The kickstarter adventures of Sólás - solaswatches.com

Time wrote: »

I'm probably not a buyer for the equinox (three divers already) so take this with that in mind. I think it's a tough decision because each one will put you in a price point with a different type of buyer i imagine. Personally i'd prefer the Swiss movement, but i'm also more interested in the luxury end of things anyway so €200 isn't a big deal from my perspective.

Do you know if theres stats out there on repeat custom for microbrands, and if so are people less price sensitive on their second purchase from them?

The Starlight in one sense was to demonstrate that Sólás is serious about watches and watchmaking (and to put forward our goals of that repeater). Otherwise why would someone trust a completely unknown brand with hundreds/near to a thousand euro of monies (even if the brand means well, they may be unable to deliver due to business operation issues, never mind potential fraud).

So it was about "you've trusted us to deliver a cracking price on a micro-rotor aventurine watch - you can trust us to deliver a cracking tungsten higher end Swiss movement powered watch too". While hundreds of people have purchased the Starlight - I'm more counting on people having some recognition of the brand (and being willing to "dip their toes" into Sólás the brand than necessarily hoping that X% of people will buy an Equinox on foot of the Starlight (as I realise they are at two different price points - probably 100+% difference in KS price).

i.e. when people ask "who the heck is Sólás?" they can see - "oh, they actually did something cool with their previous watch model too - hmm, well this is actually a good price for a SW300 powered dive watch and it's different enough that it's interesting to me too...that hey that repeater goal sounds worthwhile, and now that Sólás is using a Swiss movement in model 2 it's not crazy that the guy might actually achieve it".

njburke wrote: »

Diyu, you've done very well with the starlight and it would be great to see you get to your goal of a minute repeater. I'm hurling from the ditch here, you're the guy with skin in the game.

If you offer a choice of movements, it complicates production, I think you are best placed to decide on movement, consider the merits of each, sweat the detail then make the decision.
I looked at the monta website, I was more interested in how they were marketing the watches than the watches themselves.
At £400 pounds for a SW300 you have to wonder are people selling a microbrand watch or reselling a branded movement.

The Tissel I bought as an homage, a sub would be my grail watch. If I had both, I would dive with neither albeit for different reasons, one is too cheap the other too expensive.

I do have a lip super nautic ski, dive watch in a compressor case which I bought mainly because of it's R184 electronic movement, but I also like the look and feel of it.

Definitely won't be offering movement choice - I just meant in the ideal world this kind of option is something that microbrands do offer - the two movements are quite different though and it just costs even more money to offer a movement choice - you don't see many brands offering this (quite often for micros it can be pick the NH35a cheap workhorse option or maybe upgrade to the SW200 as the Swiss movement option). Just not worth it in my eyes - the case would need to be completely redesigned between the two movements.

And yes at your comment about selling a watch or selling a movement - I was considering getting a Tisell just to check out the 9015 and toss out/donate the case - it can almost be cheaper to get a factory watch for just the movement inside than trying to get a sample movement unit of 1 - it happens with discounted Hamilton/Eternas with the ETA2824 - sometimes the watch comes "free" with the movement due to pricing changes in sourcing an ETA2824 - I remember buying a Ferrari watch (from the official Ferrari shop) not because I liked Ferrari watches or even liked the design - but the watch was 290 euro I think after discounts and it was effectively almost a free try of an 2824. It had the atrocious red lume too (the watch design was actually pretty cool in the style of a Ferrari rev counter and carbon fibre on the dial - effectively all of the bracelet, sapphire, dial, hands etc. was almost free considering the commercial cost of 1 ETA2824 movement).

^ you have to remember that Counsins is putting their markup on the SW300 that I would be getting MOQ price on (you're free to get these prices too if you want to order 500 of the movements ) - so it's not exactly costing me 500 x £400 to get 500 SW300s - but you can take a guess in the cost bump which I've said just passes on the direct cost of MOQ supply to me to the final customer.

So yes - the Swiss know how to make their money from these little beautiful machines - and why the Chinese can challenge them so badly in the case/hands/bracelet sector that many Swiss brands use Chinese made stuff. The Equinox would have been unusual in that the majority of the cost of the watch wasn't going into the movement but the really expensive bracelet and case design - but using the SW300 would bring movement cost vs "rest of stuff" cost closer to parity.

Makes you think - how can Tisell etc. sell a 9015 powered watch for 80(?)-90 dollars (and apparently(?) profitably too) - the "rest of stuff" cost must be 3-4 dollars in that case:
Here's a Nazken for $100 that has a 9015 inside:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMce8vnbQMY
^ "rest of stuff" maybe comes to 10-20 dollars?

It seems to me that's why the Swiss can't compete with the Chinese on low, medium or high end cases/bracelets and outsource to China - only for the very high end (3000-4000 euro+) stuff can the Swiss get away with charging Swiss prices for cases/bracelets etc. as in the case for movements - but I can't say I know exactly which Swiss brands outsource what proportion of their components from the Far East.

Order placed - the sample Equinoxes will be using this movement and all going well come next March we can get these approved to go ultimately go onto people's wrists...

And since there's no micro-rotor - I'm looking at potentially doing some interesting "macro" rotor designs too.

edit: oh and you'll note that Starlight pre-orders are back up... plenty of behind the scenes drama (that I don't generally share elsewhere) - the delivery date has been pushed back to November (instead of September) though... The episode has meant that I don't particularly trust Hangzhou to come up with the goods as I need them so the move to Sellita (at least for the Equinox) is warranted.

banie01 wrote: »

The rabbit hole of fakes and trying to find out where the 5000a's all went and I'm left wondering?
Just what level of customisation the factory does?
Versus what's been carried out by the fakers via a swapped plate or bridge?
I would really hope that the manufacturer gets a little bit more discerning in who the supply.

And the direct answer to that question is - whoever is willing to buy 1000 or 3000 movements and stump up the cash directly (not me unfortunately nor most microbrands unfortunately).

HZ confirmed to me that the engraving on the Lobinni was done by outside parties -HZ themselves offer some plating, some decoration changes, but nothing as drastic as who bridge dismantling (or even custom rotors - that's done elsewhere).

We are bluing the screws ourselves for the retail orders too since HZ no longer want to do that for us... (you're peeling back the curtain into my headaches of trying to operate a microbrand ) - so we need to take the movements, examine them, ensure they are okay, extract the screws and get them blued (chemically) before reassembing them - doing that in Switzerland might eat up all the production costs for the Starlight

banie01 wrote: »

TF, I bloody love it when you share the more detailed knowledge such as your last couple of posts.
Thank you.

Oh and I consider it part of a learning journey too - happy to share as much detail as I generally can on an open public forum - the journey and things I'm learning about a small part of the watch world has certainly been very interesting.

vw 1 wrote:

Really is a fascinating insight as to what goes on to the metal casing on your wrist. I haven't taken mine off apart from sleeping and exercising for the past week. Find myself just looking at it randomly through the day to check how it's sparkling. It really is a cracking watch you've created TF.

Thanks VW - I think it's interesting stuff to share in a semi-private/public space (though I am aware we have foreign lurkers on boards too reading what is written here *calls out to lurkers* - feel free to register and post too - we're all very friendly here).

If you'd have told me 10 years ago I'd be wearing a watch designed and pretty much put together by the Chinese guy in an Irish language film I'd to answer questions on in my leaving cert, I'd have had a good laugh! Which is why I just had to buy it!

And if you told me 10 years ago I'd be wearing a watch I designed and pushed to get made - with the support of people around the world giving me funds I'd give a wry grin and go back to my law books...

Hopefully this can be an advertisement of sorts for what crowdfunding can do - I never thought I'd be doing business, instead of lurking in the shadows advising on the legalities behind it :P

Signed off on a new custom rotor design for the SW300 (and paid for those SW300 samples already)... I think people are going to love the new rotor design - very intricate, intrinsically Celtic and visually pleasing (guaranteed(tm) it won't be divisive like our logo :P ).

Time to give Sinn a run for their money (I'm a big fan of Sinn).

edit:
Just as a general tidbit of information - the custom rotor (if/when we proceed to production) will add on 5 figures as a production cost - prototyping adds on a 4 figure cost - but I think as we're losing the microrotor having a custom rotor to pair with elaboré decorated movement is a worthy substitution.