editing, things like that. So I started at Washkicker doing photography. I was just an apprentice photographer when I started, and then by the end of my apprenticeship, I was leading a small team of one other person as head photographer in this tiny company and I think I was maybe employee number somewhere between six and nine. And yeah, that company steadily grew. I was there for seven years and as it is with startups, you kind of dip your toes into lots of different areas of the business. So as the company grew and we explored different directions, something that WatchCoco definitely wanted to increase their focus on was the Gekota side of the business, which is the, their brand of watches. And at the time there was no one to kind of take ownership of the actual design process. So being a photographer, I was obviously very used to using Photoshop and other digital editing. So then I just took it upon myself to teach myself in my spare time how to use Adobe Illustrator. And that's how the design, how the kind of like career in watch design began, where I was doing all of the designs in 2D on Illustrator, kind of working with obviously John and the team on what direction we wanted to take things. And that, that was only a couple years into when I first joined Watch Gecko. So that really coincided with the timing that I was deep into researching watches and learning about the watch industry. And I think being in watch design also then it kind of gets you into the different frame of thinking as well because you're not just looking at the watch for what it is, but also all of the details that make it.
- [09:23]
Rob Knudds
So when did you start playing around with your own designs? I mean I'm guessing that you didn't just suddenly wake up one morning, then you had a fully formed idea and then that was it and you founded the company the day after. I mean it must have been a long and should we say organic process from that point where you're working with John and the team on Kokota to Benjamin James manifesting.
- [09:43]
Benjamin Adams
Definitely yeah. So I, I worked for Watch Gecko for about seven years and then after that I went self employed. Just felt like it was time for a change into see what else was out there and what other kind of career paths I could go down in the watch industry. So when I went self employed, I think it was 2022, I was mostly doing photography freelance for different micro brands, doing some consultancy and design, then also doing a lot of work with some like quite high end watch dealers. So photographing like rare off catalog Pateks and Rolexes, you know, like gem set pieces, different things like that. And that being exposed to such a high end kind of side of the industry was, was great as well for my kind of design ideas because I was really able to take the time to appreciate what went into these watches, what made them so special, and kind of dig deeper into the design details of, of what the, you know, the top brands in the industry are doing. But at the same time, I'd just gone self employed after Watch Gecko, where I was constantly designing new watches and involved in that process. And that was really the passion that I'd always felt like I wanted to do something for myself. And so only a few months after being self employed, mainly doing photography, I started piecing out some ideas for what then became the Scarifall, because that was almost two years in development from, you know, like early sketches. And it was really the culmination of kind of spotting a gap in the industry where I felt that smaller sizes and shaped watches that genuinely take inspiration from the sizing and proportions of the, you know, the watches that inspired them. I didn't feel like that there was much of a representation in the market unless you're going really high end. Like, obviously you have jlc, you have Cartier, they do exceptionally well executed shaped watches, but not everyone can afford, you know, forking out a few thousand pounds for those.
- [12:06]
Rob Knudds
So was that your goal then? Was your goal to democratize the watches that you'd grown up seen on your grandfather's wrist and the ones that you kind of held above all others as pure elegance? You wanted more people to be able to access these classic forms at a reasonable price?
- [12:21]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it started out as almost like a selfish idea where I was designing a watch that I thought would be fantastic to exist because I wanted to wear it, but coincidentally, you know, it was, I wanted to design it, but not just because I wanted to wear it, but also because I didn't really believe that it did exist at the price point.
- [12:44]
Rob Knudds
And how much research did you do into that, like as a, as a new business owner, you say you came at it from a personal perspective and coincidentally that lined up with maybe a gap in the market. But yeah, how sure were you, if you could be sure at all, that you were going to meet with success? Because, spoiler alert, you did meet with quite some success when you released the Scarif Forum. We'll get onto the specifics of that in a moment. But did you really do your due diligence of market analysis before you launched?
- [13:11]
Benjamin Adams
I mean, it was more of a feeling than anything else, which sounds silly, but, you know, I'd been in the watch industry for about eight years at that stage and, you know, I'm not, I'm not just into my own watches. I like staying in touch with what's out there. And I could see that the trends were starting to move downward in sizing. Kind of the signals were there in the industry, which is something that I even thought a few years earlier, like, if you look at some of the Koko designs from maybe 2016 or something like that, we were experimenting with smaller sizing and gold plating and going down the dressier route. I think at that stage, we're possibly too early, but with this, it was more so. I want to create something that's genuine, that doesn't necessarily exist, and I want the market to decide if it works or not. So that's why we launched on Kickstarter, because it was like, I think this will work. Let's put it out there and see if it will. And, yeah, I did tell me about.
- [14:15]
Rob Knudds
That Kickstarter process, because I've long fancied having a go at Kickstarter and doing something myself. But, yeah, I've never been through the process, so I don't know what you've got to do. I don't know the hoops you got to jump through to make it happen. How many months did it take you to prepare that? And how complicated is it?
- [14:32]
Benjamin Adams
It's. It's really complicated. I would say it's. It's possibly one of the stress. Most stressful things you could do, just because so much relies on that kind of small period of time that the funding is open and so much work has to come before that. And so, you know, if you're going to be successful or not, you still have to put in the same amount of work. And so it's a lot to do with community building, I think. And that's also a reason why I think this, that the watch had so much potential to work. At the start, it was just a design. It was a, you know, feeling that I had, I thought would work. And the first step that I really did was team with a 3D artist to really communicate the vision, make a website, just a basic Shopify website that. That shows off the idea and then started, you know, essentially marketing it. Just really talking to people in Facebook groups, on Reddit, things like that, to get an idea for what other people thought. Because it's so easy to get kind of lost in the process of design where you're the only one looking at it. You don't get too much feedback other than people who are immediately around you. But as soon as I started talking to people on Facebook and showing the idea, the response that I got was actually pretty crazy. And especially on Reddit. I can remember one of the first posts I did when the 3D renderings were ready was I posted in R Watches. I didn't actually realize you weren't allowed to post in there if you're a brand owner or representative. So it got taken down. But in the, like, 24 hours that the. The post was up, it shot up to number one on the. On the, like, the most upvoted posts for that. That time period. And R Watches has over a million people on it. So straight away, with a sea of comments and over a thousand likes in such a short span of time, I could see that people really resonated with the concept. And kind of after seeing that response, then I knew, okay, it's time to just go all in on it.
- [16:42]
Rob Knudds
And how much of your own money did you have to invest in the development of the concept, having these renders done? I guess you had prototypes made. And tell me about the prototyping phase. Did you have contacts and experience garnered from your days working with Kokota that helped you move further along in that process swiftly?
- [17:01]
Benjamin Adams
Exactly. I mean, luckily, I've got the experience in the industry, which really helped. I think taking an idea from concept to reality is really difficult, and the experience plays a key role. I can remember early days of coming up with designs and you sample it, and then by the time you receive the product in person, you're like, wow, that really wasn't what I was expecting it to look like. But luckily I'm now at the stage where we had the samples made and we didn't have to make any changes at all, because the supplies that I already knew and the kind of processes that I've been through and the mistakes I've already made allowed me to be able to kind of nail it on the first try. And yeah, with 3D renderings, I got again lucky. One of my friends does 3D, and he believed in the vision and he worked essentially for free until we finished the Kickstarter and then I paid him. So that was an amazing help.
- [17:59]
Rob Knudds
So you had a target of 24 and a half thousand pounds according to your Kickstarter, and you surpassed that handily. You ended up bringing in 66 and a half thousand pounds and change from 168 backers. Do you know where those backers came from, whether you gained them via Facebook or Reddit? Right. R Watches is the thread on Reddit.
- [18:25]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah. So I think a lot of that's what it is. It was the microbrand community that believed in the vision and Helped bring it to life. You know, we did a lot of posts in all the different Facebook microbrand groups like Microbrand Watches, League of Watch Microbrands, and there's a, there's a whole plethora of them, really, but there's, there's amazing communities on Facebook of really passionate people. And the same as on Reddit. You know, we stopped posting in our session watches because we couldn't. But there is a r Microbrand Watches, which I think is run by Microbrand Watch World and they also have a great community on there. It's a, it's a place that you can easily get very honest feedback, you know, and that's, that's what I wanted from day one, is that I wanted to put kind of lay everything bare. You know, we didn't do too many teasers or anything. People knew exactly what the watch looked like, you know, probably a year before we were funded. And it was just all about getting all that feedback and refining it and getting it to a stage where we're ready.
- [19:29]
Rob Knudds
All right, so talk to me about some of the design choices on the Scarifall, because there's a couple of options available. Most notably, you've got either Quartz or Swiss manual wind movements. You've got Solitas in that line, right? It was the Solita SW210 1B.
- [19:45]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, exactly.
- [19:47]
Rob Knudds
And it's not a decorated version. Correct. It's just a basic one.
- [19:52]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah. Standard version.
- [19:54]
Rob Knudds
So what was the thinking behind that? To offer both Quartz and then an undecorated Solita? Was it simply because the feedback you received informed you that many people would not take the watch seriously without the option of a Swiss handwind? Or was there something else, something personal attached to that decision?
- [20:09]
Benjamin Adams
Well, it was kind of, it was an exercise in bringing the brand to life. So I wanted to kind of present the clearest path of we have this design, how do we make sure it's successful? And a part of that was the idea of we have this watch. It's intentionally designed to be a two hand watch. So realistically it could work with a quartz movement just as well as it could work with a mechanical movement. The first thought was to make it only with the Sellita option. That was kind of like the. The purest vision of the design. But what turned into a kind of like a, a business decision to make it easier to, to fund and, and do production because obviously the quartz movements are cheaper, it allows us to hit a lower price point, turned into something that people actually really enjoyed and is, I guess, somewhat novel. There's not too many brands that offer different movement options within the same watch. But interestingly enough, whenever we do a release, the demand for the hand wound is almost equal to the demand for the Quartz watch. And I just think that shows quite an interesting point where you almost think that any watch enthusiast, they're only going to be into the mechanical version. But I think as people are getting more into less buying just off a spec sheet, you know, I think there was a period of time in the late 2000 and tens where Microbrand's success was based on kind of a spreadsheet of how many things you could tick off. But now it's more about kind of the soul in the essence and the reasons behind the design choices and things like that. And yeah, just having the Quartz option, even though it's a bit more unconventional for a micro brand who's trying to be taken seriously, it really did end up working. And when you look into the practicality of really does work, because you can either have a watch that you have to wind every two days or a watch that you don't have to change the battery of in 10 years and it's then just down to preference.
- [22:11]
Rob Knudds
Yeah, you're speaking the truth. I had an hour and a half long call with Giles Ellis from Schofield this morning, and the subject of soul and magic in watch design was one of the main topics we discussed. And you have obviously captured that you've done something that is a bit off the beaten track for modern watchmaking and you've presented it with these two options. And you're not joking when you say that there was a pretty even split or that there are even splits whenever your debut watches. I was looking at your Kickstarter stats and yeah, if you roll together the early birds and the super early birds from both the Quartz and mechanical, you sold 80 quartz and 79 mechanicals.
- [22:48]
Benjamin Adams
So, yeah, it's actually quite unbelievable. When I was doing, it was unbelievable. I was looking at all the stats and, you know, obviously we've continued to launch on the website. It's. It's stayed pretty consistent as well.
- [23:01]
Rob Knudds
Very interesting. Here's an interesting question for you. Could you guess which I would choose whether I buy a Quartz or a Mechanical? As a longtime watch collector myself.
- [23:11]
Benjamin Adams
Hmm. I see you on LinkedIn and you're always out and about. So I would maybe say the Quartz.
- [23:20]
Rob Knudds
Yeah, you'd be right. I would actually go for the Quartz with something like this because what I'm getting from it is the design and the wearability and yes. The fact that it fills that hole in my collection that I don't have. I don't need it to be mechanical. It's not, you know, an undecorated Slater. And honestly, whether it's decorated or not means nothing to me. I've got. I don't know how many Solitas in my collection, how many movements based around this format. I've got. I have no idea. When it comes to watchmaking in terms of horological provenance, obviously it's not going to hold a candle to Glacier Canal or a Capek or something like that, but it does look like neither one, and that is what would attract me. And I think for the price that you're asking, what's the retail now for the quartz? About 430, 450 quid.
- [24:05]
Benjamin Adams
You have to double check with Vaz now. Oh, yeah, 474. It starts out okay.
- [24:11]
Rob Knudds
I mean, that's an affordable price for something that looks like nothing else and now has this, you know, the swell of enthusiasm behind it within the community. So since you launched the watches and you've obviously got the website, now you're selling pieces, a lot of them seem to be sold out. Are you. Are you traveling on the road to visit collectors, communities all over the country to keep this enthusiasm high, or what are you doing to propel the name Benjamin James forward?
- [24:34]
Benjamin Adams
It's mostly been through the community, really. I mean, we've launched and I think we aim to launch with a product that would hopefully stand out and would offer something unique. And I think that people have started to notice that. I mean, we were quite lucky. After we launched, we had Andrew Morgan talk about us on YouTube. That brought some kind of, like an initial flow of interest that was outside of our immediate circle. And then that kind of just culminated. Over time, I think more people took notice of what we were doing. And the fact that if you want something like this sized like this, there aren't too many options. And so it is at least somewhat interesting, I hope. And, yeah, just kind of kept building through that. And then at the end of the year, last year, when we launched the Scarifle Automatic, that kind of coincided coincidentally, with the timing of the Patek Cubitus launch. And obviously there's quite some similarities in the design, so that was taken up for a story in the New York Times, and that, again, just helped kind of take it to the next level of having a bit more of a mainstream presence.
- [25:49]
Rob Knudds
So do we think the Patek Philippe ripped you off?
- [25:53]
Benjamin Adams
I don't think so. I would be surprised.
- [25:56]
Rob Knudds
Do you want to say it so I can isolate it as a sign by and use it against you in court? I'm kidding. But yeah, you're right, there are some similarities. But just like you maybe hit the market a bit too soon with the reversion to classicism that you experimented with. Watch, Gecko. Perhaps you hit the market just right with this one and perhaps Patek were kicking themselves were like this bloody kid in fucking England has gone ahead and pulled the rug from under our feet. Now when the Cupidist comes out, everyone's going to say it's old hat because the Scarifall got there first. Not the worst claim to fame really, is it? But so tell me, what can people buy if they want to buy something from your website right now? Can they buy anything?
- [26:36]
Benjamin Adams
So everything's out of stock. But we, we do have things in production so people can contact us and we can let you know when the next production is or if they wanted to place a kind of an advanced pre order, that's fine. But yeah, we've. We released the Mother of Pearl watches, which is our, our newest release last month. No, we're in July now, so two months ago in May and we've just received the stock so we'll be shipping those out. That model is limited to 100 pieces per year. It's a first in a limited production collection. But we do have a very small amount of slots, about 10 left of each movement which will be going on the website soon.
- [27:15]
Rob Knudds
Will you be changing the color of the mop next year or will it just come back in limited production as it is?
- [27:21]
Benjamin Adams
No, yeah, just this kind of as it is. But rather than being like a strict limited edition, because we did a, a strict limited edition with the launch and just the amount of demand that we had afterwards made me think that, you know, we're already such a small brand. As long as there's some limited aspect to it, I think it's still interesting for collectors and it saves people on missing out. Because I think one of the challenges of a new brand is most people who come across you have come across you for the first time. So if they, if they end up seeing a model on Instagram and then they go to the website and it's not available, it can be quite confusing.
- [28:00]
Rob Knudds
Yeah, so that's interesting. I mean you'll obviously have much more data with which to work in a year or so after you've seen what the response to the limited production rather than strict limitation is. What do you think? Like Industry wide. Do you think there is this limited edition fatigue that people talk about or do you think that a hard limitation is still and inevitably always will be a spur to buy, at least on some level?
- [28:27]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, I think definitely is a spur to buy. But as you say, with the fatigue, I think it needs to be purposeful. So with this watch, it's special because we use the mother of pill dial, but it's not like it's a collaboration or something like that, or it marks a certain date or, you know, something that has a real meaning behind the fact that it would be a strict limited edition. You know, we did a strict limited edition for the release because that was the, that was the release. You know, we can never repeat that date. But making limited editions for the sake of it is not that interesting. I prefer the, the way that some brands like Patek and Rolex do it, they do it in a different way because their limited production pieces are technically off catalog. So they're not as well known. But that was the inspiration behind the way I've done it with the Mother of Pearl, where I wanted to create something special for collectors but not be too hard to get a hold of. That just annoys new customers.
- [29:23]
Rob Knudds
Yeah, I like it. I think it's more in line with my ethical approach to limitation. I still question because, I mean, I'm involved with several brands that do different types of release strategies constantly. And it's endlessly fascinating to study and observe the performance of these watches that are either limited production, like X amount of pieces per year, or like hard limited. And then once they're sold out, how oftentimes you find the swell of interest comes after the sellout. And you know, it'll always happen regardless of what number you put the watch. If it's truly limited, not one of these like Omega limitations where it's like 6,999 pieces or something like that. But like if it's like 100 pieces or fewer, let's say, you know, because that's a, that's a fair limitation globally. If you think like, oh, okay, there's only 100 of these pieces in the entire world, that is extremely limited when you think about it. Like you're unlikely to run into another one of those in the wild, or maybe, maybe not in our circles because obviously we're the most likely people to be buying them. But you know what I mean, like, you're not going to know what you mean in Tesco. You're unlikely to anyway. So I watch these things and I see them And I say, well, yeah, obviously like the stricter the limitation, the more rabid the interest will be in the short term. And then like, there'll be fury afterwards when people see it and like it and can't get it. But then I always take that fury that comes after the sell out with a pinch of salt because you're never quite sure if someone would have bought it or if they just want to complain about the fact that they can't. And you know, you always want, you want to strike the, the number just right. Right. You want to sell, you want to leave maybe 10% of potential customers unhappy, you don't want to leave 300% of customers unhappy. Then you didn't make enough pieces and you don't want to not sell out of a limited edition model.
- [31:10]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, exactly. I mean, we wouldn't exist without the community. So I don't want to start doing things that would then annoy people who genuinely want to support. And, you know, if that's the watch that they want to buy and they don't want to buy one of the other colors, you start doing that to too many people and then it becomes a problem.
- [31:26]
Rob Knudds
Right, so what are you going to do to expand the collection to ensure that the odd person that does miss out on a piece that they want or finds themselves, you know, unwilling to wait for 12 months for the next replenishment to roll around, has something to buy? What's coming next? Are we going to see different case shapes? Are we going to see more dial materials, different patterns on the dials? What are you thinking?
- [31:49]
Benjamin Adams
So all the above, really. We've got the second collection, the second full new range, which is a completely new design, every piece custom molded, that'll be hopefully releasing in about two months time, maybe three. And that's kind of the next step of the brand. I think the Scarfle will always be kind of like the hero product. I think that's a fantastic canvas and a very. It's an easy watch to get on with. You know, it's not too much of a watch for a watch nerd. Whereas the, the second watch that we have coming is potentially more niche, but really communicates our brand values and is a complimentary piece to add to our collection. Something for the collectors who really understand what we're trying to do with the brand, kind of push us in a new direction and really establish what it is we're trying to do.
- [32:45]
Rob Knudds
Interesting. And we're going to see any round cases.
- [32:48]
Benjamin Adams
There's none in development, but maybe I'm not I'm not necessarily against it. It's not that we're taking a stand on round designs, but with every watch we release, I want it to be very well thought through and very purposeful. To saying find a gap in the market is almost kind of an overused statement nowadays, but it's just to find something that is interesting and compelling and isn't necessarily made just for the sake of, oh, I want to make a new watch, what can I release? And, you know, just putting something random together. It's more so trying to find something that is somewhat novel, is still very classically inspired and doesn't look weird or quirky, but has its place and reasons to exist.
- [33:29]
Rob Knudds
Yeah, I mean, those reasons are everything. Right. So with the first range, it was to make available a sort of style and a shape and a feeling and an emotional product that wasn't available at that price point before.
- [33:43]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, exactly.
- [33:45]
Rob Knudds
And then you're going to continue with that same thought process, like you're gonna try and bring unusual things into an accessible price bracket or are you gonna go even wilder?
- [33:59]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, exactly. And it's. It's not always necessarily about price. I mean, the price point does play into effect, but with the second release, it's more. So how do we stay in our lane but still offer something different and show what the branding is about without showing the brand as like a. A one trick pony type thing? Like, I don't want the brand to just be about the scarifall and just release endless versions of the scarifall, because I think that would be somewhat boring. But I think we can take the essence of what we've created with the scarifall and apply it to different kind of different areas. So the next release, it will be more expensive. We're elevating the specification a bit. It doesn't look necessarily like a scarifall, but I think when you delve into the details, you can see overlaps with the concept.
- [34:47]
Rob Knudds
And you're designing all these watches yourself, right? The concepts come from you.
- [34:51]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, exactly. I mean, the brand's named after myself. That's kind of just a way of. It's like, this is what my idea for a watch that should exist is, and if people agree with my ideas, then they'll like the brand.
- [35:05]
Rob Knudds
Is James your middle name? Yeah, yeah, mine too. Nice one.
- [35:08]
Benjamin Adams
Nice.
- [35:09]
Rob Knudds
Yeah, solid. And Scarifor is the name of your childhood home, correct?
- [35:13]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, exactly. So that's the name of my childhood home. And then also coincidentally, it was the house that my grandfather grew up in. I was Originally planning on naming the brand after him, but unfortunately he shares a name with someone who was disgraced in the press for sex crimes or something, so couldn't use that name. Yeah. When I started releasing the renderings, people were like, yeah, that won't work. Oh, right. And so I still wanted to tie in the influence of family and scarifall also being such a weird word.
- [35:44]
Rob Knudds
Yeah.
- [35:44]
Benjamin Adams
It wasn't trademarked.
- [35:45]
Rob Knudds
Yeah. No.
- [35:45]
Benjamin Adams
Unsurprisingly, that's also a massive, massive thing. It's hard to find words that aren't trademarked.
- [35:50]
Rob Knudds
I mean, if you Google scarif or meaning, which I did in preparation for the show, it just comes up and says, this is a line of Benjamin James watches. Like, that's the first thing that Google recognizes it as.
- [36:01]
Benjamin Adams
It doesn't say it's. Yeah, I'm not sure what it is. I think my parents, who in the house now thought it was a scarifier is a. A job. Scarifiers are designed to encourage healthy lawn growth. So maybe whoever lived in that cottage encouraged healthy lawn growth.
- [36:18]
Rob Knudds
Okay. And had bad spelling. Yeah. Okay. Totally possible. The house I grew up in when I was a kid was called the Longstone, and I always carried that name around with me. I had a bar in my garden back in England and I used to call it the Longstone Ale House. So that's cool. I definitely. Yeah, I feel it's a good. It's a good thing to name a watch collection after, and it really grounds the whole brand in that family concept and that idea of legacy. I am so curious about, like, the almost like, sex offender name that you applied to the. To the brand. That's. That's brilliant. I believe that there was a. Notice my surname, obviously. Who was a murderer or was he a murderer or was he murdered? I think he was a murderer. Guy called Christopher Nuts.
- [37:05]
Benjamin Adams
That's quite a large.
- [37:07]
Rob Knudds
Yeah, it's a big difference.
- [37:08]
Benjamin Adams
Large difference.
- [37:10]
Rob Knudds
Yeah. I think he was. I think he was the baddy. I'm not sure. But luckily there aren't that many nudzers in the world, and I. I've been spending my entire career trying to dominate Google searches so that the murderer never comes up. Although I am not tempted to put my name on a dial. I don't think it has the right ring of elegance about it.
- [37:27]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah.
- [37:27]
Rob Knudds
But Benjamin James comes across just perfectly, I think. So. Good choice on that front. Also, looking forward to hearing what the future collections themselves will be called. Will they also be rooted in your past, your personal history, or will you go in a different direction?
- [37:41]
Benjamin Adams
I'm trying to. Yeah, I would like it, like, kind of the whole concept of the brand was really inspired by family and my tastes and my upbringing. And I think that that's, you know, kind of goes back to how do you give the product character and soul? You know, I want things to be purposeful and unique and tell a story that couldn't otherwise be told. You know, I think everyone that exists on the earth has their own kind of intrinsic value and stories that are unique to them, and that's a part of what made what I think made the. The watch and the brand so special. Something we try to do a bit differently, where it's not, you know, it's not just taking inspiration from things that are completely unrelated, but just trying to. To carve our own path. And, yeah, the naming side is really difficult because there's only so many words that aren't trademarked.
- [38:36]
Rob Knudds
True, true. And there are even fewer that are appropriate for brands.
- [38:41]
Benjamin Adams
Sound good? Yeah.
- [38:42]
Rob Knudds
Yeah, exactly. Your grandfather, is he still with us?
- [38:45]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah.
- [38:46]
Rob Knudds
How old is he now?
- [38:50]
Benjamin Adams
I believe he's 81.
- [38:51]
Rob Knudds
Okay.
- [38:52]
Benjamin Adams
All right.
- [38:52]
Rob Knudds
So not that old at all, really. What does he make of it all?
- [38:58]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, he's a. He's a big fan. He.
- [39:00]
Rob Knudds
Does he wear one?
- [39:01]
Benjamin Adams
He actually doesn't wear a traditional watch anymore, which was. Because he has to wear an apple watch to. For his heartbeat. Oh, yeah. Rating thing. So. Yeah, but he. He loves it. He's obviously very proud of the. The story and how, you know, everything that was potentially just a throwaway thought to him. I. I don't think that he would probably remember all of those moments the same way that I remember them, because obviously things can be more impactful when you're a child. But sure, before, when he was just showing me a. A rectangular watch that he liked would essentially culminate into an entire brand being born 20 years later. It's. It's quite interesting to think about, really. But, yeah, he's. He's a big fan.
- [39:53]
Rob Knudds
He must be very, very proud. I could. I mean, my granddad's long sitting dead for nilly, 40 years now, but.
- [40:01]
Benjamin Adams
No, sorry to hear that.
- [40:02]
Rob Knudds
Well, it's fine. I'm over it. I was a kid when he died, so me. He was a gardener his entire life, but he dreamed of being a watchmaker. Something my mother neglected to tell me until after I graduated from the British School of Watchmaking, which I found completely inexplicable. At one point. I thought she would have just mentioned, oh, your grandfather would have been proud because, yeah, this was his dream. I could just imagine how thrilled he would be if he could sort of look down from somewhere, look up probably from somewhere and be like, oh, that's nice. He went and did that. And your granddad, to see that and to realize what an impact he had. Because you're absolutely right, of course, like those moments, those formative moments that are really just like throwaway to an adult who's just yelling a kid. Oh yeah, look at this. This is cool, isn't it? Because it's such a crazy thing when you're like three or four year old kid and you're sort of interacting with someone who's, you know, two generations ahead of you and you think they're ancient, you think they're abs, like, well old. And your grandfather at that point must have been in his 40s or early 50s or something. And he's not really that old a person. You've got mates his age now, you know, he's just a bloke and he's just, he collects watches and he's like telling his little grandson, oh, look at this cool jlc, isn't that mint? He never really imagines, oh, one day this guy is going to take, you know, his name and the family legacy, put it on the dial of a watch because of this interaction and it will go on. Who knows, it could echo down further generations. You know, if you have your own offspring in the future that take up the mantle and it can all come from these things and it's just, it's incredible. Watchmaking is one of those few crafts that just, it feels instantly like it's like it's eternal in its own way. As soon as you create something like this and you know, you've got a reputation now, you've got a following, you've got a community, you have people that want the best for you, people who also can afford to support you because you're not doing some crazy like six figure style, triple axis tourbillon, you know, can fly and see through time. It's that it's a nice approach to building something for the long term. And I guess right now, and this is interesting because it goes back to a conversation Alan and David and I had on a recent article about how smaller micro brands or small independents should behave a lot like tech companies, tech startups and especially in the early days. And one of the things that Alon mentioned, which had never, ever, ever, ever entered my mind when it came to thinking about starting or running the watch brand, was an exit strategy. Now I assume you don't have an exit strategy. But do you, do you sit there now and see Benjamin James as your life's work and something you'll do for as long as you're able to?
- [42:45]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, I think so. The way I see it is that, you know, two years ago I just had an idea that was on paper or on, on a computer, and the community who rallied behind the brand gave me the chance. And working on this is, you know, the kind of, the greatest. Thank you I can give is to continue to give good watches that people want to wear an experience. And so I, I definitely haven't thought about an exit strategy. I mean, I'm only a year into the business as it is, but yeah, it's more so just something that I've built through passion. You know, when I was first going self employed, I did sit down and think, okay, if I'm going to be looking for places to, to do work with, what is the most ideal role I can think of? And I was always just thinking it would be great if a watch brand essentially hired me to lead like the watch, the watch side of things, you know, the kind of branding and design stuff like that. And then that, that really went into thinking, if I essentially want to lead a watch brand, then why don't I just lead one of my own? Because when am I ever going to be offered something like that? And if I am, where should I put the, put the effort, really?
- [44:04]
Rob Knudds
I mean, that's the way to do it, right? When you don't get the experience that you need to get the job that you want, you just got to make your own experience. Same thing happened to me when I wanted to be a writer and I was sending off requests and test articles to magazines all over the place and they all came back and said, well, you haven't got any experience. And I'm like, I know, I'm trying to get some. Please let me write something for you. I'll write for free. So I started my own magazine and just did that for two years. So I had something to point to. And often it's enough to open the door. Now you've done it, you've got the proof, you've got the credentials. So there's ever more chance now that some brand will come to you at some point in the future and say, hey, do you want to do the same thing with our company? You know, you, you made your own way in the world, as they say. Let's talk about what it's like actually, practically, because a lot of people will Be interested in what you've done. Yeah, I am racking my brains to try and figure out your age. I guess you're maybe not even 30 yet.
- [44:55]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, no, I'm just turned 28.
- [44:58]
Rob Knudds
Just turned 28. Right. Okay, so you've done all this, you're not even 30, but I don't imagine that you're buying Ferraris and holidaying on the Amalfi coast just yet. I imagine that, you know, not quite. Okay. Do you live at home or do you have your own place?
- [45:14]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, I live in an apartment with my wife, so I got married very young.
- [45:20]
Rob Knudds
Congrats. Well, wow, seven years married already.
- [45:22]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, we've been together since we were 19.
- [45:25]
Rob Knudds
Brilliant.
- [45:25]
Benjamin Adams
Which was, yeah, only a year after I joined the watch industry as well. So Maxine, my wife, she's a big part of the brand as well. I think really to be successful and stay grounded in what you're doing, you need to have someone who's willing to give you the harsh feedback and really, you know, see what you're trying to do and then help you refine it. And that's what she's really good at. Um, she has like an impeccable eye for just seeing something and knowing like, yes or no, is that going to work? So a lot of the times I come to her with new designs and she's like, no, you need to go back with that one.
- [46:05]
Rob Knudds
So, like, if we're writing the Benjamin Adams Recipes for success, a stable home life is a good one because it gives you that clarity of mind, support. All right. Okay. You did most things on a shoestring budget. You leveraged friendships and your own talents that you taught yourself. Illustrate.
- [46:21]
Benjamin Adams
Okay, pretty much, yeah, we, I tried to keep everything as lean as possible. It was really an exercise in create something that I believe is good and let the market decide.
- [46:34]
Rob Knudds
Very good. So you've done so much off your own back and obviously taken quite some risk to get there. Maybe less so in terms of pure financial numbers, but certainly in time and time.
- [46:45]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, definitely in time. And time obviously impacts financial numbers and there was a, there was a long period of time where I was, you know, spending more time than I should be working on the brand when it wasn't providing any return at all. Where I could have been doing, you know, more freelance work or different things like that, but, but now one imagines.
- [47:05]
Rob Knudds
With a website full of sold out watches that you are, you know, this is, this is your full time job, your full time career, and it's sustainable for now at least.
- [47:15]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah.
- [47:15]
Rob Knudds
And High hopes for the future. Here's a question. Do you want to scale it? Like, do you, do you envisage absolutely rolling in cash or are you more like. So let's, let's take two British brands alongside you. Okay. There's a Schofield, there's a Christopher Ward. Now, Mike and Giles couldn't be more different in their approach to watchmaking. Giles is all about like, purity, soul design, like the truth, you know, the emotional truth of everything. Mike, Mike's a absolutely like lab grown businessman. He's just like a fucking genius when it comes to the numbers and yeah, attacking gaps in the market. Aggressively moving first, moving fast. Very different men, both very successful in the ways that they want to be. You know, Giles has got his, like, his smaller industry is his band of merry supporters. Mike's like, obviously blown the doors off the industry in terms of transparency and huge volumes being shipped out and now at least ever more creative horology as well within it.
- [48:14]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah.
- [48:14]
Rob Knudds
Do you see yourself as more of a Schofield or do you see yourself as more of a Christopher Ward, or are you somewhere else?
- [48:22]
Benjamin Adams
Possibly somewhere else. Yeah. I would say we're not aiming to scale like Crystal Ward have done. This isn't a, this isn't going off like a specific business plan. And I want to get, you know, X amount of investment to be able to hire these people and move in these directions. But I would say that our, our approach to design, I'm not trying to go too niche, so there's, you know, potentially some mass market potential. Especially if you look at something like the Scarifall. I mean, it's, it's not too dissimilar in positioning to something like a Tissot prx. Right. So whereas, you know, Scofield does incredibly thoughtfully designed, really interesting watches, I don't think we're necessarily going down that route. So, yeah, I'd say maybe somewhere in the middle. I don't, I don't want to seek investment. I'm not interested in necessarily like giving up portions of the company to be able to grow faster. It's more so just trying to do everything right and continuing on the, the path that we've already set where we're really, we're not forcing growth with money, but we're, you know, kind of trying to do everything with integrity. And I keep saying it, but just letting the market decide. You know, I think we'll know when we've done something right. You know, if you look at brands like Studio Underdogs, the best example of A fast growing brand that's done it in kind of an unconventional way where they've just created a product that people want to buy and the community has arisen from that.
- [49:57]
Rob Knudds
So let's, let's just look at what Rich has done in the last couple of years. He's built a team around himself. Something that when he started in 2020, I guess seemed a long way off. You know, it was a wild idea that he came up with and found favor in the industry, obviously now has huge number of followers, one of the most visible, dynamic brands in the industry, regardless of price point. Absolutely stunning success. He hired team members. Could you envisage hiring people? And if you were to put yourself say 612 months in the future, what position do you think you would be looking to hire first? Do you think you'd need help with logistics, design, machining? What do you think?
- [50:43]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, it's a tough one because that's kind of the most, I would say unknown. You know, when you're like a, almost a solo entrepreneur, I think that's kind of the first big step of then analyzing where could my time be better spent. For example, logistics probably, you know, people working out things with shipping and packaging, things that I'm not necessarily an expert in. That's, that's definitely good. I, I would say that with Benjamin James, I want to keep it with the, the feeling of a kind of a small independent brand that doesn't necessarily lose the values that it started with in terms of the brand is. It's kind of centered around the fact that I'm designing these watches and they are things that I want to exist. I wouldn't necessarily want to then start finding design teams and different things like that. Even though potentially someone could do things better. It's more about the story and the kind of the soul, the design.
- [51:49]
Rob Knudds
Do you know or would you feel comfortable saying what you're really bad at? Because I mean, we know you're good at a lot of things obviously, but what are you, what can you not wrap your head around? So just to share, because I'm not, I don't want to put you in a position where you feel alone there, but I'm really bad with spreadsheets. Right. I hate numbers. I like doing everything by touch and feel, you know, I mean like more emotionally than physically touching stuff. But like I said, I don't like to sit down and look at just data. It winds me up. What annoys you? What are you crap at? What could you do with someone to take off your plate? Just to reduce your stress, maybe free up some more headspace.
- [52:27]
Benjamin Adams
I'm probably quite similar to you in that a lot of the things that I've done are more based on feel than data. It would probably be useful, but I've seen it before with other brands that are small and they have a soul, and then they try to commercialize things too quickly and they end up being a bit of an amalgamation of different sides. I mean, I don't know if, you know, in the tech world it's kind of known as enshitification, where a brand starts off with a purpose and then they get funding and they get people in with their data heads and then it just turns things into shit because they. They trim too much fat and it ends up ruining the essence of the company.
- [53:02]
Rob Knudds
Yeah, yeah.
- [53:03]
Benjamin Adams
And so I'm. Yeah, I'm bad at a lot of things, but in some aspects, I wonder if that's what makes the. What makes the brand unique.
- [53:13]
Rob Knudds
Oh, you mean gives it his human touch almost.
- [53:15]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, yeah.
- [53:16]
Rob Knudds
Well, you know, there may well be something in that. You know, I've seen it happen in watch brands and watch media titles when you get people in from the outside that, you know, they're great at looking at numbers and they're great at sort of, and I say this in inverted commas like streamlining and making something run more efficiently, but then they'll chop the intangibles. And intangibles are often like, what separate one brand or one title from another? And that's a real shame when that happens. Okay, last. Last question for you. Okay. It briefly popped up in something you said earlier regarding the limitations and you mentioned the word collaboration. And I wonder, with such a identifiable canvas that you've created with the scarifle and with it being a foundational piece for the brand, unlikely to hang around ad nauseam for the rest of time, I would say it is ripe for some kind of collaboration with someone from outside the brand. Would you ever consider it? And if so, would it be someone else in the watch industry or someone from a different walk of life entirely?
- [54:16]
Benjamin Adams
Yeah, I agree with you. Something I'd love to do. We don't have anything in the works at the moment, but it's something I have thought about potentially waiting until we're a bit more established before we go down that route, because I want to make sure that if we do anything, we do it right. And we probably haven't put enough thought into what would be the right partner for something like that, rather than just picking anyone. But yeah, it's kind of like with the limited edition talk we had earlier. I would want it to be purposeful and really offer something that I couldn't just offer myself if I had created that same watch. So it needs to, you know, either expose new audiences to the brand that, you know, would make sense for them because they would, they would enjoy it, or be quite like the, like, more artistic collaborations where it takes the canvas of the watch and really kind of pushes it to its limits in terms of design. And I think that those ones are good examples of what could genuinely be a limited edition. I mean, I was in Hong Kong recently and I saw the Horology Club. I've done a collaboration with. I need to see how to pronounce the name. Holenrix Watches. Dutch brand. Yeah. And if you look at the collaboration that they've done together, kind of the direction that they've taken, that new case design and they've added a dial which was set in, I think it's like cement, but then it's also got Lume cast within the cement. Then they have like this bone script, ancient Chinese script for the. The indices. I think that overall that watch just looked amazing. I saw in person and kind of how novel the idea is to have a cement dial that also fully glows with Lume. That was just an amazing example of a collaboration done well, where you've got two very passionate people on either side trying to create something that's novel.
- [56:23]
Rob Knudds
Well, I'm sure that the team at Holthomics will be thrilled to hear that. We've had Michael on the show and Brandon has already recorded the podcast as well. So, you know, because we're kind of half Dutch, with Alon being based in Amsterdam, we. We have a lot to do with him and they're great guys and doing incredible stuff, as are you. So we're going to wrap it up there. Ben, thank you very much for your time. It was a really interesting dive into Benjamin James and I'm sure that a lot of our listeners will have enjoyed that. If any of you have questions for Ben, then please get in touch via the usual channels. You can contact us via the official Instagram handle herealtime show via our email addresses, either Rob alon or David herealtime show. You can find Scarlett on Instagram @scarlintheshire. That's s c A R L I N T H E S H I R E And you can contact us via the contact form on the official website www.therealtime show. We'll be back soon with more top quality content and interviews with watchmaking's finest. Until then, stay safe and keep on ticking.