Hey, remember me?
Regrettably I've allowed Horolonomics to lay fallow for too long, since earlier this summer really. I can't exactly explain why, but it is fair to say that the pandemic is at least partially responsible. I've had quite a few articles I've wanted to post in the interim, but I'm finally awakening from my temporary hibernation in response to pending developments at HODINKEE.
As I explained in my interview over at Watchsignals (full disclosure: I'm an official advisor), the good people at HODINKEE set me upon my path as an enthusiast and collector of watches. I can't exactly remember when I started reading it, I think it was when Kevin Rose joined the team, probably around 2015. I'd used his first startup "recommendation engine," Digg, and listened to his podcast for a while (Diggnation, which was really fun) and that is when HODINKEE popped on my radar.
It is fair to say that a great deal of the emergent interest in watch collecting is attributable to the work HODINKEE has done under the leadership of Ben Clymer. Ben Clymer during HODINKEE's H10 event.So, I'm posting this because it sure looks like that arrangement is very significantly changing. To be clear: I'd thought this day would inevitably arrive. Venture capital funded enterprise almost always involves sidelining founders, usually after giving them a good chunk of payoff (this may or may not be what is happening). I actually marveled at the fact that Clymer was able to maintain his position for so long. This is approximately his twelfth year with the company, an eon in the VC world. Perhaps the pandemic rendered the arrangement unsustainable, though. The term "runway" is often used in reference to the pool of funding available to a VC enterprise as it operates in the red during its early days. It seems the runway grew short, the pool of funding was tapped, and one of the conditions of new funding involved a new CEO.
I believe this to be the case based upon an article posted and then retracted by Watchpro on the morning of December 1. You can find it in Google's cache (also archived here). Watchpro reports that a pool of funders (including Tom Brady and John Mayer) have extended $40 million of additional runway to HODINKEE. I have reason to believe that this article is accurate and this news will come out eventually. The new CEO bundled with the funding is reportedly Mr. Porter founder Toby Bateman.
So, let's break down the good and the bad. The good: HODINKEE stays alive to fight another day. Who knows, maybe Mr. Bateman is immensely talented and he will do great things that we all appreciate. It is hard to say without having some additional details.
The bad: there is a risk that HODINKEE will not be able to keep its non-commercial (i.e. writing) talent team whole during all these changes. Also, will the new CEO capably keep Mr. Clymer fully engaged in the enterprise? Much of this might depend upon vesting arrangements for stock options.
My chief concern is that the VCs will see the future for HODINKEE as an ecommerce acquisition target and inadequately support the publishing side of the house. In fact, I think this is a real possibility. One of the most valuable assets for the brand is the AD arrangements HODINKEE has assembled. I can easily imagine a luxury conglomerate or a retail network with a weak online commerce game seeing HODINKEE as a route to leapfrogging the competition.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that endgame. It is important, though, to note that HODINKEE has filled the important role of building enthusiasm and interest for the watch community as a whole. In this sense, the company has provided a "public good" of education and interest-building which benefits all the players, including and especially the brands. A good example was Hodinkee's H10 event celebrating its 10th anniversary. This was essentially a free conference for the community and industry to gather and dialogue. The program for the H10 event. Venture capitalists subsidized that public good for many years. If those days are numbered will the community lose this public good? If that happens, what is the implication for the wider watch community? We will have to wait and see.
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Although there are still some who debate the point, much evidence suggests that the first watch to check the requisite boxes for scuba diving (rotating bezel, luminous material, automatic winding and, obviously, significant water resistance) was the Fifty Fathoms introduced by Blancpain in 1953. This year marks the 70th anniversary for the watch and we’ve already seen “Act I” of a commemorative sequence of watches. In early February, a limited series of 210 watches with special dial marks (reading “70th Anniversary” and the series number of the watch) was introduced, 42mm in size. Panelists at the Blancpain preview event earlier this week. Earlier this week, I joined a number of guests at the Blancpain boutique in Manhattan for a preview of the Fifty Fathoms “Act II.” The event was truly global, with participants “tuning in” to a live stream featuring five hosts. Marc Hayek (Blancpain CEO and President) and Marc Junod (VP and Director of Sales) broadcast from Switzerland while Jas
Rolex's relationship with automotive racing is, at this point, very well-established. A Tudor sponsored car taking the checkered flag in Japan. A clearer photo is later in the post. Formula 1 and Rolex marked a decade of official partnership this year. One of the brand's most successful designs is named after a famous race: the Daytona (500). And, the record-setting Paul Newman Rolex Daytona which sold at auction in 2017 was worn by Newman during his illustrious career on the race track. In this post I will detail a lesser-known relationship between Rolex and automotive racing. In the 1960's through the 1970's, Tudor and Rolex sponsored at least one race car in Japan. I initially learned about this sponsorship through my conversation with Elias, which was also the basis for my prior post on Tudor. While I am not the first to write on the subject of Rolex/Tudor auto racing in Japan (for example, see the posts here and here ), I believe this post will be one of th
Today, I learned a new term from an Instagram post by @ebaywatches. That term is "closet currency." No, this doesn't refer to someone stacking bills in some dark corner of their wardrobe. Instead, closet currency is the value that is stored in items that you put in your closet. At least, that's what I think it means. I arrived at this conclusion since eBay's post featured YouTuber Jose Zeniga describing the monetary value of different luxury watches. Zeniga also described a "luxury exchange" that eBay set up in NYC. In essence, you could take something out of your closet, go to the exchange, get an appraisal value, and then use your item and its appraisal to purchase another item that was available on the exchange. The formal definition of money is anything that is generally accepted as payment. In essense, eBay set up a NYC micro-economy in which almost any closet item could be used as money. Money is actually a pretty complex topic. It took a lo
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