The Business of Watches [045] Fears Watches Founder And Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Bowman-Scargill¶
Published on Wed, 21 Oct 2026 15:00:00 +0000
Get ready for a circuitous road to re-starting and reviving the family watch brand as Nicholas Bowman-Scargill takes us on the journey from a poorly timed banking career to Rolex apprentice watchmaker to his company Fears producing its own perpetual calendar.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of The Business of Watches, host Andy Hoffman interviews Nicholas Bowman Scargill, founder and CEO of Fears Watches, at the Hodinkee offices in New York during Watch Week. Bowman Scargill discusses his remarkable journey from training as a watchmaker at Rolex to resurrecting his family's 180-year-old watch brand, which had closed in 1976. He left Rolex in 2014 after a pension meeting triggered an existential crisis about spending his entire career at the same workbench, discovering only then the full extent of his family's watchmaking heritage.
The conversation delves into the practical realities of running an independent watch brand from Bristol, England, with Bowman Scargill commuting 250 miles weekly while the company has grown to 14 employees. He candidly discusses the company's near-bankruptcy experiences, including working midnight shifts at a supermarket during the pandemic to avoid furloughing staff, and a devastating 34% net loss in 2024 that brought them within six weeks of closure. Through radical cost-cutting and refocusing, Fears achieved profitability in 2025 and continues growing 40-50% annually. Bowman Scargill emphasizes his commitment to the £3,000-5,000 price point, his unusual focus on CEO succession planning despite being only ten years into the revival, the company's formal dress code as a recruitment tool, and his vision of building a sustainable British watch brand for future generations rather than personal legacy.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Andy Hoffman | Welcome to the Business of Watches, the Hodinkee podcast, where we go behind the scenes to talk to the executives and the business leaders who are making things tick. I'm your host, Andy Hoffman. Today, we are at the Hodinkee offices in New York, and we are joined by the founder and the CEO of Fears Watches, Nicholas Bowman Scargill. Thank you for joining us. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Oh, thank you very much. It's great to be back in New York and on the perfect autumnal or I should say fall day. Look at it, it's sunny but crisp. It's lovely to be here. |
| Andy Hoffman | Great, fantastic. And indeed, we're here during New York Watch Week. There's a windup going on, watch time going on, a bunch of events. You're based in Bristol, England. You know, let's talk about w you know, what it means to run a watch brand, you know, not from London even, but um from a place like that. Why is uh is Fears based in Bristol, England and and and what's it like to be an international watch brand from a place like that? |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Yeah, I think I mean there's a very simple answer as to why we're in Bristol, which for those who don't know is about an hour and a half drive directly west of London. If you keep going, you end up in Wales. So, you know, you're still in England. So we're there because a hundred and eighty years ago this year, my great great great grandfather Edwin Fear f originally founded the business, a proud Bristolian and the business was located there for 130 years until it closed in nineteen seventy six. So when I when I first restarted FIRS ten years ago, I was based in London. You know, I'm a Londoner, born and bred. Um I've lived in many other cities around the UK. But, you know, I basically refounded fears from not even a bedroom, a landing in a house share in London. I mean I was early days of Zoom calls, my housemates had to crawl behind my desk so they weren't captured in in camera shot. Um then the company moved to Canterbury for a while. Uh my husband's uh well, as of last month, he's now a professor of mathematics. So uh I've I've kind of followed him around where his academic work's been. But when he then got a job up in North Yorkshire, I said, right, the company's growing, time to take it back to Bristol. So here we are today. The company is in Bristol. We have a head office, we have a separate boutique in the wonderful city. You know, we're a company of 14 people. And yet I actually live on North Yorkshire. So I live two hundred and fifty miles the other end of the country. Which I appreciate in America doesn't sound that far, but if you look at the map of the UK, other ends of the country. So every week I'm packing a suitcase, jumping on a four hour train and commuting between the two. And people often say, Why do that? You own the company. Why are you putting yourself through living in two homes, you know, everything and the fact is, Fears is very fortunate to have this incredible heritage. We've certainly benefited from it. And therefore you have to pay respect to that. You have to be in the city. We can't be Fears Bristol England eighteen forty six Oh, but our registered office is up in Yorkshire. But the other thing is and |
| Andy Hoffman | authenticity. It's authenticity, |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | but it's also a big reminder to me because you know I may own the company, I restarted it. You know, I I'm CEO, but often I'll describe myself as fourth managing director, because the previous three were my relatives. But in our office we've got five picture frames, four of them have the portraits of the first, second, third, and myself, fourth managing director. The fifth one just has it's blank and just says fifth managing director TBC. And it's an important reminder to my colleagues and anyone visiting that yes, I own this company. But you know what? I really view it as it's my tenure to run it. You know, the company is way bigger than me. And I think that's something that often I would say separates me from other founder owners of watch companies. Because yes, I'm running the business, but I know and already am putting the very baby steps in for the succession. There will be a fifth managing director. You know, as much as I like to think I'll live forever, sadly, that's not going to happen. But you've got to therefore think, well, the fear's legacy can't die with me. So what's coming next? What happens? And also as a business grows, there becomes a point where it will outgrow me. You know, th there's a a limit to what I can do. So we're in Bristol and it's important for the authenticity, but also as a reminder to me that this company is way bigger than me. Aaron Powell |
| Andy Hoffman | That's really interesting. Actually, I mean you know, succession is obviously one of those classic business problems that every business has to solve. It's interesting just 10 years into the revival, the rebirth of the brand that you're already considering that. I presume though at this point it's a process and and you haven't uh identified your uh your successor yet. well |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | yes on yes and no. Um so you know my husband and I, in fact today we're celebrating our fifteenth wedding anniversary. |
| Andy Hoffman | Congratulations. And uh twenty-one years |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | together. We met in Freshers Week, eighteen year olds and twenty one years later still together, but also still don't have plans to have children. You know, that's just not something that either of us want to do. So there's no sort of natural like, oh well it will go to, you know, one of my children, even though I'm also a big believer in nepotism and shouldn't play a part when it comes to succession. But there was a point earlier this year where I just suddenly looked around the office one day and realized, you know what? I'm not that 29-year-old who left Rolex and decided to do his crazy thing and restart his family's business. And for many years, the first basically four years, Fears was just me. I did every job in the company. Today we're fourteen people and I looked around the office and I just suddenly it dawned on me. I was like, if something happened to me, if I get knocked down by a bus or take ill, who's paying their mortgages, their rents? You know, a lot of them have children. You know, I indirectly am responsible for that. So it started something that during the summer I I I basically spent a couple of days locked away in our meeting room and drafted up a CEO succession plan. And it's basically a document to be opened by my deputy in the event of it very, very dramatically. I do like drama. So it says very dramatically, in the event of the incomp And basically it's like a twenty-thirty page document detailing who I anoint as my successor and also a to-do list in the first like twenty-four hours you need to call off handful of minority shareholders. You need to contact the bank, the lawyers, the you know, da da da. There's even a drafted press release template announced Basically the idea of yes, today we're fourteen people, we make a few thousand watches a year, but we're rapidly growing. We're still growing 40 to 50% a year. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. So actually, you go, |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | you have to think as if you were a PLC, as if you were on the NASDAQ or the FTSE. You need to think about that governance and the way you operate because it means that I now don't need to worry. |
| Andy Hoffman | About I boarded my |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Boeing triple seven yesterday from London Heathrow. No worries. You know, if the plane goes down, the plane goes down. But obviously I hope I'm very glad it didn't. But it means that I don't need to worry about what happens back in Bristol. |
| Andy Hoffman | That is that is really actually but like extraordinarily responsible and um thorough planning and what uh a business owner of your size should be doing, but very few are. I'm where do you I mean let you know let's talk about how you decided to to to start this venture. I mean you were you were a a trained watchmaker or you were training to be a watchmaker and you were training. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Training the the the ying is very important. I never f officially finished my uh apprenticeship so you know good to |
| Andy Hoffman | know. Good to know. and and um uh but you were always aware, I guess, of the family connection to fears and and or tell me, yeah, how did this come about and what made you think that at this point you're training to be a watchmaker, you're working for Rolli And you decide that that uh maybe you can revive the old family watch brand? What happened? Aaron Powell |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Well so the interesting thing is when I was at Rolex, when I was applying for the job there, I had no idea about fears. So my background at thirty nine years old I like to think is a little unusual. I mean I I appreciate everyone thinks they're unique and special. But you know, I'll I'll let the listeners decide. Uh so to give you a very brief rundown of my LinkedIn profile, basically, I've been into watches since I was a kid. I know that's a cliche, but I was in I remember being into watches when they were so unfashionable that if you wanted to buy a watch magazine, you would go to the local news agents and they were on the top shelf next to the pornos. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. Carpfishing was front |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | of place. There were ten magazines about carp fishing. There was one about watches and it was next to pornography. It was that obscure when I was a teenager back in the nineties. So I start getting to the end of school, what career do you want to do when you grow up? You know, very much what you're asked. And I decided that I was quite interested in business, interested in in finance. My father's a corporate lawyer, so I was not going to be a lawyer. But I set my sights on investment banking, because this was the early noughties and the economy was booming and they were you probably remember this. |
| Andy Hoffman | Indeed, they were you know, thank goodness for |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | cheap credit. So I do pure economics at university, up at University of York. And I do an internship with Deutsche Bank. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. Absolutely love it. It's amazing. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Just the money is sloshing around the city of London. And why do I want to be in banking? Well, it's kind of cool. Everyone's wearing sharp suits and importantly, they get big bonuses. Even the junior people were getting huge eye watering bonuses. And they bought big watches. Sure |
| Andy Hoffman | did. You know, if if I'm there at |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | you know, twenty years old doing an internship thinking, I would love to own a Hublot Big Bang, I'd love a panorai, I'd love an IWC. Well, that was the quickest way to get there. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. You know, nowadays I I |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | graduate though in 2008 as the entire world that I'd been training myself towards |
| Andy Hoffman | good timing. Blows up. I'm really |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | good at this. Like really good at this. So sadly, Deutsch should turn around and say, look, you're not gonna get good enough grades, you're not getting a job. So I scramble. I managed fortunately to get a job in marketing, in public relations in London. So I start working there and in the first month, a third of the agency get let go because the recession is biting. Like you, know, clients are are are folding very quickly. Anyway, while I was there, I realized very quickly, like, you know, there were certain things I enjoyed, like photo shoots, the creativity, coming up with campaigns. But what I hated was on launch day, that was it. Onto the next thing. There was no longevity to it. So around 2010, I basically spent Christmas at home with my husband debating like I want to do a career change. I want to do something where at the end of the day, I feel like I've done more than just move pixels around a computer screen. I mean, spoiler alert, Andy, what do I do today? I sit in front of a MacBook moving pixels around. But it matters what those pixels do, I suppose. Anyway, I uh there is a |
| Andy Hoffman | physical product related to it at the end of the day. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | This is it, right. So I settled down on two interests since I was a kid. One was watches. You know, I had a very modest watch collection, but I loved watches. The other one was trains. So I looked into becoming a train driver. |
| Andy Hoffman | Interesting. And I did a lot |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | of research into both careers and decided in the end that actually watches was probably the geekier out of the two. You know, trains and watches. Come on, you're done. I |
| Andy Hoffman | don't know I've I've learned more about trains and train spotting with Francois Bourgeois or Friday. Yes. Uh now on the Grand Tour. Uh indeed it's kind of And isn't |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | it doing well on the ground tour? But that's very So Francis |
| Andy Hoffman | is certainly uh passionate uh about trades. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | So I decide on watchmaking. So beginning of twenty eleven, I write off to all the big watch brands who have workshops in the UK, Rolex, Amiga, Cartier, Breitling, send off my CV and a two-page covering letter explaining degree in pure economics, internship with Deutsche, three years in public relations, I make a natural watchmaker. And uh Rolex were a little bit uh skeptical, so they put me through seven months of interviews, practical assessments. I found out later, basically, they were trying to wear me down that I'd get bored. |
| Andy Hoffman | Right. That the, you know, this excitable early |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | 20-something kid would get bored and decide he didn't want to be a watchmaker. But no, I persevered. I start working at Rolex in 2011. I'm in their London head office in the workshop. Absolutely love the job. I mean, everyone listening to this will have an opinion about Rolex. I have so much respect for them as a brand. When you're inside, we're not talking about ADs and wait lists and all of that. When you work for them as a company in the workshop, it is such a humble place. They are so just very much don't try to be like, oh look at us, we're Rolex. Sure. very humble people who work there, very focused on doing a good job. And the company takes care of them. So, you know, a lot to learn there. So I'm two and a half years into Rolex and I'm I'm loving it. Right. Um absolute dream job. You know, it's wonderful. |
| Unknown | Because most of the time people go to Rolex and |
| Andy Hoffman | they never uh come out. At least that's how it how it seems in Geneva. X Rolex is a pretty uh unusual phrase. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Well, I mean it's a pretty safe job, right? You know, you want job security, which bearing in mind, everything I went through in two thousand eight, I was craving job security. You know, it's amazing those things that happen to you in your early twenties. they they really form. So I have a meeting with a pension advisor. Great guy, great pension. And at the end of the meeting, he looks at my paperwork and makes a joke, which I feel He looks at my paperwork and he laughs and he goes, Well, only thirty-nine more years to go, ha ha ha. So we have a giggle about that. And I go back downstairs to the workshop. And I don't know if you've ever experienced it when you have one of those moments where everything is fine and then it's like the world pauses or goes silent. Films are very good at portraying this. I basically walk back into workshop and it suddenly hits me. I'm going to be sat at the same workbench, servicing the same submariners, date just daydates for the rest of my working life. And this is a job I love. This is a job the first time in years I felt stability and happiness and I'm loving it. And I just suddenly felt like everything in my mind had just been turned upside down. And so for the next few weeks I'm all over the place and you know, really, really unsure. And then I go home to see my parents for the weekend and by Sunday lunch I plucked up the courage to say to them, look, I know I was going to go into banking, then into finance uh then into marketing, sorry, and then into watchmaking. I think I might want to leave Rolex and do my own thing. I feel like I might want to set up my own business, but I don't know what industry it would be in. So it wasn't be a watch company. It was just I kind of feel like I want to have a go at doing my own thing. Hmm. And as my mum is serving up the roast potatoes for lunch, she jokingly says, Well, darling, why don't you restart the family watch company? I'm like, come on, mum, what sorry, what? And so she had said when I started at Rolex, oh how funny you love watches, and your great grandfather was a watchmaker. But I assumed that she meant he was in some dusty workshop. You know, the watchmaker that's in a got loads of old half repaired |
| Andy Hoffman | clothes. You know, doing the |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | odd battery change or strap, you know. And so she goes off after lunch, finds some old paperwork, sadly no watches, and very quickly I'm realizing oh yes, they were watchmakers in Bristol, trained watchmakers. In fact, interesting fact, they uh they trained at the Morris Grossman School of Watchmaking in Glashute. And this is back in like the eighteen hundreds, nineteen hundreds, you know, when it took like five days of trains and bob sleighs to get to Glasuta. Um still |
| Andy Hoffman | not that easy. No, exactly. I was gonna |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | say even here in twenty twenty six it's a bit of a trek. And you suddenly realize that they ran a company that was huge. I mean, at its peak, FIRS had a hundred watchmakers in Bristol. A hundred watchmakers? I mean, the UK has got a few hundred today, but I mean, we're talking back in like the 30s, the the fifties. And it was just the train back to London, it was that light bulb moment. And that was in 2014, within a few months, my father being a corporate lawyer said, Look, if you think you might actually want to do this, incorporate, register the trademark before you tell anyone what you're doing. Thankfully, I took his advice. So I incorporated that October and yeah, we then got to twenty sixteen 'cause I needed money, you know, I and I knew from the start I wasn't gonna take any investment. I had to do it my way. |
| Unknown | You know, that was a big big thing. So |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | I sold what watches I owned. Uh my husband always jokes at the time if it wasn't screwed to the wall or the floor of our house, it went on eBay. You know, we basically sold our possessions, furniture, clothes, and I raised thirty grand in pounds.. |
| Unknown | Okay And beginning |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | of uh beginning of twenty sixteen I left Rolex. My first full time day of working for Fears was the leap year, Monday the twenty ninth |
| Unknown | that's seems fortuitous. And so |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | if anyone looks at the uh press photos of our newly launched perpetual calendar, it's set to that date. |
| Andy Hoffman | Ah and the moon phase is also |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | set to what the moon was doing in London in twenty sixteen on that day. |
| Andy Hoffman | Brilliant. But |
| Unknown | you've got the folklore already set |
| Andy Hoffman | out for the traditions are traditions |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | are so important. And you know, I had I had friends who work as archivists and they said, look, fine, you're building up an archive of the previous, you know, hundred and seventy-odd years, but you need to keep everything from today. And it's been fascinating, this being our tenth year, going back through that those boxes of things from the launch day, you know, all kinds of random things I kept, you know, like the invitation to the launch event, you know, stuff that I guess the Adobe InDesign file is somewhere on our digital archive, but like you you suddenly realize that actually legacy and traditions, these are built from day one. And so a a good example, um tomorrow we actually have a watch launching for watch time. On launch day, I do the same thing, and I've done it for 10 years. I wear the first Fears watch, serial number one from twenty sixteen, the first Fears watch to have uh to be back in creation, as a sort of good luck charm. |
| Andy Hoffman | Sure. And I have breakfast at McDonald's. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Because on launch day in November twenty sixteen, the scariest day of my life when fears came back to life, I was wearing that watch, running around like a headless chicken, and I ran out of time to have a proper breakfast, so I just ran into ne thearest McDonald's, egg McMuffin, cup of tea, and two hash browns. |
| Andy Hoffman | Good choice. And so tomorrow morning, |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | the head office in Bristol, while I'm here in New York, they will be ordering in McDonald's. It's become a company tradition. On launch day, the company provides McDonald's breakfast. Trevor |
| Andy Hoffman | Burrus Well, it's interesting. You came from Rolex after working there. Rolex sort of notoriously hasn't necessarily been the best at archiving its more modern history, although we know, you know, the archives are not public and there are archives. But tell me you know, before we get into more of the the the story of of of starting the brand and and and how you got to where you are now. Was there anything in particular that you learned working for Rolex that you apply to the company today? I mean it sounds like you're, you know, you're obviously very aware that um and uh in in terms of you know uh tradition and and marking sort of you know um uh important times, important artifacts, et cetera. But tell me, yeah. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | So I think there's two things. There's two things that from day one I I I took from Rolex. You know, I worked there five years, so I don't feel like I owe them much more, but you know, the two things are and I think fundamentally if you want to really understand the strength for Rolex and why it is what it is today, everyone will point to very superficial things. Oh it's marketing, oh it's this, it's no no, it's none of that. They've done two things and they do it incredibly well. The first one is they have a complete focus on noticing what they do and not what the outside world does. Some would say arrogance. I say it's a case of they're just very good at doing what they do, right? So, you know, uh how we translate that to fears. A few years ago we um were about to press go on launching a whole range of stone dialed watches. I love stone dials, I love a good cocktail watch from the sixties. |
| Andy Hoffman | And I just suddenly was |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | like, I'm beginning to see too many stone dials appearing in the market. |
| Unknown | Certainly became a trend. Yeah. And |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | I just it's not an it's not I want to zig because others are zagging or the other way around, but it's more a case of going, actually just focus on what you do. Don't be distracted by what everyone else is doing. and that's much, much easier said than done. Um the other thing is consistency. You know, you look at a date just today, and you look at a date just from 1970 or from the 40s, fine, they're different. But like a Porsche 911, you can see the consistency, the evolution, that's what gives it so much power. You know, next year we have our first watch model that we launched in 2017, our first mechanical model. It celebrates its 10th anniversary. |
| Andy Hoffman | And it's been upgraded over the years. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | But it's still got the same white dial, black printing, blued hands. And you suddenly stop and realize that's actually very rare, unless you're a big brand, you know, an IWC, a Brightling, a Rolex. It's incredibly rare for a watch company today to be that consistent and go, yeah, this model may not be the best seller, but it's a consistent seller. So we keep it and we just keep making improvements over time. I'd say they're the two two big things. Um I remember in the period running up to restarting fears, uh I was reading all kinds of business books. I've always learned the best business books are written by people who have started businesses. Sure. You know, I'd I'd far rather learn from someone who's gone bankrupt than from someone who thinks they understand it all. And I remember this amazing concept. It's about, I don't know if you've heard of this, it's about to succeed in business, you need to be a hedge Okay, so you have a hedgehog and you have a fox. The fox is very wily, it's intelligent, it's bright, it can kill the hedgehog in a hundred different ways. So everyone wants to be the the fox. The hedgehog never dies. Why? Because it's very good at doing one thing. It turns into a spiky ball every single time. And the the business analogy from that uh to take is basically going, don't try and say like, oh, I want to be the biggest or the best or the most known. Don't uh that's too big, that's too broad. Just focus on your niche, your area, your sandpit that you can build a beautiful sandcastle in rather than worrying about the rest of the beach. Right. And I'm I'm always reminding my colleagues of that. Like, you know, other companies around us have done far more successful in far shorter period of time. And I'm like, great. Are they do they have a CEO succession plan? Are they planning for the twenty thirties, the twenty forties, the twenty fifties? |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. If the answer is not yes, |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | then we have no right or reason to look at them. |
| Andy Hoffman | For sure. For sure. And so let's talk about how you developed the brand after launching it in 2016. What was your vision for the kind of watches that you were going to make? How much was that influenced by the kind of watches that fears used to make. And then, you know, you're in Bristol, England. You know, your watches now say, I think it did they say made in England or |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | built in England. Indeed. So, you know, tell |
| Andy Hoffman | me what that means. What does it mean for a watch to be hand built um in England and how did you get there to uh now making a couple thousand watches a year? Aaron Ross |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Powell So to answer that point first, because I think that's a really interesting one. So we don't have in the UK like a Swiss made equivalent. So we we put England on the bottom of our dial, other watch brands do, but we put on the case back, we talk about hand built in England. So hand built. What does that mean? If we look at a typical Fears watch in the collection, we will work with maybe twenty suppliers who supply individual components for that watch. So I mean you can begin to imagine the size of our Gantt charts, trying to make sure everything arrives on day one because the number of times you will have nineteen suppliers to deliver on time and you've got those invoices looming to pay and you're waiting on a five cent gasket for the crystal, and you can't build a watch or sell it until you have that very cheap tiny little part. But this is the reason. All the parts are made for us. |
| Unknown | So our in-house design department will |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | not only do the designs but also the drawings, the 3D CAD files. We do all of that ourselves to have full ownership. Then we will go to a different company to make the crystal and then we take a different company to do the anti-reflection coating. And in fact, the Swiss company that does the AR coating, the AR coating costs two and a half times the cost of the sapphire crystal. |
| Unknown | Hmm. Because it's a military-grade Swiss |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | coating, but it can't be scratched off and it means that you can see the beautiful dial. Like that I'm always shocked when people don't invest in the thing that makes the watch look better, you know. But if you think twenty different suppliers, they're based around Europe, around the world, you know, even down to, you know, w we get movements from Le Jou Pray, Solita. So these aren't like, you know, manufacture movements made, you know, you know, that they're movements that other brands use. But they're always made to our order and our spec. Nothing is ever off the shelf, which causes all kinds of headaches, but it means we have control over it. So even a Le Jou Pure G100, that movement that we use in our watch wouldn't physically exist if we hadn't ordered it and specified how we want it built, how we want it regulated, finished, etc. All the parts come to Bristol. They then go through quality control as soon as they arrive. Anything that isn't right gets shipped straight back. Even if it's a five cent seal. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. If there's a gas give it's not right, it |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | gets sent back. Then the watchmaker will use those parts in England. And then importantly we have a separate team who quality control the watch once it's built. Why? Never let a watchmaker mark their own homework, Andy. I I'm shocked the number of times people go, oh well the watchmaker passed it. Yeah. Of course they passed it. Guess what? Like, you know, their KPIs are on passing it. So indeed, it's about adding these extra layers. Two hundred and fifty hours of time testing as an assembled watch. Not many three thousand dollar watches go through that, but it's also why we have an industry leading tiny warranty return rate. If a retailer Can you talk about that |
| Andy Hoffman | percentage? I mean I I hear some other numbers from from the |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | service rate. Yeah, we'll be looking sub point five percent. |
| Andy Hoffman | Wow. That's it. India, |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | we've got eleven retailers now across the United States. If they sell a watch, they know it's not coming back. And I think that's really important because you have to you know and again, look at Rolex. Go back to the forties. They built a reputation for indestructible waterproof watches. Today people forget the luxury is about, you know, something being very strong, very well made. Nowadays it's all about features, right? |
| Unknown | That's a good point. So, you know, it's it's it's |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | basically using that, going, if you just make a watch that's actually you know, every watch we make we overbuild it for water resistance. So even our more dressier pieces, hundred meters, they're built to one hundred fifty. If it's built to one fifty, it's actually built to three hundred. We always under like announce what its water resistance is. I always describe it a bit like a nineteen eighties Mercedes-Benz. It's built like a tank, but it doesn't look like one. It's got an elegance to it. So that's very much the hand built in England, because it's not just the assembly, it's all of this that goes into it. It's all the stuff that no one sees. And we realize we never talk about this. Like I'm forever being told off by my marketing department. Like, why don't we shout about this? I'm like oh well we're British. We're very understated. |
| Andy Hoffman | But it is a di it's a it's a real differentiator. A couple of things sort of jump out at me though though. I mean, especially when you're starting out, you know, making scores of watches or maybe a few hundred watches. How did you g have, you know, get the standing or the the power with those suppliers to be able to make those you know bespoke components or those orders just for you in that kind of quantity. I mean what were you looking at uh in in terms of that challenge, because I know it's not uh easy Aaron |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Powell No, it it really isn't easy. Um you can turn up in Switzerland with an open checkbook and you'll have doors slammed in your face. It's not about the money necessarily, it's about whether people want to work for you. Um I think there's a few things. Um I'm I'm severely dyslexic, so I've always been rubbish at writing emails, rubbish at communicating by the written word. I'm much better at speaking. So very early on, you know, I was going out to the Basel World Trade Fair.ember Rem that? Oh, we used to always be in Basel eating those ten franc sausages. Going to EPHJ, you know, in in Geneva every summer. |
| Andy Hoffman | My favorite watch show. Absolutely my favorite |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | fair. So for those who don't know, EPHJ is a component fare. You never see a built watch. It's about cases. There's companies there that all they make are spring bars. Incredible. I love it. I'm like a kid in a candy shop. So I realized very quickly, you know, actually Switzerland is very traditional. I'm actually quite traditional. I mean my my team hate it, but I don't use a digital calendar. I have a Philofax. You know, I like a handwritten Phyllofax. |
| Andy Hoffman | Like a Rolodex? yeah. So it's a |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | leather bound with pages that you swap in and out. |
| Andy Hoffman | Very Swiss actually. Trevor Burrus Yeah. I'm |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | on the phone three to four hours a day. You know, if someone WhatsApps me, I just call them. You know, let's let's have a conversation. So going to Switzerland, being in the room, meet someone, shake their hand, look them in the eye. And then very quickly you realize a lot of these Swiss companies are now being run by second, third, fourth generation. And you go look, fine, fear's closed for thirty-nine years. We're very open about that. You know, I think that's a British differentiator from the Swiss. We don't try and hide that. We're very, very open about the fact fear's closed and then it came back. But I can say, look, you know, I'm the great, great, great grandson of the founder. I'm the fourth generation to be running the business. You know, that does carry some weight. And then it's how you work with people. You know, some of our suppliers we've now worked with for eleven years. But anyway, moving swiftly on. |
| Andy Hoffman | But you know, I like the fact that if I see my |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | suppliers nowadays, you know, my uh my incredible operations department manage the supplier relations, but if I go over to EPHJ, you know, and I see people, it's you know, it's hugs, it's a pint of beer, it's uh let's catch up.'s H theow family? How's your husband? You know, and for me, it's those very traditional old school relationships that you realize a lot of people setting up a watch company today, if they don't have that mindset to begin with, they they go, Well, it's so difficult. And I'm like, Yeah, but you're just sending an email to info at get on an aeroplane, go and see them, talk to them, you know. And for them, it they also know it's much more difficult to do bad by your customer, your client, if it's someone you know, if it's someone you see several times a year. You know, that that's that's difficult. So it's about those more traditional relationships. I'm a strong believer of you know, we live in a modern era, of course you do. It's twenty twenty six, even though FIS does have a dress code. You know, we have quite a few. Yeah, we have a formal dress code in the office and in the boutique. |
| Andy Hoffman | talk to me about that. Why? So it doesn't seem rather incongruous with uh what the rest of the world is doing these days. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | It started off as um probably a a a spillover of some of my ancestricity. Um I've always loved clothing. My father's a very stylish man and I've since I was a kid I've always liked nice clothes, you know, nice suits, ties. I had lunch today at Bergdorffs and inevitably ended up picking up a new tie because every time I'm in Bergdorfs I' come home with another tie. But anyway, I um so I've always been quite formally dressed. I've always liked that. And so, you know, when we started to bring on our first members of the team, I was like, oh, we should be, you know, well dressed, well presented. You know, we make a luxury product. We start at three thousand dollars, we go up to just shy of thirty. This is not insignificant numbers. You know, three thousand dollars is, you know, more than most people earn in a month. They want to know it's coming from a place that people take themselves seriously. What we found and why we've kept the dress code as the company has grown, a lot of people say, well, it must be very difficult to hire people, you know, because we have a full in in-office working culture. We make physical product. You can't do that remotely. So that's one barrier to to work. The another one is address code, you know. And at first we were like, oh it's a shame because you know it does mean that some people don't want to be putting on a jacket or polish shoes or you know, whatever. We now find it's one of the best recruitment things ever. Because we have a lot we have a good number of people working for us who are in their their early 20s. And that's not a generation who naturally grew up wearing ties and you know they they were wearing sweatshirts to school. I learned to tie a tie before I learned to do shoelaces, right? You know, that's that'ss the 90 for you. So what we find now is if someone is willing to adapt or embrace something like a dress code that's awkward and difficult, they become they're very much serious about working. They don't view this as a job to pay the rent. They view this as a career. And it's really interesting to see. It attracts a certain mindset. It's not about whether you care about clothes. It's about a more something inside the brain, which is about they really care about work. And so when I'm reading articles, you know, in The Economist talking about how Gen Z don't want to work, I'm like, oh, there should be a big asterisk there. Because come to Bristol. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. I have the hardest working Gen Z |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | you've ever seen, you know? And so it's a very interesting thing. It's now become something where actually at first it was a bit quirky. Now we've realized it's actually a very, very important recruitment. Trevor Burrus |
| Andy Hoffman | It's a feature, not a bug. Trevor Burrus. And let's talk about where you decided to position the brand pricing-wise. I mean, uh you know, the the last time I saw you was in Geneva, Geneva Watch Days, and you were showing me your extraordinary perpetual calendar. I think priced at I think 27,000 uh British pounds uh around there. Extraordinary watch really um uh quite uh uh a great take on the perpetual calendar, quite thin. But you know, that's the outlier for you in terms of pricing. I mean, I believe I guess your average price uh uh tell me about |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | three to five thousand dollars, you know, three to four and a half thousand pounds. Yeah. |
| Andy Hoffman | And so you know why do we uh tell me why we exist or why you've decided to exist in in this price point and and um you know with the q p and and other some other more complicated or higher end pieces that you've made is the inevitable path to move to that higher price bracket, which we've seen, you know, much of the rest of the industry do? Aaron Powell |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No. So actually this is a good point. If we go back ten years when I first restarted FIRS, we started with a Swiss-made quartz watch because you know, thirty thousand pounds starting seed money doesn't go very far. You know, I had to learn how to code the first website. You know, if anyone emailed, they would get an answer from me. You know, I was doing social media everything. We brought out our first mechanical watch in twenty seventeen. You start fast forwarding and realizing, you know, we very quickly started establishing ourselves in that sort of three, four thousand pound price point. There's a reason why. So firstly, I've always wanted not fears to create we've got this amazing archive. The obvious thing in 2016, the thing that would have made me considerably wealthier would have been just to reissue watches from the past. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. That's a bit too obvious, right? |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | You know, I'm I'm a I'm a sucker for punishment. I want to make my life too hard for me. |
| Andy Hoffman | Because it certainly w worked quite well for uh many others at the time. Aaron Powell |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | exactly. You know, anyone remembers twenty sixteen, it was all about ne you know, neo vintage and all that, right. But the thing is, I wanted to imagine if fears hadn't closed in nineteen seventy-six, what would it be making today? So that means looking at the archive, pulling out things like the shape of the hands, the silhouette of our case. You know, we've been making cushion cases since 1924. We use the same silhouette, the tall rectangular arnos. That again, you know, these different shapes are all pulled from the archive. But let's imagine what that would translate to if the company had kept going. Also, look at the old Fears price point, do the inflation adjustment. Fears was never hotorology in its its core pricing, but it was a solid watch that people bought and were able to own and enjoy and importantly be able to repair. Every watch, every skew we have made in the last ten years, we have spare parts for that watch. And we have s enough spare parts for minimum forty years plus. So when you buy a fears, I can guarantee you we'll be able to repair that watch even after I've died. Right? You Aaron Powell |
| Andy Hoffman | But it does add to the to the brand equity and to the comfort and to the uh belief that um potential consumers will will have in the in the commitment of the brand, right? Which is which is a challenge for small new watch brands. Aaron Powell |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Certainly. anyone who goes to one of our retailers around the world, you know, they're buying a proper watch and they're they're spending a lot of money. You know, let's be honest, free $5,000 is a lot of money. For some people it isn't, but vast majority of people, it's a huge amount. Actually, I've got a story I'll come back to in a in a moment about that. But the thing is, everyone that will be telling you the reason everyone's going up in price point is because, you know, that that's one of the most the category I'm in, the price point on the pyramid I'm in is very, very difficult. I think it's just that people haven't tried hard enough. Because, you know, we've grown 40-50% every year since 2020. |
| Andy Hoffman | Year over year. Year over year. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | You know, I was working it out recently for the ten year anniversary. You know, what's our I love this race, the Kagra. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yes. The KAGRA growth. Yes. The CAGRA. Indeed. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Obviously we had a big bump in the pandemic, but we kept going. We never went down. The fact is, as people are leaving this category, there becomes a vacuum where people actually don't want to be spending six, seven thousand dollars when |
| Unknown | they get a promotion at work. The |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | thing people often forget when running a watch company, especially if you're an enthusiast coming into this, it's that bias of ev you assume everyone is yours is like yourself. I believe strongly five percent globally of watch buyers are enthusiasts and collectors. Okay. |
| Andy Hoffman | How did you get to that number? It's interesting you talked about your company annual growth rate, but but tell me, yeah, how'd you how'd you come to that number? Because that's an interesting Yeah, I think |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | it's you know it's very much when when talking to certain big watch brands who maybe aren't traditionally enthusiast led, um talking to retailers, understanding who's buying watches. And you realize, you know, ninety-five percent of people are I refer to them as civilians. You know, they're they they they walk amongst us on the street and they buy a nice watch every so often for a wedding, a promotion, birth of a child, you know, big m big milestone. very difficult audience to get in front of, you know. That's where a few years ago we decided, actually, I want to have a sliver of that bit of the pie because a sliver of ninety-five percent is massive and very few watch brands that have been started in the last ten years are going after it. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. You know, doesn't mean we turn our back |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | on enthusiasts and collectors, but it means certain watches that we launch we know won't really resonate with with collectors. With the |
| Andy Hoffman | Hodinkee crowd, necessarily. Yeah. And |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | yet some of those watches are now consistently our number one bestsellers via our retailer network and via our boutique, because the majority of the people going into a shop to buy a watch are not people who will buy online from the brand itself. Very different audience, different skill set, how you talk to them, how you educate them, different watches that they're buying. And so you have this. Why with the the perpetual calendar? So we have the we already had the Fears Garrick, which is um at a And the and the |
| Andy Hoffman | Garrick, just to be clear, I think that's a a movement you know designed and made in in the UK, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah, |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | by the Garrick Watch Company. Good f good friends. Uh so far I I'm very fortunate. We always collaborate with friends, you know, Christopher Ward, Studio Underdog, Garrick. The perpetual calendar, I mean a very, very long project. It was literally four and a half years to come in into and the amount of resource it's sucked up has been incredible. But we get to launch day, the first batch of twenty-five watches within I think it was five, six days, sold out. So I will very happily take that. That that's incredible for brands that doesn't normally play in that. But my goodness was the comment section eye opening. |
| Unknown | On launch day, we knew there would be a bit of pushback. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Oh, it's a very expensive watch for Fears. You suddenly realize when you start going into a different price point. I we have never in 10 years seen so much anger and negativity. And it's really interesting because I I spoke to a few other watch brands about this because I was quite shocked. You know, I uh and I try not to take these things personally. I mean, look, I came out as gay at school at 13 years old, I had five years of bullying, I'm used to a few rough comments, right? You know, I've got a relatively thick skin. But even still, you know, this was my kind of pride and joy watch launching. I was like, wow. And then really thinking about it, it's important to take some learnings. And the big learning was we are rubbish at educating as to what we do, the value we actually do. All this stuff I've been talking about about, you know, getting the components, the quality control, the warranty return, we never communicate any of this because there's that very British understatement. You know, our registered tagline is elegantly understated since eighteen forty six. We're too British for our own good. So therefore we just assume well that's what everyone does. So everyone knows the value they're getting without it it's not explaining it, but without showing it. So I think it's always when you have something that you know, even if there is some negativity, you've got to learn from it. There's always a learning. I think that's that's very |
| Andy Hoffman | I think that's uh certainly definitely a key. Yeah. It's um it's quite tempting not to read the comment section sometimes, but uh sometimes there's uh little nuggets of insight and knowledge |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | I always say the the article written about the watch that boosts my ego. The comment section brings me straight back down to earth. |
| Andy Hoffman | Then, I mean, it is interesting, you know, you um st you know, re- relaunched the brand uh over ten years ago now. But I mean, there's been this whole shift though with the industry where a watch brand can be assembled or built or you know, and truly come from a d a non traditional watch place. Of course, the UK and England has a very long history of watch making, which uh was you know basically interrupted and and it you know but it at a time if it wasn't Switzerland, Japan, maybe Germany, it didn't make sense. I mean talk about how you've sort of embraced or per you know in, some ways created this new era where watch brands can be truly international, but you know, draw on components makers and parts and and and knowledge um from elsewhere and then bring that local element to the product? Aaron Powell |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | I think there's two things that really set British watchmaking today apart. I think the first one is bar a handful of companies, the vast majority are run by their founders, and they're all a reflection of their founders. You know. Um I know you've spoken to a a a good number of my my friends from across the pond on on the podcast. You know, and and these are people who I I hang out with, I get on very well with, we're very different people. But each of our companies and as these companies grow, they grow teams, they have, you know, multiple people working for them. you go into an office and the office feels different. You know, i if it's a reflection of the founder. Mm. I think that's very important in a world that everyone gets very scared and is trying to chase the middle ground, i that's very difficult to do when you're a founder 'cause, you I'm sure my colleagues would love it if sometimes my crazy ideas never made it beyond a crazy idea. But the fact is when it's when it's you running it, you you you going to you know, you're going to create. I think the other thing is the Brits are quite unique. So if you look globally, you'll realize that a lot of British people are employed in a very particular role. And that's project management. So uh many years ago, um there was a cruise ship that uh capsized off the Italian coast, the Costa Concordia. |
| Andy Hoffman | Indeed. So very, very interesting. Uh |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | when they were doing the recovery of this, the company doing the the uh like project managing how do you lift a huge capsized cruise ship was Australian. Heavy industry, cranes, boats, you know, all of that. The people actually doing the uh the the work, welding, soldering, uh tend to be Polish, Eastern European. Who were all the project managers on the ground, liaising with the Coast Guard, liaising with the locals, the islanders, all you know, all of this, they're all British. And the CEO of the Australian company, I won't try and do his accent, basically he said, Oh yeah, we always employ Brits. They're just so good at project management. And if you think in Britain today we don't have movement makers, case makers, dial makers, or candlestick makers. So we have to go to Switzerland. We have to go to Asia, we have to go to the world. I mentioned earlier twenty components coming in to Bristol from around the world and they've got to fit and they've got to work and we've got to make sure everything comes in at the same time or God help my cash flow, that's project management. Brits are actually globally renowned for being very good at problem solving and working with lots of moving parts, lots of different stakeholders and parties and getting them to work together. We're also very creative people. We don't maybe have the flamboyance of the Italians or the French. We're not quite as serious as the Germans and the Swiss, but we fit in the the middle point, you know, we've we we bring that. And so I think that's a big reason why. You know, I'm sure uh the likes of Richard Bence from Studio On Dog would hate to ever be thought of as an excellent project manager. He's one of the most creative geniuses I know. But I think it is true, deep down, the Brits are very good at doing that. And in the modern era of watchmaking, where components come from around the world, you need that kind of skill set. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. Absolutely. No, that's a uh quite an interesting perspective on it. And I hadn't considered it that way. It makes a lot of sense. And so let's, you know, let's talk about the the the journey with this company. I mean, I believe you're profitable. I don't know how what you can talk about in terms of in terms of numbers, but how long did it take for the company to become profitable? And how you know it and what does that profitability graph look like? Is it volatile? Is it um is it uh yeah, tell me. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Hey, this is the watch industry, Andy. Of course it's volatile. No, so um it's very interesting actually because um there's been a few key points. You know, I'm I'm thirty-nine, I turn forty next year and you know, I'm fine with turning forty, but it's a point where you kind of reflect and you suddenly wake up one day and go, I'm not that twenty nine year old kid who left Rolex. You know, I'm I'm very aware that the uh I'm not quite as wet behind the ears. I don't have to change my shirt collar quite as often during the day, you know. So a a big one was that first launch. That was big, that was scary. Another point came um start of the pandemic. |
| Andy Hoffman | Sure. You know, at that point I |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | had two part-time employees, you know, two colleagues. Fears was doing well. We were doing really well. Beginning of 2020 felt like amazing. And then of course the world began to unravel and it unraveled very, very quickly. and to you know short to shortify the the story, come March, we had had no sales for like six, eight weeks, and the accountants are saying two, three months you're going to run out of cash. So I very quickly took a hundred percent pay card to extend the cash and also mean that I didn't have to furlough my team. Tiny team, but I was like, they're scared, everyone's scared, I need them employed even if there's no work to do. I need to pay the suppliers, make sure they're not out of pocket. And then my husband reminded me we had a mortgage. So for the first three months of lockdown and the pandemic, I ran FIS during the day and then from midnight to eight in the morning I worked at a supermarket in my city, picking online orders. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yeah. And then I'd |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | go home, sleep for an hour, wake up, run a company when there's no sales coming in. But I was able to develop new product. I was able to keep the team morale high. And then I would take a sleeping pill at 5 p.m., sleep for six hours, wake up, rinse and repeat. I did that every day for three months. |
| Andy Hoffman | Wow. And it saved the company from |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | going under because as we all know, June 2020, everything started to rebound because people realized, oh, I'm sat at home, I've got more money in my bank account, stimulus checks, all of this. And in twenty June twenty twenty we had the fifth best month we had ever had as a company. |
| Andy Hoffman | Right. We ended twenty twenty |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | a hundred and thirty two percent up Trevor Burrus |
| Andy Hoffman | But you were ready to um absorb and take advantage of and and play into that uh extraordinary boom in interest uh for mechanical one hundred percent we were geared |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | even though we had retailers and we had a small showroom we were geared for online so when you know put it this way, in June 2020, when the lockdown was still going on in the UK, you could not buy a brand new Rolex. Right? All the stores were closed. There was no way to buy a brand new Rolex. But if you want to buy a Fears, absolutely you could. Also, everyone went online and of course they discovered there were more watch brands than the five at their local retailer. |
| Andy Hoffman | Indeed, yeah. So we have a huge boom |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | for several years. Um Fears in twenty twenty two moves back to Bristol. The team is growing. We're now up to six, seven people. Life is good. The world is open. We're doing lots of events around the world. You know, it is the golden years. I feel pleased to have lived through that. A bit like I feel very pleased to have lived through the naughties before the two thousand eight crash. I feel pleased to have lived through part of the nineties. The nineties were amazing. Like I keep telling my Gen Z colleagues, my goodness, you should remember the millennium. That was golden. Anyway. So 22, brilliant year, fantastic. 23, still going well, but as we know, things are beginning to go a bit more shaky. 2024, we had a minus thirty four percent net loss. |
| Andy Hoffman | Wow. In twenty twenty four, we came |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | within six weeks of bankruptcy. Like complete and utter clo pull the shutters down, there isn't anything left. |
| Unknown | What happened? A few things. A few |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | things. Trust me, I have done a massive look back on this. So a few things happened. Effectively, despite a degree in economics, despite the idea that I might have an idea of what's going on in in my company in the world. Sales had begun to slow, not not gone down. We were still growing, but not growing by as much. The company had ballooned in its costs, its fixed costs, had skyrocketed, team, the events we were doing, the new head office. And I basically had taken my eye off the cash flow and realized that m profit was just the net profit was just evaporating. It was disappearing. And suddenly we hit a point where realized, oh my goodness, we we're actually going to run out of cash. Now, I mentioned we we have a handful of small minority shareholders. I still have 80% of the company, a couple of them very kindly lent a bit of money to the company. My husband very, very graciously agreed for me to sign some huge personal loans. Well not person business loans, but guaranteed against our house. |
| Andy Hoffman | Right. Our assets. Suddenly, |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | you know, having him saying, Yeah, look, this is a loan for like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds, and our house is not that big or expensive. So if the company goes under, we lose our home. But bless him, he said, I trust you, just don't screw this up and it massive, massive cost cutting. Now we didn't let anyone go. I was very much like, no, we have a good people and I believe very strongly like you have to find other ways to save money, which we did. You know, we really took an axe to every penny in the company. In twenty twenty five, we had a one point five percent net prof |
| Unknown | Okay. Now the delta |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | between a minus thirty-four. That's |
| Andy Hoffman | quite a uh quite a variant. And |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | I remember um two of my uh my shareholders. So I've I've I've only ever taken a bit of money from people who I'd consider smart money, you know, um people who either work in the industry, who, you know, I I know know what they're talking about, or people who have skill sets that I I think would be very complimentary. And I remember talking to two of them and going, Oh yeah, look at the new accounts. They're really good. And they basically were like, Yeah, I'll be honest, didn't think you were gonna make it out. And I I was like, Oh, thanks for the confidence. Well obviously we weren't gonna tell you that at the the time, but thing is you suddenly look back and realize it was it was brutal. It completely changed color. I had to grow up a huge amount. This year we're going to be doing closer to ten percent net margin. You know, we're on track. And still with that 40-50% growth. I mean, right now we're we're on nearly 20% up on all of last year's turnover. |
| Andy Hoffman | And we've still got two and a half months |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | to go of the year. So, you know, we will have grown already. But I think on reflection, there's been two periods where we've nearly gone bankrupt. One was because credit card fraud, |
| Andy Hoffman | you know, chargebacks. That was back in the early |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | days. I trust me, I would never wish that on anyone. I mean the sleepless nights, the you know, moments where I'm having to talk to, you know, my deputy and literally talking to him about if we go bankrupt, how do I tell the team? |
| Andy Hoffman | Like, what will I do for work? I'm |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | gonna lose my house. Like, you know, actually having to address that. I like to think it makes you a better managing director, a better CEO. Like I I I'm not I like to think I'm still a fun loving person, but my goodness does it harden you? it just i it's a wake-up call that I love making watches, but I'm also it's so important to me to grow a business, a sustainable business and create job opportunities in Bristol for my colleagues. And if anyone wants to learn more about this, the uh uh in a month's time there's a book being published by a UK journalist about the first ten years of fears and uh titled, rather funnily, it's called Being Fearless, Ten Years of Resurrecting a Watch Company. And in that it goes into lots of depth about some of the darkest periods because you know, other watch brands have said to me, I've said, Oh, I'm doing this, and some of them were interviewed for the book. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | And they said, Why are you being so open? I said, |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | a lot of people will discover fears potentially from listening to this podcast or from a, you know, uh in in the last couple of years. And you can go, oh yeah, look, he restarted his family business, lots of heritage after ten years, look how well he's doing, without realizing that to get to this point is very, very tough. It's hard. And the watch industry, uh fine, any anyone who sets up any company, my hat off to you, I will buy you a beer. It is, you know, it is tough to run a business. But the watch industry, because of the capital investment, because of the roll of the dice, is this watch going to be popular or not? Makes or breaks it. You know, the comment section can make or break next month's cash flow. It's tough, but my goodness is it rewarding. |
| Andy Hoffman | Yes, absolutely. Well, no, I think we appreciate that c uh your candor and and your honesty in that, and indeed and being true to the story of the brand's evolution and and the business's evolution. And I think, you know, that kind of authenticity is uh what a lot of people value. So let's look forward. Last thing, you know, to wrap it up. I mean, what are your goals? Um uh looking out the next six months, two years, three years, ten years? I mean, is it about growing sales? Is it about growing revenue? Is it about making more units? Is it about um yeah you tell me where do you where do we want uh fears to go and and how are you trying to get there? Aaron Powell |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Well I think once once we've completed world domination um no I've it's it's really interesting. Uh ten years, I'm not someone who reflects. I'm I'm someone I'm always thinking about tomorrow. The problem is it means I'm rubbish at appreciating today, but this year has forced me ten years. You know, ninety percent of watch companies go out of business in the first five years, right? So to get to ten years is is and still be creative and creating stuff is tough. But it does make me look to the the future. And turning 40 next year also makes me go, well, where do I want to be when I'm 50, right? You know, like 60, seventy. I I would say I have a very strong five to ten more years of running fears. But the company will eventually get to a point where it's too big and it's too complex for me to do. The last two years I've worked with a business coach, you know, I don't have the skills to grow a team to fifteen, you know, to turn a business around. Like I don't have the skills to do that on my own. Hands up. Like I think if you want to succeed as a watch brand owner, one, check your ego, because this industry is full of egos. But two, is always focus on what you're not good at and then get support or employ someone who can do it. I know though that the rate of growth we're doing in the next five to ten years, it will just get to a point where even with the best coaching in the world, I just will run out of ability. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | And that's okay. That's fine. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | I'm I'm I'm fine with that. I can become an executive chairman, but I need to be aware of that because for many years I wanted fears to just be this tiny little niche brand. That's great. But as I mentioned earlier, you know, I really enjoy growing a business. I really enjoy bringing new people into the British watch industry. You know, we have the Alliance of British Watch and Clockmakers. I was one of the founding brands of that. And going six years, you know, I'm very I I contribute a lot to that because I believe in the growth of the industry, not just fears. Where do I see us in ten years' time? You know, when we're celebrating the hundred and ninetieth anniversary of FIRS uh first being founded. I don't see any reason why Fears isn't by that point doing tens and tens of thousands of watches a year. We can do that. We can absolutely do that. You know, if you look at the Swiss playbook, we can tick a lot of those boxes. But they're now gone up a price point. We're staying in our price point. The reason we've been able to do that is partly because growth brings in economies of scale. So we can work with the same suppliers creating the exact same part, but we're now ordering them in bigger quantities. Therefore the price per unit goes down. That's why we're able to keep at the price point rather than inflating it. I don't see any reason why, you know, beyond 10 years, 20 years from now, you know, Fears is seen as you know the British Tudor, the British Cartier, the British BrightLink. Insert large watch brand with great heritage and a distinct identity. I don't see any reason why we can't do that because we already see today, we're now getting traction with that 95%. We're getting traction with that audience that's very difficult to. But when they come to us, they see beyond the heritage, they see a beautiful watch, you know, a company that's backing its product, you know, the fact that you can buy it, you can get it repaired if you need to, classic designs, you know, not following trends, something that if you buy it five years time, you look back, it still looks like it's part of the collection. You know, all of these things are very key. For me, it's about going Fears should be able to achieve whatever it wants to. Because in the past, in its heyday, it was making hundreds of thousands of watches a year. I mean, it was a huge company. So why not go there again? But as I say, I sadly probably will uh I will be long uh long uh put out to pasture because yeah, to allow it to do that, I have to remember I have a tenure of running FIS, but I don't have a right to run it forever. Aaron Ross Powell |
| Andy Hoffman | Well, Nicholas Baumann Scargill, thank you for joining us on the business of watches, and we will be certainly watching in the next few years and as you go down that journey. So thank you so much for joining us. |
| Nicholas Bowman Scargill | Thank you very much. And |
| Unknown | that's the business of watches for |
| Andy Hoffman | this episode. We hope you enjoyed. Please head on over to Hodinkee.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! |