The Business of Watches [012] Manuel Emch, The Head Of Louis Erard And 'The Numbers Guy' At Kollokium, On How To Build A Successful Swiss Watch Brand¶
Published on Wed, 21 Jan 2026 16:00:00 +0000
Plus Malaika Crawford talks Louis Vuitton's guilloché skills and how Rolex is keeping the mystery with its Hollywood testimonees.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of the Business of Watches podcast, host Andy Greenberg is joined by Malaika Crawford, editorial director at Hodinkee magazine, to discuss current watch industry news, including LVMH Watch Week releases and Rolex's evolving approach to celebrity testimonials with Leonardo DiCaprio and Zendaya. They explore how Louis Vuitton is establishing credibility in high watchmaking through craftsmanship showcased at their atelier, La Fabrique du Temps.
The main interview features Manuel Emch, managing director of Louis Erard and co-founder of Colloquium. Born in the Swiss watchmaking hub of Grenchen during the quartz crisis, Emch initially avoided the industry despite his family connections. After studying automotive design and business, he eventually joined the Swatch Group, where he rebuilt Jacques Droz from near-extinction to a 40-million-franc brand under the mentorship of Nicolas Hayek. He later led the turnaround of Roman Jerome before consulting and eventually taking over Louis Erard in 2017, transforming it from accumulated losses to profitability through a focused strategy emphasizing collaborations, craftsmanship, and emotional rather than rational value propositions.
Emch discusses the industry's shift from time-telling instruments to emotional products, the rise of micro-brands and personification in watchmaking, and the importance of maintaining an ecosystem of retailers alongside direct-to-consumer sales. He shares the origin story of Colloquium, a COVID-era project with childhood friends that sells out drops of 300-500 watches within minutes despite zero marketing investment. Throughout the conversation, Emch emphasizes his philosophy of constant reinvention, rejecting traditional business plans and growth metrics in favor of product pipelines, brand value, and scarcity. He concludes by previewing upcoming projects for both Louis Erard and Colloquium, including a sports line with anime and video game partnerships, and Colloquium's Project Two featuring an extraordinary 64-layer stacked dial construction.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Andy Greenberg | Welcome to the Business of Watches, the Hodinky podcast where horology meets high finance. On this week's episode, Manuel Emtsch, he was born into the world of Swiss watches, but operates very much as an outsider. He's the managing director of Louis Hard and one-third of the trio behind the radical brand Colloquium. He's also an active consultant to a host of other brands and entities in the watch world. His watch world is vast, and he's got a unique take on the sector. But first, I'm joined by my most excellent colleague Melica Crawford, the editorial director at Hodicki magazine to discuss some current news and headlines in the watch world. Good morning, Malaika. How are you? |
| Malaika Crawford | Good morning, Andy. I'm very excited |
| Andy Greenberg | to be on your podcast. Well, it is my hon |
| Malaika Crawford | or and pleasure to welcome you. How are things in New York? How's the weather? It's It's freezing, but you know, it's January in New York, pretty |
| Andy Greenberg | bleak, so what can I say? |
| Malaika Crawford | Indeed. It's also gotten cold |
| Andy Greenberg | here in uh Switzerland. It was uh warming up. Cold again now, I'm hoping we get some snow so we can have better ski conditions. So look, let's talk about the news. It's LVMH watch week this week in this time of year, and we get a slew of new releases from the luxury conglomerate's watch brands that means Taghoyer, Hugo, and Zenith, but also the recently revived Daniel Roth and Gerald Genta brands as well as Louis Vuitton watches. Now Maliky, you know the LV, the Louis Vuitton, and and um their atelier here in Geneva and Megin, La Fabric de Temp quite well. What's your take on the latest offerings that we're seeing from L V. Well, I have to tell you, |
| Malaika Crawford | Andy, not that I was skeptical, but going to LFT in person definitely changed my whole sort of take on Louis Vuitton watches in general. So I think I'm coming into this week quite optimistic. And I think if we start by looking at the Tombaugh convergence, which was kind of a hit last year, right? We had the platinum with the diamonds, snowset diamonds, and then we had the rose gold with like a very high shine mirror finish. Literally looked kind of like a a little mirror that that had a large space for an engraving, which has finally happened, I'm pleased to say. And when I visited LFT sort of last September, I think it was, I met the master Guillet or Guillecheur, I think he's a Guiosher, indeed. Yeah. He is a true wizard, and watching him sort of hand Guioshe with absolutely sort of zero worry, zero concern. He was just freestyling it. Would you say zero F's given? Zero F's given by the master Guillosara LFT. Truly like a highly, highly skilled individual. He let me have a go. I ruined it in about sort of 0.2 seconds. And I think they had to like throw the gold in the scrap basket. Oh well. Yeah, but this new watch I think is great. I'm really excited to see them fill in that blank 'cause I think they needed to Yeah, 'cause it celebrates and and and showcases front and center the guiche on the on the dial on the convergence, yeah. I think it's really just testament to what they're doing over there. And even some of the other releases, we've got, you know, quite a few variations of the Escal. I don't know what you think of the Escal. It took me a minute to kind of get my head around it because I don't know, I think you just have to see these things in person obviously and try them on, but I think the Escal case is a neat little thing and I think what some of the things that they're doing with like enamel work on their dials and the gem setting. I mean it's very, very impressive and it's all sort of done in this amazing way by hand in their little atelier. And it's just a very romantic place. And I I I just fell in love with it and I met all these very skilled craftsmen and they were all just incredible. Well ye |
| Andy Greenberg | ah, I mean you wrote a great and um in-depth piece for Hurtiki magazine about that visit. And and yeah, I mean I would agree. I mean the escal, you know, I had to look at the Escal for this offering, for these releases, you know, they're really putting their métier d'art, their skills sort of front and center here with a a new world timer, their back to the world timer for the escal. And then also I really like this dual zone escal, which is it's pretty cool co.ol Which is. Yeah. I mean it's a very simple way of solving what's actually quite a a a difficult problem for dual time zone watches, which is thirty minute and forty five minute offsets places like Nepal. I didn't know this. I have like a 45-minute offset. And you can literally truly track true time zones on this new piece. So it's quite cool. Innovation on the horology and certainly on the finishing side from Louis Vuitton. Ye |
| Malaika Crawford | ah. I could understand sort of the skepticism that might come around from sort of those who are less entrenched in high watchmaking, you know. I think Le Vuitton has this real sort of weight that it carries around, just you know, everybody associates it with monograms and luggage and sort of that nouveau riche vibe. But I am truly, truly impressed by what they're doing over at LFT. So props to them. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you |
| Andy Greenberg | know, it's always a challenge for a brand that is traditionally a a fashion brand or in this case luggage and and trunks to you know establish itself in high horology. But um it's certainly been done and uh L V is certainly um making all the right moves and and and putting out a lot of products that um that uh can get it there. Next piece of news um here in Switzerland, it's kind of big news, uh this event that I covered for Hudinki last year, it's a sailing race, a regatta here in Geneva called the um Rolex Switzerland Sale GP, which they had for the first time here in Geneva on Lac Lamont last year. It's a high-level high-tech sailing league that the organizers of Sale GP are trying to, you know, basically make the Formula One of sailing. And they had an event, a race, a regatta in Geneva last year. And we got news this week that it's gonna come back to Geneva this year, which is a bit of a surprise because we didn't happen. And so this all you know got me thinking about Rolex and its and its sponsorship. It's very sort of focused and distinct sponsorship in both sports and then culture and the arts. I'm very focused in sporting events. It's just uh sailing, as we said, equestrian golf, motorsports still, although less with its direct involvement with F1 and of course tennis. And then you know it got me thinking about Rolex testimonies these days, Melica, and something that I think you pay a bit of attention to and as do I. And you know, it's interesting to me that now, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio and then Zendaya are are our latest sort of Hollywood Rolex testimonies. To me, they strike me as somewhat different kind of Rolex testimonies than we've had in the past. Do do you think this is a notable change or |
| Malaika Crawford | what should we make of this do you think? I mean don't you find that this idea of Rolex testimonies sits apart from like every other watch brand and their ambassadors. It's so like prestige. And I like the way they sort of first of all aren't called ambassadors. And I don't I don't even know what testimony. I don't even know if that's like an English word. Aaron Powell |
| Andy Greenberg | I i it's not. I don't think but it is it is interesting indeed. They are testimonies, they are not ambassadors, they are part of the Rolex family, I think is the way that they put it. |
| Malaika Crawford | It's just I don't know, with this sort of very like official judicial term. I I think that Rolex testimonies are sort of like a very Rolex, very sort of classy way of you know having paid ambassadors which is fine. But you know, I would say that Roger Federer is sort of like the blueprint for them, right? He is like the ultimate Rolex testimony. Loved by everybody's sort of non-divisive, you know, the best of the best. And I would say that Zendaya and Leo are sort of a different, a different evolution of Rolex testimony, and maybe this is their way of signalling that they're sort of catching up with, you know, a little bit of the zeitgeist. What I will say is that traditionally I think, you know, those top tier Hollywood movie stars are always a little bit less sort of we know less about them than we do about pop stars, let's say. There's still there's still a sort of little bit of mystery left when it comes to Hollywood. And I don't know if you watch theed Golden Glib ceremony the other day, but I saw the uh the opening and that was a gr yeah, yeah, go on. Yeah, the host sort of taking a jab at Leo, but it did make me pause and think, you know, everybody always goes on about Leo and his young girlfriends and how he frequents nightclubs and but the host literally said, Well, that's all I can say because we don't know anything about you. And it did make me pause and think we don't really know anything about Leo and we don't really know anything about Zendaya. And I think that is just so the archetypal Rolex testimony. It's like we don't they're not the sort of Yeah. I think you're bang |
| Andy Greenberg | on. That is a a great interpretation and indeed that makes me think about Leo and Zendaya differently. Of course, they make perfect sense. They are huge and famous, but we actually don't know that much about them. Yeah. Nice. Good for Rolex. Well, look, I think we'll leave it there. Thank you for joining me today, Melica. That was fun, as always. And now here's our conversation with Manuel Empsch, the managing director of Louis O'Rear. Welcome Manuel Emk, the CEO of Louis Eurard, one-third of the collaboration and y interesting new watch company that is colloquium, a longtime executive in the Swiss watch industry, a consultant to many others. Welcome. I look for |
| Manuel Emch | ward to uh chatting with you. Well, thank you for having me, Andy. I'm very happy to be on that podcast. And uh yeah, let's have some fun together |
| Andy Greenberg | . Absolutely. Absolutely. So I mean, let's start at the beginning. I mean, you are Swiss. Tell us about your sort of early journey in the watch industry and how you ended up on the executive side of things because you know it at one point you were a CEO of uh Jacques Hydrot and um you know at working at the uh Swatch Group. W |
| Manuel Emch | ell I would say I'm I'm what one could call born in this industry. Um I'm Swiss. I'm actually purebred Swiss. I was born and raised in a city called Grenchen, which is I'm sure I'm sure you know, which is the center one of the centers of watchmaking. Eta has his biggest production uh unit there, but you had brands like Brightling and a few others who had their c headquarters. And it happened that I was raised up in what was probably the last biggest crisis of the watch industry. Uh-huh, the quartz crisis. So I've had a pretty bad experience uh to the industry when I started because I saw a lot of my um you know uh childhood uh or child school uh friends which uh were the parents lost their job. It was a pretty difficult period because the city was one of the most affected. So I always said I thought to myself, you know, I love watchmaking, but you know, I'm I'm part of this somehow I was born in this industry, but somehow I don't want to work there. Even though I had uh quite a lot of family members over the years who directly and directly worked for the watch industry. Anyway, I started off as uh you know, I always wanted to be in the creative part of uh the creative industry. So I started by doing uh automotive design. Mm-hmm. Art center. I was good, but not that good. So I at a certain stage I had to decide that I've I wanna just be uh executive somewhere uh lost uh without a lot of creative freedom or if I wanna give myself a bit more independence. I decided to to add on a few economical studies. Um did I should say in Lausanne. Like quite a lot of the executives in this industry by the way. It wasn't the easiest uh period when I when I when I started, I did uh a few internships, I worked with Alessandro Mendini in Italy uh back in the beautiful years of Swatch Lab. Interesting. But then I wanted to do uh you know, I I I didn't really want to go in the watch industry. I was I was working uh Tsarabies uh for a certain uh period of time in the Russian department, um which was very interesting and then ended up uh trying to find a job where I could cumulate my my let's say creative skills or drawing skills with uh my let's say more down towards economical skills and ended up doing business processor engineering. Okay. Where you basically draw flows uh and then you basically restructure companies. So that's how I started. I did this for a certain period of time. Then I joined um FMCG for two years. And somehow I was bored uh because most of these shops were very um let's say you know mostly marketing or or or or business processes. Explain what FMCG was? Uh I worked for Philip Morris back in the years, uh the good years I would say, when there was still a lot of things you could do, but but I was also in this period where things became narrowed, uh much more um compliant and it was it wasn't really that interesting anymore. It was uh it was well paid job. So still they are. I think I think that's one of the problems. But it wasn't that interesting for me for doing um bringing in my my creative uh ideas i was in charge of of the brand philip morris uh was basically marketing promotion uh for the brand and then i was looking for something different and you know, uh creative industry in Switzerland, um, things where you have a lot of creative freedom, where you can do interesting products. Well, there's not many. There is definitely the watch industry. Uh, but it was a period where watch industry wasn't that appealing. I always remember when I s when I started in the industry, most of my friends with whom I did uh my economical studies always say why you're not going into banking, who goes into watchmaking anyway? It changed a little bit over the years, but back then it wasn't are still friends, a childhood friends because it was again it was a small industry back then. Indeed. And it was very centered on on on on two or three locations. I was born and raised in in in in Gr in Gretchen, but then I uh I moved to a chateau after a certain period so, you know Also watch making it. Also one of the hubs and and we hanged out. There was a whole generation of us uh uh where we hanged out a lot together and I could name a lot of them and a lot of them w w would resonate, but I will I will avoid that now. Anyway, it I had uh had this opportunity with Tag in one of the product um lines um that was very interested. Um but my mother was working in Swash Group back in the years and before uh accepting the offer I uh she said uh it would be interesting or I said it would be interesting to see if it's not a problem because again it was a very small industry, a lot of competitive, non-competitive classes and so on. And uh I ended up being called by Mr. Hayek himself, uh saying, Oh, this is Mr. Hayek senior. Absolutely. I heard you're uh you you wanna you wanna go to the competition, no way you're gonna go to the competition, not gonna be good. Uh you have to come to to work for us. And I said, okay, uh, not really interested back uh then. But nevertheless, I went for a meeting and um and I started with the industry because I hadn't really the choice uh with Rado. Um not my favorite assignment, but it was interesting. I was basically taking care of uh part of communication um events on one side and and and uh everything that what we call 2D design. It was interesting but not entrepreneurial enough for me. I was never really attracted by being in let's say a management position. I have a very strong entrepreneurial drive, I would say. And somehow somehow being part of okay, established brand uh with uh with a good position, but with with certain uh freedom but but somehow not enough being able to to create things uh wasn't really interesting. And uh what happened is one of uh one of my friends uh was um was a controller uh within the group and he was uh the one who basically somehow was in charge of the acquisition of Jacket Hall. So so we're we're we're talking in the year two thousand more or less, and we uh we're talking about this period where Swords Group brought uh bought uh quite a number of we had Breguet, OBC, we had Glass City, uh but we also had Jack Ed Hall which uh fell into it. But Jacques Erault somehow somehow wasn't there wasn't any strategy, there wasn't an any direction and he told me that. I said, look, I'm in charge of this brand, I don't know what to do with it. There's no um direction, there's no strategy. Uh we only down to the CEO and the watchmaker, but uh the watchmaker is being assigned to Omega uh for after sales. I don't know, we're gonna put this brand into a drawer. And it happened that I knew the brand, and I knew it for two reasons, first and foremost, because Jacques was one of the famous names of watchmaking. Um I think one of the most uh important watchmakers of the 18th century, specifically known for his automatons uh that you can still visit in the chatel and that I obviously had the chance to to to to visit in the museum and and and something that really marked me and struck me back then and also because I used to work uh as I said, I uh uh was working for a certain period of time in Sadabis, um the Russian department, and the Russian department was next to the watchmaking department, which is good for me. Uh and these were were the years where where auctions uh happened mostly on pocket watches. Okay. Yes, exactly. Pocket watches were the center of the yeah exactly. So late nineties, early two thousand. That's where and and obviously Jacques was one of and it you could still uh see a few pieces at the Patek Museum, for instance, was one of the names and one of the the the in terms of complications with the singing birds. It was something exceptional uh and watchmaking. The storytelling were between watchmaking and atomaton and that kind of mix was something very, very strong. And so I had happened that I pretty much knew a bit of the history of the brand, which are probably one of the few ones. And I told him, I said, why why don't we work on a business plan together? Because I'm sure we can rebuild this company. And he said, okay, well why not? So we started working off of our normal time on a business plan And then we took the courage to present it to uh Mr. Haig, which uh and I think this is something that I really appreciated working with him, is he always had an open ear and an open door for ideas. So I went in at the age of 28, 29 with a business plan. Saying, Mr. Hayek, I'm not really interested in that radar job. It's nice, but that's not what I want to do. I have something to to to to suggest to you and he started laughing and listened to it. And uh that's how everything started. He didn't want to give me the autonomy at the beginning. So we we were a small team of three people. There was somebody in charge of sales. I was basically marketing and product, and there was somebody for the whole finance uh station thing. But we kicked off this company the three of us. I always remember that was to the year 2000. I did the strategy for the whole product philosophy, the whole product strategy which had basically reinvented which is still what they do today b by the way, the grand second and uh products like this. And we started off with the two hundred thousand turnover, which is I would say not even the peanuts in a company like Swatch Group. Sure. And it was a startup and it was very, very interesting because we had a lot of freedom. Because we were not strategic. We were not of any interest uh the fact that we made something on our side. I worked and I built the company uh so after probably around a year I took over as back then CEO. Although title was for me. You initially said I'm CEO of Louia. I always say I'm delegate board member. I just don't want a title. I don't want to be CEO anymore. I don't think it's of any EUs or any interest. So but let's say uh back then it was still good. Um so at a very young age, at 29, I took over the the the the CEO uh position, which probably was the youngest. Uh back in the years, I was definitely one of the youngest uh executives. And we built the company, and uh it was a fantastic run for a long number of years. We we when I left, and I left at the end of two thousand nine, so after almost ten years, we we built the company up to close to forty million Swiss francs. Uh we had close to a hundred people, we had a manufacturing unit. And I think we established something. I mean we can debate about Jacques Road today. Sure. But but the identity, everything was set. It was very successful. But uh within these years, to make it successful, I had to work outside of the Swords Group. I had obviously access to production, um to movements, to a lot of uh know-how, but at the same time in terms of communication, in terms of distribution, we could not afford uh to work within the group because when you go into subsidiaries you have allocation keys, allocation keys kill entrepreneurial spirits. So I worked a lot outside and this thing this Mr Hayek enjoyed very much to see that we were able to actually be very successful outside of the frame. That's also how I ended up being uh joining the extended management board. Um I got assigned very quickly all Eastern European markets as uh because we always had uh our let's say uh business uh our brands or uh business units, but we also had some operational other operational responsibilities. I was given the Eastern European countries, twenty seven countries. Uh set up. For Swatch Group as a whole. Absolutely. And I that's how I I started setting up the subsidy in Russia. That's maybe also a reason why later on I had quite a lot of things in Russia. So we I initiated and we m obviously with a team we set up the subsidy in Russia back then. We can debate if it was a good idea today, but but but it back then would definitely make sense. And Mr. Hayek took me into swatch management when he was running it on an interim basically for marketing product. So I had a fantastic, beautiful corporate career, with a lot of independence, uh build up a brand the way I saw and still partially see watchmaking back in the years, lots about craftsmanship, artisanship. But at the same time, the more we grew, the more the company grew, uh, the more political it became. Yeah. The more constraints, the more uh, you know, lots of things that I somehow didn't feel comfortable with. And I would say uh the more we grew, the less I had autonomy. Okay. Sure. Which for me didn't make sense. You know, because I thought that more successful we are, the more independence on autonomy I will have. But didn't work that way. So and and and somehow I for me I I I um late Mr. Hayek was my mentor. Um I spent a lot of time and I was lucky enough to spend a lot of of time and he was really a visionary and and an entrepreneurial spirit and I I think I I got inspired a lot by him but somehow for me the vision of uh the then slow takeover somehow didn't fit for me. It was more centralized, it was different approach, and I didn't feel comfortable in this. So so I decided when we set the stone of the manufacturing unit, this the next day I resigned. Okay. Which wasn't very well received. It was a tough uh exit in all sets of the words. Uh had to sign uh non competition clauses. Uh actually didn't sign a non-competition clause. I say I think I signed a phone book. Uh it was quite constraining and uh I didn't really know what to do. I I didn't leave with this idea of doing something else. Uh because I never I was never kind of I never had this idea of a career uh you know, when people talk about you know shadow careers and stuff like that. I I found this very uh very interesting, but it just somehow do itesn't appeal to me. And uh so I left and a lot of things came very quickly, different uh opportunities, including in big corporations, which I suppose please I just signed NDAs. Right. I couldn't join. So you're constrained. And And I was like, okay, I mean I don't wanna start fighting. Uh for me for me I I spent ten fantastic years. I had a great run. I experienced a lot of things I mean can r probably write books about it. And I enjoyed working uh for uh Swatch Group and and um late Mr. Hayek and I didn't wanna uh you know somehow leaving a company like this after all these years um with a mantra like that in the then in the context for me it wasn't it wasn't I didn't feel necessity to to go into uh into into any sort of fighting or legal uh proceedings. Um for me it was like you know, some when you end a relation sometimes it's a bit tough but but but uh so but you had to go you have to go through it and then sometimes it's just good to let it go. This is true. This is true. Uh and then uh RJ, Roman Jerome, the owners, contacted me. I didn't like the brand at all. Right. But I liked the challenge. |
| Andy Greenberg | Sure. And talk about uh Roman Jerome and what that brand was and is and and and |
| Manuel Emch | unfortunately is not anymore. Uh I mean it was a very interesting brand per se because it had it had a very interesting concept. It had this concept of a brand without history, which is totally d opposite of what Jacques Herot was, was a brand with tremendous history. But instead of having this idea of history or patrimony, they basically told stories on the wrists. So it was watches with stories, uh physical stories. Uh started with the famous Titanic uh story with uh pieces of the Titanic and the watch and right and that just you know made it explode at the very beginning, but then somehow, you know when you start off too quick you get into turbulences there was a lot of turbulences um there was a bit of the initial idea with the moon dust but but overall this Titanic uh story uh people love either loved or hated it. Sure. And I believe provocation is part of our industry. But again, I believe that negative provocation is is is is timed. Okay, so meaning that after a certain period of time you can create a lot of visibility, you can uh create a lot of interest with uh provocation, but when it's negative, sooner or later it will come to an end. Especially because of of market dynamics. So the brand did very well in Latin America, some of the European countries, absolutely none in Asia, because it was bad karma. So there was a lot of things in the company which were not good. They split with the initial um CEO in in in in not good terms, there was legal proceeding. It was a big mess. But somehow I love big messes. And I just I j and let's be honest, I mean that's what a lot of people say. I got very good, I negotiated the very good deal. So I told to myself initially surprisingly I'll do it for one or two years and you know it's it's well paid, it's fun, it's uh it's it's a brand that hasn't doesn't have any uh any boundaries. You can go a lot of things. And the way and and and unfortunately I am the way I am and when I get into something I I I tend to to not l let lose until it works. And it was great years. I mean uh I did two thousand ten to two end of two t fihousfteanden. Uh I left for reasons that are very particular, but I'm very uh I can very openly talk about it today because they're they're public. Okay. And we did great stuff. So I tried to turn around from that negative storytelling into positive. We start to be the first doing video games, you know, Space Invaders, Super Mario, Batman, uh, Pokemon, all these watches, which you see a lot today, sure. Uh but we're talking early two thousand tens. We did you know we did the first the Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, and now if you look at Mexico Specials, everybody does. Uh you know, selling a tourbillon watch with a Pokemon for two hundred thousand. My not surprise at AP but definitely did surprise at RJ back in the years and and I mean a lot of people loved that uh brand it had a had a good run um but what happened is and then and this this is unfortunately uh the element so we we turned around the company. It was doing well. It was company probably around m we did a little bit less less of fift fifteen, sixteen million with about three, four million profits. It was very profitable. Okay. Nice mergement. Yeah, it was good. It was good. I was happy. I I I I I kind of balanced my life. I I moved to Geneva. I I cycled to my job. I had a good time. I must say it was uh you know it,'s uh it it was a whole different thing from from from driving to La Chautefond uh in the winter, uh okay, it's nice, don't get me wrong, but but Nochate was a bit uh uh restraining. I was happy to be in Geneva for that uh part of the of my life and then what happened is it belonged to a Saudi investor which which which had a lot of means. But he had also a family office which was running the whole uh companies and that was based in Geneva and there's actually a legal proceeding against uh the owner of the And he used RJ, unfortunately, to a certain extent to try to get a lot of money out. So so at a certain stage when things were well, there was this request of doing much more. So then there was an idea of saying, okay, today we do good, we do uh a little bit over fifteen, but we fifteen and twenty three million profit, let's go to a hundred. Right. And I said I don't think it's a good idea. Um, because I think you we need time to build. You can't just invest money, but said but they pushed for that. And I said, yes, we could eventually categorize the business. Okay, let's make a sub brand. Uh because we were selling uh these story watches, these video games, Batmans, and I understood that the market was maybe thousand, thousand five hundred pieces a year. Yeah. But over that uh amount we would have overproduced. And scarcity is part of our business. So I didn't want to go over a certain amount and and they wanted to Right. And I said, okay, I I I had different strategies, and surprisingly, one of the strategy I used at Louis the with the collabs, okay. Indeed. And we'll t we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. They thought that was not the right strategy and that with money we could achieve everything. I disagreed. Uh it was a bit of a difficult thing and I decided that um well uh and I felt that the reason was not the interest of the brand, which ended up being uh visible now in the class two, three years. So so uh I said to myself I don't wanna be there. Um I don't wanna do something I I don't I don't uh agree on, which is not what is my uh shared uh vision on it. Uh and I resigned in two thousand fifteen. It took a year to get it to g to exit. Yeah. It's a tough exit. Uh because you know, I learned one thing in life is money doesn't always give you reason, but a lot of money does. And that was a bit the situation. Um anyway, I ended up uh exiting and then I had sort of a year of garden leave trying to get everything sorted out. They put in a new management, they invested a lot of money, and then three or four years later they pulled the plug uh uh because they understood that something was not the way it should be. Yeah. And I'm a bit disappointed for that because I think and then even today some people still tell me, Oh let's relaunch it, let's redo. And I said, okay, but for me, what is the past is the past. Uh I don't want to go backwards. Uh but but the brand still has momentum, and a lot of people still talk to me about all these uh these collabs and these partnerships and these iconic uh elements and and I think this good. It means there's still a lot of room anyway. I left in uh the uh I resigned the end of 2015, I think, and then could leave 2016. And then I was like, uh okay, do the garden leave, but you know what, what I'm gonna do? I don't have any any fallback scenario or shadow career, as we say. Had a few uh job opportunities, but I wasn't really interested to work for anybody anymore because uh you know that was my second brand that somehow I built either for i within a big corporation or for an investor with a lot of independence and somehow I didn't feel it to take any sort of CEO position on. So I said, what can I do? I said, well let's let's let's be a bit of consulting. Right. That's how my I would say third career started and 2007 six seventeen seventeen uh early seventeen after the the garden leave I started consulting and one of the very first clients who came to me was in late two thousand seventeen, it was uh Louis R and it's interesting because okay, the company was in a very bad situation. They accumulated several million losses over in the last ten years. It had a very good run when it started in two thousand and three when it restarted with this idea of most affordable Swiss mechanical watch. But then again, very clear mission that very clear with but also very transposable. And because they went very quickly from zero to twenty thousand pieces, took a lot of market share. But then again, it was a small independent company, still is, not highly verticalized. And obviously all the competition started to understand that there was this uh you know, this new venture, this new brand s taking a lot of quick market share with a simple concept of making very affordable mechanical watches. What happened is uh well a lot of the brands started to do lines, very aggressive lines. And when you compete with very big corporate companies with a very uh um I'd say very vertical Yes. Well they obviously have access, they obviously have uh prices which are more competitive. And Louis didn't reinvent itself and started trying to fight this price war and lost it. It's very simple. Meaning that more and more uh references, starting in two quartz, women's, uh multiple colors, until I totally diluted itself. Too many skews, skews, too many retailers, too big margins, huge margins. And basically uh big organization to sustain all this uh without making any profit. And that happened, that that that shift so it was very successful from two to two or three, I think to pretty much two or ten, and then it shifted and it went down the drain for for a few years. And uh so the shareholders and and back and CEO asked me uh if I could uh basically there were hesitating to close the company. And the question was: shall we uh shall we uh reinject, shall we clean uh the balance sheet, or shall we close the company? And my mission was to make a strategy that could work, uh which is what I did. So I proposed this uh strategy which was basically moving away from rational into emotional, meaning that we keep that kind of accessible, accessibility, uh value proposition, but not just for mechanical movements, which is something everybody can do, or a lot of people can even do better, but to everything that makeses valu of watchmaking. Okay. Craftsmanship, artisanship, people, distribution, scarcity, every name it, second market, CPO, whatever whatever makes this kind of call it perception or values of autorlogerie, but at affordable price point. And obviously collabs was one of the things I didn't want to do the same side the same collabs I did with um Roma Jerome because I don't like to I don't like to copy paste what I do. And so they looked at the strategy, they said, Oh, this is very interesting. Okay. We're willing to follow up on that strategy. So good. Thank you. Said, well, no, thank you, because who's gonna put this in place? I said, Well, I don't know, you have a CEO. I mean, I can help. At the same time, they said, okay, but we would like to have you on uh on board. They said, okay, here are my conditions. Uh you we can't afford your conditions, but we can give you shares. And I said, okay, well anyway. Let why not? I've n had not had nothing better to do. I had two, three other mandates, one in Germany and I was about to start my mandate in and in Russia was pretty much at the same time. But I but I would say I had time. Right. So I said, okay, let's do it. And um interestingly enough, I think we were talking Basel World 2018, which was probably the last buzz award, right? Twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen, yeah. Anyway, so I did the strategy and and one of my first meetings, I always remember, was together with the Japanese distributor. So the back then CEO asked me to so we were talking end of two thousand seventeen or eighteen. See I'm gonna last with time. That's not good as a watchmaker, but anyway. So end of the year, I did the strategy, uh beginning of the year the sign the investment was done to assign, as we say, to clean a balance sheet and basically started to implement uh slowly the strategy. Baza word happened, so we were at the very very beginning. And the back then CEO said, look, it's if you have to come for one meeting, one important meeting, I want you to meet our Japanese distributor. I said, Okay. Basically 40 or 50 percent of our business. Okay. I said, okay, that's indeed very important. Um and I remember I get to this meeting. So different strategies, huh? Back call it back to the roots. We go to Noirmont, we decrease the references to ten references, we talk about craftsmanship, artisanship, two line, sport line, classical line, like a Swiss cross. Sorry for that. So we have sports and and and and and uh classical the classical line is animated by collaborations between the classic and collaborations in the middle of the of this l shape there is craftsmanship, artisanship which is, a kind of collaboration, but not that much because you don't push people ahead. And then the other part of the Swiss Cross was sports that we are launching by the way this year, sports line and uh partnerships. So the may the way of animating uh the sports line is through partnerships. I see. And in between the two is materials. Okay. Artisanship, craftsmanship, know-how, other sign materials. So pretty pretty easy strategy. I was pretty good at that, I must say, even before Judge GPT. |
| Andy Greenberg | Well, it certainly um incorporates the the important elements, as you say, of hot orology and very fo |
| Manuel Emch | cused. I'm very focused and decreasing a lot of things. I mean, uh you have to imagine and when I came there was three hundred reference and products. I killed two hundred and ninety-nine of them. Yeah so I just kept one. We had about uh three hundred point of sales, I closed two hundred and seventy. Right. Basically, it was a reset. Yes. It's basically a new core within the old core. Anyway, so the first, very first meeting. So all this strategy, which is obviously very theoretical, we obviously started putting things in place. We changed the organization. One of the things I found was fantastic was the team. Very very resilient. They went through very hard times and very resilient. And actually, within the whole team we had two people uh we had to let go uh because we were basically in the sales administration because of all the uh deals and and and and and invoices and proformas and changes and margins and we I simplified everything so we could deal with one person instead of three. I added a technical constructeur as we say, uh technical designer for for for watchers because I we wanted to upgrade the products and I want to have that in house and I I I uh a friend of mine joined me to support me in uh in um sales because I couldn't do everything at the same time after the the back then CEO, which was very much uh sales, took his uh retired within uh the process but but right basically it's the same team nothing changed and most of the people have over ten or fifteen years of company um uh history. So we we really only we we didn't change a lot of organization. We got rid of every high hierarchy, everything was flattened out, and this was very good because it was just before COVID. Everything was digitalized. We we interacted, uh we started to interact on on meetings because I couldn't drive that much up there because of my different mandates. So I had to find a way to make it efficient for me. Which happened to be very efficient for Louia because of COVID, because we were hyper prepared uh to to be very digital and that obviously being a bit of a game, a game changer. Anyway, it was the whole strategy, but the very fair first meeting was very funny. So I I go to this meeting in Basel World. I meet a Japanese uh distributor and I've been very active in Japan. I mean I know uh it's one of my first subsidies uh I built with Jackie Ro and I spent at least three three four times a year in Japan. So important market. Important market and understood very quickly that uh Japanese being Japanese in a very subtle way trying to make us understand that they want Which of the individuals are the it's not that clear. No, it's not straightforward. The truth, it's about the harmony and the balance. Okay, so they wanted to be very harmonious and balanced with the approach, but it was pretty clear uh where they wanted to head. And I was like there and said to myself, okay,. W,ell if they stop it's finished. I mean, the company was already losing money and quite a lot of money. This was 40%, I think, back then, or somewhere around that, of the business. If we lose that, I mean uh it's it's good we can we can basically we can basically uh close down the company so I was there and I was like okay I need to pull out something and I need to make them I need to gain time. So I said, Oh yeah, so Manuel joined us, he helps us with the strategy as a consultant, blah blah blah. The strategy is gonna be a lot about you know, classical decrease the references, blah, blah, blah. Again, uh the the let's say high level uh strategy. I didn't go into the details with the collaborations. And that's how everything started and I said, okay, okay, I need to tell them some some sort of collaboration. So I I I I I went through my head and somehow Anna popped up. Okay, because I I knew Silverstein. Alan Silverstein. And I knew him from the past. I knew how how kind of a cult status he had in Japan or has in Japan. And I did a collaboration with him back in the RJ Times, uh which wasn't that successful. Terrible one. Anyway, not all collaborations work out uh successfully, but I said, okay, I just pulled a name. Okay. And I said, look, yeah, so the first collaboration I jump on what he says that the first collaboration is gonna be with Alan Silverstein. And obviously Japanese are ha you know. They and at least I short term killed the idea of stopping. So they I started sending wondering okay and then they said okay. This was April and I said okay but but then they they they pulled the thing and say but if by the end of the year it's not delivered, we'll have to stop because it it for us it doesn't make sense anymore to continue. Oh you've got a deadline then. I got a very narrow deadline. That was like April, December, let's say end of November, because still have to ship the things. And I was like, okay. And you still haven't spoken to Alan Silverstein. So so so the uh TNCO looks at me and says, Well, I didn't know this part of the story, and I said, Me neither. I just pulled it up. Anyway, I somehow saved the moment and then I took my phone. I I called Alain and I said so this like five minutes after the meeting said, Oh, how what are you up to nowadays? And he said, Oh, you know, I'm I'm uh retired, I'm you know, just occupied sometimes uh you know, I'd like to do something. I said, how about making another collaboration? And he said, Yeah, sure with you anytime uh and this and he says, but for which brand? And I said, Well Louis R and he said, I don't think I know the brand. I said it doesn't matter, Ala. You know, it doesn't matter. Just trust. And he said, okay, let's do it. So we did it very quickly on existing material, on existing uh cases. So we basically just redesigned an existing uh watch with the dial hands with the story. And it's been it's been boom. Okay. So and the core part of of the the collection ever since. It was the game changer. It was the initial game changer. And it's interesting because it reminds me of what I did with the Volcano Watch in RJ, where suddenly one thing just changed the whole perception of a brand. One product, even it with uh RJ it was the virtu it was even a virtual watch. But it was one of these I have a few of these very moments where you say changes everything just on a on a concept. And uh we did the watch, it just boom. And then from then onwards it was basically building that strategy step by step. Uh we talked about the klassical line. We still have a sports line to set in place. It's still a lot of work to be done. But it's been very quick. We changed everything in 2018-19. We changed everything, and from 2019-19 onwards, it started to be profitable. Right. So we turned the the company with the turnaround was spectacular, I must say. We basically just managed to. You know, we have a very interesting thing in Switzerland when you accumulate losses. You can keep them a for certain number of years and deduct them from your taxes. So we managed to to basically uh use the entire uh joker in the last three, four years. We just decrease the capital uh of the company and pay back all the investors uh which is great so so we yeah i would say it's been a very very successful story with louis and then obviously has to continue and like everything else, it needs to evolve, it needs to adjust, it needs to it it it it's uh Watchbrand is a very organic uh company. You you have to adjust, you have to adapt, the markets are changing, environments are changing. And you can't st you you can't just go on with the same logic uh all the time. You have to have a vision, a strategy, but you have to adjust |
| Andy Greenberg | it over time. Indeed. And you know, I mean you you we've gone through um uh much of the history of your career here. What you've obviously done has been successful at you know, building brands. Um and indeed, you know, there's another brand you're involved with called Colloquium, uh, which has had you know quite some success among um certain parts of the collector community. You know, if you could sum it up, what does it take to build a watch brand. Is that anything that one can answer in a concise way? |
| Manuel Emch | Actually, surprisingly, yes. I think I can. That's probably my my my trademark today. I think it's pretty easy. Uh all the brands I've been involved. I either built them up, turned them around, or made them success successful. There are a certain number of ingredients in the recipe, but I think the most important ingredients to understand the brand. You gotta listen, you gotta feel, and you gotta hear the brand because it resonates. And then there are a certain number of you know, over time expedient call it experience, call it uh know-how, call it uh network. That obviously helps. But again, as I said m just before, it's it's it's very organic, so you gotta adjust. It's a recipe, but it's a it's an ever changing recipe. Okay. So you have a certain number of ingredients but some new come to it, some you have to let go and you have m again it it's it's not a roadmap that you can apply. But I don't know, may maybe maybebe I think the fact that I have uh this dual um some call it schizophrenic logic of being very down to earth, very you know, in colloquium they call me the numbers guy. Uh although I I I believe'm the creative one but but but definitely I'm not for them. So so so I think I have this duality between you know very business oriented business process engineering op,timization, organization. I'm very known for that. I'm very efficient with this. There's also the way I live. And then at the same time, this capacity to find solutions, to have creative ideas, uh to be open minded, to to try in to bring in new things um because um because maybe what what is important is to have a a kind of curiosity uh sure and and my curiosity goes beyond watchmaking, goes uh into lots of different uh fields and I nurture myself from this. So so I I think it's a bit of over time a bit of uh expertise, experience, uh know-how, network, and then it's a capacity to to to basically listen to the brand and try to resonate with it and understand how this brand or this project could evolve and and what what may make it uh successful. |
| Andy Greenberg | You you mentioned before when um talking about Louis Hurard, the rational uh part of the decision making for the consumer and for the brand and Louis Hurard was a was a brand that was simply, you know, the most affordable most, approachable uh mechanical swiss watch versus the emotional element of decisions that brands project and consumers make. Where do you think we are on that pendulum, yeah, on that journey because it is a journey |
| Manuel Emch | . I think we went to we we we we left the rational and we're steering towards the emotional. We are, you know, we're not a time-giving instrument anymore. We're not um let's call it the consumer product anymore. But somehow we're not the art yet. Okay. We're we're not the full emotional. We're somehow in between. And this is something very interesting in the watch industry because we're between, let's say, a discretionary good and art. We're not there, but we're not there. But we are on a journey. And I think we all agree. Uh and we see this when the cycles are are are are uh kicking in. Nobody needs a watch. Nobody buys a watch for purely rational reasons. Um but at the same time we see that evolution from uh especially also when you look at the major trends, okay, consolidation, the winner takes it all, independence, which are more people than brands, personification, you know, the artisan, the craftsman, the owner, the the the the watchmaker and the micro brands. Uh kind of cool, popping up different, uh extremely agile and reactive products and everything that doesn't fit in one of these categories somehow will have a hard time. And that that shows that these these major trends are happening and and and that shows also that today the consumer looks at watchmaking different. Yes. So we long gone, any sort of uh instrument or time giving device. Status still there, but status is changing, and the status is changing very quickly. The importance of the creator, the person. Um we see this Max is a very good example or others. Max person. The kind of the person uh the personification behind we're buying a part of the artist, we're mapping his studio or his atelier or his manufacturer, whatever you want to call it. But we we want to be part of the tribe, the family, the the we want to support the artist. And then the micro brands where we just want a cool product. Uh we want a good price, cool product. Uh we don't want brands, we don't want retail. And obviously, all these elements have been enhanced by by uh by how the market dynamics have changed, how communication has changed, how distribution has changed. Transparency is kicking slowly in, maybe could go a bit faster. Transparency and meaning y the the the the |
| Andy Greenberg | the buyer, the consumer understanding a lot more about how watches are made and how the industry works. F |
| Manuel Emch | irst and foremost educational, obviously uh much more know how much uh much more knowledge. But also uh being more curious about what he sold, you know. We see the scandals were happened just recently in Italy with some of the luxury brands. People are not willing. They wanna know. And they will know they wanna know more and more and they wanna share the values as well.. Okay So I think these these are all elements additional to social media and so on, which has been a game changer. These are all elements that are changing. Internationalization of the watch industry is very interesting. Swiss made, ooh great, but come on. If it's not honest, if it's not transparent, if it doesn't values, it's just a tag, it's just a name. And we we see how quickly we started with the German, the Japanese, the Grand Psycho, now the Chinese, but the Russians, the the Finnish, the British, the French. There is a certain internationalization of watchmaking, uh, where people are not buying a brand uh distribution network uh marketing still a bit but a marketing capacity or uh regional routing or a national routing, but they're buying a product. So fundamentally, what has changed a lot is we we we're on this journey, but in this journey, we're also moving away from brands to products. And even within the biggest brands, people are focusing on certain products. You know, um Royal Oak. Probably what everybody is more striving than certain other products, or or or Natalie's or an Aquanaut, or you know, it's it's with even within the very, very strong brands. So products versus brands, indeed. The products that take uh the lead. These are logical things that happen because of the way the watchmaking is evolving, where again it's down to what you have on the wrist, who is behind it, how it's done, and what it stands for. And so what does that mean |
| Andy Greenberg | as someone who's both worked in you know for the major manufacturer, big industry groups, and also for much smaller companies and then, you know, basically colloquium is a micro brand that you're a part of. You know, where is the industry going? What does that mean for the big brands, for the Richmonds, for the SWATS groups. Well, |
| Manuel Emch | you can see you can see uh if we talk for the big groups, I mean you first see uh results of I mean two of them very recent. One is a major shift to um jewelry, high jewelry. I mean which is totally meaning what the brand is doing, yeah. And a a kind of shift into the second uh row of watchmaking. I'm not talking of all the brands, but a lot of the brands. Let's say the focus is shifting away, which I think is a very strong meaning. And then we see the results of the swatch group, which are definitely largely negative, but still somehow slightly positive. They're an optimistic bunch. Oh and and I I I must admit the the AI move uh to to put the focus away from from the reality uh that I think is is is a bit afraid, and as a former uh part of it, uh somehow also also heartbreaking. It is what it is. I mean, if they're not capable to recreate, to put back into the center, not managing, not business plan, not forecasts, not volume, not distribution, not retail, but what really matters, the product, the value proposition, the the attractivity, the scarcity, they will be on losing ground. I mean that that's some more than others, some uh shifting into uh other fields which were I would say these values were distribution, marketing, retail is still more important than in watchmaking. That's why I say, I mean, the market is clearly in a way you're either the leader or the challenger, or then you have to be super creative, super personal, you gotta offer something different. And I see making this little footnote: how I don't like to use the word easy because it's never easy, but how impactful. we We m managed to do a colloquium, although we're just the three of us, although it was a COVID project uh where we were basically stuck and then started talking about what we would like to do for us instead of doing for others. Because both of my partners in in crime used to work with Bacht, I know, since I'm 15 or 14 childhood. He has been my creative counterpart on all the projects I did in my career. We've been working on all the brands together and Amr, which which uh happened to be a client of mine when he was nineteen and I'm Jack Ero times to have clients on Lausanne which are less than 20 or around 20 years old or very uncommon. Exactly. They somehow stick close to these people uh and and then had uh uh one of the first if not the first uh community managers social media and so on and and and basically helped me also with the bit with turning around uh Louis Ar because when I came in there was no internet there was no there was not even an Excel database there was not there was nothing it was business cards in a in a file and and and and some sort of uh internet page with or not web shop and and and and and eighty percent of the of the people on the Instagram account were basically sorry to say without any any but basically I had it from Indonesia or Pakistan which, most of the time means what it means. So basically bought uh followers and it's just there was nothing. We had to build and he helped me a lot for this. And basically both of them challenged me, saying, we help you, we do things together, we help other brands. Let's do something for us. Both of them independent because they don't didn't uh know each other and um sorry for my English, but but but both of them broke my ears, not to say anything else. And I say dude That's perfectly clear. Dude you know what? It's probably better if we meet all the three of us. And it was very, very funny because the very first meeting, which was at my place. So they come on time, but but basically they took the train, they came to my place. I ring on the door, I open the door, my phone rings. It's the Swiss Confederation saying I have to quarantine because I have called it. Right away. So that's why I say it really is a comet project. So I had to quarantine and then we started talking on the over the phone and you know all these things uh how they happened. And we never wanted to do uh uh it was never and we call it the project, not the brand. And the idea was just to make a few watches for us and our friends. So we did our first prototype. We ha we we made a lot of innovation in uh in watch design. Lots of things have never been done by uh before with a lot of uh in terms of the loom and uh and and the you know the way we just wore it on the wrist and geneva watch days uh twenty twenty two years ago, twenty twenty three. And people started to ask us what is this? I said, Oh, it's just a project for us. And then we just that's how we started. Um we sold off the first hundred pieces basically off the wrist. Uh people say off the shelves, we sold it off the wrist without any marketing, nothing and and we never have invested one single cent into marketing. Uh so basically uh untrue we we we did a nice film social yes I did the film the film short film. The film was fun. Uh we obviously but social media Amor is doing uh internet site we do together, the we do everything ourselves and we're just the three of us. And it's interesting because we we we started to be in a mode of we make a drop every three months, four months, um depending obviously of uh on on on the development, because we b the three of us are perfectionists, so that doesn't make it easy. And in general there are runs of three hundred to five hundred and we tend to sell them in a few seconds or minutes. Yeah. Which is great. I mean uh we have to obviously continue and develop it over time. But from day one also said we need to have i i a direct consumer only doesn't make sense. We need touch points. And uh we onboarded retailers, ten, eleven |
| Andy Greenberg | . So you yeah, I mean it's interesting to think of colloquium and retailers, but but it tell me why retail still needs to be part of even for a a very specialized, very insidery brand like |
| Manuel Emch | I I'm a strong believer of uh of uh a business model. Balance obviously what what means balance. But if I take Louis R it's fifty percent of our revenue are online. Mm-hmm. And which is a lot for a lot of brands. Which is a lot. And actually surprisingly this year we're ahead of like I think we're at twelve or thirteen percent above last year. Wholesale is down. To retail, yeah. Yeah. But the uh online saves us. It's uh and and we I always said I just sell enough watches per year to pay my organization to be fully independent. I don't want to be dependent on anyone. Maybe I've been I've been burnt over the years. So now I want to be like we we we we have our destiny in hands. But then again distribution points on this the same with colloquium because it's very interesting because both of them said, Why should we give anything to retainer? We have the demand, we can sell it. And I said because this is an investment. This is not giving away something. This is building something for the future. First and foremost, you can negotiate good margins because when you have the when you hold the knife, distribution is a bit is always a bit of a is a bit of a power game. Of course. Uh makes it much easier because you tell them what they can have, you allocate them what you decide. You you basically you you have that that I mean I should say that so directly. But as a you're in the driving seat and that's obviously good, but you're in the driving seat today. Who knows about tomorrow or after tomorrow? Things are changing again. It's it's it's uh it's organic. You can have ups and downs cycles. We have a fantastic run, yes, it's great, but who knows? And then there's another very down-to-earth point is a watch is not a commodity to a certain extent. It's it's it's a very sustainable long-term product. It needs service. Yeah. And when you're sitting in your little ivory tower in Switzerland with all the problematics of exportation, currency, blah blah blah. Uh cost of FedEx, which is probably in Switzerland four times more expensive than anywhere else in the world. If there's a problem, how you solve the problem? Okay. And for me, retailers are touch points. First and foremost, you can go there the and we're trying to have a network that covers somehow the world that at least you can send your watch that they can take care of it they can repair it so that that that's the whole touch point element in terms of service, it's a touch and feel. Because there is a certain amount of people, understandably, who for for spending three, four, five thousand without even touching the project, without even ever having had in hand, it's not easy. And and this is also something that is very important. So that these are possibilities they can go and touch. And we we asked all our retailers to have always one piece available not for sale but for so that we can create database we can create interest we can create activation because yes we we we we can go through our database, surprisingly we sold in f I don't know how many countries. We we we said, Oh well let's choose the places where we wanna go. So with Amor we said, Oh, we wanna go to Copenhagen, how many so much is so sold in Denmark? Seven or eight, okay, is we already have a community, ask them to invite so we can do Tupperware. But okay, this is good. This we can do ourselves. But to do it with with a partner is also creating a lot of credibility. And we did so far one single event in Saudi Arabia and we flew down Amr and me in this particular case and our partner uh Yasmin invited about thirty-five clients. We or thirty clients we invited 10 we had on our database and we sold 40 watches. So you go like, okay. And there are a certain moment in time where there's momentum. So we have that kind of yes, we can sell everything directly, yes, we don't need distribution. But today, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. And I think as the watch industry is an ecosystem. For me, the ecosystem is what makes our strengths. And the ecosystem is between the brands. And I'm a big fan, I'm a big supporter of mutualization. I try to mutualize brands. I when we do events like Geneva Watch Days or Watches and Wonders, where 10 brands, 12 brands, different brands, we open up, uh, we we share because I don't look at us as competitors, I look at us as an as a small, not even industry anymore, but kind of volume artisanship where if we hold together, they kind of together we're stronger, it's very important. Same with the collaborations, same with the artisans, same uh with the with the retailers. It's an ecosystem. And I think the more we can support each other, the better it is, because what you give comes back. I'm a big believer of that kind of energy. What you what you give away com |
| Andy Greenberg | es back. Absolutely. And so you know how many colloquium watches have you sold so far? And then what is I mean, do you have a business plan for this brand? Or I mean what you know what |
| Manuel Emch | there's two things I stopped in my life. The first is titles. I hate titles. Okay. The second is uh business plans. I hate business plans. So with Louis R we have to see it. There's a lot of people who've written business plans for their watch business who were thinking, uh oh budget and business plans. So obviously I had to do a business plan for for for for uh Louis because I was requested. Owtherise I consulting is a bit hard with our business plan. But we didn't do any for colloquium we'll never do. But but even for Louis, I never do a budget. I have the same budget since two thousand nineteen. I say to my investors, this is the budget. I said, yeah, but we saw the same budget last year. I said, yes, and we will see the net the same next year. And I said, why? Because I'm not going to lose my time. And not your time in giving you kind of uh expectation, aspirations. Our aim is simple. We produce 10 watches a day, more or less. So around 3,500 watches a year, based on a pipeline of products. We obviously do a pipeline toward more towards 4,000 because we always have some rejection and things that don't work in time, suppliers that maybe are not able to deliver certain elements or quality that we are not happy with. But we have that framework of minimum three, maximum four, and it's planned through the year. We know 50% we sell online, so we in terms of values, in terms of units, about one-third. So these thousand five two hundred, thousand five hundred. We know we're gonna sell them because the products are good enough. Or I at least so far it happened to be like this. And then we work on the on the wholesale. And all this means okay, this is more or less the target. If we do more, we do more, if we do less, we do less. But then we do more. But anyway, the most important thing is that expenses are under control so this the marketing budget's always the same uh this is for the pictures is always the same sometimes you have a bit more uh free room or we make a little bit more and then we we we we we can take it and then it helps me after three four years to basically pay back my investors which I think if I'm an investor and and somehow the watch industry this is a bizarre thing investor as a in the watch industry means like more like messena, means more like uh you know uh you know investor investing means you give and you something come comes back, okay? Well m you maybe get some watches a dividend for a lot of brands, but but I don't get It's not an industry known for uh general. It's a return on investment. But I I'm a big believer of return on investment. I think that's well if it doesn't make profit, that doesn't make sense. And so Louis Raw has been profitable basically since what twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. Twenty nineteen basically we probably just around zero. Uh uh and then since then it's been very profitable. But also because we are lean, less than 10 people, 50% online. And that's where I tell you, uh that's why I don't do budgets, but I don't care about growth. For me, I care about brand value, I care about uh brand attractivity, and I I I care about scarcity. So for me, more is often less or or or is probably the enemy of better. So so when I tell this to my shareholders, I said, look, we might grow when another wave comes. Today we're not in a wavy situation. Bit difficult. So yes, by just being steady and keeping the momentum and being, you know, worst case at le at the same level, best case a little bit better, we already gain market share. Yeah. But if you push too far uh too hard now, we will put a lot of efforts when the market is not reactive and better wait for a next wave. Maybe the next wave is tomorrow, maybe it's in three years, maybe it's in five years. But I to be ready. Yeah. |
| Andy Greenberg | That's the di that is the real challenge. I mean, you know, you have all this experience with all these brands. Um Colloquium is a brand that was launched in in in COVID times, has done quite well, but what is the biggest challenge for a small watch company and or launching a brand these days and how has that changed from what it you know used to be? Because i uh as you say, I mean Louis Erard was actually a differentiator by making well priced mechanical Swiss watches um back in the day. Now, not so much. What is the biggest challenge these days? The biggest challenge is to re is |
| Manuel Emch | is to continuously reinvent yourself. Um I wouldn't even say reinvent, is to constantly adjust and being creative. What is the challenge for for Louis? Well, the challenge is we did the f phenomenally well in in with one concept. Now we need to evolve the concept. I talked about the sports line. This is a risk you gotta be risk taking. But even within the classical line, I mean, I have clients who bought twenty-ivef regulators over the last five years. Okay. And when when you at at four thousand a watch, twenty-five, you start to say that's that that's not affordable anymore in the sense that it's quite an investment, but how many more regulators with the same case can I do? So we need to invent. the next step, not fall asleep, not redo what we do, but constantly evolving. And this is difficult because that means you constantly need to be on on momentum. It means you need to have the energy, the time and the availability to reinvent yourself and you have to avoid to fall in traps. Uh you know, you see a lot of the brands are struggling today because of the market environment. They they basically focus on how to survive. And that's probably the worst. Uh at the same time it's very necessary because if you don't have back you're not back to the wall, you if you're too comfortable you're human beings. I I'm lazy. So it's if if if if if if I have no reason to do something, why should should I do it? But I think it's this kind of capacity to innovate, call it innovate, whatever it means, create push boundaries, to to basically that organic, to give space to this organic element which is which is uh the brand. And I think this is the most challenging. And and and really put creativity and product into the center because that's what it is. People want to buy a product, a cool, very well made. Uh product C very good interesting thing if you take complicated watches. Ten is fifteen years back, it was all about the complication. The tourbillon, the minute repeater, the QPs and and and i i if you can put twenty five tourbillons on top of each other was great. Okay, so that was the strive. Today it's all about finishing, artisanship. It's all about simple three hands with extremely high level of finishing, the number of introvert angles or or the hours spent on on the veiling and so on is what counts. It's totally different. It could be more not be more opposite. And this happened, this shift happened in 10, 15 years. So you know we, went from crazy three constructive watchmaking with as maximum complication on top of each other, very particular cases formed in high end to simple, pure, very highly finished, very asymmetric if possible, very independent, uh, and and and lots of craftsmanship and low volumes. Two different worlds, but in the same. And and that's what I mean with the whole concept of watchmaking. You I don't think you have to change all the time, but you have to adapt to the market needs. You have to adapt how consumer trends are changing, how uh you know, and and and I think it's a mistake that a lot of the corporate groups are doing is they don't understand that because they're they're not close enough to the client. This kind of strengths they had in the past, which was the number of intermediates, okay. We have our subsidies, we have our retailers, we have our teams and brand managers and so on. Today is a huge which back then was a great uh how do you say innovation sure uh funnel funnel to br to bring back uh things and to to to be as close as possible to the markets but today uh the market is there's no distance anymore between the the client or the collector or the consumer and the brand. And when you build over a year such a pie such a number of intermediates, that's where they're weak today. Because their strengths of 10 years ago is their weakness of today. And uh and I think this is that's what I mean. Things are changing all the time. And then you and you I I think the most important thing is to just basically constantly reinvent yourself. |
| Andy Greenberg | Excellent. Last thing. I mean, um you know, what will we see next from Manuel Emke and and from from Louis Hurard, from Colloquium? Uh maybe something else which should be be looking out for and uh yeah, what's next? Ooh, plenty of things |
| Manuel Emch | . Uh I I'm a pipeliner in the sense that uh I think for both brands I have uh we have projects for the next three or four years. Because again, cre we like to create, I like to create, we like to do projects. Projects change, evolve. Sometimes you pull them out, so change them. But but for me a pipeline product is is probably the most important element. So getting back to budgets and forecasts and strategies, product. Pipeline is just the only thing that really matters to me. If it comes to Lia, I told you about the idea of the sports line and then the activation through partnerships. So we start. I'm sorry, uh, some people will bash me for this, but we get back into uh you know, classical line was collaborations, uh, artisanship. So it's a human element. Okay, so there's a human touch, the person, the person, the watchmaker, the artisan. Well the sports line will be activated through that's why you call it partnerships and not collaborations, towards I don't like the word brand, but towards philosophies around thematics. And ooh, surprise, we're gonna start with uh anime, with uh video games, things like this, because I think they're fun. Uh so that's something that will hit. And then we're gonna evolve the collaborations. We're gonna change all the cases. Uh now we're gonna move away. Cases gonna be different in the future. So we're not just making the dial and hands and story. Now we're gonna go into the cases more and more, more and more complex, more and more uh refined, and into the movements as well. So not just Celita regulator or three hand um movements but but we we're gonna see some historical movements maybe some special m movements that we found uh that we that we re-an uh re furbish if you like or readjust. We might find some some executions more personalized because we believe that that we need to build. Because today we have watches at 4,000 and watches at 15,000 with the Turio, and there's a whole gap in between. Now distribution is not saying the price is gonna go up, but our distribution network is more a triple A distribution network. And obviously, when when when markets a bit more difficult, a retailer who has only triple A brands will focus on what he can make the most money on and spirit of very normal. So selling a four thousand uh Swiss franc or dollar watch when you can sell a twenty, I would say the incentive is not as big and that we understood we have to give them give them also a bit more complex and bit more premium products, yes. Uh at the same time we would not we wanna stay where we are in that accessible price point. Uh we don't wanna leave our our territory, but we can extend the territory. And if it comes to colloquium, well, we have the project two uh that we actually wanted to launch initially uh three or four months ago, but we haven't managed. And it's very interesting because we kept some I uh philosophies die cast new case and we we are again did something totally crazy. Um so when we did this on the first project with the pins, with the four hundred sixty eight pins on the metal pins and 488 on the Lumicast or Lichtblock pins. So it's not the same watch, by the way. Okay. It also has a different case and has a different uh sapphire crystal, but you can't see it. That's the beauty about it. Uh very geometrical. We're moving into something totally crazy, much more organic. And the dial and then something where we really uh struggled with is is composed of it it's it's a stack up of 64 dials. So we we put 64 dials stacked up to create a dial. Wow. So that's a bit of a it's a bit of a so we will have the friends and family uh project ready in Watches and Wonders. So it's gonna be 199 pieces. We're not gonna do any marketing, which is gonna be it's off the wrist. If uh it's gonna be for those who support the desk, but also for those who who see it. And we start with that. And that's project two. We work on project three and four. So mix and match, as you can see. Um I have another project that I'm very interested to develop, uh totally other price point. Uh another uh endeavor. Different brand, different protocol departments. But I see what could work and where there is a market. And I think there is something that I have done in the past with the more high-end products that I haven't done for a while that I want to redo. And I would love to do something much more affordable. So so for for me it's really uh you know I have ideas, uh now I need time. I don't always have time. Uh that's probably the the uh the thing. But uh I would say colloquium is on track, uh Louis R uh uh is uh is doing well, we need to readjust a little bit. We'll take a bit of time to evolve the strategy. But then I have time for other things because I stopped a lot of the you know, I used to be chairman of Raketa, um the Russian um company, which when they came to see me was really not in a good shape, twenty eighteen. I did the strategy uh for them. Uh they did uh I think fifteenfold. Uh we did fifteenfold over the uh last few years, but I also decided w we really built something quite incredible. But when uh the war started I decided to to step down uh because for reasons uh which are personal. I didn't want to continue like this. So but I help but I had to do a kind of an exit and step away from it, which is done. But it took a lot of my energy. And until then I spent I spent one week, a month in Moscow to for the project. Then I helped a bitch in at the beginning and did some other projects. So so so I was quite busy and I decided that uh I want to concentrate on new cause, uh new projects, uh new brands. Uh and and and you know Louis is doing very well, but colloquial is just I don't know how to say this, but but do you ask me how many watches we do? I don't know yet. Uh we but but probably this year about thousand five hundred, which is honestly from Yeah. And everything sold in a few minutes uh and really sold out. Uh I mean there's nothing available. So this is uh pretty amazing. Um so I wanna concentrate on the projects that work or that I'm that that need maybe a little bit uh support right now uh to to to rethink uh or to evolve and then I want to |
| Andy Greenberg | do new projects. Excellent. Thank you for your insights and and and this um great chat and we'll obviously be watching and following. Thank you, Manuel. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. And that's the business of watches for this episode. We hope you enjoyed. Please head on over to HoDinky.com where you can join the discussion and leave any comments or questions about this episode or the business of watches in general. Who knows, we might even answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening and see you next time. |