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- [00:00]
A
Foreign hello, watch fans, and welcome back to Geneva watch days 2025. We're recording from the glass igloo outside the pavilion on the last day of the fair. We are joined by Pranifraj Singh of Ming, one of our favorite brands. And unfortunately, Alan's not here because he seeded the host's chair to this interloper that you might have already seen this morning if you've been watching Josh Shapiro, our new host.
- [00:31]
B
Well, I'm just such a huge fan of Ming Watches, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take the other side of things and ask Praneeth some fantastic, hopefully intelligent questions.
- [00:42]
A
Well, you're the man that's going to ask intelligent questions because you guys have worked together very, very closely over the last couple of years. So, Praneeth, welcome to the show.
- [00:50]
C
Thank you.
- [00:50]
A
Great to see you.
- [00:51]
C
I think this is Josh's excuse to torture me on a public stage.
- [00:54]
A
Quite possible makers like this is live, so anything could happen. We've got colleagues, friends, and two amazing figures in the watch industry talking to each other. Josh, why don't you start from the top and take us in any direction you desire?
- [01:09]
B
Yeah. So one of the things I respect about Ming in the company as a whole is that everyone has different talents they bring to it. So Ming is extremely creative. But Praneeth takes things from that creativity to reality. And I'm just curious what that process is like with all the incredible ideas that you guys have, how do you take them and make them reality?
- [01:36]
C
Well, I think the process is there isn't any one process. The best analogy I have for that, you know, sometimes I'll talk to. It's like using math. Sometimes I'll be talking to Ming. I don't know where I could be. Like 10. What do you mean by 10? It's like you take two and you multiply it five times, you get 10. I'm like, okay, that makes sense. That's right. And then there's then taking that and figuring out how to explain multiplication to someone else. I might oversimplify this, obviously, but explain modification to somebody else and breaking it down into smaller components. I think that's one step. But that weakness is, you know, is Production Planning 101 and Development 101.
- [02:17]
B
I guess kind of distill his ideas.
- [02:19]
C
The bit I think that I really bring to the table is I'm a perpetual pessimist and cynic. So we'll start a project. I mean, like, we can do this in six months. I'll be like, 18 months why? I'm like, I don't know, ask me in 18 months and usually we'll be right around the mark where I said we'd end up. And I realized it's one of the reasons there is because Ming is one of those people who's so full of ideas. And he's, you know, he's always been, at least for over a decade now, working for himself or by himself. And so his concept of days of the week and public holidays are sort of as non existent as mine.
- [02:53]
B
Right.
- [02:54]
C
So even at the fair, like, he was looking, looking for me yesterday, and he's like, oh, we need to reach out and inspire. We get this answer. They haven't got back to us. When it's Saturdays, nobody's at work. And so I think when he thinks about how development happens, he's like, oh, this will take two days and that'll take three days. Yes, but you forgotten that summer is around the corner and Christmas is around the corner, where the people sleep, they fall ill. And I think when you. I think that's. It's basically translating that vision and that excitement into like, just, I don't want to say putting the brakes on there or acting as a buffer and being like, hey, we're all excited about this, but let's be a bit more reasonable about how long this is going to take, how much it's going to cost. And I think one of the more difficult parts of what I do and what I do with Ming is the few times I have to come in and be like, I know you're not 100% happy with this, but we got to get a move on.
- [03:47]
B
Right?
- [03:48]
C
Right. Because we're running, at the end of the day, a commercial business that has to be. It's not profits first, but they still have to be profits enough to sort of pay your salaries, rent. And there have been conversations we've had where I'm like, man, we need to launch. Right. We can't spend another six months. Fine. During the last half a percent.
- [04:09]
A
I find it very interesting because you are to me, the calm within the storm always. You just never seem to be bothered by anything. I'm sure there's a lot going on underneath the surface, but you present this preternatural serenity which I think is so valuable when you're working with someone of such a high intensity on the creative front, because, you know, Ming is obviously well known industry legend now because of the work you've done together over the last almost a decade now, how long is it that Ming's been around eight years now.
- [04:42]
C
Wow. A new publicly and behind the scenes a couple more years.
- [04:45]
A
And it's a huge endeavor. It's a huge effort. You've pushed boundaries in many directions, actually. So this is something I'd like to ask you about. You launched with an accessible but, oh, she's an intriguing prospect. And then you went with your special cave projects and you've. You've done things that five figures and four figures and five figures and four figures. You've bounced between price points that most brands would not be able to sustain simultaneously. That to me is a masterpiece of communication. How you've managed to do that because, you know, we have this conversation at the brands I work with, they're mostly entry level brands and like, oh, we want to step up. We want to go to like 30K. And I'm like, normally that's death through a brand. You can't do that. How did you, how did you do it? How did you like, figure out the story, the way to tell it? How did you position Ming as some. A brand that is not maybe a brand, but more of an idea? I don't know.
- [05:41]
B
How is it outside normal boundaries?
- [05:43]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [05:44]
C
I mean, I apologize for the anti chromatic answer in advance, but you said within greater communication. I would actually disagree. I think Ming and I, we talk about this all the time. Like there's two things we suck at. Communication, marketing and selling.
- [05:59]
A
Selling.
- [05:59]
C
Yeah.
- [06:00]
A
Really.
- [06:01]
C
I think about it. I'm very humble and here's what I mean by that. I think what's gotten us this far is just that the ideas and the product itself and how much we've been willing to put into the product has outstripped the need to really be good at communicating or sell it.
- [06:18]
A
That's very interesting.
- [06:19]
C
So even with, even with price points, I think we always approach it as. And maybe to some degree, Josh is right where we sell ourselves short in that we look at a watch and we say, oh, this needs to have more. This needs to have more for that price point. And it's proven a challenge commercially because we definitely are retail partners now. And to some degree, Josh, because we've done a few projects together. So he, he's got a bit of a view on the behind the scenes economics, have realized that we're not joking when we say we have tabor margins. And the sort of quasi joke within the company was we only survived because we outsourced management to Asia in the early days because Ming and I lived in Malaysia. When all of this started, we could Run our lives on much lower payroll, if you will. And that's really what helped the brand survive in the early days. And that allowed us to invest a lot more into doing stuff with Sapphire R and D. So Yosh. Oh, no, no, no. And all of that. And I think that's what collectors saw. And they were like, how is a brand putting all of this out combined with Ming's singular design vision? I mean, materials are one thing, but how you take that and translate into what the final product looks like, I think that's really important. I'd say that's been our biggest strength and potentially double ed Swot is if you don't like Ming's design language or what Ming designs, you'll probably never be one of our collectors or customers. Right? Yeah.
- [07:44]
B
I'd say you guys, you know, you say you're not great salesmen or not great communicators, but in this industry, nothing sells better or speaks more loudly than a great product.
- [07:56]
A
Right.
- [07:56]
B
And your products really speak for themselves. You look at it and you instantly know it's a Ming. And you are excited to see what special thing did they put into this watch? How is it going to amaze me? They showed me something that I can't talk about in any shape, way or form with you guys, but I was floored. I was absolutely floored. And a company that can get that excitement out of another watchmaker, it's just incredible. And it's a joy to work with them, and it's a joy to experience their watches as a friend and as a collector.
- [08:30]
A
I don't want to contradict you because you've got the data behind the scenes. So, you know, but from my perspective, I'm a coverer and a customer. So I've written about Ming a lot and I've. I own a Ming GMT and selling. I've always struggled to get my hands on one of your pieces because they always seem to sell out. So I would say there's one or two releases that haven't sold out immediately. But for the most part, I see these products going communication wise. I see it that. Okay, I'm sure you're a perfectionist. You have ideas of how it should be communicated, how you could have done better or how you could innovate in different ways in the future. But there's something about the way that you communicate that matches the product. It matches this kind of secret nature of it. Ming is well known. It feels like the best kept secret in watchmaking. But it's not a secret. It's almost like it's one of the most mainstream, visible independents because you've led from the front and I think that that's a success because. Yeah, okay. Your communication might not be as like militant as you would like it to be, or not be as regimented or as replicable as you would want it to be because it causes a huge amount of stress for you to not be communicating as well as you'd like to. But the message gets through, it cuts through. And like we, we as collectors and as writers, we see the product and we have enough from you. I don't feel there's a dearth of communication. I won't blame you. But like Grand Seiko, if Grand Seiko's watching, sort your press releases, you know, call me. But seriously, like there are brands that are terrible at communication and this is maybe the thing you're in main. Right. So you, you see me more than any other brand. Obviously you've worked with Josh, you've worked with other brands and you know, like bits and bobs in the vicinity, but I get every press release from every brand in the industry. Trust me, you're doing a good job. Better than you might think.
- [10:20]
C
Well, I mean, first off, thank you. Thank you very much. I think what. At the risk of maybe self promoting, I think the bit that probably we've been good at is being authentic. Yeah, right. We don't know how to dress a watch up in any other way. There have genuinely been watches where we're like writing a press release and we're like, we need to squeeze out a story that sounds cool and in the end we're like, we don't have one. The story is just that we thought the idea was cool and we're going to do it. Yeah, right. And sometimes you just keep all the shade.
- [10:49]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:49]
C
And I think that's what's worked really in our favor. And even with the sales, I think this is back to the community being open to supporting new ideas, new people on the scene and I don't think that's actively selling. So maybe where the disconnect and what we're talking about is the people who support us. You know, eight years in, it's what, 8,000 customers? Many, many more thousand sort of coming to events, social media, all of that. I think of them as like this tight knit watch community that lives and reads watches. Right. Then all the private WhatsApp chats they have, all the, you know, previously used to be watchable. Now there's other apps where you can get your news you're on all the podcasts that probably listen to this right now. I think with, with that community, we don't feel the need to sell or market. Right. We just feel like we could be ourselves. But to build a brand that sort of. I think at this point we have a brand that has, I've grown Ming, the founder and the co founding team and to make one that's sustainable, I think we need to bring new people into the fold, get people excited about watches, whether they're collecting sort of mainstream stuff, get them excited about independent watchmaking or if they never collect watches, to bring them into watchmaking. Be like, this can be fun and cool. And when I say we suck at sales and marketing and communication, I think it's to these people, right? How do you make watches fun for them? And that's the one thing, let's say when, when Kinky first started out in the, in the early 2010s, I think that's where they really got their traction and shot to fame is Ben Fanland. Stephen P. In the early days just made watches a lot more fun and accessible. I, you know, I remember being in like high school or university back then and going to an eq, being like, I don't have to feel like I need to have all the answers.
- [12:36]
A
Yeah.
- [12:37]
C
To understand this and I can start dip my toes in and bring people in. And I think that's what, looking to the future, that's one of the things we've been trying to do in the last year or so. And that's probably where this view of not being great at communicating comes in.
- [12:50]
A
I mean it's, it's very refreshing that you're so self reflective and you think about these things like because you know, we wouldn't say, I wouldn't sit here and say, oh, you need to do something different. But it's great that you're thinking forward and you're thinking, how can we like recapture that spirit of the early 2000 and tens, the late aughts, you know, where people were being brought into watches in a way that they never had been before. Because we make this mistake in watchmaking all the time. Watchmaking as a craft is 300 years old. Our industry started in 1983 post quartz crisis, prior to the quartz crisis or the revolution as I prefer to call it. To be honest, watches weren't collectible. Watches could be a status symbol. You'd buy a nice Rolex when you'd worked a long time at a job or you get given one when you retired. But Nobody collected until Swatch. Swatch reframed everything with the second watch concept. And throughout the 80s there was a lot of like pop up fashion brands and we started working in seasons that never happened before. You know, early, like fashion houses that were adopting the Swatch model really created the, the environment in which we exist now. So we have watches and wonders, we have Geneva watch days, we have Dubai watch week. You know, we work on basically like a three month through to six month, like, you know, rotation. That's very, very new. The 90s watches exploded in size and in extravagance and bombast and they became maybe a bit of a, too much of a status symbol. This idea like Ming couldn't have existed in the 80s or the 90s or even yours. It was really like this, this conflation of the industry, this contraction and this appreciation of craft and the distinction between a timepiece and a work of art.
- [14:34]
C
Right.
- [14:34]
A
And I think you've managed to capture that imagination very, very well with what you're doing and with the, the disparate but like wholly authentic nature of everything you've pursued. I think, to be honest, it's a rare thing in this industry. But what you're saying about trying to reach an audience outside of those collectors is not that rare. There are several brands, not many, but there are several. Even a couple I've spoken to throughout this fair that have said exactly the same thing. We're great communicating with collectors. The collectors get us. You don't need to send a press release, you send an image and they're there. But how do you tap into that wider audience? Because we're all very conscious of the fact that like the generation that grew up with watch collecting as a hobby, we're getting a bit old now and we're not going to be around in. Well, you'll be around in 20 years. I may be not, but, you know, we have to be aware of like, what do the new people want and how do we get the new people into the industry in a world where timepieces are alien objects? You know how often I meet people in the pub and I say to them, I'm a watchmaker. And they go, wow, don't robots make watches? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, this is a different kind of. Right, so you're not on your own in that regard. It's a very good question though. How do you branch out? Do you collaborate with brands that are tangential? Like Mohs has done a good job recently with their F1 collaborations. And you Know, creating watches that, you know, put the watch in front of a new audience that has probably money, interest in technical stuff, interest in design, but maybe had never really thought about owning a luxury watch. What are your plans to crack that? Are you going to do exactly the same thing or something slightly more artistic, perhaps?
- [16:22]
C
Well, lots of fun fact there. I think the first thing with trying to reach a wider audience, part of that is not so. Part of it is generational and trying to bring in newer people. But part of it is also recognizing that I've not been cracking watches for that long. But even in this small space, done the decade that I've been seriously into watches, I've seen this shift from what was considered normal when I started was like, you got one really nice watch a year. Yeah, right. And prior to that was probably like what you saved up on every couple of years. And for better or worse, let's get into the. The benefits of drawbacks of capitalism. But like, we live in a world where for each brand, even for us to continue doing what we're doing, you know, we have to have, you know, this year we had 10 releases, and next year we'll have sort of a similar number. And you have to have people who, you have to have homes for those watches, right wrists to put them on, but do it in a sustainable way. And I think trying to force more within the same community isn't going to work because even I sometimes feel like jaded and sort of tired of watches in general. Like, when I'm on a vacation, I don't wear a watch anymore. Whether I take a vacation, wearing. Often wear a shoe, can't wear a watch because sometimes I just want to break from them. But when I come back, I'm excited again. But you need to give people the space and time to sort of walk away, live with what they have, sort of digest that and come back and be excited. And I think what happened over the pandemic. Sorry, is moving over the pandemic. The industry moved to a place where we were all trying to sell multiple watches in a year to the same people. And that doesn't create the right factors for anyone to have a good experience. No matter how good the watches are, they make the best watch in the world. And you could genuinely be a, you know, fantastic, but you get traded. And I think bringing more people into the fold means you also allow the industry to, at least, if I grow, at least stay where it is sustainably. The one of the ways for us to do it really is not so much aspirational collapse. As much as, I think, bring people in on either the design mode or the technical mode, there's some people who just find it cool that you can have something that is not electrical at all, electronic at all. My sister's like Gen Z. Like, she has friends. She's in university now, and she has friends who are getting into watches. They're 21, 22.
- [18:38]
A
Yeah.
- [18:38]
C
And they just find the fact that you could do all this mechanically super fascinating. Right. And then it's like, how do you make the technical stuff not so obscure, intimidating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you don't want to throw words like Kirby on and escapement and whatever else. Right. And I think a lot of watch media these days, we, at least in the community we're in, we tend to jump into the deep end very, very quickly.
- [19:03]
A
Yeah.
- [19:03]
C
And if you're not familiar with that, you can get very, very intimidated.
- [19:08]
B
I think one of the most special things about your watches which. Which ties into that is you guys have a sense of adventure. So when you're working with suppliers or other people, whoever it is, that that same sense of adventure that comes out in the design comes out in who you're willing to work with. And the other aspect is this idea of magic that your watch is, when you look at it, has this almost magical effect. Like, what is this watch going to do this time? Like, what's the. How do they do that? How did they accomplish that? In the sense of, like, wonder that comes at looking at the watches. And that's like, a consistent theme along with your design, is the sense of wondering the magic that comes into every single timepiece.
- [19:55]
C
And I think one of the things we would like to do, to do more of that is the only way to experience that is in person.
- [20:01]
A
Yeah.
- [20:02]
C
And Ming's photographer is a great photographer, but nothing he can do will get the pictures to look as good as the real thing in the metal in great light. And that's why this year, for instance, we started working with retail partners. We're doing way more events. We're expanding the team so people can just play with the watches, because I think that gets you excited more than anything else.
- [20:20]
B
Get them out in front of people.
- [20:21]
C
Exactly.
- [20:22]
A
We're talking a bit about collaboration here. And, of course, you two are two parts of a trio that recently did something that I'd been longing for for a long time until very recently. And you were one of the originators of this concept. Brands have been reluctant to collaborate with one another. We've seen one off pieces maybe only Watch a couple of times. And it was, it was joyful. It was fascinating for us as observers of the industry to see brands put aside their egos and to acknowledge the fact that we are speaking to a very small audience worldwide. When you actually run the numbers of how many people buy luxury watches, you realize that each one of those people must have five or six timepieces on average, like from extremely high level brands. You decided to work together. Tell us about that project, what it was like, why you thought it was a good idea, and what the reception was like from journalists and consumers alike.
- [21:19]
B
Should we talk about the. I mean, we have a few problems.
- [21:21]
A
Let's talk about the bracelet to start with. Okay.
- [21:23]
B
So the bracelet was really. Can we do something that we can all utilize?
- [21:27]
A
Yeah.
- [21:28]
B
And the cool thing about that was that it kind of pivoted into the Project 21 making these cases together. So the bracelet was like, can we do this in Project 21 was like the reality of it where I made a tantalum case to go with their fantastic watch, which is up for GPhD.
- [21:48]
A
Which is grab your wonderful.
- [21:50]
C
Thanks for making it happen. I think the current basin for a second. It's interesting to bring that up. It's a project that to me at least is nowhere near the finish line. We announced it, we shot a prototype, we took a few orders, but we paused orders and we got back to the customers who placed orders and said, hey, this is going to take a bit longer for good reason. And the good reason is Josh and I were talking one day and jocks are, listen, we're doing it at a certain price point, which is high. Right. For a bracelet. And he's like, to be blunt, in terms of opportunity cost for what I have to do with resurgence and everything else with watchmaking, it's not really the best use of my time. But it also doesn't feel like we're delivering the best value possible to our customers and community collectively. Is there something we can do about this and feel talk about it. But a bracelet really is not an art. The engineering of a bracelet is quite complex, but in terms of the finishing or whatever else, it's not really an artisanal component. Right. Nobody's doing interior angles and anglage everything else. And so I said, Josh, what if would you be willing to work with our production partner for our like the Bluefin case and most of our entry level pieces who are out of Asia, So would you be willing to work with them and share some of your know how around bracelets and tatlow and would you be willing to help them develop this knowledge? So then we can make bracelets that are far more scalable in production, bring that price point down maybe even by 50% of what we originally announced to be determined.
- [23:16]
A
Wow.
- [23:17]
C
And then free up your time to focus on like, you know, advancing American made watchmaking or making in house movements, the stuff that you really need to spend time on.
- [23:25]
B
Praneeth is very good. You say you're a pessimist, you're a realist. He's good at taking crazy ideas even when I have them and turning them into reality.
- [23:32]
C
And I think the big barrier we had to overcome internally was like, oh, how would people feel about capital bracelet made in Asia? Because originally we announced that Josh is going to make it. And I feel like if we communicate that well and if the savings are very apparent and to be blocked price, the community will appreciate it because it's meant to be a universal bracelet, which means there's a fair number of tantalum watches. And I think that's only going to go up over time. It's great to have bracelet options.
- [23:58]
A
Absolutely. I mean, it's so rare that brands collaborate on a component like that. And I think one thing that is lost, I mean, you talk about the costs, research and development, it's enormous. You know, it's a drain. And the amount of failures that we all experience behind the scenes that are reflected in the price that we charge for our watches is something that, yeah, you need good communication to like explain and express that and to not alienate your base. But sharing that research and development for the common good, for the benefit of the customer is just, it's wonderfully responsible, considerate and progressive. And on that note, I think we have to end this interview. Josh, your debut was Stella. You're welcome back anytime. Praneeth, always a fascinating talk. I love talking to you. We have to get you back on the show again for a longer interview because there's so much going on at Ming with all those releases when the.
- [24:57]
C
Weather'S a bit cooler.
- [24:58]
A
Yeah, we'll do it in an ice bath next time. All right.
- [25:00]
B
So it's always a pleasure talking with friends.
- [25:02]
A
It always is. And that's what we're here for at Geneva Watch Days 2025. Join us again. Very.