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

Episode Transcript
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Blake Rea (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of
Lonely Wrist.
Sitting in front of me isJustin Walters from Marin and
Altarum.
What's up, brother?

Justin Walters (00:15):
How's it?

Blake Rea (00:15):
going.
It's going.
I'm hanging in there.
I'm hanging in there.
I'm glad to finally get you on.
It's been a long pursuit oftrying to get you here.

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

Blake Rea (00:32):
Yeah, we connected let's say it's about.
So I mean, uh, I still, you'restill see, you're doing awesome
things.

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

Blake Rea (00:45):
Yeah, we met in San Francisco and that was the first
time I'd ever heard of yourbrand, specifically Marin, and I
was really impressed with yourproduct, your presentation, just
the build quality and reallywhat you get for the money.
I'm a tool watch guy at heartand I was particularly impressed

(01:07):
, uh, so much so that Ipurchased one yeah, which I
don't think I purchased anythingelse at san francisco, so
that's right.
You came back a couple times Idid I did remember that yep and
um, all right, one more, look,one more.
Look, yeah, I, yeah, my, mywife was, uh, was there with me,
and you know I, literally wehad committed to do kind of like

(01:29):
a dual trip, like I pitched itto her as like, hey, I'm going
to san francisco, I'm taking you, and, and you know, I'm gonna
do a little, a few things at thewatch event.
But you know, um, and so thefirst day I like went around to
all the brands and was like, allright, I'm gonna buy a watch,
I'm not sure what, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
And then yeah you know I finallyconvinced her to like, because
it was only supposed to be oneday I watched stuff.

(01:50):
You know the rest of the timewas supposed to be.
You know relationship time andyeah.

San Francisco was cool.
I enjoyed San Francisco.
It was a good time.
That was my first show we didand we had a great time.
It kind of ruined theexpectation for me a little bit
because we sold so many.
And then I went to another showand I didn't do so well and I

(02:24):
was like sucks, but SanFrancisco was good, so many.
And then I went to another showand I didn't do so well and I
was like it sucks yeah good yeah, um, it's weird.

Blake Rea (02:33):
So I've noticed too, and from because I've done the
new york, I've done the chicago,I've done the san francisco
twice, and it seems that that'sin New York, in San Francisco,
or the the big sellers.
So if you did Chicago as your,your other one, then Chicago is
a hard one it's actually NewYork.

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

(03:16):
but we didn't sell a singlewatch, which was crazy.
and so I was like man, I waskind of sour after that, but I
love worn and wound and we'rewe're going to do more shows
with them.
But yeah, we left, we went toNew York and then straight from
there I went to Hong Kong tolaunch the other brand, alterum.
So it's kind of a busy weekend.

Blake Rea (03:39):
Yeah, yeah, I know.
So this is going to be a firstfor us, because we have two
brands.
We're going to be talking aboutMarin and Alterum.
I had never heard of Alterumuntil you, I'm sorry to say, is
as knowledgeable as I try to be.

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

(04:16):
So, but the same model,different variations.

Blake Rea (04:20):
It's a bad-ass little watch.
I mean it's um's um I'lldefinitely, I'll definitely link
.
You know both of his brands andin the description here, but I
mean to see the execution on aworld timer like that is is
awesome.
So it's very creative um, and Ithought, you know I was going

(04:40):
through the website trying to dosome, some research here and
you know, saw your inspiration,you know board and everything,
and I was like man, you knowthis is kind of cool.

So yeah, it was interesting.
I mean, I think a lot of peopleare inspired by like
architecture and and differentthings, but for me it was just
about making something thatlooked different.
I love Braun, I love the brandBraun and I love their watches
and I have one.

(05:11):
There wasn't something on themarket that felt luxurious as a
minimalist piece, so this waskind of the idea with Alterum
was to make something minimalist.
That really was serious.

Blake Rea (05:26):
Yeah, I think you did an awesome execution.
I love the.
I love the watch Is there.
There's only is there only 50or so of them in existence.

So there were a hundred, so this is the first
world timer.
This is like the reference oneum that we did and we sold out
of these in about two weeks umprior to launch, and so that was
really amazing.
I did not realize that thatwould happen at all.

(05:58):
And then we just launched thegold pbd version, the la um, and
we're gonna have some newscoming up with that um soon.
We're working on some some goodstuff.
Um, we did the la version andthen we did the new york edition
, which is the black pbd withlike a gilt dial and, uh, gold

(06:21):
crowns, so really cool and whatwas it about?

Blake Rea (06:25):
like you know, usually you don't see brands
kick off.
You know, obviously, if youlook at marin right, we're
trying to juggle these two.
You have a practical tool watch, yeah, you know, very sporty.
And then I mean the altarumwatch is non non-debatably, uh,
sporty as well.
But in a world timercomplication, which, you know,

(06:49):
usually you don't see brandsshoot after a world timer for
their first watch.

You know yeah, the first design.
So what's funny about these twobrands is I started working
onarum about 10 years ago anddid the design work and, you
know, had this vision of what itcould be and then it just kind
of died, Like I couldn't findthe right people.

(07:15):
I didn't know anybody in theindustry at that time.
I was living in Florida anddidn't know anybody.
I worked for Honeywell at thetime and I was just kind of
designing something I thoughtwas cool and it sat there for
like 10, like well, it sat therefor about eight years Until Wei

(07:39):
Ko messaged me and he was like,hey, I've got this project that
we're working on.
And he messaged me and he waslike, hey, I've got this project

(08:00):
that we're working on.
It's kind of an incubatorsystem thing that you know we
want to help two separate kindof design brains.
I've got the dressyarchitecture side and then I
have the tool watch side, butyou know you go get dirty and
muddy and scratch it up andwhatever kind of more the old

(08:20):
school rolexy side yeah ofdesign, and so I think these two
brands are exactly like who Iam or who I want to be.
You know what I mean.

Blake Rea (08:32):
Polar opposites.
No pun intended.

For sure.
Yeah, for sure, but it's likeit's funny, because when I
design a watch, it's more aboutme designing something that I.
When I design a watch, it'smore about me designing
something that I.
It's more about me designing aproduct that man.
I don't even know how todescribe this.
This is really hard for me todescribe, because it's like I've

(08:55):
been thinking about thisconcept of when I put something
on, when I put a watch on.
I want to become this person.
I think we all do it, you know,and I do it with shoes a lot
too.
Like I have a pair of vans andit's like if I wear my vans, I
need to look like it's kind ofposer.
It's just like I need to looklike I'm skating.

(09:16):
You know what I mean.
Like a skateboarder, but I grewup skateboarding, so it's like
it's just a style thing.

Blake Rea (09:26):
It's just like who do I want to be today?
You know I don't.
I used, I grew up skateboardingand to be fair I still wear
lakai's dude.
That's a cool brand.

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

Blake Rea (09:44):
yeah yeah, dude, super cool brand I did a board
design for Sean Malto.

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

Blake Rea (10:03):
He's one of the very few skaters that, like I since I
don't skate anymore because I'mgetting old like I, I still
follow sean online and I mean hedude, he's still crushing, it
still crushing it's crazy.

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

Blake Rea (10:19):
You know tricks, but he's just so smooth yeah, I mean
, he's not like throwing himselfdown like el toro or something
like right, exactly there's buthe's just, I mean he's just
crushing, you know, rails andmani pads, and I mean he's great
, all the yeah, yeah, he was upto when I went, when I was
skating and I actually got toskate his like private park.

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

Blake Rea (10:46):
So amazing skate park , amazing indoor skate park it
was crazy is it the uh, is itthe barracks spot, or is that a
time out, or?

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

Blake Rea (11:10):
Didn't know he had his own little skate park.
I guess that's probably what hepreferred to keep it.

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

Blake Rea (11:17):
It's sean's secret skate park let's talk, uh, so
I'm gonna see if I can jugglebetween the two um, tell me
about, like, the philosophybehind marin.
You know, I, I know, you know,and I I took some of the
questions from your website andyou know you talk about building

(11:38):
watches for a journey.
Uh, yeah, you know, and talkingabout, like you know, the, the
things that you incur on the wayto your destination.
So, like, tell us about thephilosophy of marin and tell us
why you decided to kind of builda watch brand yeah, um.

So marin's philosophy is we are built for
the journey and that doesn'tnecessarily mean, you know, we
need to covet these items.
You know, like I designed awatch to be used and I wanted, I
didn't want to take like Iwanted to take like an old Rolex

(12:19):
approach, like one of myfavorite watches was the 16, six
, 10, which is this is heavilyinspired, and the Seiko, the old
Seiko divers.
I don't know reference numbers,sure, sure, and so I wanted to
blend that together and createsomething that was a little more
, a little better built thanSeiko or at least the Seiko that

(12:48):
I had, that I knew but itwasn't quite as expensive as
Rolex.
And so I wanted to kind of meshthese brands together and make
something.
And a lot of people ask me likeyou know what about the name?
You know where'd the name comefrom?
And I was like, honestly, Iliked the word Marine and I took
the E off.
And I was like I liked the wordmarine and I took the e off and
I was like marin, okay, thatsounds cool, it's not like super

(13:11):
, it doesn't really have I mean,it didn't have a direction.
When I first came up with thename, um, I didn't know that
marin county was a thing ormarin county, uh, and I also
didn't know that in French itmeant of the sea.
So, it kind of like, kind of fit.
But my whole philosophy was itneeded to be centered on the

(13:36):
dial, it needed to look good, itneeded to have like five or
seven letters, something thatwas a little little offset but
symmetrical.
Seven letters, something thatwas a little little offset but,
um, symmetrical.
So literally why I picked thename?
It wasn't anything special, itdidn't mean anything to me, it
was just something that you know.

Blake Rea (13:55):
I didn't want to put my name on it or anything, so
something that could besomething in the future it, it
makes, it, makes sense and uh,and yeah, I didn't even think
about it at first, um, but it'sa solid name.
I mean it, it, yeah, it, it, it.

(14:16):
To me it feels like the name isthe utility as well in a weird
way.
Like I can't think of it asbeing like a dress watch, you
know um I mean maybe, maybebecause I know the brand, I've
seen your watches, but you know,I can't ever imagine a watch
being called a maron or a skindiver like what you know.

(14:37):
Obviously, hence I don't knowwhat, what the fuck I'm talking
about right now, but uh without,without having utility, being a
maron watch like you have tojust do sports watches now.

I think at that point that's and that's exactly
where we want to go, like wewant to stay in this.
I I don't plan on making dresswatches.
I don't plan on making ultracomplicated watches.
It's something I want.
I want these to be used and thegoal is to get them scratched
up and you know I I'm reallyexcited to see what these look

(15:09):
like in like 10 years or 20years, however long they last.
Hopefully they last longer thanpeople are still wearing them.

Blake Rea (15:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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

Blake Rea (15:30):
Yeah, pretty much.

But like Rolex early 90s I mean back in the day
, for sure Rolex was making likethese amazing pieces, but like
the early 90s period was reallycool.
They started getting like Imean you know, know, it was
rolex.
right, you can't say shit aboutrolex you can, but I don't know,
but I can't promise they'redoing it right canceled they're

(15:56):
gonna cancel me I did an ad onetime, um, that was aimed towards
rolex, and a lot of people, alot of people like, messaged me
they were you're going to get introuble if you do this.
And it was some service ad thatI did and it was like you could
send your watch to Switzerlandand it'll be gone for six months

(16:17):
, or you can send it to us andit'll be done in a week.
And then it was like the Rolexkind of this person would be if
you were doing this, you'd bewearing a Mariner or something
like that.
No, no.

Blake Rea (16:29):
What you should do is you should try and take a page
out of the Patek marketing bookwhere you're like, oh, you take
care of it, you know, and thenyou pass it down, but you're
like, no, you should beat theshit out of it.

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

Blake Rea (16:47):
Yep, except for some watches those are some watches
are for yeah, yeah, I would say,uh, I, I agree, I agree, yeah,
um, I want to talk about, youknow, obviously not only it
being a tool watch, but when youfirst got the idea for the skin
diver, did you automaticallyknow that you wanted to do a
diver.
Or, like you know, how did youland on okay, cool, I'm gonna do

(17:10):
a diver's watch, um.
And then you know, obviouslywhen you have diver's watches
kind of in mind, you have like akind of a pre-built-in utility,
like you can't really you knowit's not like you're seeing
people who are doing like worldtimer diver watches.
They they do exist, but you knowthat's not the primary utility.

So how did you decide?

Blake Rea (17:29):
okay, cool, we're just going to jump into a diver,
let alone a skin diver, Um andand how did you land on that
kind of kind of designfunctionality?

So, trying to think back, I think the first
idea I had to make it I mean, Iwas wearing, I bought this seiko
.
And this is where it all begins.
I bought this seiko dive watchand it was from the 90s, I
believe, or early 2000s and itwas like faded and I wore it on

(18:03):
a nato strap every day for likefive years.
This was when I was in floridaand the dial kind of actually
started turning colors as well.
It started like ghosting alittle bit yeah and my nato
strap was just destroyed.
I mean it wasn't destroyed, thecolor of it was just gone.
It turned to like a khaki and Ibought it when it was like a.

(18:23):
Just gone.
It turned to like a khaki and Ibought it when it was like a.
It was like a, it was like adark tan color and it just the
sun and the salt just wore away.
But I wore that thing likeevery single day and I used it
to time my lunch breaks at workand I was like this is like
really simple.
Anybody could use a dive watch.

(18:45):
Not everyone understandschronographs and chronographs
are hard to see and they're kindof.
I mean I love chronographs butlike they're not super
utilitarian.

Blake Rea (18:56):
Definitely not.

And the dive watch just made sense to be the
first to produce, to be thefirst to produce, and so I did
this Seiko-inspired dial.
And then I did this weird kindof big long line on the bezel,
because my lunch breaks werelike 30 minutes but everything

(19:20):
was over 15 minutes.
So I was like who just timessomething for like 10 minutes, I
mean you don't need to do thatmuch mean so that's why I did
that on the on the bezel.
But yeah, dive watch just seemed.
It seemed like the first.
I mean, everyone does a divewatch first.
I think it's kind of your stepin right yeah, um, maybe.

Blake Rea (19:38):
Um, you just see people work from like a like, a
subsection of like okay, they'regonna start off doing sports
watches, then they'll work theirway backwards into dress
watches, like you generally willnever see somebody start off
with a dress watch and then gobackwards into a sport watch
right um, because uh, just interms of like, it's just more

(20:00):
challenging execution.
You know, I talked to uh a lotof designers and they're like oh
, you know, I don't want to, Idon't want to dip my feet in the
dress watches, I just can't doit, you know.
And uh, it's tough it really isand and yeah, so they yeah, I
mean you either.
You either start at either sideof the sandbox and you work

(20:21):
your way inwards.
Um, I would say divers aredefinitely the most popular, um,
because if you look at some ofthe most iconic watches in the
world, I mean, they're all divewatches, you know.
So there is that just nostalgiawrapped around, and uh, and so
yeah good stories.

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

Blake Rea (20:47):
That was another reason.
I would certainly agree.
Let's see if we can try andpivot into Altarum.
What I read about the brand wasyou said that you were working
at honeywell, which was weird,because whenever I mean even
address this in in the articleor the about page, like

(21:10):
honeywell, doesn't make watchesbut, you said something about
like was it your boss that had along jeans comet that kind of
like you were stoked on, yes,and and the long jeans comet
dude was a badass watch and Ithink they should come back out
with it because it's so cool.

It would I mean, it would kill today to for long
jeans to redo that watch, um,but that was kind of my first
introduction into like theseweird complicated disc kind of
style watches, and with alterumI was like, okay, let's do
something flat.
The goal was to keep it thin,um, and yeah, I was working for

(21:53):
honeywell at the time so Istarted designing this.
Uh, dude, I should show you, Ishould send you some of the
drawings I did with this, orfirst, first god awful, they're
horrible and I don't really draw.
I draw on illustrator with likeshapes and stuff yeah so but

(22:15):
yeah, this it's.
It's kind of funny how this cameabout.
But um, yeah it's.
He had this launching commentand this was when I was first
getting into watches.
I didn't really know much andthen I started learning through
other watchmakers that worked atHoneywell, like kind of how
watches were put together andbuilt, and that got me

(22:35):
introduced into Eikapod and MarkNewsome and it kind of just
went from there.
It kind of just went from there.
I finished the design prettyquickly but then I had to tweak
it a little bit and make itbetter.
It was very.
The first watch wasn't a worldtimer, it was a dive watch for

(22:57):
Altair and it was quartz.
It was quartz and I was tryingto get Casio to help build me a
module where you have your divewatch right and it has a pusher
and you push this pusher and thebezel automatically rotates to

(23:22):
where your minute hand is.

Blake Rea (23:24):
And then your dive time starts.
And then then your time starts,and then it resets back to zero
.

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

Blake Rea (23:39):
how did that?
So you?
So what did cassio say?
Like you kind of left us on thecliffhanger there I got no
response.
Okay, so your concept?
You pitched it to Casio andjust never heard from them.
Yeah, they were like who thefuck is this guy?
Yeah, Well, it's still a coolidea, it's dude, it would be
awesome.

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

(24:19):
to wes.

Blake Rea (24:24):
I'm sure wes will know how to make it work, or I
should actually, I really should.

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

Blake Rea (24:50):
Yeah, it's kind of oh , yeah, yeah, I'll, um, I'll
definitely link everybody, Imean you guys you guys have to
check this out.
I mean, it is beautiful,beautiful watch, um, and then
yeah, in terms of uh, so for Imean, I generally don't think
about honeywell as a watchmakerand you know, the way that you

(25:12):
just made it sound like, youmade it sound like there was a
bunch of watch designers there,you know, is that there's a
bunch of watchmakers there, okay, okay, um they don't put
watches together, um they workon my instruments yeah,
classified projects yeah, okay,that makes sense that's how I
ended up at the lab.

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

Blake Rea (25:44):
Uh, isn't that where they did the the bomb site thing
?

yeah, the manhattan project.

Blake Rea (25:48):
This is oppenheimer yeah, yeah they were filming out
here for a little while damn,that's pretty awesome yeah I saw
that movie and uh, and then Isort of went back and did some
research, you know, because inthe in the movie you see him
kind of like, you know, like,getting the town together
because he owned, oppen, likeown that land apparently.
And then, uh, and then hebuilds Los Alamos like all

(26:11):
around it, which is kind of acool little like little side
story.
Um, it's cool Like.

I, I love like world war two history and kind
of like secret history and CIAstuff and um, yeah, so it's cool
working there, it's interesting.
I mean it's, you know, it's waymore boring than you think, but
yeah, so that got me out hereinto the desert.

(26:37):
And then Marin came aboutduring COVID, which is
interesting.

Blake Rea (26:44):
Yeah, I would never uh a dive watch brand to come
out of new mexico.

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

Blake Rea (27:06):
Yeah, yeah.

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

Blake Rea (27:10):
Sure sure.

But yeah, we've got some really really pretty
high alpine lakes and a couplelakes on the backside of some
mountains.
One I visited last year.
It's called Wheelereler Peakand it's the tallest mountain in
New Mexico it's 13.1.
It's not anything to boastabout it's.
It takes like four hours.
But I went down the backsideand camped, set up a camp and

(27:37):
just kind of snorkeled aroundthe water up there.
I was cold.

Blake Rea (27:43):
Yeah, I live in Vegas and yeah, I mean we have
obviously a little bit of wateraround us, but I think I've
drove through Mexico, at leastlike once, and I don't remember
ever seeing any water.
I mean, you got to find it.

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

(28:22):
and it's awesome.
A lot of people dive there itmakes sense.

Blake Rea (28:27):
Yeah, um, yeah, no, I mean I, I, yeah no no water for
me.
Thank you, um, let's see if wecan jump back into, uh to marin.
And and then not only that too,but your design background.

(28:48):
I've noticed between betweenthe two watches, um, they're
very minimalist.
Yeah, like that, you followvery minimalist design, uh,
aesthetics, and how important isthat for you?
Um, I mean, it seems likeyou're one of those form follow

(29:09):
function designers.
Um, so do you ever see yourselfkind of ramping up in terms of
kind of the design or do youjust plan to kind of do the less
is more?
Addition by subtraction.

Type of design principles I think it depends on
the product.
Really, it depends on you knowwhat it is that I'm designing?
Um, because I've designed.
I've designed a couple ofthings.
I've designed chairs, um, I'vedone nothing, none that were
made like, I haven't made anymoney off anything.

(29:45):
But I've designed a couple morewatches and I Think Legibility
is the big thing for me.
Yeah, I have to be able to readit and even like I, you know
this Rolex that I have, it'skind of hard to read and so that
comes first.
When I design something, yougot to be able to like, visually

(30:07):
see the dial or visually seeyou know what it is, um, that's.
Yeah, that's a little difficultfor me to answer.
Yeah, it just depends on the,on the um, the thing I want to
design.
I think now what I think aboutmore than I think about the

(30:27):
piece is the space that it's in,and this was big with Alterum,
because I think Alterum is thisminimalist brand and so is Marin
.
Like the goal is to keep itsimple.
Um, design, designing somethingsimple is really hard and I
don't think you know I'm sayingI'm designing something simple,
but minimalist design I and Ihate that word, I hate

(30:49):
minimalist design.

Blake Rea (30:50):
Sorry, that's my word , not yours.

No, no, no, it's fine, like I get it, like we
don't have a better word for it,but it's um, I think of the
space that it's in more than Ithink of the product itself,
because, you know, know, peopleare going to be wearing fancy
things and whatever, and I wantthis to stand out, and so it has
to be simple, it has to beclear, it has to be clean and,

(31:12):
um, yeah, with Marin it was justkind of, you know, a dive watch
needs to be easily read, evenwhen you're like you know you
don't have your glasses andyou're like, what time is it?
You could still read it.
So that was the main thing itwas just make it legible.
And then, if you make itlegible, you know you start

(31:33):
taking things away from, youknow what's not needed and you
start getting rid of you knowflashy stuff and you know, just
make it.
You know I'm not going to saydumbing it down, but just
getting rid of the nonsense.

Blake Rea (31:48):
Well, you also mentioned brands like IcaPod.
I read something about Rescent,you referenced Rescent Leica
and then you know, you obviouslyearlier in the podcast talked
about Braun.

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

Blake Rea (32:18):
Yeah, yeah, I did see that Apple.
You had the Guggenheim, I meanyou had a bunch of stuff.

Yeah, I mean you had a bunch of stuff.

Blake Rea (32:24):
Yeah, what specifically about you know?
And we could, just to make iteasier to stick with the watch
brand?

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

(32:57):
for me.
But I loved the discs.
I loved the disc concept thatMark News, mark newson came up
with and it was really simpledesigns and the case shapes were
really weird, and so for thatit was, you know, the disc dial.
Um, for leica it was thealuminum, and this is the same

(33:19):
with apple, it was the aluminumcase that they use.
Um, and I mentioned this, it'swith.
When I'm designing alterum, I'musually thinking about materials
more than thinking about design.
Uh, and I want this material tostand out.
More than you know, more thanit is a watch, it needs to be
beautiful.
You want to wear it, um, and sothat's first for me.

(33:41):
I was talking to Alfred Chanwhen I was in Hong Kong and he
was like you know, what do youthink of first when you design
something?
And for me, it's the material.
That's number one with Alterum,with Marin, it's legibility,
and so I want these materials tobe beautiful as well as the

(34:04):
actual piece.
So, yeah, for Leica it was just.
You know, they make the mostbeautiful camera bodies ever,
and so Apple makes beautifulproducts.
That's why we buy them all.
Sure, we can't deny that.
They're just amazing.
Even their watches are Notenough.
People talk about their watchdesign, they talk about the

(34:25):
functionality, but I don't thinkthey get enough credit when
they, you know, people talkabout their watch design.
They make beautiful pieces ofyou know consumer wearables
beautiful things, you knowconsumer tech.
Yeah, they make them, they're,they're gorgeous and so gorgeous
and so um, yeah, there's justdifferent things that these

(34:45):
companies kind of bring to me.
Like vans was a big one.
Vans has had like this same uhshoe design for like 60 years or
70 years or how long they'vebeen around I think it was like
1962.
They, they were, they came um,which is just incredible.
Like you design something thatsimple, it'll last.

Blake Rea (35:09):
I noticed too.
Um, if you look at and Vance isa great example, and I don't
think they get enough kind ofcredit, but they really attach
themselves to culture, right,skateboard culture, and now it's
synonymous with that culture.
Like you cannot, it'simpossible now to meet a

(35:32):
skateboarder who doesn't knowvans, let alone now.
I mean you can go to any outletstore or I mean pretty much any
mall and see a van store.
Yeah, and people associate vanswith a cultural, like identity
and it's all wrapped around likethat, like hesh lifestyle, like
just shred everything, likewhether you're, like you know,

(35:54):
in the streets or in the water,like just rip everything.

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

Blake Rea (36:19):
They kind of uh they're, they're pushers, you
know I think hoyer's gettingback to that now too um like
especially with some of the thenewer releases, like the new
monza, um, you know, I'm I'mexcited for them.
I mean, the skipper, did yousee um?
Did you see the skipper?
Really I mean that's sick,super sick, um, and now they're

(36:43):
glass box.
I mean I I think I think now weshould be able to see that from
from tag, you know yeah, I hopeso, because yeah, they're
really cool.

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

Blake Rea (37:08):
You're, you're starting to see it now too, like
you've seen kind of thesebrands go all go on these little
weird kind of like paths, oflike trying to figure out what
works in the modern, you know,the modern, uh, the modern
culture, the modern scene, thewhat the modern consumer wants,
but we never really wantedanything different than what
they already had.
So you see a lot of brands now,um, that are essentially just

(37:30):
copy pasting from their archivesand and those watches are just
performing really well, you know, in terms of terms of sales, I
think, like long jeans is doingthat as well, a little bit um.
Longines is a great example.
Longines is a great brand.
Uh, I was talking to my friendabout it yesterday.
He, um, he, he, he won a watchat work uh and and anyway.

(37:55):
So I, when I sold watches, Isold Longines and I would push
Longines so hard uh, you know,because you know you're not
paying for that that, that brandassociation, like you know,
when you look at an 1100 quartzwatch from tag heuer or you can
get yourself like a uh, like aconquest or like a hydro
conquest for like 995 bucks, anautomatic diver, that like will

(38:18):
go down, you know and doanything you want it to
automatic.
And it was a really hardproposition to turn people away
from, you know, because you'reclearly paying for an identity
with Tag and so I had earned andI pushed launching so hard.
And every time you sell a watchor you know you meet some type

(38:39):
of sales goal, they would giveyou like a little like point
system.
You register the sale, they giveyou points and then you can use
those points to to buysomething, right, you know, on
their store, kind of like areward system and uh and I, yeah
, I bought some cologne fromthere, I bought a record player
like my first record player anduh, and yeah, yeah, it was uh,

(39:01):
it was a fun little way that youknow, and I told them.
I was like you know, like youneed to make the cause.
They had long jeans watches onthere and I was like you need to
make the long jeans watchesmore affordable so we can wear
them and like, afford them, youknow.

Yeah, for sure, for sure it is.
I wish the lab did somethinglike that.
The lab needs to do somethinglike that where we can like.
I don't think they.
You know you spend 10 years orsomething at a at a job.
They used to give out watcheslike I bought.
My first omega was asouthwestern bell omega from
like 1975 and uh it's.

(39:35):
It was inscribed on the back.
It was like thank you for your25 years with a name.
I wish more companies did thattoday yeah, um, they're getting
away from it.

Blake Rea (39:47):
I think I don't, I don't know, but if you look at
like culturally too, like itjust I mean, look at like all
the cool brand, like the coolbrands have done that, like
pizza hut used to do that, youknow, like you could get the
pizza hut explorers or opsthere's actually one here at a
pawn shop.
It was a pizza hut, uh or Ithink it was a oyster perpetual
or maybe a vintage jay chest orsomething, um, but legitimately

(40:10):
had like the pizza hut logo inthe bracelet.
Really, yeah, and then theywhat's the pizza logo?
I'm trying it's just like thelittle pizza hut square, or.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, dominoes, dominoes,dominoes, dominoes dominoes.

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

Blake Rea (40:33):
Uh, yeah, legitimately had like the little
dominoes square there on thebracelet and then that's cool.
Whatever, for whatever reason,the pawn shop removed it and so
there's just a huge hole thereand I'm like dude, you need to
keep that that domino's littlepizza box.
I don't know, I was justthinking about it wouldn't mean
something.
And then, and then, yeah, onthe case, back of course, this
you know, thank you for opening.

(40:54):
You know a franchise I thinkthey did it for like franchisees
or something.
Yeah, yeah for sure, but but socool and and yeah, I mean it's
such a great way to kind ofreward your employees.
I would, I would love to see itagain.
It's great.
Um, as as a self-employedcontractor, I I get myself soft,

(41:16):
nice things all the time thereyou go.
I'm curious, too, aboutsomething that I don't think
I've ever heard you talk about,but I think you probably should
be talking more about.
Is the case structurespecifically for uh, for marin

(41:37):
you?
know, something that that stuckout to me, like when I was in
san francisco, where, you know,obviously, uh, when we first met
, uh, what was so unique was thecase structure and the case
shape and the case form and theway that it integrates to the
strap.
Uh, I had never really seenanything like that.

(41:58):
It's uh, it's like sharp, butit's not, and it's like rounded
but it's not.
And it's like rounded but it'snot.
And it's like angular but it'snot.
And I don't really know.
I'm not really good atdescribing things, obviously,
but it was a very unique shape.
That that was particularly whatstuck out to me the most and

(42:20):
attracted me to the product.
How did you get there?
Was that something that youdesigned or was that something
that you know?
Obviously, like you, you hadsourced, or yeah, so I designed
the case.

Um, it's obviously inspired by old, um,
you know, skin diver cases.
Uh, it's, I mean it's a flatcase.
It's pretty flat but it fits mywrist, so, like it worked, um,
as this watch.
I mean, it worked as a watch,but the um, the case shape was

(42:55):
just, yeah, inspired by old skindivers and I wanted to keep
these.
I wanted this, these crownguards, to be uh, pretty bulky.
Um, I didn't want someone to,you know, knock it on something
you know, walking past the door,and I wanted it to be kind of
like, you know, pro, prof orhowever you say that omega, um

(43:18):
yeah, pro prof yeah like thatstyle case um yeah, I don't, I
haven't really talked about itmuch um but like it's it's
it's inspired a lot by bell andross, like our strap.
Um, the way the strap fits, thecase is very much inspired by

(43:38):
bell and ross.
Uh, they, they, their strapsare really cool, but their
watches are too big, um, yeah.
So, yeah, we worked with ourmanufacturer of into hennex.
Um, the bracelet took a longtime because, you know, we're
trying to get these case linesto come down and then you're
matching a bracelet which kindof has these, or a strap which

(44:00):
has these wings, um, and so thegoal was to just keep everything
in line.
So it had to like kind of youknow, flow with your wrist to.
You know, the line was reallyimportant, um, to keep, and you
know, a lot of these watchesthey just kind of their lugs end
and then it's just bracelet orstrap, whatever it is I didn't

(44:21):
want that to happen.
It needed to flow, um, and so,yeah, we.
Well, I worked with uh, ravinta, hennex and they they helped me
a lot with the engineering ofthat and, um, I think it came
out pretty nice.
A lot of people comment on that.

Blake Rea (44:37):
Actually, yeah, I don't talk about that much yeah,
you should, uh, you shouldupload some of the, the render
that'd be cool for you to do.
I mean, here I'm not, this isnot a marketing pep talk, but
you know, I mean some of the,the.
You know you talked aboutsending me over some of the, the
sketches and stuff.
Like, I think people wouldreally be kind of interested to
see that type of stuff.

(44:57):
Like, for sure, you know,because you know a lot of brands
now, not not necessarily microbrands, but they kind of, they
kind of hitch their, their,their hat on like legacy, right,
they talk about, oh, we werefounded in this year, in this
date, and uh and uh, andobviously, like you know, micro
brands, they don't, they don't,they don't talk about that as

(45:21):
much there's no legacy, right,you know.
but but you're, you're, you'remaking it right, You're making
it right now, so you knowsharing as much as much of the
inside process as you can with,uh, you know, with your, your
perspective customers.
You know it's almost like uh,it's a part of the customer

(45:41):
journey that people don't reallyget anymore.
You know, and you know wetalked about Peter off stream,
but Peter from Jack Mason likehe has an entire series where he
talks.
You should go back and watch it.
But you know how he goesthrough and he shows you the

(46:02):
design process from zero tofinished.
I might have seen a couple ofthese.
And it's so cool.
I think it's just such greatmaterial, it's just so enjoyable
to consume.
I think more brands need totake a page out of that book,

(46:24):
because your heritage is nowright and in the future.
Right so spin it like that.

I'll try to do more of that.

Blake Rea (46:32):
Yeah, yeah, I mean just my opinion.
No, no, no.

That's good.
That's good because gettingfeedback is always good.

Blake Rea (46:42):
Yeah, getting getting feedback is always good.
Yeah, I'm sure, if you, if youleave a form up on on your
website.
People will be happy to chimein and give you all the positive
or negative feedback they canfor sure it's funny running a
brand um talking about feedback.

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

Blake Rea (47:06):
you just took my horrible no, no, no, but it's.

It just reminded me of like I.
I try not to go on like reviewwebsites and like look to see
what people are saying, althoughit's important, like you should
.
You're, you should likedefinitely take what people are
saying and like if you want tochange your product, change it.
You need these changes.
Change it, um.
But it's funny when I get these, you know people saying like,

(47:35):
oh, that'd be cool for 200 bucks.
You know that'd be good 300bucks.

Blake Rea (47:39):
I'm like dude, it costs more to make I, I, I
thought about doing like one ofthose I thought about doing one
of those, uh, those serieses, uh, where, like, have you ever
seen the series, especially withparticular luxury products,
where they'll like, they'll buylike a, like a birkin bag or
whatever, and then they'll cutit open and they'll rip?

(48:00):
the leather out and they'll doall the stitching and do all
that.
And then they'll be like openand they'll rip the leather out
and they'll do all the stitchingand do all that.
And then they'll be like, ok,this is, you know, the material
cost of the product, right, yeah, and then here's how much they
have to kind of to kind ofwiggle in for labor, right?
I mean, you know, people needto understand that you're not
Seiko, like you're not able toscale.

(48:22):
Like Seiko, like you know, I, Idon't know how many watches
you're making, but I'm assumingyou're not making more than a
thousand watches a year, youknow?

no, no, no so we , we started with 500, and
that's that was two years ago.
Two years ago, I think, threeyears ago, 2021, we kind of
launched 500 watches and westill have a few, because I'm a
small brand and so I don't havethe marketing or the expertise

(48:50):
to push out thousands of watches.
Sure but yeah, a lot of people.
Most people don't know the costof running a business the cost
of running a business and Ithink it's an important.
I think more people should betalking about it because it's it
would lend some insight to someof these people on these forums
and chats and whatever about.

(49:12):
You know how much these thingsactually cost I think.

Blake Rea (49:16):
I think they've gotten spoiled by brands like
orient, who you know puts out anin-house movement, you know
bambino for like 200 bucks, orlike seiko I mean, you can get a
seiko gmt for like 350.
I mean, like it's hard to beat.
You know, at scale, like you,you just can't.
You can't put your product andthat's, that's the, the ideology

(49:40):
that we need to get away from,where we're saying oh well, I'm
gonna compare it to a 350 seikoor like, like what like we're
talking about?
You know a limited production.
Uh, like you know, micro brand,you know and I'm not talking
about something that's producingmillions of the same thing.

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

Blake Rea (50:22):
we sell.

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

Blake Rea (50:37):
do you ever see yourself so?
So something that, like um, I'mcurious about is you know like
you're clearly using, like swissmovements.
You know um, a lot of the guysyou know, I guess.
I guess if you had gotten inthe same inner circles that I'm

(50:57):
in, they probably would havetold you like look, you can get
a miyota to run just as well asyou can a solita.
You know, right, um, and sothat would have kept the cost
down, um.
But you know, not onlynecessarily, but you know, uh,
taking production outside ofswitzerland.
You know because, you know youare producing watches in

(51:17):
switzerland, uh, albeit througha supplier, uh, but I mean this
the stigma of having a greatwatch built outside of
switzerland, like it used to bea stigma that, like you know,
office japanese or or somethingelse is a piece of shit, and
that's not the case anymore.
Um, like, so where?

(51:40):
Where was your thought processabout like okay, I have to get
it done in switzerland?
Like, why did you choose thatpath?
uh was it just that, that stigma, that that said, okay, well,
people are going to want a swisswatch, or it was first.

Um, definitely, I think a lot of people still,
like the swiss, made you knowwatch.
I think a lot of people stillyou know, like the Swiss made
you know watch.
I think a lot of people stillyou know, like the Swiss, made
on the dial and it meanssomething to them.
And but, yeah, definitely it's,it's starting to turn.
Um, and there was a.
There was a uh symposium inHong Kong that actually, when I

(52:17):
went there for Dubai watch week,there was uh, they, they talked
about this exact topic, abouthow, you know, chinese watchers
are becoming more popular andit's not because you know it's,
it's because they can makereally really good stuff and
people are making really, reallynice things out of china.
But yeah, it was.

(52:39):
You know, we actually went toChina.
First there was a couple ofguys, one person that I think
ran Timex or something or workedfor Timex, and then another guy
that it's been so long.
But I was talking with thesepeople in China and they told me
that nobody builds dive watchesanymore.

(53:00):
No one wears dive watches.
You can't sell this for $1dollars.
There's no way they wanted meto make like a daniel wellington
, you know, cheap watch to sellmillions of and I was like no,
like, if that's what I'm goingto deal with, I'm going to go to
switzerland, and so I I youknow kind of put my feelers out
there with a bunch of differentpeople, and the swiss people

(53:22):
were just the most honest.
Honestly, I'm not sayingthey're dishonest in China, but
it's like the people that Ispoke with were just.

Blake Rea (53:30):
Like more supportive of the idea.
Yeah, they were more supportiveof my design.

When I was speaking to the people in China,
I could have found the wrongpeople, but yeah, we worked with
Reventa Henex and they've justbeen amazing.
Um, it could be I could havefound the wrong people, um, but
yeah, we work with for VentaHennix and they've just been
amazing, amazing, amazing,amazing.
So, and they do cost more, like, they cost a lot of money.
It costs a lot to make a Swissmade watch, um, but the amount
of like communication that wehave and you know, although I

(54:02):
have to be on their time zonemost of the times, or most of
the, you know, some of themeetings I have, it's way past
midnight super early yeah andeverything else just runs so
smooth.
So that's really why I stuckwith RuntainX and I will
continue to use them, becausethey're just so amazing and
they're really supportive andright now we're working on a

(54:26):
watch, we're trying to figureout feasibility, and they've
been really, really, really opento the different ideas that I
have with the build and how manywe're going to do.
It's a great relationship.

Blake Rea (54:43):
Do you ever come at them?
Because I've heard twodifferent design sides where you
say look, I'm just going todesign a watch, uncompromised,
uncompromised.

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

Blake Rea (55:09):
you need to.
You definitely need to uploadthose, um, and and then, and
then the other.
I've heard the other side whereyou say, hey, I want to design
a watch within this budget.
Here is kind of a couple ofthings that I have on paper, and
then you know the, you know themanufacturer will come back and

(55:29):
say, oh, we're have to cut thisor cut that, or cut this, or
like, we can't do that or wehave to.
You know, use this movement orthat, like did you ever, ever
find yourself yourself, uh,approaching manufacturing like
that or like, could you ever seeyourself kind of going in the
into that direction, where yousay, hey, look like we have such
a strong demand for, uh, theskin.

(55:52):
Divers thousand dollars is alot of money, you know it is it?

is there's a lot of money.

Blake Rea (55:58):
It's a lot of money for people to spend.
It is and, uh, you know, eversaying, hey, look, I want
something more aggressivelypriced.
Uh, you know, but still, youknow, obviously corners have to
be cut.
But you know, since you're incharge of this brand, you get,
you get to decide what cornersto be cut.
You know, um, and the ones thatthat compromise on on you know,

(56:23):
creating a quality product orhaving quality design or things
like that, you know that wouldbe those corners you decide not
to cut.
So does that right?
Does that ever cross your mind?
Or?

so I've kind of dealt with both sides.
I've dealt with with marin.
It was, you know, build.
This is exactly what I want.
I want it to be this way andthey did it perfectly.
Um, I didn't have anycomplaints.
Actually, we went back andforth on the bezel first because
it was shiny.
Um, the first bezel we did wasa stainless steel, polished

(56:57):
bezel and I was like, no, thisneeds to be matte, like people
need to be able to see this whenit's, you know, super sunny out
here in santa fe.
Um, with alterum, we kind of wewent back and forth a little bit
because it costs more to make.
It costs a lot more to makethan the marin.
Um, and we had to go back andforth on um the bracelet a

(57:19):
little bit.
We did back and forth on therubber strap, which we never
offered because it just didn'tturn out.
For the first one it didn'tturn out very well.
The construction was just notright.
I went back and forth with thema couple times on what we can
do.
They were like, well, it'sgoing to cost this much, it's
going to be an insane amount todo.
And then I actually went to um.

(57:41):
Before I spoke with RaventaHennix about Altarum.
I went to Voshea.
If you've ever heard of Voshea,I have.
And they built.
You know they're building likeRichard Mill watches over there
they're doing some crazy stuffand you pay for it.
Um, but yeah, talk to them alittle bit.

(58:06):
But uh, revenge annex was veryopen with you know what we could
do and what we couldn't.
And they actually ate some ofthe costs too, just like I did
so they were like you know what?
we'll take a loss because thisproject is important to you and
it's important to us, and sothey're just just an amazing
manufacturer.
So I know they don't want to beknown, but they're known.

Blake Rea (58:27):
Yeah, I mean they're.

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

Blake Rea (58:32):
Nice, yeah, yeah, they're really known for what
they do.
There are other brands outthere that are essentially swiss
made, chinese brands.
I'm sure you probably know whatI'm talking about.
Yeah, um, but, and they goaround and they market stuff as
they ship it to switzerland.
They produce it all in china,ship it to switzerland final

(58:55):
assembly takes place inswitzerland and they call us
what's product?
You know, that's not whatroventa is doing, you know no,
to be fair.

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

(59:25):
it takes yeah, um, and I'mcurious too.

Blake Rea (59:31):
so you talk about, you know, building watches for
the journey and you just said,like I can't wait to see some of
these aged.
Have you tried, like doing anyof the rug, like the durability
testing, like I'm curious orlike you know, like I think
there's ways that you canadvanced age them too?

So we did a special series called the
Odyssey series and I don't knowif you've clicked on that or
read the story.
There were 10 watches found inMexico.
This is the story.
Okay, this is all fake.
Um, there were 10 watches foundin Mexico in this dive shop
that was closing down and I goto Mexico a lot with my buddies

(01:00:13):
and so I was like we need tomake this story about these dive
watches that were found thatyou know there's not a lot of
history on them, but there was.
They were part of a programwhere you know they didn't
really know the program details,they thought it was.
You know they were testingunderwater breathing apparatus

(01:00:34):
for aqualung or they were doingsomething with recording devices
, you know, 80 feet under thewater.
So that's the story of this.
It's kind of fake, you know.
I just want to write somethingcool something yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so, uh, it was inspired bydamien hurst, his treasures of

(01:00:54):
the lost world, or somethinglike that.

Blake Rea (01:00:58):
Yeah, yeah something like that.

Justin Walters (01:01:00):
Um, yeah really cool idea.
The artwork was really weird.
Um, he could have madesomething really really amazing
like cool coins and whateverfound at the bottom of the world
or bottom of the ocean, and soit's kind of playing on that
idea with the dive watches and Iaged them.
You know, I aged the dials, Iscratched up the cases and beat

(01:01:24):
them up a little bit and so,yeah, I have messed around with
kind of, you know, faux agingand it was fun and it looks cool
.
So that was the Odyssey seriesthat we did, but the story is
pretty fun.

Blake Rea (01:01:39):
And you said you only did like 10.
Did I understand that correctly?

We did 10.
We have one more that's goingto come out soon.
That's kind of gives a littlemore detail about what they were
doing at the bottom of theocean.
So, yeah, we're going to comeup with that soon Still writing
and getting it finalized, but wehave the watch and it's really
cool, Really really cool.
That's super cool.
It's a fun story, man.

(01:02:02):
It's like you can't always, youknow, for brands like us we
kind of have to fake itSometimes.
You know, we don't have 100years of you know watch history.
So I think doing things likethis and coming up with fun
stories that people can be apart of I think is really really
cool.
Yeah.

Blake Rea (01:02:23):
I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.
I mean, you know, we justtalked about how you know your,
your legacy is now right and, uh, you know, 20, 30, 40 years
from now, like you know,there'll be talking about the
things that you did.
Uh, you know, you know thatwill be your legacy, like the
founding days, right, thefounding father.
You know they'll be talkingabout the things that you did.
Uh, you know, you know thatwill be your legacy, like the
founding days, right, thefounding father.

(01:02:44):
You know, um, and no, I haven't, I haven't heard about that, I
haven't seen that.
Um, I, I am ashamed to say Ineed to pay more attention.

So it was a quick story that we did.
Um were only 10 watches, butthis you know.
You should give it a read.
It's pretty cool and I had a lotof fun writing it and I'm
trying to write more, just as anadult.
I'm trying to just put mythoughts down on paper.
This was a fun way to kind ofcreate this story, where these

(01:03:15):
watches were were found in thisold dive shop and I think that's
oh, I mean they sold out likecrazy.
I mean it was quick.
There's only 10.
You know, yeah, you know, makea hundred of them or anything
but um, so it was a lot of fun,it's cool what was this new?

Blake Rea (01:03:31):
this other one that's coming out is going to be
really cool to kind of finishoff the story we'll have to go
back and check what was some ofthe, uh, the things that you did
to, to to expedite the agingprocess uh, baking.

Okay, bake the dials in an oven.
Um, there's like a couple of.
See, I don't know what I'mdoing, really, I'm just trying
different shit, you know?
yeah, yeah, that's all right,I'm just trying to see what
works like.
I put the watches in a bag ofrocks, just shook them around.

(01:04:07):
See what would happen.
Um, I, you know, use differentpaints and paint removers and
different chemicals to to kindof age the dials a little bit
more.
That was about it.
I took the bezels out.
We did the steel bezels onthese Odysseys.
We did a steel bezel with anorange seconds hand which looks

(01:04:31):
really, really cool on thestandard.
It just trashed them as best Icould without removing too much.
The steel bezels look good whenthey're all beat up, so it
looks pretty cool steel ages.

Blake Rea (01:04:45):
Like awesome I know it's great it.
Yeah, I just love, love the wayit looks.

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

Blake Rea (01:05:07):
The bezel doesn't click, it's so it's actually
like it just slides yeah, yeah,I'd be happy to uh, to get
hands-on with some of that stuff.
So, yeah, um, so, yeah, yeah, Imean I have obviously told you
like I'd love to get some of thewatches in for content, um, you

(01:05:27):
know, to help how I can umwhat's what's next for the brand
?
so, um, you, know I guess we'regonna start with marin.
You know, I guess we're goingto start with Marin.
You know, what do you plan forthe future?
I mean, obviously you saidyou're planning a couple things
and you know you're trying toget some ideas out, but you know

(01:05:50):
funding is difficult.
Yeah, so what's next For the?

project we're working on right now with Marin.
We're working on the fieldmaster.
It's been ongoing for a whilewe released when we launched the
skin diver.
We actually I actually put apicture of the field master on
Hodinkee as well.
I took it off our Instagrambecause people kept asking me

(01:06:16):
about it and I was gettingannoyed because it's such a slow
project.
Like, I'm not annoyed Peopleare asking me about it.
I was getting annoyed becauseit's such a slow project, like
I'm not annoying people askingme about.
I know it's gonna be reallyawesome and I'm very, very
excited for it, but it's.
It's a project that's taken along time.
Um, because we're creating amodule on top of the movement
and so we're working with salidato see if it's, if this is even

(01:06:37):
possible, and so we're stillgetting.
We're still going back andforth on what we can do and what
we can't do, but yeah, so theFieldmaster is next.
We're still a ways from it.
I'm hoping in the next year anda half we can have Fieldmaster
sales.

(01:06:57):
So that's the next thing.
I got a.
I've got a bunch of watchdesigns for marin.
Um, I have a quartz watch thatI want to do.
I think quartz is cool, uh yeah, so I've got a bunch of
different.
I got a tide indicator watch,that's pretty cool.
And for altarum we've got acouple different variations of

(01:07:22):
the world timer.
We're coming out with um rightnow we've got the gold pvd and
we have the black pvd, the onethat I have the original sold
out, so we're not selling anymore of those.
We only made 100.
We're doing 100 gold, 100 blackand then we've got two more
watches that will come out lateron in the year.
But I've got another design forAltarum that I'm working on.

(01:07:47):
But again, it just takes timeto come out with these things.
This one's a time-only watch,so you know, updated bracelet.
It's going to come with aintegrated bracelet, um, kind of
the same sort of constructionas the world timer, but thinner
and and more elegant.

Blake Rea (01:08:09):
So yeah, that's, we're just working on a couple
different things yeah, mostpeople understand too, because
the the time that you come upwith like a proof of concept and
then you know, start gettingdoing pulse checks to see if
it's possible, if you couldexecute it, how much it'll cost
like you know, lead time, I meanyou're you're years out usually

(01:08:31):
and and people don't understandthat.
And and now you know you see alot of brands just painting a
dial and then re-releasing itand then calling it a new
release.

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

Blake Rea (01:08:56):
Yeah it's doing something new what?
It's red, it's all yeah yeah,um, I know I I pulled up the the
field master here and uh, yeahand this thing is badass and I'm
assuming thanks.
It's kind of inspired by theflight master.
Is that kind of?

yes, very much so.
Flight Flightmaster inspired.
It's got the Flightmastercolors on there the red, blue
and yellow.
We're doing the plan is to dothree models or three variations
300 each.
That's what we're working onright now is trying to lower our
quantity and just do 100 each,because these are going to be

(01:09:39):
they're not going to be cheap,and that's what we're.
I'm a little nervous about howmuch it's going to be, um,
because I want to be able forpeople like me to afford it,
like I don't make a lot of money, um, and I want people to wear
my watches.
That's the goal, um.

(01:09:59):
So yeah, we're just workingwith revendanix.
I'm trying to get a, a quoteand get all the all the back end
stuff engineered and figuredout.

Blake Rea (01:10:08):
So do you ever see yourself kind of uh like
stripping down, kind of, becausenow that you have your, your
pre, I will call it a premiumproduct.
Uh, do you ever see yourselfkind of scaling back and doing
something more?
Uh, I don't know if mass marketis the right word to use, but

(01:10:30):
more, more obtainable yeah,definitely that's what we.

So, before we started the field master, I
wanted to do a quartz model, um,and that would be kind of our
sub 850 model, you know,something under 850 dollars.
That's the goal, so but yeah, Idefinitely see us doing
something like that.
It's just, you know, we'restill young and still getting

(01:10:54):
our feet on the ground andtrying to figure out exactly
where we fit yeah, no, I um this.

Blake Rea (01:11:03):
This is badass, so I I love it it's cool, I, I think.
I think it's weird timing too,considering now if you look at
what omega just released.
I mean, we're talking now injanuary, uh, of 2025, but they
just re-released the flightmaster and uh, and I wasn't, I
was a badass watch, though it'scool it it is, I'm, I'm, I like

(01:11:26):
vintage omega.
I just I feel like they fuck itup when they you know kind of,
do you know re-release?
I mean especially the new one.
The new one, like it's so faraway from the original flight
master yeah, it is that it.
It just I don't know.
It just gets lost for me.

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

Blake Rea (01:11:59):
I don't know what movement they use in that.

I'm not sure it's in-house, yeah, in-house,
yeah but I've heard it's reallythick and so it's like make it
thinner.
It's chronograph yeah make it50 meters.

Blake Rea (01:12:08):
No one needs to go diving with it yeah, that's the
thing like, if you look at likegoing from the 50s to the 60s to
the 70s, like they were using,uh, the 861 calibers.
Well, in the 50s they were,they didn't exist but uh, they
were using lamania stuff andthen they went into the 321 and

(01:12:30):
then they went the 861 and yada,yada, yada.
But anyways, you know, back inthe day they were using a lot of
manual winding uh movementswhich were kind of.
Now you don't see a lot ofbrands, especially in
chronographs, doing manualwinding chronographs anymore, um
, and they're kind of like I've,I've uh kind of um, kind of

(01:12:51):
coined them as kind of the, thev12 of the chronograph, you know
um like you just you just don'tsee a lot of v12 like cars
anymore.
You know, like maybe like a twinturbo v8 or something you know,
and some of the you know, likecrazy car but um, but no, and
and now because they've started,you know, scaling up and and

(01:13:14):
using, uh, you know, goingautomatic, like the market has
demanded that they go automatic.
And now you see them definitelypushing up the case size and um
, and thickness, and uh, andomega is a weird brand because
you know everything they do isin-house, right and and yeah,

(01:13:35):
what they, what they did was I.
I went at length and kind ofwent on a rant about this, but
they essentially took one oftheir, their core uh, they took
one of their existing movementsand just popped a little, a
little module on top of it andthat's what.
That's what brands used to doback in the day when they wanted
to make chronographs.
You know, yeah, they took abase movement, put a module on
top and then released achronograph.

(01:13:57):
You know, yeah, um, and and nowyou know, you see, you know
brands they're doing.
You know zenith got credit forthe fully integrated chronograph
without a module, but but itdefinitely adds to the bulkiness
of the watch and uh, and yeah,it's, it's a weird release to me
and I mean I think it's likeit's like it's, it's a thick one

(01:14:19):
, it's like I think it's a weirdrelease to me and I mean, I
think it's like it's like it's athick one.
I think, it's like 14, 15, 16millimeters thick.

Holy cow really.

Blake Rea (01:14:28):
Yeah, it's up there, if I remember correctly.

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

Blake Rea (01:14:42):
13 is big, it is.

If we can keep it at 13 or under.
You know, however, we can kindof cut space and, um, make it
thin.
We're going to do that, causethat's the goal.
Like with both of these brandsthat I have, I want them to be
thinner, um, I want them to beto hug the wrist better, and I
want them to be thinner.
I want them to be to hug thewrist better.
And thin is cool.

(01:15:03):
Thin watches are cool.
I mean, you don't need a bigchunk of steel on your wrist.
So you know, like, the SkinDiver is 11 and a half
millimeters, the Alterum is 10.
So, you know, if we can golower, that'd be great.

Blake Rea (01:15:18):
Do you ever see yourself kind of, uh, having fun
with materials?
You know, I know, right now youknow, using steel, um, you know
you're you're doing pvd bezels,uh, and even you know you
talked about some of the, theall theorems, where you did the,
the gold pvd do you ever seeyourself experimenting with.

(01:15:40):
You know some of the morecommonly used materials you see
now titanium, ceramic uh carbonfiber, I mean, those are all
kind of pushing the the envelopenow.
And you see brands I would loveto do like a carbon fiber marin.

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

(01:16:21):
case for the mariner.
I think it'd be awesome.
Titanium would be badass um, andyou know what, I haven't really
done much research intotitanium.
I don't really.
I don't have anything that'stitanium, and so maybe I should
get something that's titaniumand just kind of play around
with the material a little bitbefore we kind of dive into it.
But the carbon fiber thing isreally cool I've heard.

Blake Rea (01:16:44):
I mean I'm not, um, I'm not into the manufacturing
side, but I've heard it isrelatively easy to transition
from steel to manufacturing, uh,from steel to titanium, um,
because from my understanding,you can use the same type of cnc
machining machines and then, um, the only thing is, from my
understanding, you can use thesame type of cnc machinings, uh
machines and then um.

The only thing is, from my understanding, it's
just harder to get the samefinish yeah so I can do, like a
lot of titanium cases are, justdo a matte finish blast it with
some beads and be done with it.
Dude, that's I mean, I want todo a bead blasted marin case.
I want to take one and beadblasted, like we did the alterum

(01:17:23):
.
The alterum is a bead blastedglass bead blasted case and it
looks.
It needed to look like, youknow, the leica case that they
made.
It needed to look like theapple keyboard or the you know
the apple computer.
Um aluminum.
That was the goal and so, yeah,it'd be cool, it'd be cool to
do like a v-blasted titaniumwatch case for marin that'd be

(01:17:48):
awesome.

Blake Rea (01:17:49):
Yeah, I would love to see that.
Um, I don't want to take anymore of your time here.
We are running up on almost afeature film here, almost an
hour an hour and 20, 20 minutes.
Um, we've been doing this thingwhere we've been kind of turning
our platform over.
Um, so I know we talked about alot.
We talked about the early days,kind of up until now.
You know the future of thebrand, you know the things that

(01:18:11):
you hope to do.
Um, is there anything that youfeel like we didn't cover?
Um, that maybe we didn't talkabout?
Uh, if so, now is the chance,or forever.

Hold your peace I don't think so.
I think maybe doing a podcastlater and I've talked to uh
wesley with uh standard h aboutthis topic of cost money I'd
love to do a podcast with abunch of people.
Just talk about, like, what itcosts to to do things because
more a bunch of people, and justtalk about what it costs to do
things Because more people needto know.

(01:18:43):
I think that's what's on mymind.
Nowadays, I get these Instagrammessages and I go on Reddit
sometimes, which is a mistake,and people are like your watch
looks cool, but I'm not going topay over $300 for it.
People need to understand howmuch it costs to make, to start
a brand first of all, and then,to you know, make a watch, which

(01:19:04):
is super expensive.
So I think doing a podcast likethat in the future could be
cool.
Um, but no, I don't think wemissed anything.
I think, uh, I think we coveredmost of it.
You can do this again sometimesoon.

Blake Rea (01:19:17):
Yeah, yeah, we, um, we definitely try to follow up.
Uh, obviously we'll be incommunication the whole time,
but yeah, uh.
Final question too is where,where do you see your brands in
the next decade?

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

Blake Rea (01:19:45):
Um, I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you have okay.
Well, maybe we can spend it alittle easier.
Maybe you have some, uh, like abucket list of accomplishments
that you know, might be a littlebit more easier to obtain.

Yeah, for marin, I'd like to get more into the
sports scene.
Um, get people, get it onsomeone's wrist that, you know,
kind of exemplifies the brand or, you know, speaks, speaks the
brand language and you knowthat's the.
That's a goal of mine for marin.
Um, and to build really cooltool watches to just improve on

(01:20:19):
what we've, what we've builtalready.
Um, do more shows.
I want to do more shows.
Uh, I'd like to do some privateevents with people, but hasn't
really the opportunity, hasn'treally come up.
I think you know I had thisidea of doing a gmt.
Um, well, we're going to do thefield master, but doing this

(01:20:39):
launch in a, in a hangar, anairplane hangar somewhere, which
would be cool, like you go lookat a bunch of planes and then
get to play with a watch and butthat's like having having ideas
like that.
They're fun.
Um, just doing some fun stuff.
Um.
Getting more into talking topeople I need to talk to more

(01:21:00):
people.
I'm pretty shut out ofeverything here yeah there's no
watch scene in santa fe.
I have two friends that are likewatch buddies and we talk about
watches and that's it.
Like I only have two friends.
Everyone else does likeconstruction and everything else
.
Um, but for altarum is to workon the next model, try to find

(01:21:23):
an investor really, I'd like tofind someone that could help me.
It's like an investor-partnerkind of deal, so I'm looking for
that but also just to come upwith some really cool thin,
minimalist pieces.

(01:21:44):
You know, I see this brandbeing, you know, kind of I don't
want to get into whatever wetalk about later.
Um, it's a long story but, um,I see I see a bright future for
altarum and so trying to getinto um, different design

(01:22:07):
magazines and different, youknow kind of more design
oriented stuff, is that's thegoal for altarum is to be more
in that zone.
Yeah, kind of do the Resin'sthing.
I met with Benoit I think ishis name, benoit yeah, yeah,

(01:22:28):
yeah.
Yeah, I met him in Hong Kong.
First of all, he's huge, he'stall.
I'm a short dude.
I was like dude, you do notlook this tall online, but
anyway, it was like it wasreally cool to meet him and to
talk, watch just a little bitwith him.
So but like residence is doingsomething really really cool.

(01:22:52):
I can see all term kind ofgetting into that uh kind of
design zone, if you will.
They're not really.
I mean, they're a huge watchbrand, they're known, but like
they don't make much, you knowthey don't make many watches a
year and they're just incredible.

Blake Rea (01:23:10):
And so low numbers, really high quality yeah, yeah,
restaurants is an amazing brandand so, as a watch, I've been
trying to to bring into thecollection at some point.
But you know, obviouslyaffordability is something, the
one that I picked up in genevawas like eighteen thousand
dollars.

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

Blake Rea (01:23:40):
Yeah, it almost looks like an analog watch, like a
digital watch, but it's not yeahit's cool, it's badass.
Yeah, I like the Type 3.
I almost picked up a Type 3.
You know, I'm just waiting forthe right time.
I usually buy watches when Iget a good deal on them and then

(01:24:02):
I'll plunge and uh, but no,we'll definitely have to check
back with you um and see and seeyou know how things are going.
I definitely want to, you know,kind of help make that video
that we talked about.
You know, just understanding.
Uh, you know, I don't, wetalked about it.
I talked about a series, thatseries, but I don't know how

(01:24:24):
much I'll do it, but I mean,people definitely do need to
understand.
You know, when people aren't,micro brands aren't able to
scale like, you're not able tocut the same corners, you know
you don't have the same type ofmoney you can't buy in the same
quantities that seiko can buy inor produce in the same type of
money.
You can't buy in the samequantities that seiko can buy in
or produce in the samequantities that seiko can
produce in.

(01:24:45):
Or I mean, just people havethese unrealistic expectations
from these micro brands and uh,and I have a hard time
understanding that.
You know, um, yeah, yeah, it's,it's weird, it's a it's a weird
, weird, weird thing uh, but Ialso get pissed off at things

(01:25:05):
that are expensive.

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

Blake Rea (01:25:12):
That's ridiculous have you ever looked at?
I do the same thing have youlooked at grills recently?
Like grills are, oh my god,grills are like up there in
price, like really, um, yeah,yeah, it anyways.
Yeah, that's a conversation tohave.

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

Blake Rea (01:25:40):
Well, I want to thank you for coming on, thank you
for spending so much time withus.
Uh, I am hang out for a littlebit.
I am going to link every uh,every all your projects.
Uh, gonna link the marin uhwebsite, gonna link the altarum
website.
Uh, everybody justin, as youcan tell, is passionate about

(01:26:03):
what he's doing and uh, I'm I'mdefinitely humbled that you came
on and uh and glad to havespent some, some more time with
you.
Uh, just you and I, and not hada at a crazy, a crazy, crazy
watch festival.
So uh yeah and I'll definitelybe keeping my eyes, uh, on your
projects and anything that Ithink I can do to to support

(01:26:26):
projects.
I think you know that.

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

Blake Rea (01:26:39):
This is my first podcast that is epic for you to
come on my podcast.

I don't do the, I don't do the rounds or I don't
do any of that stuff, so I'mkind of hidden away in the
desert.
You should, you should do thismore.

Blake Rea (01:26:54):
I mean, this is a part of the you know getting out
there, right people.
You know these are, these areyour products, these are your
children, right?
and your, your, your productsare an extension of you, and,
and the more that you have.
You know dialogues like this,or, or you know, put yourself
out there and you know answerthese questions or or help

(01:27:16):
people understand more about youknow the brands.
It's just going to translate tothe back end.
You know you may have moresupporters or more purchasers,
or it just all kind of feeds thesame funnel.

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

Blake Rea (01:27:36):
All right.
Thank you so much for coming onand we will see you very soon,
thanks man.
All right.

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