Episode 108 - Interview with Vishal Tolani of Dartmouth Brands (Avi-8, Spinnaker, etc).

Published on Wed, 18 Nov 2020 21:52:45 -0800

Synopsis

This podcast episode features an interview with Vishal Talani, CEO of Dartmouth Brands, which owns several watch brands like Spinnaker, Aviate, and Dufa. Vishal discusses the history and background of Dartmouth Brands, its various watch brands, and their approach to designing and marketing watches for different segments of the market. He shares insights into their brand strategies, product development process, and the challenges of catering to enthusiasts as well as a broader audience. The conversation covers topics like transparency, manufacturing, and the unique position of Dartmouth Brands in the watch industry.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. This is 40 in 20, The Watch Clicker podcast with your host, Andrew. I'm a good friend, Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
Everett Everett, how are you? I'm doing all right. You know, last week when I when I hit the pot on the on the music, I was a little too abrupt. And then when I listened to it on edit, I kind of kicked myself. So this week, I was really careful about a nice gradual, just a nice slow,
Andrew Slow fade. That's right. The hand motions are really what's key there, though. That's right. No, I'm doing really well. What's weird is that you hand motion with both hands and you're not manipulating the board. It's just the one.
Everett Yeah, no, it's it's because, you know, it's like rubbing your belly and patting your head or whatever. Tickling your belly button. Whatever. I'm doing really well. Yeah. Good weekend. Weekend's coming to a close, sadly. But, you know, yours is just starting.
Andrew So how are you? Just beginning. I am good. I'm a little worn out. You know, my Sundays are a weird day because I get home and sleep for like three and a half hours and then try to accomplish a whole day on three and a half hours of sleep. So I took a nap this afternoon, felt really good, hit the grocery store and dealt with the throngs of people. Throngs? Yeah, the throngs of people panic buying. And all I wanted to do was get groceries. It was it was one of and I don't really like going grocery shopping anyway. Is that light bright or something?
Everett No, it's fine. There's a spider on your head.
Andrew Good. I don't really like going grocery shopping anyway, because I don't like dealing with humans. I don't like dealing with other people. And there were just parking lot was full. It was hard to find parking. There were there were wagon trains of like you could tell single adults who were all roommates who were all panic buying. So just these wagon trains traveling through the aisles and all stopping so they could buy. I mean, this is not an exaggeration. I watched this happen. There were two. Probably late 20s, early 30s, single dudes. Clearly roommates. Just like buying armloads of Chef Boyardee.
Vishal Talani Yeah, you got to get that.
Andrew Like SpaghettiOs. You got to get that chef for sure. And Top Ramen. I was like, that's what you're going to live on for a two week pause. This isn't like end of the world two weeks. This isn't like this like, hey, hey, we're going to we're going to pump the brakes here in Oregon for a couple of weeks. Try to try to stop breaking a thousand cases a day. and see if see if that helps.
Everett You know, I went to Goodwill yesterday and it was crazy too, so I don't know. I think maybe it's just a weird weekend. Perhaps, perhaps the rain, everything else. Yeah, well, good. I'm glad to hear that you're surviving. I like your pants today. What did you cut some?
Andrew These are Banana Republic. Yeah, I got some new Clark's on to the Clark's dress. Chuck a new desert boots. Yeah, yeah. All right. I like them. They're a little stiff. They're they're actually they're not comfortable for about the first three months you own them.
Everett Yeah, I need less than that. I mean, you'll be fine in a week. Just kidding. I've been I've been wearing them a lot. OK, I'm sorry. OK. All right.
Andrew All right. I'm sorry. They're not the desert boots. They're not the really soft.
Everett These are the dress like the desert chukkas. Yeah. Or the what do they call it?
Andrew I think they're like the dress deserts or something like that. Harder soul, not the gum soul. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Everett No, I've had that very, very stiff. Yeah, I've had that pair. Well, I've actually had just almost enough of hearing you. So I think it would be a great time to introduce our guest. And you've seen already the tile because you pressed play. So, you know, I think we've got probably one of the coolest guests we've ever had on the show. Mike Razack, here we go. It is not Mike Razack, but it's someone that we have talked about indirectly quite a few times, probably like 50 times on the show. Or certainly we've talked about his products at least 50 times, but maybe never him directly. But we do have... It's been featured on the website in multiple iterations. We have recently given away one of his watches as part of our Patreon get-together. Truth. We gave away the Lafayette Flybreak Chronograph. So we have on the line the man, the mystery, the enigma, who is Vishal Talani, CEO of Dartmouth Brands, owner of... Dartmouth Brands being the owner of Spinnaker, Aviate, Duxo, which is a brand that I was recently introduced to, as well as several other watch brands. I think there's about eight or nine in the company at this point. Is that right?
Vishal Talani Yeah, that's right.
Everett Vishal, how are you? Welcome to 40 in 20.
Vishal Talani Thank you guys. Thank you. Likewise, I kind of have been in the background looking to connect with you guys and that's happened through various versions. of our watches so I'm really glad to kind of be I mean we obviously have been in the shadows for a while all personally but yeah it's kind of nice to step out in front of the curtain as it were to say hello and obviously to everyone who's listening to kind of introduce myself and hopefully shed some light on some of whom may already be kind of people, fans, customers, owners of some of our watches. So I just want to say first of all, thank you. And secondly, obviously, to try and shed some light on who we are and what we're doing.
Everett And so, Vishal, I have to admit, I sort of pictured you as a supervillain. Uh, it, yeah, I sort of pictured you as a supervillain and it turns out you're just a dude in a somewhat cluttered but overworked office. A handsome dude, I will say. Thank you. But also clearly not a supervillain.
Vishal Talani Yeah, no, no, definitely. You're getting the side view, which is, which is I think on purpose. Sure. The camera's coming in on my profile of my sort of rather large nose.
Everett Um, this is your good side though, right?
Andrew I'd hope if you're going to set your camera up for a profile view, you choose the good side. That's a good choice.
Vishal Talani I think I did. I think that was the idea, but, uh, accidental, but I've realized this is actually not accidental. It's kind of how everything was set up to kind of, uh, to show off my sort of better attributes. Um, yeah, I'm, uh, I was trying to put food on the table. I know it sounds silly, but just like everybody else, uh, we make watches. That's what we do. And I, introduce myself, I kind of say, oh, I'm a watchmaker. And then people immediately go to a vision of a of a Geppetto like figure, kind of with a monocle, you know, over a desk making. And I'm like, no, not quite. But that's what I call myself. We're watchmakers. And and yeah, I think that's that's the job title. And yeah, that's what we do. We try to put, you know, pay the rent, keep the lights on. making watches. I'm very grateful for the fact that I actually like what I do. And we have a lot of fun doing it at times. Obviously, along with that is a lot of pain, as anybody in this business can attest to.
Everett Yes. We've heard lots of stories of the ass pain that is making watches.
Vishal Talani It is horrific at times, right? It is a very convoluted supply chain. And I try because, again, our background is we are manufacturers, right? So we have done this as a legacy family run business for over 35 years. So, you know, we know our way around the supply chain and it is a painful, painful business, right? The number of pieces that go into the watch, obviously, I think the audience definitely appreciate, but it is another level to kind of map out the geography of where all these pieces lie at, you know, anything from the hardware on the buckle, that's not made by the leather strap maker like that's middleware right and then you send it to a strap maker who then has to affix it uh and that needs to be you know this just this sheer convolution of how a watch is made i don't think ever gets truly truly appreciated that's logistics it's like a self-licking ice cream cone of logistics we made it hard so we can all have jobs no there's there's just no streamlining because everyone does such a specific
Andrew part, and everyone's so good at those specific parts, there's no way to replace them with something else.
Everett Well, so before we get in too deep, I know that Dartmouth Brands, Dartmouth has some history, and we can talk about that. But maybe first, as sort of a preliminary matter, can we talk a little bit about what Dartmouth Brands is today? I know that some of these brands that are owned by Dartmouth are going to be familiar to the folks listening. Others are not. And when you look at these brands, there's not a ton of homogeneity across the brands. They're all very sort of discreet, and I assume that that's purposefully so, but talk a little bit about what Dartmouth Brands is and your various brands and what comprehensively, globally, ecumenically, if you will, are you doing at Dartmouth Brands?
Vishal Talani So the Dartmouth Brands is essentially an umbrella of these brands that we built and either bought or incubated ourselves. a side from our manufacturing business. Our manufacturing business is a completely separate business where people come to us and we either offer design or manufacturing to develop watches. So the Darmand brand essentially is an umbrella and it started out basically because we had people saying to us, hey, look, I'd love a private label watch, but I don't have a label. Could you think of one for us? So along the way, we started to kind of not only put watches together, but we put brands together. And in doing so, you know, started what we have now, which is a collection of about four or five or six or more brands that do different things. So there in many ways, there's no grand design to sort of say we're going to get watch business and create a brand related to aviation or diving or, you know, inspired by Bauhaus design elements. It was really kind of us fumbling towards solving business goals. And here we are, right? So the Dartmouth brand, basically, we needed a new umbrella to kind of capture it as much as we can. I'm not saying it's the finished article, but the idea is that The Dartmouth brand should represent, yes, that inside there are a collection of great brands. The parent company is called Solar Time Limited, which is based in Hong Kong. And that is a sort of the manufacturing hub, right? Dartmouth is going to essentially become this branded product incubator that is a brand incubator that basically kind of captures all these brands together. So, yeah, we have Obviously, every brand, however, starts with its own DNA. Every brand is on its own journey, we like to say. We think of them quite individually. We don't do a lot of overlap when it comes to production through design. But there are obviously some sort of economies of scale when it comes to administration, logistics, purchasing. But, you know, we try to keep it I'm And that's the fun, right? So that we can basically under the same roof, kind of think in a sort of house mindset for Doofa, we can kind of obviously get our snorkel on for Spinnaker and for AVA, we can take to the skies. So that's that's the idea.
Everett Sure. Why don't we walk through some of these other brands? Because I think some of these brands are going to be maybe really peripherally familiar to some of our listeners. And maybe others, they haven't heard of it also. So I'm going to go through some others that I know. So the first one, I think maybe the one that I just at a purely aesthetic level like the most, the CCCP brand.
Vishal Talani Yeah. So I'll give you the backstory to that. So once upon a time, we came across a huge trove of Slava movement, so that were the movements that were still left in the Soviet era factories. We essentially basically captured them for a certain amount from the factory, and therein we were left with them. And we came across a gentleman, Alexander Shorokov, who's a great watchmaker.
Everett Yeah, we know of him.
Vishal Talani Okay, great. So Alexander said, hey, look, I know you have these movements. I'd like to do a deal with you. I'm going to give you our brand, Do you Doofa is another one kind of that we bumped into. We had someone who owed us money. He said, hey, look, I can't pay you, but look what I've got. I've got this brand. It's called Doofa, Deutsche Uhrenfabrik. Gave me a couple of PowerPoint slides and, and, you know, and I said, look, I think the product that you have is pretty poor, but I think there is a story. There's got to be some potential, which we then obviously rebooted. We do manufacture the watches in Germany. But what we did was we modernized some of the design cues, and we liked the story that there was some sort of lineage back to a clock factory in pre-war Germany. And that's, again, so that gives us a sense of being able to really trail a lot of the sort of the better brands in the German pyramid, the Junghanses, the Normoshes, and some of the others, not the Langens, but most of the sort of Bauhaus-inspired brands. So we wanted to kind of capture that. post-Daniel Wellington purchase, right? You do a minimal watch brand, you're not yet ready for a Nomosh, but in between, there we are. And that's the truth. I mean, I think that's what we try to do, but we try to be more precise and consider about the manufacturing. But it definitely has something to it, for sure.
Everett Set down the Skagen. Set it down. Exactly. Do so. Do so.
Vishal Talani Duxo is another one that is basically a reboot of a vintage brand that, you know, honestly was done to capture a business goal. I mean, I think some of these brands, you know, we've had to conceive on the back of trying to figure out a business goal. There were certain things that we wanted to do, maybe not always at the full arsenal of what we were trying with our Aviate and Spinnakers, because by that time we established a strong brand DNA, but we still wanted to mess around with stuff. Essentially, there's a lot of great vintage silhouettes and ideas that we wanted to sort of shelve into one of our brands and Duxo does that. Duxo allows us to kind of play a little bit with other familiar vintage silhouettes and ideas without kind of now inflicting upon Spinnaker and ABA. I think now we've established a strong individual roadmap for both of those.
Everett I was going to say do so to me seems like the least seems like the least sort of discrete brand. It seems not that it's not that it's a melting pot at all, but it definitely seems like you've got some real freedom within that within that brand to play with these historical timepieces.
Vishal Talani Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That's the idea. And there's some great things. I'm like, oh, we'd love to do that. But we didn't figure a place where we could And there's a couple others that you might see from us shortly where we kind of reboot certain vintage brands that, again, we want to make decent products and try to revitalize some of the DNA within those brands, but obviously try and be a little bit more widespread with what we put inside them. With Aviate and Spinnaker, we're a little bit more deliberate, a little more considered about now what constitutes a good Aviate. We know our families. We know kind of what sits inside those brands. But the other brands allow us to kind of have fun with them a bit more.
Andrew Now, when you talk about rebooting brands, are you entering into partnerships with brands and kind of like in the way in just providing oversight, an umbrella for this brand to fall under, grow up in, and thrive in? Or what does that relationship look like between Dartmouth and these downstream brands?
Vishal Talani Yeah, so I think some of it is born by, you know, we'll incubate a brand because we obviously create the branding, we'll create the products, we'll obviously create the content, you know, some of the marketing outreach will be done. But yeah, I mean, essentially, we have to consider that every brand has its own business plan, right? own route to market. Every brand has its own audience and we recognize that. So some of the brands that you'll also find in the umbrella aren't going to be covered by watch bloggers, right? They're sold on TV. They're a little bit, dare I say, you know, a little bit more adventurous is the sort of polite word. They're not to everyone's taste, but you know, we're never going to sort of say we only make watches that are going to turn up and Houdinki, we're going to design watches that cater to the wide, wide audience of watch fans. And so whether you like an Invictus-style watch or not, we have, you know, there's an audience. They are watch buyers and we want to cater on some level to that audience, right? And I think that matters as a business to make sure that we've plucked off as much of that tree buying tree, sort of the watch buying tree, that we can get to. That I think is it like that we sort of also identify niches and segments that we don't necessarily cover with what we have. And maybe we can entertain that with a new brand or so.
Andrew So I appreciate the introduction, the the really brief, broad strokes of Dartmouth. I'm curious about you. How did you get in? Not I don't care how you got into the chair this morning. I imagine you walked in the office and sat down. But how did you land in this chair that you're in right now?
Vishal Talani So this is a legacy business, right? My dad started this business in the late 70s, early 70s, and I didn't really have a design on this. I mean, I'm not a watchmaker. I'm not trained as a watchmaker. I like product, but in another lifetime, I was a banker about 20 years ago. didn't really have a very firm direction on what I wanted to do. And just by osmosis, my dad was like, look, if you're not doing anything, why don't you help me with a couple of these things in the office? I was like, well, I don't know. And it just kind of went from there. And then he probably had a sort of far-reaching trap that he set out for me.
Everett He did. He did. He caught you.
Vishal Talani He knew. He's like, this guy's going nowhere. I better put him into something before he just drains me. So it was a lot of that. And then No, I love what we do. I love products. I really, really have a great appreciation for product design. I'm not a designer by training. I'm not a watchmaker by training. But along the way, definitely I've come to, just like anybody else, I'm a fan of great products, great brands, great watches. And I really enjoy what we do. I'm really, really having a lot of fun with it. But it's all very accidental. There's no game plan for this to happen. A lot of this kind of just, it just did. And we just fumbled our way here. But we continue as a business to manufacture for other people. We continue, obviously, but I think, you know, the nature of what we do now in managing these fully fledged brands is takes on new skill sets. So it's obviously challenging our business in different ways, because we have to now become better equipped to understand marketing and understand logistics and customer service. You know, we now essentially own that entire chain from the factory all the way down to the customer service piece, which, as anyone can tell you, is its own beast altogether, right? Understanding the sort of tribulations of what happens once a product ships, you still own that relationship. And that's very different than a traditional manufacturer that puts it in a box, leaves it at the port, and the commitment is done, right? In our world, it doesn't end. But no, it was, like I said, 20 years ago, I was a banker. And and then I wasn't. And then here we are. Yeah. And it's been obviously a lot of stuff from trial and error to where we have gotten to. But but yeah, I would. And I know I didn't answer this very well. I didn't give you the sort of sort of so what happened along the way. But I'm not sure we have all the time for it. I'd love to come back and kind of give you the sort of, you know, blow by blow, painful sort of rundown over the last 20 years. But that's for another podcast, I imagine.
Andrew All right. So talk to us about the pivot. When was that transition and how did you get to that transition point as Dartmouth from just being a manufacturer of watches to saying, you know what, we have everything we need. We have the market knowledge. We have all of this. Why aren't we setting out for ourselves? And where was that first brand relationship built and why? Was it just not being happy with the status quo or seeing that you had it? I mean, I'm thinking of like Oh shoot, that company that does coolers, they used to inject them for Yeti and now they do them themselves, like Jackson. They do kayaks too. But that's kind of what I'm imagining, somebody who was manufacturing a product for somebody and said, well, I can do it just as well, if not better.
Vishal Talani Absolutely. And I think that's it. The frustration came because we would propose designs for brands all over the world and they'd shoot them down. And we were pretty confident that like, hey, this is, this is, you know, something interesting. And we would see a lot of the design work, a lot of the development work get passed over. So that was some frustration. The other part of it is the manufacturing business is a fickle game, right? If you are working for some of the larger watch groups, it's, you know, things can change and that volatility didn't serve us well. So there was that, there was the idea of hedging ourselves for a change in dynamic between some of our customers. And then a lot of it borne by the frustration of saying we're doing some great designs, great development, and they've never seen the light of day. And also, I think the other big turning point was the flattening out of the marketing piece. The moment that you started to understand that you could communicate ever easier with the advent of social media, Instagram and whatnot, we figured that out. We're like, we can get our voice out. And I think that was the other missing piece. Generally, marketing in the sort of pre social media Instagram era was complicated and expensive, right? It was pulling through trade shows. It was Baselworld. It was general, you know, and it was very, very expensive. and prohibitive and I think to start and in those days cost a lot of money and you didn't if you didn't have a license. Right. So that was the sort of rocket fuel that you could have as a business. If you slapped on a fashion brand name, that was an easy way to get some sales. If you started a brand, a bonafide brand on your own, it was not easy. But I think obviously social media made that a very different game. And we saw that. And so all of a sudden, we're like, OK, we have the marketing piece now, at least in our hands. Let's give it a shot. And that's what we did. You know, I think we fumbled our way towards that. But it was born by this frustration, by seeing our designs aren't going anywhere. And the entire manufacturing relationship is so understanding that we needed some agency and ownership of our own destiny. And that's still very much the thinking. Yeah. And yeah, so I think that's what really kind of gave us that sort of moment of inflection to say, it's time to really inject our best into our own product.
Everett And so of these eight proprietary brands, as they're described on your website, which of those was the first? Which one was the one that sort of came to fruition first and sort of got this ball really rolling?
Vishal Talani It was AVI-8. I think AVI-8 was the first one that really kind of, that we did. And I think if I'm not mistaken, if you really go back, if you're, if you really have your Google, you know, ninja skills out and you go back to some early, early iterations of AVI-8, some of those watches are, yeah, you know, I mean, they're, Uh, yeah, you know, they're, they're, they're interesting, uh, but you know, it's like, if you'd go back and you see the first Richard meal, like people sort of say, Oh my God, but everyone starts somewhere. Anyway, the point being that we, we, we obviously, um, have moved a long way from there, but I think it was, and I think the moment was. We weren't able to also generate any business. It wasn't the e-commerce part that we do have today. We were trying to, so here's what it is. Groupon, I think was exploding and Groupon was a large intake of anything you can get their hands on. And someone said to me, Hey, look, I think we can get these watches on Groupon. Do you care? And I said, I don't really care. I'm not, I have no designs on being on Macy's or any of these sort of high fledged department stores we do now, obviously. But I think that's where a lot of these watches had some life because They weren't getting their hands on bonafide brands. So there was this whole library of brands that were just invented or just came to market. And so Groupon says, well, here's a P.O. or a flash sale for that matter was like, well, we can't get any Michael Kors, but whatever, we'll give you some P.O.s for an AVA, whatever that is. And we started selling. So there's proof of concept to say that we can kind of make some money doing this. But that was that was also an era of the flash sale. when these new actors online needed products, they needed brands, they needed something, and they didn't really care what it was called. They just needed something that could be shot, photographed, and sold at a high ticket, discounted, and they didn't have access to... And they get 10%. Yeah. Exactly.
Everett Exactly.
Vishal Talani That's right. So that's also just kind of gave us some likes, okay, actually, we could do this. That's obviously disappeared and we've cleaned up our act. That was, again, to credit the true origin about why and how we got there. Because I think if we weren't, we could have made the watches, but if we weren't selling them, I think it would have kind of come to a close pretty quickly.
Andrew I love that idea of something that was... Groupon was kind of just a flash. Yeah. It existed. I mean, there was probably like a seven year success and now they're they're scraping just to survive.
Everett But that was sort of like evolved into what it was, what it really was best at in the first place, which is like weekends in Mexico.
Andrew But I never thought of it as a jumping off point for a launch pad for brands.
Vishal Talani Yeah. Yeah. We didn't either. We were just excited to get a BO. We didn't really think this out. Is this going to debase our brand? I didn't think we had thought this out all the way through. But we recognized we were just so thrilled that someone wanted a brand we just made up that we, you know, obviously we sold it to them. And I think that cleanup took a couple of years once we realized this probably wasn't the best way to create longevity for any of these brands. You know, we took, we stopped taking the easy P.O. We invested a lot more in our own B2C and we started really kind of cleaning up what was out there. But again, to be fair, and I credit that sort of era of giving life to a lot of brands that today, some of whom still do the same thing, high, low, you know, a lot of that slightly cheesier piece. But that's where we started. I won't make any apologies for it. Vent Privé is another one, which was a huge flash sale operator. I think they're still around. But they also gave life to a lot of brands that weren't brands, but all of a sudden they just needed content. And that search for product content, I think, was what uh, drove, drove that. And you saw this plethora of brands again, you know, the ability to manufacture product became a lot easier. Uh, the transparency that came from the internet. So a lot of that gave birth to it.
Andrew So you kind of, you kind of alluded to being on the, on the other side of a, of a little bit of an identity crisis coming from not, not being a kickstarter brand, but being just sort of putting a group on brand initially. And you talked about overcoming that because there's a strange something that people can take from. Oh, you know, they were available on Groupon. It can't be this. And and where what is what is Dartmouth's place in the watch industry? I mean, you're you're not not really micro brands. You're not fashion brands, really. Nor are you big Swiss luxury brands. And I the way you your intersectionality of the brands that you have is really fascinating. I was wondering what you see as your place in the industry and where you want to grow to, or is this the niche that you've carved out and want to stake out and hold?
Vishal Talani That's a great, I mean, I don't think we've ever been asked that. I think we definitely, like you said, it's a unique position. Like we like proprietary brands. We like to inject the best of our ability to create a brand universe. I think that's the fun part. of the day, right? And so I think we want to continue to maintain that. We're certainly of a larger size. We're not a pure micro brand business, but each brand on its own behaves in some ways like a micro brand, right? We don't have agencies that do all the marketing. We're not, you know, everything is done in-house, the photography, the advertising, the marketing, the outreach. So in that way, every brand has a great deal of hustle. But obviously, above that is a certain degree of infrastructure that allows it to happen a little bit easier. So we have that sort of, I do want to continue to have that sort of micro-brand mentality and hustle, because I think that's good. But we obviously have the benefit of some scale and manufacturing, which allows us to be, you know, act a little bit beyond what micro-brand might be able to achieve and do day to day. But it's a good place to be. We're trying to continue to do that, right? What I want to be is continue to do that. We want to represent a great brand in its own sector. We want ADA to continue to be this great community of, you know, a Venn diagram of aviation geeks and watch fans and create a sort of, you know, lower priced Breitling-esque I'm of services that allow these brands to flourish. So if we develop a new brand, if we acquire a brand, if we partner with the brand, it's the same thing. We're not going to sort of create a sort of universal message. We're going to allow that brand to do what it should do. And that's hopefully, I think, something that, you know, as a business is unique. But you're right. I don't know if there's any sort of peers in that respect. Currently, a lot of the bigger groups are, you know, larger conglomerates like the Fossil Group, which are licensed and have some obviously proprietary brands underneath. But yeah, I like where we're at. And I think it still seems to serve us. So we'll continue to do so.
Everett Well, you know, and on that note, I mean, first, I want to say, Andrew suggested that you don't... Dartmouth Brands is not really a fashion brand. I think that there are probably some brands under that umbrella that I would call fashion brands. I don't think that's a bad thing. And I think that it's sort of part of what you guys are doing. And I think explicitly you've even suggested that, you know, we want to have QVC brands, or I don't know if QVC is a vendor that you guys work with, but, you know, we want to have Macy's brands. We want to have sort of brands that are in this niche, the enthusiast niche. So I don't think fashion brand is a bad word. I don't think in this sense it has to be. But I also, I want to touch on something that you've, you're not dancing around it at all, but you've, you've touched on the topic a little bit. I don't think Dartmouth Brands, I think it would be fair to say until fairly recently, Dartmouth Brands has not been super transparent about, you know, Spinnaker, Aviate, you know, I think it was only fairly recently that I really understood that these companies were all sort of part of a bigger group. And I suspect that there was something that happened over there where you guys decided, hey, this makes sense for us just to be transparent. Can you talk a little bit about that? What your sort of strategy was, you know, to the extent, you know, I'm assuming a little bit that there was a change, but can you talk a little bit about what was happening before and if there was a change, what the change was?
Vishal Talani Sure. No, I mean, it's, it is a good point. And it's, uh, so I think a lot of it is born by our legacy as a manufacturer. I, um, in my previous sort of life as a pure manufacturer, you know, we were very much in the shadows. You know, I would visit Basel world and I would basically be scurrying around the alleys, kind of sending off samples to brands and then kind of shoot off like a rat.
Andrew But you got to see so much cool stuff.
Vishal Talani Yeah. And so, but that was it. I would literally land, you know, into Zurich, take the train in, you know, dish out these samples. They would, you know, show them in these beautiful booths and these windows. And I just, like I said, just get out of here, get out. It was just shoot off like a, so I think we had this legacy of like, nobody wanted to hear from the manufacturer. Right. And so all of a sudden, and again, for whatever, reason that may have been, but I think there was certainly a time and place when that's the way that Basel and that brand world was structured. That obviously was part of my thinking. It's kind of my bias. And so when we started to create brands, I said, oh, what we need is a really English sounding blanket company called Dartmouth. We'll call it Dartmouth Brands. And we'll have it. And in all honesty, I think that's what we set out to do was to create a sort of phoey-ish sort of blanket company that would encapsulate this. But, you know, and again, we weren't obviously, I'm not someone who's obviously spending a lot of time in the forums, but with enough detective work, it becomes very easy to figure out who owns Spinnaker, who owns Aviate, who owns Dufa. And eventually, you know, we would get some noise back from our customer service and you get some sort of iffy feedback. So it took us time. We also became better equipped to handle the conversation. I think sometimes we weren't always, didn't have the right vocabulary to discuss it and we didn't have the right training to have it. But I don't think that matters anymore. I think right now just being upfront, being transparent, unfiltered, I think is an asset clearly to this audience that we now appeal to where they're pretty savvy, right? what's inside, they know where it's made, they know how it gets done, and they respect that, right? And I think that's something that's changed in the last six, seven, eight, ten years, thanks to guys like yourselves, who are, you know, more informal about how we communicate about watches, brands, and all this stuff. So I think that's also given us the confidence to be a little bit more upfront. And I think it's surplus, right? Where before I thought we would think it was a liability and a legacy of like, where are you from? And where are these watches made? And that I think has dissipated, and that's not really who we really sell watches to. So yeah, I think it's taken a while. It's been a gradual shift, uh, into this, but, but yeah, it definitely, I think now, as we said, we've done, I've done some interviews in the past and some podcasts where I've introduced myself. I've talked a little bit more transparently about where the brands come from. And so we say here, you know, it's, it's all from this company called Dartmouth and this is who we are. So yeah, we're going to be more obvious and more explicit, but it's, It's not something that came automatically. And I think I said, it's a legacy of kind of where we started out as a, as a manufacturing business, as we pivoted to a, a sort of much more brand, uh, orientated one.
Andrew I think, I think it serves to, to add some credibility. And I think it's all in the way you shape that narrative that you guys are, you're based out of Hong Kong, right? That's, that's where you're based out of. You live there, you work there. That's, that's where it is. I mean, I, I assume, your family's there. I don't know if you were, if you were born there or if your dad moved to Hong Kong as part of the manufacturing, like to, to establish this business. It's you, you, you built this business in the heart of where it, where it is. That's, that's why you're there.
Vishal Talani Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, and I think, look, there's, you know, I think the other thing that I've seen is, um, there are more brands that are bought in Hong Kong, in Singapore. Uh, that's new, you know, that's not something that, I mean, the watches are clearly designed here and, and, and built here. But the ownership of that brand has changed, right? People respect.
Vishal Talani There's a huge, great community of micro brands coming out of there. Undone is another brand that's firmly based in Hong Kong. They're on the tear as well. They're doing a lot of work. So, you know, this entire world is flattened out. It's not the same conversations. It's just more. Yeah, I mean, so the Dartmouth brand, I think, was, again, that thinking that we needed a an umbrella group necessarily. I think if we were to do it today, we would probably structure it differently. We might think about it differently, but for now, it's good because we still own a manufacturing business and we still own this side of the business as well. So that still kind of gives us a mentality and a mindset that Dartmouth is, you know, you're incubating the brands, you're thinking about the consumer all the way through. Whereas with Solartime, which is the parent company, that's far more injected in terms of manufacturing and contract manufacturing. for other groups where, you know, we would be more discreet about who we make for and our work there is obviously more dedicated to that side of the industry.
Everett So I would like to talk just a little bit about what Dartmouth Brands is doing, and I mean on sort of a micro scale. Right now, I know that Spinnaker has their Flus, which has been incredibly popular these last couple of years, or maybe last year, I think. I know that Aviate has some really neat watches that have come out. In fact, we were both huge fans of the Lafayette Flyboy. I think that that's just a fun watch. I think in terms of, you know, for my part, I say, oh, the dial's too busy, but look at this bracelet is awesome. You know, I think that you're doing really interesting pieces. I've just recently been introduced to do so. Uh, and I think, gosh, that brand has some great possibilities. Uh, and looking at the catalog, I think, well, these are kind of fun watches. Uh, what do you think in terms of the enthusiast, our audience is 99% enthusiast, um, super nerd enthusiasts, the nerd, the, the, the nerd enthusiast watch geek guy and gal and gal.
Andrew Uh,
Everett Gals, several of them. For those folks, for our audience, what do you think we should be looking at? Are there brands that are going to start having a heavier enthusiast presence, or are there watches, specific watches, that you think people should be looking for?
Vishal Talani Yeah, I mean, I think the two flagship brands still continue to be Aviator and Spindaker, I think. But look out for Dufa. Dufa, I think, still is true to that sort of We might pivot a little bit more in terms of sports watch category. We came out with a piece called the Gunter last year, which I thought was a nice directional move in Dufa towards a sports watch. Previously, a lot of it was very minimal, dressy, unisex pieces, but you'll start to see a little bit more noise out of Dufa through the prism of that Bauhaus design language. more sports watches, right? So there's a huge, obviously, fan base for utilitarian, sports, field, dive, freestyle watches. But to do it in through the prism of a very dedicated Bauhaus design code, I think, was something that I'm excited about seeing out of Dufan. And with Aviate and Spinnaker, I think, you know, we continue to kind of think with Aviate, you know, we just launched a charity watch actually this week in collaboration And I like the fact that we are trying to build a community, right? I think beyond, you know, selling watches on AV8, that channel is becoming, for me, at least, hopefully, a place where we can bring in people who can really appreciate not only the watches, but the storylines behind them, right? So when we do what's called Eagle Squadron, we want to tell people about, hey, there's this great time in history when, you know, little, like, kids volunteered to fight in World War One and World War Two at a time when the U.S. wasn't involved. You know, there's some great little stories to tell inside the world of military aviation. And reflecting inside the watches is something that we enjoy doing. We create a bit of history, collectability. That's fun. And with Spinnaker, it's the same thing. You know, last year we launched a watch that was a tribute to the deep sea the Rolex, the Picard, which did really, really well. You know, we want to take risks. We want to try different things. And we have the ability to do so. So I think with every brand, you know, I think we're thinking about, are we putting too many new watches out? Are we trying too many things? So we're having this internal discussion about what is, what's next for every, but every brand has to have its own mission. Every brand has to kind of think, okay, what's a roadmap for AVH? what's going to be the roadmap for Spinnaker, what's going to be the roadmap for Doofa. So we try to isolate each brand's own thought process of what's next. But the good news is, right, there are brands under the hood that, you know, we do a cafe racer inspired brand called James McCabe.
Andrew I've been looking at James McCabe most of the time we've been talking. They're pretty neat.
Vishal Talani Yeah. Yeah. So we, we have a space and speed, a sea related what's called Nubeo, which is a reboot of a circulation. and that predominantly sells in different channels. Again, it has a different aesthetic, it has a different proportion, a different design code, but it's another brand that we're very happy with and proud of demonstrating our prowess of making a watch that does cool things. We want everybody who owns any piece to really enjoy what they have. That's the end goal. I tell anybody to really enjoy this collection. whatever that may be, whatever their taste may be, whatever they're pointing to, enjoy it. And if we bring some, again, this sounds corny, but if we bring some joy and some excitement with a purchase, that's great. You work hard, you spend the money where you want to, and if you're happy with what you have spent it from and you got it from us, that's great news.
Andrew What has been the biggest challenge of capturing markets because there's so many markets and people within watch buyers. You have the person who's going to the jewelry counter like, I just need a watch. I don't want to have a dive bezel. And then you've got people like Everett and I and everyone listening who are Real assholes who are real assholes. We get so stupid about the things that we want and don't want. We're like, oh, I like this, but I wish it was a half a millimeter thinner, and then it would be great. And then you get people who are buying it as a gift. How are you guys balancing those needs, those desires? Because you seem to be tapping into it, and not universally, because there's some out there that are just not for me, and there's some out there that are for a very small segment. But generally speaking, There's such wide appeal and wide appreciation for these watches that you guys have. And how are you striking that balance?
Vishal Talani So that's interesting. I think the era of a brand that can capture everything, right? So you look at a brand like Casio or Seiko or Citizen for that matter. You know, you go to Japan, you can buy literally a resin watch for five bucks at a drugstore and you can buy some really insanely cool watches all under the Casio umbrella.
Andrew You should go to Japan.
Vishal Talani There's a whole universe of people who fundamentally like to buy watches. So every brand is basically anchoring to try to find a little niche, a little tribe that we can stand for. The niche that you guys are involved in, the sort of super nerd, super possessed on what's inside, and I don't like the font that you use, and here's a 15x microscope that we put inside this watch.
Andrew We've just been making fun of people doing that.
Everett But I love it. We call that group the asshole group, right? And I know, Zach, when you were on Warner One, Zach told you you couldn't swear. You can swear on our show.
Vishal Talani Oh, right, right. So that asshole group and a lot of them are great because they force us to raise our game, right? But there are some brands that we sort of say, these watches are not for you. But there are certainly brands that we kind of hope to lift our game to kind of say, hey, Guys, what do you think of this? And you know, and bluntly, people will be like, that's a piece of shit. Or they will say like, hey, you know what, for the money, that's pretty insane. And I think that's the idea. We try to capture it as fair value, right? If you're going to pay $300, we want to give you as much watch and as much quality within that $300. And again, you pick up some of these micro brands. It's insane what you get for that kind of money that wasn't simply part of the equation in the watch world. 10 years ago. It's insane. And I also remark upon this, the fact that you can get, you know, the machinery that you can now have access to these, these automatic movements from Seiko and Citizen, give us an entire ability to create some pretty on point products. So now it comes down to aesthetics, it comes down to finishing, it comes down to that detail. There's an entire menu of specification possibilities. It's a matter of, can you bring it to market at the right price? Do you have that attention to detail to do so? And bring it in at a price that's commercial, right? You've still got to make money doing this. Yeah. So I think that's the point. But I love the challenge of trying to figure out, here's a watch for QVC. Here's a watch for an auction site. Here's a watch for some guy in a car park trying to sell some stuff out of the, I don't know, whatever it is. But there's definitely
Everett The guy with the watch rack in the trench coat, right? Yeah. You make a watch for him. That's right. All those guys. I love that. Those are your ballast watches, right? I'm teasing a little bit.
Andrew I appreciate and I hope our listeners appreciate that that you fully recognize the the spectrum of people that you are you're trying to appeal to. And I think I think Everett just just nailed it. Like you're you're trying to you're making watches for that guy to sell out of his trench coat. And you're making watches for us. And I appreciate that you're not hiding it. I love the transparency that we're seeing now. I dig it. You're a watch group. You're not a small brand who's trying to make that perfect watch to sell 300 pieces to finish the MOQ. You're mass producing these brands. You're managing these brands that are trying to reach everyone. I like that.
Vishal Talani Look, again, when you come to the assholes, they love exclusivity, right? They love scarcity, right? Sure. So we take a position. We're not going to overproduce in certain brands, right? But that means that the business plan and the financials around that have to change, right? We're not going to overproduce, to be fair, and this is deliberate. I'm sure a lot of the micro brands on their own could probably calculate, I could produce more, but then I lose that FOMO. I lose that sort of hype and excitement that comes from the quick sellout. is
Andrew I think that's some big dick energy, though. You're like, this is going to sell. I'm not scared this isn't going to go. This is flying off the shelves. We can make as many as we want, and they're going to sell. There's some confidence there that I appreciate.
Vishal Talani Yeah. Well, again, and it's money on the table. If it's money on the table, we'd be silly not to do it. So again, we've got liabilities. We've got bigger infrastructure that we have to feed. So it isn't just kind of us with a bunch of swag. It is born by the fact that we have bills to pay. And again, this year especially has been kind of like where we've had to be more agile and more nimble and really not take for granted anything that's coming our way, right? I think that's the other part of when any business is kind of being kind of, you know, put through the microscope and through the sort of vices of what it's going to withstand. You have to kind of be practical. And I say this to a lot of the micro brands that we collaborate with. I'm like, guys, you know what, you know, I get it and I understand that you need that you know, that the height, you need this sort of scarcity and you need this sort of diligence. But if you can, if you can think about this through, because you've got to, you know, withstand and be around for next season when you come up with another release. So we try to understand that for sure.
Everett Well, I think, I think it's really cool. I love what you're doing. We are probably going to transition before we do. Anything else you want to pitch about any of these brands right now before we go? give you give you a last last word on the watch talk.
Vishal Talani Okay, so if I'm going to plug anything, I would plug look, there's a great on AV right now, we're in the middle of a charity campaign, we are releasing a collaboration with a group called Help for Heroes. So I would like to kind of draw some noise to that, because that's obviously watches for a great cause. So if you haven't checked us out on Instagram, or better still follow us through through our email newsletter, where you get obviously some Black Friday deals. But look out for that. Spinnaker, obviously, likewise, we're in the middle of a little bit more aggressive action. So anybody who's tuning in who are fans of those brands, definitely look out for those. And yeah, look, I think, obviously, stay tuned. For the most part, you'll start to see some cool things. We're going to clean up our act. There's going to be some, I think next year really bodes well for both brands. We're starting to get the hang of this. But yeah, no, I think, like you said, this sort of transparency and messaging, I invite anybody to kind of look me up if they want to and send me their opinion. And I try to respond to some of it. Some of it is obviously not for public consumption. But yeah, definitely tune in to any of the brands. We appreciate all the customer feedback that we can get from you. And hopefully, being this transparent helps. I hope so. But I think that's the way we're going to do it from now on.
Everett Fantastic. Andrew, other things.
Andrew What do you got? First, I would I could spend maybe an hour to two hours with just a screenshot of what's happening on your office wall, just trying to study it. I've been distracted by it the entire time. One of the the you can't see where I'm pointing because you can't see our camera, but near the window just above the filing cabinet, there is a face with kind of a red bottom. And initially, before ever it stretched the screen, it looked kind of like a South Park character, just the way it looked with short legs. But I'm really digging all of the concepts up there.
Vishal Talani It looks like, my wife said, looks like you're like Carrie in Homeland trying to figure shit out.
Everett Yeah, with the yarn, the yarn and the safety pins.
Vishal Talani Every time I come to your office, it looks very scary. Like which serial killer are you tracking through this office? It looks a bit like that, right?
Everett There's all these kind of... You do have... There's a guy on the wall. It's more of the mad researcher look than the super villain that I referenced earlier.
Vishal Talani Yeah. Yeah.
Everett Yeah.
Vishal Talani making the watches in Hong Kong for all the assholes is really what we're going to summate this.
Everett I mean, I love it when a guest just carries the interview.
Vishal Talani Making watches for assholes and non-assholes.
Everett And non-assholes, true, true.
Vishal Talani And non-assholes, right? That's what we said, right?
Vishal Talani So we have to make watches for non-assholes as well. So there aren't enough assholes to really cover the rent. So I think that's, that's the other sort of takeaway.
Everett That is my new sort of life motto. There are not enough assholes to cover the rent.
Andrew And watch universe. I'm going to be taking that and using that.
Vishal Talani Feel free. Feel free. Watch universe. Yeah, that's a good one as well to take away from.
Andrew So I'll dive into other things. Wait. Other things. Andrew, go. Okay. Yes. My other thing this week. It's a jacket that I've had for about a year. Yep. And I haven't talked about it yet. It's the First Light Uncompahgre Wait, wait, wait. Say that word? Uncompagre. Uncompagre? Uncompadre? I don't know. It's uncompagre. So all of First Light's lines. That's nonsense. That's a nonsense word. Are named after national forests and things of that ilk. So that's what this puffy is called. And it's a puffy coat, but it's not a quilted puffy in the way that like say that you're thinking like a North Face quilted puffy. Sure. And when I was buying this, I was torn between the North Face quilted puffy and this one because I get the discount through them. It was just a little bit more expensive. These run at I want to say 200. Hang on, I have it. 200 money, 200 money, 200 money. They come in six colors. There are two proprietary camouflage patterns, and then they come in an ash gray, which I have, which is kind of just like a gray gray. You'd expect a black, a dry earth and then a conifer. And the conifer is actually conifer color. It's not green. It's it's true conifer color. I have a couple of pants in the conifer and they're they're like, Oh, I look like Christmas tree. Like it. So these are. DWR coated. Two way, it's a packable pocket. They weigh 20 ounces. These jackets, these puffies and I wore this in is about 20 ish degrees with just a T shirt underneath. No, super warm. Nope, no show. Nope, super warm, super cozy. They're shooters cut, so they're built for like to be active, to be moving around. I mean, they're hunting clothing, so they're meant to be moving around. They pull moisture off you. You don't overheat and get sweaty unless you're like running in it, and then you're going to overheat and get sweaty because you're because you're fat. That's why you're getting sweaty when you run. That's just what happens. But let me tell you the best. So this is just a terrific jacket. It's super warm, mostly very water resistant, snow resistant, very wind resistant. There's one thing. that sets it apart from any other jacket I've ever owned. Tell me. What's the worst part of wearing a jacket in the rain without the hood up?
Everett Uh, getting rain on your neck?
Andrew Yeah. Oh. It's solved. Here. There is. You've got a gusset. There's a little gusset that sits like just from from about collarbone to collarbone on the back of your neck, an elastic material that when you're wearing it, it sits flush against your neck and prevents that fucking nightmare of a snowflake or a raindrop falling down the back of your neck and ruining your entire afternoon. You're a snowflake. I am a snowflake. It is. It's a terrific jacket. It's super light. It's super warm. I if you're in the market for a puffy, if you're in the market for an insulating, I got a super insulator for hunting any kind of outdoor activity. Take a look. It's too hot in my... It's way too warm to wear indoors right now. I get this thing off. It's like just an immediate warmer. Oh my gosh. It's terrific. I'm too hot. The Uncompagre 2, 200 money from First Light. Uncompagre. Uncompagre. We're not going to spell that.
Everett Check them out. On the air, but we will have a link in the show notes. Yeah.
Andrew Oh, if I do them.
Everett If you do the show notes. And even if you don't, I'll probably make it happen.
Andrew Coin toss chance.
Everett It's a little better than a coin toss. Yeah, it's about it.
Andrew It's about a 52% chance. 60-40.
Everett We'll give you a 60-40. So I've got another thing. I, I was in, I've been in the market for khakis, but right now, right now today, uh, it's very hard. You can't try them on. So I, you know, things like pants, you know, pants are hard for me to buy. I have a tough time with off the rack pants. So I got to try them on. Um, and so, uh, you can't try. Did you get the Kornacki khakis? No, I bought khakis off of Amazon.
Andrew Oh, interesting. We've had some, some, a
Everett They are just sort of British khaki color. They are, you know, kind of that light, that darker khaki color. That's the color I prefer. The color's fine, whatever. And they come in like 15 different colors, by the way. But I think that there's some inconsistency in terms of sizing. But what I found is for the pair I got for my body, they're slightly stretchy. I need that too. They fit great. The construction's fantastic. And they're 30 bucks. And they got to my house in two days. And I was like, man, Prime member, this is a good khaki for 30 bucks. It's just fantastic. So there I think they're like 95% or 97% cotton with 3% spandex, which gives them just just enough, just enough stretch. They look like they don't look like tech fabric, right? Because they're not. They look like cotton, like a washed cotton. And I was like, man, I am never going to by another pair of J crew khakis or Brooks Brothers khakis for 100 and I have a lot of J crew khakis. Yeah, I've had a couple pair over the years and that's always been my go to 30 bucks. This is every bit as good as that. And I was really happy. So $30 there'll be a link in the show notes. Good threads khakis. I think you should try them. They are for me. I like a little bit higher rise, not a high rise, but I want it to sit just about my waist. I don't want the low cut khakis. I want super low. Yeah, that's weird. Uh, yeah, it's not, it's not 2006 anymore. Turns out.
Andrew No, see, I, what I do is I, I kind of, I have them adjusted and then I have them cut the front lower cause I need the, I need the back to come up over the crack and I have them cut the front lower.
Everett Really? No. What the fuck is wrong with you? So Goodthreads khakis, 30 bucks. Take a flyer. If you're looking for khakis, you know, I don't wear a ton of khakis. I wear jeans. And I wear suit pants, right? Or dress trousers. But I needed some khakis. I just needed a couple pair of khakis and... Dress trousers? Who are you? Why? I mean... That's what you call dress pants. Okay. That's what you call them. Yeah, sure. Sure. Vishal, do you got another thing? Other things? What do you got, man?
Vishal Talani First of all, I'm just recovering from the number of times I've heard the word khaki in the last seven minutes. It was a lot of...
Everett It was offensive. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Vishal Talani The word khaki. Sorry. Yeah, I don't I don't I don't know. I don't have my fascination right now as I look at my desk. I will tell you what I am obsessed with is these pilot friction pens. Have you heard of these guys?
Everett Yes. Yes.
Vishal Talani They are a life changer. So I I'm I'm just buying and buying and buying as many as I can get my hands on. I think they're incredible. They are the sort of the sort of loose But they're great. I think they are fascinating because they give you that sort of, you know, seriousness of a pen, right? It's proper ink. It's not pencil. It's not going to erase itself. But should you make a mistake and should you need to sort of edit things, you know, they're ready to go. So I would, if this is an opportunity to vouch for a product without any sort of financial kind of kickback to me, I would say this. I would say the pilot friction pens are amazing. I have refills. I bought recently. That's how I know I'm really into them. They're great. And the Rocketbook that goes along with them. I'm a big fan of the Rocketbook series as well. That's great.
Everett You know, Pilot's such a great company. We've talked about other Pilot products on the show before because Pilot is one of these companies. I mean, Pilot is like the Seiko of the pen world, right? They make really fucking good consumer-ready products. You can find Pilot at any Target, Walmart, in the country.
Andrew You can find them at 7-Eleven.
Everett But they also have this, like, undercatalog of, you know, the knowledgeable guy or gal who's in the stationery knows about this thing, and you can order them from JetPens or something. Like, Pilot's just a cool, stinking company. I use hundreds of G2s a year. Yeah. And G2, that's such a great pen. You can buy it at any Target in the country, right? And at 7-Eleven. But they also have this great sort of catalog of, of off the menu as, as I would, I would say off the menu items. Special menu. Secret menu. Secret menu. That's right. Secret menu items. So, uh, yeah. And, and you know what, I've used a number of these friction pens and you're right. They're totally great.
Vishal Talani Yeah. Yeah. Life changing. So I would, you know, like I said, something that, um, I'm going to buy more of this Christmas, I think for myself, but, but I'm very, very excited by them. So, Yeah, no, I think, like you said, it's a great brand. Like you said, it's one of those kind of unheralded products and companies that people want to discover and say, you know what, man, they make some amazing things. So yeah, that's my product vouch, if that's what I can call it. Yeah, that's my product vouch. Other than that, I'm listening to some podcasts, throw that in the mix. What am I listening to? Bunga Bunga is the new one, which I started to pick up. I started hearing that. It was pretty interesting. But yeah, that's kind of it. Other than that, I'm kind of all about work and family.
Everett So you get a two for what's Bunga Bunga?
Vishal Talani Bunga Bunga is, I think it's by Wondering, it's the life and times of Silvio Berlusconi, who for me is a fascinating character, just because he is kind of in that sort of Rascalian type of leader who just got away with stuff. And without drawing obvious parallels to somebody currently in music. Um, but that kind of figure for me is fascinating. Just the ability to just get away with stuff is, is, is my boat. So, um, yeah, that's, that's currently what's on my, uh, podcast, um, year list or whatever. Yeah. Right now.
Everett Sure. Sure. I love it. I love it. Well, Andrew, I think it's that sad time. We're going to move on to anything else you want to add before we do go today? Nope. Vishal, I'm so glad that you joined us for this show, and I think you're right. I think we do probably have to have you on to talk about some more nuanced aspects of your background and what you do. Sorry we don't have more time to sort of dive into all of this in a single week's episode. Anything that you want to say before we get going?
Vishal Talani No, again, look, a big thank you. I know I'm not sure if this is the audience for it, but this is, again, just a thank you to everybody who is a listener and a consumer fan. critic of our products and watches. I appreciate it. We don't take it for granted. Again, not to sound trite, but it is actually a genuine thing that we always try to communicate to sort of say thank you for all of it. But yeah, look, I really enjoyed the last hour. It's gone pretty quickly. I'd love to be back on sometime. I'll be better organized with the audio and obviously without the sort of scary serial killer hunter background wall behind me.
Everett It's fantastic, man. Don't change a thing. Love it.
Vishal Talani Yeah, but no, look, it's kind of almost like I felt like a confessional today, which was very also cathartic. I also felt got a lot of things off my chest, which was good. I hope it didn't come off too garbled. But no, genuinely, thank you both for having me on and Yeah, I'm around. Listen, you know where I live, you know where I'm at. So find me and I'd be happy to kind of, especially if you want to get into the nooks and crannies of the industry and find out kind of other sort of pieces behind the curtain. That could be my piece. Maybe that's what I am. I'm behind the curtain. So the subset of some of the podcasts you do behind the curtain. Just a pitch.
Everett Well, it's been our pleasure. Vishal Talani, CEO of Dartmouth Brands, owner of Aviate Spinnaker Dufa, as well as a ton of other brands. Thank you so much for joining us. Andrew, thank you for joining me. I may have a key to your house. I'm here all the time. I really do appreciate you joining me for this episode. And thank you at home for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20. Check us out on Instagram. We post pictures there occasionally. Instagram at 40 and 20 or at Watch Clicker. We'll post more pictures than we do. We'll post more pictures than us. Check us out on the website, watchclicker.com. That's where every episode of the podcast shows up and where we have weekly content like reviews of awesome watches, like the AV8 Lafayette Flyboy Chronograph. Yeah. If you want to support the show, you can check us out on patreon.com slash 40 and 20. That's where Watch Clicker and 40 and 20 gets all of our money for hosting and everything. We've had a couple of new patrons in this last couple of weeks and it's just really such a pleasure to see that. It makes me warm inside. We really appreciate it. Don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye bye.