Episode 102 - Solas Watches, with Diyu Wu

Published on Wed, 07 Oct 2020 22:16:03 -0700

Synopsis

This is an interview with D.U. Wu, the founder of Solace Watches, a new Irish microbrand launching its first watch called the Starlight on Kickstarter. D.U. Wu shares his background growing up in multiple countries and working as an attorney, as well as his passion for watches that led him to start Solace Watches. The Starlight is a dress watch featuring a unique Aventurine dial and a Chinese micro-rotor automatic movement, both rarely seen in affordable watches. D.U. Wu discusses the challenges of convincing potential backers about the appeal of these haute horology elements at an accessible price point. He also teases some details about Solace's upcoming models aiming to further democratize high-end watch complications. D.U. Wu provides details on the Starlight's Kickstarter campaign, expected to launch on October 15th with rewards from €329 to €399. He expresses confidence in delivering the watches to backers by May/June 2021 as many components are already sourced. The hosts praise D.U. Wu's ambition with the Starlight and his philosophy of making luxury watch elements affordable for enthusiasts. They engage in friendly banter over other topics like blenders, movies, and mechanical keyboards as well.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. This is 1420 Watch Clicker podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett here. We talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Everett So good, bro. I'm really good. It's been just a fantastic weekend. I went golfing with the kids yesterday.
Andrew I saw the pictures of it that looked horrifying, but you know, fun.
Everett Yeah, no, I mean, it was it was good, right? It's different, right? Golfing with your kids is not like grabbing a couple buddies and going and playing 18 holes. So no, it is a much different experience, but we, it was really sort of joyful. I have to really remember to be positive and like allow them to make a billion mistakes where, where I'm not sort of in their butts about it. Uh, but as long as I can do those things, which is easier said than done, right?
Andrew Yeah.
Everett As long as I can do those things, it is delightful.
Andrew Do you think we won something? I don't think we've seen green tabs on this beer before.
Everett We did win something. Yeah. If you get the, if we get the green tabs, that means you're the winner.
Andrew Careful. It's going to spray a little bit. I got it on my face and the microphone. How are you doing? I'm good. It's a, it's, I just looked at my wrist. Like I was going to look at a watch, but as you guys all know, I don't wear a watch when we record. I don't have an answer for why. Uh, I just sat him down on the table and I don't even look at it. I don't know. I don't know. It's weird. Um, but I'm just in a weekend. I had a little power nap this morning and I woke up and uh,
Unknown Yeah, just.
Everett And when you say when you say a power nap, you mean all of your sleep for the day was reduced to about a three and a half hour. I got about five hours. Yeah. Oh, that's good. That's better than normal.
Andrew No, it wasn't five hours. I'm lying to you a lot. It was about three and a half hours. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So my my sleep cycle for today was three hours.
Everett Well, I'll tell you, you look amazingly alert. I mean, you really look attractive based on the fact that you've had three and a half hours of sleep. Yeah.
Andrew You know, got a little bit of scruff going on.
Unknown We're doing our no shave. fall part of our fundraiser. So I'm going to try growing a beard with everyone else to get made fun of. All right.
Everett I like your I like your I like your optimism, your self-esteem, your confidence.
Andrew Well, we wear masks all the time, so it's not like anyone's going to see it anyway. Like who cares? Yeah. Who cares? Yeah. It's not going to make my face look worse. We're sort of at like the the most and worst I will ever look like we're we're in stasis here.
Everett That's right. That's right. And so you're officially on your weekend now. Yeah, it's weekend. Freaking weekend.
Andrew Yeah, I'm going to have me some fun. Going to go to the Asian market on my way home to get some MSG. No, not not just MSG.
Everett I mean, that's worth a stop for me. Yeah, no, we're going to, you know, we've been cooking. Well, so I say we my family has been cooking with MSG pretty regularly. And when I say my family, me, because my wife is still slightly horrified by it, no matter how irrational the horror, though, though being horrified is. But I had uh i had some popcorn yesterday not very much because i can't really eat popcorn but i had some popcorn yesterday with just melted butter tossed in melted butter i took quarter cup of butter hell yeah melted like eight kernels of popcorn no for a full dash but you know it was butter soup tossed it in the butter and then salt and msg probably about five to one salt to msg and oh man
Andrew I understand that nutritional yeast also fills that same.
Everett Well, nutritional yeast has a glutamate, so when combined with salt, it actually is a monosodium glutamate. It is the same. It is the same, quote unquote, fifth flavor profile.
Andrew I didn't know that. I just had somebody. I had somebody tell me that when they cut out cheese, they started using nutritional yeast to scratch that itch.
Everett It is so good. Nutritional yeast on popcorn is good. It's a little bit.
Andrew And it's not as good as MSG. There's just nothing as good as MSG.
Everett It can be a little funky. I will say that about nutritional yeast. It can be a little funky.
Andrew I mean, I'm not going to try it. I'm a MSG kind of guy anyway. So. All right. All right.
Everett You're going to get some ramen when you go to the. Yeah. Yeah. That's part of the reason I'm going. That is the jam. So we we without further ado, we should get to it because we have we have a friend here on the show. We've got we've got kind of a special thing, right? Most of the time we talk to brand owners that have released a watch. It's pretty rare. I will say this. I don't think we've ever done this before. Yeah, we're announcing it. Well, I'm not announcing per se. Well, I am. But I don't think we've ever had an owner come on the show before their watch has been released. Oftentimes, it's really hard to gauge whether a watch is going to be cool. But I think both of us sort of agreed that what's happening here is cool. Yeah, it is cool. So without further ado, we have D.U. Wu. That all rhymes, which is fantastic. We have D.U. Wu of Soulless Watches on the line with us. D.U., how are you?
D.U. Wu Hi, guys. Yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you very much for having me on the show. And it's good. It's very exciting. And it's very, you know, I feel honored that I'm the first person here who is being interviewed before I release a watch. And I'm very glad to hear that you guys think it's a cool watch.
Everett Well, we do. You know, we're going to get into the watch. We're going to get into what you've done here with this Solar Star Lite that we have in hand. We do have this in hand. I do. And we'll get into the watch a little bit. But before we do, you've got a pretty interesting story. Do you? you know, in terms of geography and profession and, and just the the basic story. So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are? Before we get into solace and the watch, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are?
D.U. Wu Yeah, I think it is quite a quite a diverse background, because I've lived in four different countries. Now most of the time I've grown up in Ireland and Ireland is my home. When I think about going home, I think about returning to Ireland because I've lived here most of my life.
Everett So it's fair to say you're an Irishman?
D.U. Wu Oh yes. Irishman. I say Irishman by passport. However, genetics still play a part in that. I actually don't drink because when I drink, I'm the lightest lightweight ever. I call myself a very cheap date. We've actually heard that about you. That you're a cheap date. It used to be half a bottle of West Coast Cooler. I think after two years of trying to train myself up, I'm up to a bottle and a half of West Coast Cooler before I go to sleep. It's not even I get drunk. I think one third of Asians just lack an enzyme to dissolve alcohol, break down alcohol properly. So once alcohol gets into my system, I just fall asleep before I even have a chance to
Everett I mean, is it is it a pleasurable sleep, right? Because I know with some things they put me to sleep faster than some other people. And I would not generally go for that. I don't generally find that pleasurable. Is when you have a half a bottle of your West Coast cooler, is it is it a pleasurable pass out experience?
D.U. Wu No and you know nowadays my friends would all know that actually DU is a lot more fun while he's awake and just as energetic and crazy and in the club as the rest of us, whereas if I'm asleep I'm no fun at all. I think the one of the times was at a Thanksgiving dinner when I was in the US, living in the US and my friends there just said no this is fruit punch it's very light and alcohol and I'm struggling at the Thanksgiving dinner to not sit at the table and fall asleep into my plate. So I think after that, people just realize that EU and alcohol just do not mix.
Everett Unfortunately, that's not a good combo. Well, that's that's fine. That's fine, too. And you know what? We we sometimes I think just about always we drink on the show. So there's zero peer pressure, though. You're you're safe in Ireland and you don't have to drink with us if you don't want.
D.U. Wu I think you can drink double, you know, just to maintain the pride for the Irish as well, because in Ireland we joke that we give directions by pubs and by churches. So we have plenty of both.
Everett Yeah, that's funny, because it's the type of thing that doesn't surprise me. Having never been to Ireland, it's the type of thing that doesn't surprise me that an Irish person would say. Now, so born in China, you move to the UK early in life. And then eventually wound up in Ireland, but you said there's a fourth country too.
D.U. Wu Yeah, so actually, you know, during my university years, I spent a year in the US in Georgia and studied in Atlanta for a year there. I had a great time. I really enjoyed seeing the US. Actually the best part of that was during christmas i took a cross country trip riding a greyhound bus from atlanta to san francisco. Wonderful. And that was all because you know people were saying you're crazy it cost the same to fly home why would you take a bus and two and a half days of a trip there. And I just wanted to see all of the US and to cross over and to experience the parts that a lot of people would fly over. And it was great speaking to people on the bus and getting to know them and to know what's it like in Texas, what's it like in Alabama and all of the rest of the states.
Everett That's wonderful. And you know, I think that's something that sometimes gets lost when people talk about the United States. I think the United States has this international sort of homogeneity, this outward expression of homogeneity, but it is really, it couldn't be further from the truth. I mean, the United States is uh maybe as much as any other country in the world a true melting pot of culture and and race as much of it's significantly greater than most any other country in the world and and so to not to have just ended up in atlanta which i will say in terms of diversity atlanta is has has a lot right but to see you know like you said alabama and and and certainly san francisco right you really i think that trip in particular, you're going to get a great slice, almost literally a slice of what the United States is.
D.U. Wu Yeah. Although that time was, I think in the news, it came out on a Greyhound bus. They had in Canada, some guy decided to cannibalize and eat his fellow passenger on a trip. So I didn't tell my parents that I'm going to be taking a Greyhound trip for two and a half days across the U.S. But I did make sure to, like, you know, introduce myself to the person sitting beside me. And if they need any medication or prompting, I'll be happy to remind them to take any pills in case a voice in their head says no.
Everett That seems like a reasonable approach to that to that particular concern.
Andrew Just cover yourself in bug spray so you don't taste very good and call it a day.
Everett And so professionally, I understand you're an attorney.
D.U. Wu Yeah. Although in Ireland and the UK, we define ourselves down into solicitors and barristers. Sure. People who go out to court. I think what you guys call the transactional or the litigation.
Everett That's exactly right.
D.U. Wu And I would be the transactional side. So we're in the boring offices and we make sure things don't go wrong. If we end up in court, something has gone wrong. But I do see, you know, it's quite funny that in the U.S. they have lots of signs saying no solicitors, so I don't feel very welcome in the U.S. I really don't enjoy solicitors, I guess.
Everett No, it's an interesting, that's an interesting, that's an interesting concept because generally speaking, we have the same distinctions in the United States. We have transactional attorneys and litigators, like you said, but it is very, very common for folks to do both, right? I am an attorney. I do both. I do both the transactional side, the solicitor side, and the barrister side. I always thought the etymology of the term barrister was interesting, which is not to say anything's based on anything, but it is literally an attorney who goes to the bar, which is that fictional place in the court. I always really liked that. aspect. So I am very much an attorney who does both freely and by... Not for free, just to be... Well, that's right. It's not for free. But by reputation, I am known as a transactional guy who will go to the mats when needed. So we do not have those same sort of hard and fast distinctions. And I understand in the European courts, those distinctions are starting to get a little bit gray around the edges as well.
D.U. Wu Oh yeah, you know, uh, we've, we've come very modernized. Um, we've, uh, we've become very modernized and I think five years ago we stopped wearing the horse, uh, horse hair wigs. Right. And, and, but you know, you still, as a barrister, you'd be still deviling for a master. So it's all very archaic. Uh, some, some of the terms can still be quite archaic. Um, they are getting dragged up into the modern day as well.
Andrew Real quick. Did you ever have to wear a wig? I mean, you say it was five years ago. OK, I'm saying you say five years ago, and I feel like that's maybe facetious, but I also there's like a part of me that's saying maybe it's not.
Everett It's not. No, it's not. Up until very, very recently, 2016 or 2015, every single court in the UK, if you were in court, you were wearing a horsehair wig.
Andrew Yikes, that's awesome.
D.U. Wu OK, so wig. And of course the history of the wig is actually very interesting as well because that I think came about when Louis XIV or one of the Louis lost all his hair due to syphilis and it became kind of an in trend and in fashion thing to wear a wig because people back then just all had syphilis. And this was when the courts were being decided and then like they thought, well, you know, to look at fashionable gentlemen, you would need your robes and your wig. So that's why you have a wig. It all came from STDs.
Everett Yeah. It's really practical. That's how I lost my hair.
Andrew And oddly enough. Yeah. Look around. So why watches? Talk us through your journey into watches and then how we have one of your watches in front of us. It was in front of us. It is in front of us. I've got it right here. And how it's still here in front of us.
D.U. Wu Um, well, yeah, I, I think watches, um, it came, a lot of watches came about in college, uh, university. And I first got my kind of proper serious mechanical watch. um as a it was a cheap uh ish although expensive for a university student a 200 euro a seagull m171s which had a lovely you know the retrograde hands and an open heart that kind of looked like a to be young um and and you know it just fascinated me to see that Even five, seven years ago, ten years ago, already we lived in such a digital age that a wristwatch, a mechanical wristwatch full of hundreds of gears and parts can be assembled and keep time to five, ten seconds a day, which is We don't demand that kind of accuracy out of almost anything that we generally encounter, especially analog. But a watch can do that, and it can do it well, and it doesn't cost a lot, potentially. So it's fascinating to have something that's ticking and moving. People say about the spirit of automatic and mechanical watches being that there's a spirit behind them that you might not get with an Apple watch, which is great tech. But with a mechanical, I think it's one of the last things that we do. We have that connect us to a really analog world as well.
Everett You know, we we talk to a lot of folks that that question that that quote unquote why watches question is a question that seems very obvious. We got it from our good friend A.J. Barse of the Bellingham podcast. He's a Northwest guy and, you know, he's co-hosted the show with us a couple of times. He's just a wonderful person. And he has a series called I Watches. And so I always like to give credit to him because it's such an obvious question that sometimes doesn't get asked directly enough, I think. But that question, we have asked that question or some form thereof to just about everyone who's been on the show. And I'll say we've talked to a couple of people who've come into this by way of that Siegel route. And when I say that, I want to clarify what I mean. You know, I think Siegel does something different. than Seiko, perhaps, or Orient, or Casio, or even, you know, even perhaps Rolex or Omega. You know, Seagull is doing high-end things in very, as you noted, in very affordable or relatively affordable packages. That watch that you're referring to with its open heart, and it's got sort of a luxurious, you know, maybe an F.P. Journe type of feel, right? You're looking at a watch that looks like something that could be $10,000. And we don't hear that answer very often, but I think it's surprising. I think it's surprising that we don't see more of that. You're not saying, I found it SKX online and I was like, this is cool and I need it. What do you, how do you think that entry into the hobby shaped your feelings and your opinions about watches?
D.U. Wu Yeah, I think it definitely, you know, it was a very interesting first step. So as you said, it wasn't a Seiko 5, that was, you know, and it wasn't a Rolex being handed down to me as my first mechanical, but rather it was something from China. And, you know, we do have, there's a, there's a, I mean, it deserved a reputation of, there's a lot of, you know, sadly, a you know, do you, maybe less people have heard about the $50,000 Seagull, which is, which has a minute repeater or the $80,000 Seagull, which comes with an annual perpetual calendar, minute repeater and erotic movement.
Everett Serious haute horology stuff, right? People, you're, you're right. I don't think it's, I don't think it's common knowledge that Seagull is a legit watchmaker.
D.U. Wu And they are doing that. They have the one, you know, master watchmaker who sits down and hand makes these movements. And I've toured the Seagull factory before because I just wanted to see where these watches were made and look inside the factory. It would have been, you know, one dream would be to meet this master watchmaker. He's in his 60s, 70s now. And, you know, talk to him to see how he has also pushed forward the Chinese movements from what may be considered cheap and disposable to now they want to build better quality watches.
Andrew So we got to part of it. We got to your journey in. How did you get to where you are now? That we're wearing a watch that you have... I'm wearing a watch. Well, my wrist's in there too. It's a weird thing. You don't want to see the video. How did we get to there? So you buy this watch, you see it, you love it, you wear it. There's a fascination there. You caught the bug in the same way that we all do. This kind of antiquated technology, but that's still cutting edge and more advanced than a lot of technology than most people even realize. It's something that we absolutely don't need because everyone has a phone in their pocket. So I know the journey. I know the bug that you caught. Where was that tipping point for you to say, you know what? I can do this. There's something missing in the affordable watch market, and I know what it is, and I know people are going to like it.
D.U. Wu Yeah, I think, you know, I gave you the start of my journey. And really, as my collection grew, and this was back when I was still a student, a law student, so, you know, they're not earning much at all. So it would be my collection would be slowly building from, you know, citizens, looking at some Russians, so the Vostoks, the Mongols, actually. amphibious, and so on. Eventually, when I started a nice job, I got myself a Speedmaster. It was fantastic. And when you're building that collection, eventually you see things that you like, and interesting complications and so on, and think, oh, that would be nice. Something that I saw pretty early on, I knew already micro rotors were something that they've been around. In the past, they were in, you know, the more ubiquitous, you know, Universal Geneve, with the pole rotor and all of that. But if you wanted a micro-rotor in the year 2000 or 2010 or 2020, it's pretty much going to be either you get a Patek or you get a Piaget or one of the really high-end Swiss, or you go onto eBay and you try and find an old UG, you don't know if that's going to be working. So I thought, well, you know, we really should have a third choice, not just between either eBay 70s, 60s watch or, you know, $20,000 watch. So for me, and because I like to follow Chinese movements and developments, I knew that Hangzhou had released their movement. In fact, Seagull had released their movement as well, the ST4020. But they never released it on a commercial scale because they had problems on the rotor. And this is part of the technical reasons. They did actually mount a micro rotor in the, I think, $20,000 gold tourbillon as well. So, you know, that's also kind of in the Swiss area of not being an affordable micro rotor. So what I wanted by the end was actually, I think that is something that people as a watch enthusiast myself i wanted one and that's why i then said well let's see can i go and do it and make one for myself after i made one for myself i thought well i think other people watch enthusiasts will also actually enjoy the same thing as well and i think i have to say the the journey and path to getting to um launching solace uh was Hey, I bought a microbrand, a Borealis, a Seahawk. Really lovely timepiece because a Pelagos was maybe a bit too expensive for me at the time. Sure. I bought the blue version before Tudor released their blue version. So, you know, the Tudor is a homage of the Seahawk. So that got me into microbrands saying, OK, microbrands are doing really interesting things. They can offer a lot of features for a lot less price, and that's great value. And then actually, with Hampton... Go ahead, I'm sorry. Oh yeah, sorry, just with Hampton then, Hampton Watches, they also released a titanium Hampton H2. That kind of really got me into understanding about crowdfunding, because for me, you know, my day job is a law job, I'm working quite a lot, we've got long hours in law, but With crowdfunding, it allows people with a good, hopefully a good idea, to share that idea with others and say, you know, do you think that's a good idea? If you do, then let's try and kickstart this and get it made so that you can share and, you know, potentially get a pretty good price for this product. And it allows people with that idea to go forth and say, actually, actually, instead of 20,000 needing 50,000, 100,000 to get started in the watch business, you might need only a fraction of that to get started.
Everett We've talked about this a lot and we've talked about this recently. I mean, we've had a couple of episodes actually dedicated to this idea. And those episodes have been only modestly well received because people have opinions about this crowdfunding ideology. I think we've generally, and Andrew you can tell me if you think this is wrong, I think we've generally come to the consensus or the opinion as a team here that micro brands create exactly this value that you're expressing right now, which is the idea that we're going to create something that is maybe not universally loved, that is not marketable, in the same way that Seiko creating a 38 millimeter dress version of the SKX might be, you know, that's easy, right? Seiko, they make a 38 or a 40 millimeter, you know, the dress, this dress, KX watch that they release. And it's like, oh yeah, that's fucking easy and awesome. And everybody is going to buy it. And it's so low risk, but it's also not exciting. I mean, it's exciting, but it's not new. It's not innovative. That's right. So I think our consensus on this thing is that crowdfunding, like you say, really, really, this is a part of the industry. And as unfortunate as some of the side effects of crowdfunding might be, it's driving innovation in the watch world in a really important way. We're here for it, dude. We hear what you're saying, and I think that's right. So why don't you do a little bit of just sort of introduction on this solace, and I think we've been using a big O or a hard O, solace, and I hear you say solace, that's fine. I appreciate that, and I understand there's some etymology there as well. But why don't you tell us a little bit about what the solace starlight is, what you're doing here. We know it's a micro rotor. but it's more than that. So tell us what the Starlight is.
D.U. Wu Yeah. Um, so when it came to actually sitting down and saying to myself, you know, what do I want to build in a watch? One of the first things was, well, I'm from Ireland, I'm Irish. I wanted to be an Irish watch and proudly and genuinely and authentically Irish as much as possible. Uh,
Everett Everybody tells us that. We hear that from every single person that comes on the show.
Andrew About 25 Irish watch brands that you're competing with to be authentically Irish.
Everett We're joking, obviously. We're being obtuse, but go ahead.
D.U. Wu Well, actually, yeah, I did get some YouTube comments saying like, for $300 or $400, you'd think they at least put an Irish movement into that watch as well.
Andrew Yeah, right. You're also, I mean, that's round two.
D.U. Wu Irish movement, right? Irish movement. And he makes two a year. And they're beautiful. But I think we're not operating in the same kind of expectations of price point and so on. So for me, first of all, I did want to make it very Irish. And that's why with the Irish, I got my, now I speak a bit of Irish myself. I've It's actually quite funny because I'm effectively, I think, on kind of the Irish equivalent of the SATs because people watch my Irish film in Irish high school and they answer the state national exams about my film that I was acting in. People in Ireland know me as someone who was a semi-famous Irish actor in a short film.
Everett All right, so hold on, you've got to explore that. I've heard this story, I've read this story, but for the folks at home who are listening who don't know what you're talking about, tell us about this. We're going to take a, let's call it a two-minute aside. Tell us about this film because I think it's kind of interesting.
D.U. Wu Yeah, the director, Daniel O'Hara, he wrote a great script and It's basically about a Chinese guy who was just fed up in China, spins aglow, randomly lands on Ireland. And our national language in Ireland is Irish, Gaeilge, which is not English with an Irish accent, like Derby or Gill or something like that. It's completely a different language, a Celtic language. It'd be similar to Scottish or Welsh or Breton, I think, in France. Old English. Yeah, so instead of saying hello, in Irish, it's d'ye gwich. So that, you know, that's entirely different languages. And this guy, Yu Ming, in China, spins a globe, lands on Ireland, decides, okay, I want to emigrate to Ireland. He looks it up and says, okay, in Ireland, they speak Irish, because that's our official language. He learns Irish. He comes over to Ireland and, you know, gets off the plane, everything's still fine, because All our road signs are in dual languages, so English and Irish. And Irish is tough as well, because it's our primary language. Then guest through to the hostel, walks in the door, and then finds out no one can understand him. And that's kind of, it's a tragicomedy, and something that really touches the Irish themselves, because It is making the point that this foreigner can come here, speak our mother tongue, as it were, and a national language, but yet he can go around Dublin and find that no one can understand him because English, you know, while it's a secondary language, it is de facto, you know, everyone speaks English. Almost very, very few people can speak Irish.
Everett And so this film is sort of akin to the ubiquitous sex ed film or whatever that we might watch in school. Everybody watches this film, right? Everybody, when they're in school, watches this film.
D.U. Wu Yeah, I think the craziest thing was when the Chinese prime minister came over to visit Ireland, our president gave him a copy of my film as well. He was like, oh, this is our Irish-Chinese tie together. So in Ireland, a lot of people You know, a lot of people would know of Yu Ming as Adam Dong.
Everett And you are this protagonist, Yu Ming, so which makes you I think you've described it as a Z-list celebrity, but people recognize you occasionally as Yu Ming.
D.U. Wu Yeah, on the streets, you still get old grannies come up, coming up to me and then speaking fluent Irish. And I'm very sorry to, like, crush their dreams and that I'm not a fluent Irish speaker. I'd like to say it's kind of like Mel Gibson isn't fluent in Aramaic and all of that. So I think he just went with it. We learned the lines.
Andrew Yeah. No one's going to know what I'm saying anyway. I mean,
Everett So back to the Starlight, back to the Starlight. Now, now we have, we have some background. Tell us about this watch because it's, it's, it's pretty spectacular. Tell us about this watch.
D.U. Wu Yeah. And I think when I was building the Starlight and seeing what to put in and how to, how to best use the budget, because you know, there's always things that you would love to put in if you had the funds, if you had the budget. And we were working off a certain budget, so we can't, you know, I would love to say I would want to put in hand-finished anglaise and black polish and all that, but that can't happen at this particular price. So for me, it was all about making the right compromises and seeing what can be achieved with this particular, at this particular price point. And what can be achieved? And perhaps with the view that this is something that hasn't, this movement hasn't been used before in the Western world. And people are going to be naturally perhaps suspicious of a Chinese movement. So, if I'm coming out with a 2,000 euro watch using this with the lovely black polish and anglaise, people might still say, no, it's just too high. So I need to build a reputation, build, you know, and give people an opportunity to try it out and say, you know, what's the harm? Actually, a micro rotor, a Venturine dial, that's cool. It's only 329 euros starting off that price. Well then, sure, I'll give it a try and gamble and hopefully people who get it in hand will think it's an amazing deal because I truly do think, you know, I'm judging it from my viewpoint that if I was a, I am a watch enthusiast, I was waiting for something like this to come out and because it hadn't come out in five, six, seven years, I just got tired of waiting and decided, OK, with crowdfunding, let's try and get it made by myself.
Everett So so what is it? I mean, what is it? I mean, we can see it. You know what it is. What is this watch? And, you know, the 45 second version, what is this watch?
D.U. Wu Oh, yeah. So the 45 second, it's a dress watch in a standard 38 meter, 38 millimeter case size with a Venturine dial and a micro rotor on the back. And we have, you know, Irish, all of the text is in Irish except for the word starlight. And we have a made in Ireland Horween leather strap as well. So we made it as Irish as possible right now.
Andrew So for your first watch, a lot of people go a sport watch or a dress watch or a diver or something palatable. to everyone, some generic is maybe the word. I think it's most appropriate. You went big in the micro word with a micro rotor. And then you're like, you know what? That's not big enough. Let's go venturing to you. You're you're trying to pull off two really high end, really specific things all at once. And you packaged them together for this really terrific product. What was your drive to go so ambitious right out of the gate?
D.U. Wu Yeah. And I think for me, it was all about, look, I don't think the Solas will be your one and only watch. And for me, it's when I look at my watch collection and see, well, I have a Diver, I have this, I have a Titanium thing, I have a Meteorite, I have a... What do I not have? And that I want. And I think, you know, it's actually nice to have, would be interesting to have. And hey, I don't have a micro rotor watch. I don't have something with a Venturine. And actually with a Venturine is something that I had seen. I've got an Amiga Speedmaster and I've seen that Amiga Speedmaster Moonphase in a Venturine. And that was beautiful. I've seen it in hand, so I know Aventurine is beautiful. And that's why I said, okay, if the budget can allow for this, then great, I'm going to put that in. And because I'm going for the kind of Henry Ford model of, look, a lot of Kickstarters, they come out and they already have 50 different varieties and options. And that's just going to get people bogged down. MLQs are difficult to actually meet if you have so many different varieties. So for me, I said, look, I'm just going to make one. I'm going to make one variety. You can get one variety, one choice. There won't, you know, and for me, I want to make it well. Let's see what I can do with the budget. And then hopefully I'm not trying to to make a profit from this, but actually use sustainable profits to invest on the next model as well.
Andrew So what is your thinking? What's your selling point on this? Because this is a cool watch. It's got a terrific dial that is really only seen in luxury watches. It's got a totally novel movement that is also only seen in luxury watches. So what's your pitch to people for the Starlight? Beyond just looking at it and saying, oh cool, it's sparkly, I think I like that. What's the pitch? Give me the elevator, buy my watch speech.
D.U. Wu Yeah, and I think a lot of that buy my watch speech ties into what I see Solos developing into, because for a lot of people, they might be interested in that my ultimate goal Is to build an affordable repeater watch as well because i want to be able to let people get their hands on watches that. You see it in Kickstarter. Some of the promos, they say, this is a millionaire's watch. Only millionaires can afford this. And actually, they're not exactly millionaire watches. But with something like a repeater, it really is high-end horology. But I know that I think with the right kind of Right motivation and the right encouragement for the chinese industry. The reason that they're not building something like this right now is because. they're pretty sure that if someone builds it they won't be able to sell it because they're just going to get poo pooed and say oh no the Chinese can never build something that intricate or difficult at a lower price. But I'm sure they can. And so partially it is to try and kind of democratize these high end complications and bring them down to a level that people can afford as well. Everyone can afford.
Andrew I also have to talk the strap real quick too.
D.U. Wu Yeah, yeah.
Everett Well, before you talk, because he's he's right here. So I want to so I want to I want to ask a kind of a specific question. And this this question stems from some of the comments we've had. We've had your watch here for a couple of weeks and we've posted it on Instagram and we've had conversations with people about it. And one of the things I notice is that there seems to be some confusion about adventuring. And I think adventuring is people look at it and they don't really know what it is. They don't really know why it's neat. Do you have, do you think you have a proverbial mountain or hill to climb in terms of convincing your average everyday affordable consumer, guys like me or Andrew, who buy $300 to $600 watches? Is there a hill to climb in convincing these folks that Aventurine is seen in high-end watches, $10,000, $20,000 watches, and more, obviously. Do you have a hill to climb to convince a guy like Andrew or I, a $300 and $500 consumer, that Aventurine's special versus just sparkly? I think that's a fair assessment of the opinions we've received. Is that a challenge for you, and how do you overcome that?
D.U. Wu Yeah, it definitely is. And I think there's a, there were moments in time when I, when I think, oh my God, I didn't give myself a big enough challenge with trying to convince people that a Chinese micro rotor would be, you know, won't break down the first moment you touch it. And then now I've brought on this, which has been invariably described as like glitter pastes. disco ball and so on. And so, you know, you're entirely right in that generally in this price segment, you would never see adventuring. It would be like if somebody just said to you, platinum is great. And we knew nothing about platinum. Then we were like, it just looks like stainless steel. Right. And why, why do you think platinum is great? So, so it is, it has been difficult, especially actually with all the video reviews I found a lot of the video reviews have beautiful studio lights that light up the watches phenomenally well for normal dials but for aventurine it just it does objectively look like a disco ball then because those kind of harsh direct lighting doesn't actually do aventurine any favors whereas naturally it might not be as sparkly or you know as I call it, turned up to 11 on the sparkles. It's much more subdued.
Andrew It looks like the night sky over the mountains.
D.U. Wu It's so well balanced. I think for the dial, definitely. Aventurine, it's something that in hand looks beautiful i think it looks beautiful but on video and photos and that's where micro bands are operating because we need to show people via video and by photos it can be quite difficult if you can't get the photos correct and and even with the kind of 20s i see on h moser their pictures of their endeavor adventuring model It doesn't necessarily look great, because perhaps, you know, Houdinki didn't take a great photo of the thing because they didn't have the right lighting set up to take a good photo. But I know that, you know, in hand, that mosaic must look spectacular on the front and back as well. So, yes, it is difficult. But I think. With enough people and enough reviewers and enough people looking at it in hand and saying it looks It looks fantastic. No, despite what you might see on the on the video per se. So the camera sometimes does lie and people who are willing to give it a shot and see it in hand will you'll find that actually this is an amazing material. And that's why, you know, the A.L. Langelson and Bove and so on, they use it in their uber expensive watches.
Everett And what about failure rates? I mean, you've done the other aspect to this is that you've picked two materials and material, not you've picked two features, right? So both the movement and, you know, and forgive me for saying I don't have any familiarity with the 5000A Hongshou movement and nobody else does either. But I assume that you've got a relatively high error rate. And you can correct me if I'm wrong on that. But also, I know Aventurine has a relatively high failure rate. So how do you compensate for those in a package that's coming in and under, you know, really, your long-term plans, I think, are about 550 euro, but for now, under 400 euro. How do you compensate for those relatively high error rates in both Aventurine and the 5008? And again, feel free to correct me on the Hangzhou movement.
D.U. Wu Yeah, actually, on the error rate for the movement itself, we haven't been finding that. And when I speak to PTS, who are the official agents and actually the partial owners of Hangzhou Watch Factory as well, they have sold a few of these movements out to more than a few. they've had normal failure rates, so that is what we've, though I've given a bit more margin as well in terms of planning to, in case there are any service or servicing issues, we can handle that within our budget and our pricing point. The adventuring, yes, it is I like to joke that, you know, if you look at the Moser, they only have two holes cut out into the dial because aventurine is effectively a one millimeter slice of glass stuck onto a maybe a 0.2 millimeter copper plate and it can crack easily. And when we manufacture the dials, I think out of every 12, we get maybe four dial cracks. And we need to drill about 27 holes into that dial instead of Moses 2. So it is something that we, it is built into the budget and we have, and my factory partner, they're confident that at these, at the current prices that we're offering it at, they can still offer, they can have a kind of a wear rate of having four dials crack out of every 12 to 14. 33% or so. Yeah, it's it is. It's not an easy material to work with, so.
Andrew So. We've got the starlight in front of us. Do you think you could clue us in on the additional two ideas you've got pending?
D.U. Wu Yeah, somewhat, because It's a lot more than just two because I found you know just in the last while as well I've been enjoying this so much and having having the freedom to think about the designs and what the new things will come. What new things I want to see that. Isn't being done so nothing that i think so last will be doing will be seen before or at least seen before in affordable arena and. So I actually have a kind of effectively a six-year plan now because you know people know I've been saying it all the time my ultimate goal is to make an affordable repeater watch that's kind of at the end of six years but for every year I've already been designing and actually designing different watches that I feel are I would, as a watch enthusiast, love to add to my collection as well, in addition to all the watches I already have. So, you know, the first one wasn't a diver, the second one will be, will be diver based. Yes. Something that you won't have seen. Please, it's exciting. It is exciting because it, you know, I think something that's going to be more of a trademark for Solace would be interesting dials. The dial materials will always be something out of the ordinary and we don't expect to be using, you know, painted brass dials and materials as well. So different materials for the case and bracelet outside of the kind of the titanium, outside of the carbon, forged carbon, all of that. There are other materials which I find have, you know, practical uses for dive watches, for example, or desk divers.
Everett It occurs to me, and this may be an insensitive question, Andrew, you can feel free to kick me under the table, but it occurs to me that there's the possibility that exists that you're approaching this venture as an ethnically Chinese person living in the Western world. And whether or not that's true or not, I'm going to let you expound on, but Do you think that that's part of your approach to this? I think that the way your brand sounds is very much in tune with what I know about what Siegel brings to us. When we see Siegel watches, we see these very sort of, not ornate necessarily, but very sort of haute horology ideas and concepts and philosophies in a package that is not marked up in a way that we'd experience with H. Moser or H. Moser, as you said, or perhaps, you know, one of these heritage Swiss brands or something. Is that something, am I hitting something there or am I imagining all of this?
D.U. Wu No, I think you're definitely right. I like to draw a comparison to SpaceX and Elon Musk, where his goal and his dream is to get people to Mars, and my goal is to get that affordable repeater into people's hands, and I see the starlight as my Falcon 9, the starting off rocket, because he looked at the market and said, you know, why can't rockets come back and land? And people thought he was, that's crazy. And I was just saying, well, why can't we have a, you know, affordable micro rotor? I've been waiting so long. Hangzhou, they build this movement. It functions perfectly well. It's not going to fall apart. And it It actually took a bit of investigation to see why no one was building that affordable micro rotor. And the reason apparently was that it's easier to make money from a Seiko diver. So why would you as a micro brand, why would you take the risk and build something where you have to get less margins? And I can understand because I listened to your podcast with Mark from Long Island Watch and he said, you know, it would be wrong to expect people to be altruistic and to not want to make a profit and so on. But equally, there are people who are maybe more altruistic and said, actually I just want to make a nice thing and I want people to be able to have that nice thing. You know, it's all part of the goal that if I can reach that affordable repeater watch for people, hey, in the end, I might decide to just sell it at cost, not at cost, at no profit. So, you know, it covers off the other services. Because something like that, I want people to have in their hands and enjoy. It's not necessarily about profits for me.
Andrew I want one. So the details where, when, how, how much, expected delivery dates. When are we going live? Give it all to me.
D.U. Wu Yeah. So we are launching on October 15th at 3 p.m. Irish time. That's GMT plus one. I chose a time that would I think cover at 12 o'clock midnight in Australia and 7 a.m. in California. So sorry about the people in New Zealand and Alaska. Most of the world should be awake at that point. No one needs to be crawling about 3 a.m. in the morning for the time. we will have a number of watches from 329 euro plus shipping to 399 and you know it is exactly the same model so the sooner you pack the sooner you back the better price you'll get at that even though it's funny because at 399 I still think it's amazing value because I do truly when I say kind of ultimate retail price of maybe 550 euro. I feel like that would be a natural actual retail price for it. And this truly is a Kickstarter price that will enable people to kickstart Solace as a brand. So I'm not trying to make much profits from this. I'm trying to get the brand kickstarted along with this kind of ambitious first model. So that's a price, the time, and one of the things that we've done to try and make backers feel comfortable in backing this, and this is not vaporware or just merely a 3D render of things that will all change in time. All the cases have been polished and are ready to go. The dials have been all ordered into the factories. And really, as I've been saying, the backers here for this campaign will be helping me finish the project, not begin the project. Because the funding here will be coming to, the funding will be used to kind of get the movement in and do the final assembly.
Everett When do you anticipate shipping these watches?
D.U. Wu Yeah, and because we have these components already in now, we should be able to keep to our timeline as well because and that's something that's very important to me. So the timeline expected delivery date would be May slash June of 2021.
Everett Wonderful.
D.U. Wu You know, wonderful COVID-19. Right. With that.
Everett Yeah, we've we've talked about that a bunch, right? How this this COVID-19 has been a serious hindrance for folks like yourself, right? Which are in sort of the opening throws of initiating a brand. So Totally great. We are going to probably shift over here. I have one more question.
Andrew Oh my gosh. Where else are people going to be able to find you, photographs of the watches, and anything about the brand beyond Kickstarter?
D.U. Wu Yeah, so if you go on to www.solacewatches.com, you'll be able to find, we've put up the links to every single review, interview, hands-on, and people can just click on that and get directly into the video reviews, or the photos, or the written articles about the watch as well.
Everett Wonderful, wonderful. So we are going to transition now. which is into our favorite segment of the day, which is our other things, uh, which is always just something else you're into. Uh, so I know we didn't, we didn't prep you on this, but you're going to have about eight minutes starting it right now to come up with some other thing. Um, Andrew, I know you've got something. What do you got?
Andrew I have got something. That's not what we talked about already. Okay. I recently acquired a Blendtec.
Everett A Blendtec?
Andrew Yeah. I joined the 21st century of blenders. And I don't know what took me so long, mostly because I was like, a blender is a fucking blender, right? It is. No, it's just not. Yeah. A blender is not just a blender. Yeah. You guys have a ninja, don't you? We have a ninja. Yeah. So we got the Blendtec and I've got a couple of friends who have Blendtecs and we, you know, I've looked at them like it's a fucking blender. Yeah. I don't get it. Got one for my wife's birthday, for her. I mean, so we acquired a Blendtec. I've only observed her using it, but I have to say, it's worth it. I got a refurbished off the Amazon.
Everett Because these things aren't exactly cheap, right?
Andrew Even refurbished, they're not exactly cheap. Yeah, that's right. So I picked up a refurbished off of the Amazon, and it looks totally brand new. I bought some other refurbished products, and I'm like, this wasn't fucking refurbished. This is just used. This looked brand new, came with stickers, papers, warranty, the whole, the whole bit. And it is amazing. Yeah. It's got all these pre-settings. You just push the button and it runs its cycle and it does its thing. And, and like, I've, I've just never seen anything destroy ice so effectively. Yeah.
Everett We, we, we'd be drinking margaritas. I've never seen anything destroy an iPhone so effectively.
Andrew You know, I also got a new iPhone this week cause I, I couldn't deal with like. Did you put the old one in the blunt deck? I should. Yeah, you should. Oh, I got to check resale value on it before I do that. But I'm we may we may have a 40 and 20 iPhone destruction video coming your way. But yeah, check out Blendtec. If you guys are still using like the Black & Decker blender you got for your wedding 10 years ago, maybe consider an upgrade.
Everett Well, so right. There's like three brands, right? There's there's there's Blendtec, which is famous for its infomercial type marketing. There's There's Vitamix, Vitamix, which is sort of the gold standard Karen version. Yeah. And then there is Ninja, which I think is more of like the middle class Costco shopper.
Andrew I think I think Ninja is. I remember seeing ninjas and Vitamix is on opposing corners of a Costco.
Everett That's right. That's right. So these two, I mean, Vitamix is sort of the the the high end version. Ninja is sort of the affordable version. And there's probably compromises in there.
Andrew You know what I like about the Blendtec is the blade is not sharp.
Everett Oh yeah, my Ninja is sharpish.
Andrew I've cut myself on it. It's not sharp. It just uses brute force and repetition, which I like. That's kind of my style for solving problems. It's not sharp, so I don't cut myself. And I've cut myself on every blender and food processor blade I own, even the ones that have never been in the food processor. when reaching into the little storage compartment, I've cut myself. I'm like, oh, I just cheese grated my finger, and I don't use cheese grater in this food processor. Why do I even have this disk of like just 75 blades?
Everett You know, that is very much your style. I remember when I had that old shotgun, and I said, Andrew, I've got some problem. You know guns. How do I fix this? And you said, we can do it. It's always brute force and repetition. Three hours later, brute force and repetition got us there. It got us there, really did. So yeah, totally your style. I've got another thing. This is not a weird one for what we do. I just think it's a weird one because I'm going to recommend something. I'm going to recommend something, but it's something I didn't love. I've done things I hated before. I don't hate it. I'm fully recommending it, but with that touch of
Andrew So it's kind of the way I recommend this podcast.
Everett It's a. That's fair. This is a movie. It's a movie I saw on Netflix, and I think it's a Netflix original, which, you know, I never know what that means. Is this something that got made and because of a lack of marketability, it got sold to Netflix? I don't know.
Andrew I don't know if Netflix made this. I wish Netflix was more transparent in their things that they've funded and developed versus things that they bought. I'm not sure it makes any sense for them to do so, but I like an excellent Netflix exclusive versus a Netflix original because I think they do do that. You just have to know the vernacular. No, because Meat Eater is a is a show that is not a Netflix original, and it shows as a Netflix original. It's just not an original.
Everett OK, well, so I don't know. I don't know if this is original or like if this is organic, native to Netflix or if it's something they purchased, but it's a movie called The Devil All the Time. It's a Netflix movie. It's got fantastic actors in it. Actors and actresses, if you prefer that vernacular. I just say actors. And I'm going to name off a bunch of men, but the women in this are fantastic as well. It's got Tom Holland. It's got Robert Pattinson. It's got Bill Skarsgård, who was Pennywise famously most recently. It's got Harry Melling, who is famously Dudley Dursley. It's got Jason Clark and some others, right? I'm not naming all the people you would know. The acting in this movie is fantastic. What I will tell you about this movie is it's not happy. There is not a single moment of joy in this movie. It is miserable from start to finish. And when I say miserable, I don't mean Requiem for a Dream miserable, right? This is not going to make you develop suicidal tendencies. I never felt bad watching it, but it is like it's not a happy movie. It's a miserable movie.
Andrew District 9. What's that? Like District 9.
Everett Maybe a little different, but yes, well done. Yeah, I loved it. I loved it, and I'll tell you why I loved it. The acting in this movie is some of the best acting I have seen in a movie in years. Every single performance is fucking tits. Every single one of them. So, Harry Melling, Dudley Dursley, right? Not someone I think of as being a standout actor. And he was incredible. Without any reservation, his performance in this movie is absolutely spot on. Spot on. Similarly, Robert Pattinson, Twilight, right? I think people will say,
Andrew Grown all you want. So what's that? He's a hunk.
Everett I mean, I don't know if people are jealous. He is amazing. The performances in this movie are totally wonderful. Now, you're not going to watch this movie and feel joy.
Andrew Are you going to watch this movie and feel exhausted, like just want to curl up with a bottle of wine and go to bed?
Everett No, no. But that's that's my point, right? It is not Requiem for a Dream. It is not going to make you feel bad. It is it is from start to finish watchable. totally watchable. You want to keep watching. It's just not, you don't ever have that moment of relief. Like, Oh, okay, this is worth it. Right. That never comes, but the performances are phenomenal. I think it's the best showcase of acting I've seen in years, years. It is incredible. So I'm going to fully recommend it. Did you watch the new Rambo? Uh, it was slightly better than that. It was really close, but slightly better than that. So, uh, uh, The Devil All the Time is the name of the movie. You can find it on Netflix right now. Do watch it.
Andrew So, so, so good. You did not do a good job selling it.
Everett Do you? Other things. What do you got, man?
D.U. Wu Yeah, well, first I want to say, you know, with that endorsement of Robert Pattinson, you know, do you have high hopes for him in Batman then?
Everett I have high hopes. I have high hopes. And I think and I think that's a hot take. But I do have high hopes.
Andrew I just want to see him without a shirt on. That is that will meet the requirement. Fair enough.
Unknown Fair enough.
D.U. Wu Yeah. And I also want to say to Andrew that please don't try a blender starlight. I'm pretty sure it will blend.
Andrew Oh, I won't. No, not definitely not the starlight. We have sent back every watch that we've ever been, ever been lucky enough to handle. With some reticence for some of them. Yeah, much. And this will be among them.
D.U. Wu Though I would be interested to see that tungsten rotor go into the blender because it is, you know, tungsten, I think it's about the same density of depleted uranium. So if it can blend that micro rotor, then actually that would be pretty impressive.
Everett I have a tungsten wedding ring. We'll do it. We'll send you the video.
Andrew I have a tungsten wedding ring. We'll just see which one wins.
D.U. Wu Well, so, yeah, my other thing that I'm thinking about, I think would be actually it's one of the only other mechanical things that I use in this digital age. And I like having I have mechanical keyboards. So and made in Kentucky as well with the Unicomp, which is based on the old IBM models. Yes, sir. So proudly made in the USA and it's a joy to type on. And actually something that, because of the working from home, something that I've got my wife into as well now. So now she types on a mechanical keyboard and says she can't go back typing on her laptop with a tiny little travel bit. So I think, you know, for me, If it's something that you use every day for your work, then why not get something that feels wonderful and it works well, feels good to type on instead of, you know, the standard office $10 Dell or HP keyboard that you have?
Everett You know, I think it's an interesting I think it's an interesting interplay between mechanical watches and mechanical keyboards, right? With membrane keyboards, we can do all the things and certainly every single keyboard that you might buy at a big box store. They're membrane based keyboards, by and large, electronic sort of feedback. But once you start to get into mechanical keyboards, there's this sort of joy that is elicited by way of the functionality. And you've talked a little bit about the soul of a mechanical watch. We've talked about that on the show. Obviously, no watches have a soul, but there's the same sort of feeling when you a mechanical keyboard, right? I've got I've got a. I've got a key mechanism that I have that I have researched, and I understand what it means, and I can I can really sort of tailor in the feedback. I want the response, the the click, the feel. You know, if you want something with high tactile response, you can do that. If you want something that makes a loud noise versus a quiet noise, you can really get it to where you want it in this anachronistic way, just like mechanical watches, right? And so I'm surprised that we don't see more of a crossover between mechanical watch lovers and mechanical keyboard lovers.
Andrew I think there's a closeted crossover there. You know, one of the worst sounds on the planet to me, though, is a woman with long acrylic nails typing on a mechanical keyboard. That is that to me. It's very specific. That's a sound that could kill me.
Everett So so what do you what do you rock on? What's your what's your mechanical keyboard or choice these days?
D.U. Wu Yeah, so, you know, at home I have my Unicom, which is very loud and not suitable for the office environment at all, unless you want to, you know, have your colleagues want to kill you.
Everett We're talking about like MX Cherry Blues in that thing, right?
D.U. Wu Oh, that's the Unicomp uses the original IBM style buckling spring. And actually it is a membrane keyboard, but it's a mechanical membrane keyboard. So it has that membrane underneath, but it doesn't use a little rubber domes that you have in the $10 cheap keyboard. But I think they call it like catastrophically buckling compression springs or some kind of weird name that they have. And it's a grandfather, granddaddy of all keyboards, because the layout that was first used in that Model M is what, you know, keyboards look like nowadays. And Unicomp, they're very interesting history. They bought out, well, you know, they're the kind of leftovers of the IBM keyboard factory, which was bought out by Lexmark and then bought out by the employees. So they kept on making these keyboards. So, you know, they provide great service. I really enjoyed the keyboard, got it all the way from the US. For the office, I have something that's a bit more quiet, but still mechanical, which is a quieter keyboard, so colleagues won't be disturbed as much. I just got it sent to me and then the lockdown happened in Dublin, so we had to go back to working at home. But, you know, that that's what I have in. It's Aroma G, which if people know mechanical keyboards will groan out loud because they will say, oh, that's the worst possible tactile feel for this kind of keyboard. But the benefit is that at least it still feels like mechanical and it's quiet. So so people aren't all looking around at you as you're typing away in the office.
Everett You know, I think I think with mechanical keyboards, one thing people don't realize, I think that if you are uninitiated and you start to research mechanical keyboards, it can feel very much like if you got into watches by way of reading like the Seiko mod modders subforum on what you seek or something. Right. I think for the uninitiated, it can feel like in order to get into this hobby, you have to be willing to spend, you know, $600 on various parts and ordering from China. and this or that in order to do this thing. But I think what a lot of people don't realize is there's an incredible market of premades. There's an incredible market of relatively easy entry points. You've got Unicomp, which is a great example, but there's also DOS, which is this famous brand that makes these things. You can get into mechanical keyboards. without spending a fortune and or without having to learn how to build a keyboard. You know, there's no soldering for most people who enter this, but I think it's a little bit hard to understand that when you get into it. So I would love to say we're going to put show notes in for various models. We're not going to do that. So but but just if you're interested, there are entry points. Feel free to hit me up. I'll give you some information. And perhaps DU will give you some information if you're interested in more of the sort of traditional Unicom style. With that, I'm going to say DU, we're going to close. Is there anything you want to say to the folks before we do go for the day?
D.U. Wu Yeah, I think, you know, first of all, thank you very much again for having me on the show. And I want to say to the people who are listening that, you know, do check out Starlight and see Not every brand is using Kickstarter in a right way, but I think hopefully we are, in that you will be literally Kickstarting the brand, and that is why we've priced things the way we've priced it, and that's why we try to give you, deliver as much watch as possible at this particular price point. which is also in line with my vision and ideals and goals, and to develop Solas as a brand as well.
Everett Well, wonderful. We really appreciate you coming on. I can't emphasize that enough. Andrew, before we go, is there anything you'd like to add? I'm done, man. I'm all out. You're all out of love. I'm all out of things. You're so lost without me.
Unknown Yeah. I'm so lost without you.
Everett D.U., thanks so much for coming on. Do check out Solas Watches. We'll have some links in the show notes. And thank you for joining us for this episode of Forty in Twenty. Feel free to check us out on Instagram at Forty in Twenty. You can also check out Solace Watches at Solace Watches on Instagram. Check out their Kickstarter. Check out their website. All the information is there. If you'd like to support what we're doing here, be it Watch Clicker or be it Forty in Twenty, you can do so at Patreon.com slash Forty in Twenty. Again, we really appreciate all the help we get there because it makes this thing happen. Don't forget to check us out next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
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