Episode 120 - Interview with Josh and Steve Roemer from SWC

Published on Wed, 10 Feb 2021 20:29:42 -0800

Synopsis

This episode features an interview with Steve and Josh Romer of the Swiss Watch Company. They discuss the history and design philosophy behind the Swiss Watch Company, including Steve's experience working at the Swatch Group in the 1980s and 1990s during the quartz crisis. They talk about designing watches for the Marine Corps and other military/first responder groups in the past, as well as the process behind their current lineup of watches like the Diver and Field Watch models. The focus on maximizing lume performance and incorporating customer feedback into future iterations is highlighted. Steve and Josh also share some personal anecdotes about their unique rural Nevada hometown and Josh's experience as a father of young twins.

Links

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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, how are you?
Everett	I'm doing great. I felt I almost just kept the music just way high on you.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	Made you yell over it.
Andrew	Yeah. I mean, I mess up your outro with regularity. Very deliberately too.
Everett	I'll look at you and I'll see the twinkle in your eye.
Andrew	You see it. You see the little brother-y, I got this. I know what to do right now. And I intervened in my own intro this week. Sort of. You won't hear it. But I squeaked my chair during our period of silence.
Everett	Yeah, no, I'm good. Tuesday night. It's already feel like a... God, it's been a fucking week. A five day week. But yeah, no, I'm good. I'm good. How about you?
Andrew	I'm living in a hotel right now. My house is listed. So rather than try to keep it museum quality with two kids and two dogs, we said impossible. And we're living in a hotel for the week. We had our first showing tonight, about 20 minutes after we left and about 40 minutes after the house went fully alive. Yeah, that's crazy. It's nuts. And what I'm regretting now, and I'm going to go home on my way to back to the hotel in Texas. I didn't turn on my interior blink camera. Oh, sure. I disconnected it because I felt kind of weird having it on. And then today when there were people in my house, I felt weird not having it on. So I'm going to be turning it on tonight. And so you can watch people. I just want to hear what they have to say. And if they start talking shit, I'm going to come over the speaker and be like, shut up. I built that. Yeah. Yeah. That's I mean, part of it is I don't really want to hear what they have to say because so much of the house is stuff that I've done.
Everett	Yeah, right. This is like spying on your children's text messages or whatever.
Andrew	Yeah, I don't want that. I don't want that. They're just never gonna have cell phones. Not even gonna get them burners. They're gonna like get pagers. At best. I don't know if you can even buy pagers anymore. So you're in a hotel. Yeah, we're in a hotel. For at least a few days. Yeah, we're gonna go back home Friday. So the goal is to, or no, the plan, as it sits, we're gonna stop accepting offers Friday at noon and let someone buy our house.
Everett	I went by your new house. Yeah. I went by your new house earlier today and there was people, or yesterday I guess, and there was people moving out of it. I'd be pretty bummed. We probably should get moving today because I think we're going to go long. I think we're going to go long because I think the guys who are as of yet muted but on the other end of the Skype call are going to be pretty interesting to talk to. And for those of you who have not read, not done your due diligence and are just blind playing 40 and 20 episodes. At 2x speed to catch up. We have got some fun guests. We've got Steve and Josh Romer of the SwissWatchCompany. Steve and Josh, how are you guys? Doing good.
Josh Romer	Thanks. Doing good. Thanks for having us.
Andrew	Thanks for coming. Thanks for being willing to join in, in the shenanigans. So tell us a little bit about yourselves. Give us like the elevator pitch, who you are, what you do.
Josh Romer	Okay. So, so I'll give a, I'll give my quick version because mine is a lot less exciting and exotic than my dad's. So I graduated college. I mean, obviously I grew up with watches because of my dad and he'll get into more of his history and watches. Decided, graduated in business. I was working in a sales job, wasn't super happy. wanted to get involved with what my dad was doing, came down, got involved. And the Diver, we weren't really, so my dad was more focused on manufacturing watches for other micro brands, which we still do. So the, as far as our own watch line, that wasn't really a thing, but he had a very, very dated sample of the Diver you guys have on hand. And I took it and took some pictures, started an Instagram account. And that is how we got started. He always wanted to do his own watch brand. He did watches for the armed forces back in the nineties, but it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily like a Swiss watch company watch where we're selling directly to consumer. So, uh, through the power of social media, we were able to do it without crazy budget. And, uh, Here we are today.
Everett	You, you were the guy at the top of the hill pushing the, the medium sized snowball.
Josh Romer	Yes. Yes. And we, we are currently just so, you know, on top of an actual hill. So if you, if you could see my parents' house, you can see it from no matter where you are in our town, it's a, it's right on top of the hill.
Everett	And so, and so you guys live in Nevada, about an hour outside of Vegas in the middle of nowhere, as you've described it, and you live in the same town.
Josh Romer	Yes, yeah. Yeah. So I work here. The the basement of my parents house is pretty much that's his office. Yeah, it's dedicated SWC. He confiscated it. So my Roddy's cats to wait, there's a cat and it's a great it's a great space. And so I work here. But my wife and kids me my wife and kids we live more in town. And yeah, we're really it's in the middle of nowhere. So a lot of times, I'll tell people I'm from a small town. And people say like, Oh, yeah, I'm from a small town, too. And they'll they'll bring up a town with more than 10,000 people. And that's just it's just, it's so much more than that. We are we're really we're not a suburb. It's it's actually the middle of nowhere. I post, I post stories to our Instagram. frequently of our view. And it's, it's really just, it's just desert. There's nothing around us.
Andrew	So when you say you live in town, you mean you can like throw rocks toward your neighbor's property?
Josh Romer	Yeah. So, and that's another thing I didn't realize that was confusing until, because we're so used to it. I was, I was texting Mike and, uh, from Mike Scott watches. And I was saying like, my parents live out of town and I live in town and where it's the same town, but there's like a hub of like a, a lot of houses in our town. And then there's everything out of town, which is it's, it's farm country. So it's really spread out. So everything that's around the school is in town and then about a hundred yards past that is out of town. So that's, it's a pretty much where we live. It's, it's, it's exactly how you would expect it to be.
Andrew	And to Mike, that's like. townhouses versus like small front yard. That's in town versus out of town.
Josh Romer	Yeah. It's not quite like that. It's very, it's very unique.
Everett	There are no party wall easements. There are no party wall easements.
Josh Romer	No, no, no, no, no HOA. None of that. That doesn't exist out here. Does not exist.
Steve Romer	You can do whatever you want two o'clock in the morning outside. Okay.
Josh Romer	Yeah, yeah. The difference between I'm intrigued. Like, yeah. So yeah, firearms are fine. In fact, you could take you could take a gun and shoot it off my parents deck right now. The the closest thing if you were to go west off my parents deck, you would hit area 51 before you hit anything else. That's that's the nearest civilized structure west of my parents.
Everett	So is it a shorter drive to go to a movie theater or to buy Tannerite? That's the real question.
Josh Romer	It's about equal. Okay. It's about equal. So you have to choose. So that's rural.
Steve Romer	It's five years since I've been to a movie theater.
Josh Romer	Yeah. The only thing we really have here, we have a gas station. There's a little grocery store, but yeah, no, no Walmart, no movie theater. It's that's it. Like it's, it's, it's all we have. But, uh, yeah, we're all about Tanner, right? So, okay. Perfect.
Everett	Yeah. You live in, you live in the desert, right? And how did you land out there?
Josh Romer	So that would be more of a question for my dad and just how he ended up in the United States in general. Yeah. Cause he's, He still has a green card. He's not even American.
Everett	Well, so let's do it. Steve, let's do a little bit of a reverse chronology here because you're here today primarily as the owner, founder of SwissWatchCompany. So let's talk a little bit about that SwissWatchCompany, what it is in its current iteration. Then we can talk about what SwissWatchCompany was in its past life and maybe still current life, because I think that there might be some overlap there. And then, and then at some point, we're going to have to, we're going to have to dive back, uh, more years than that, I think, because the story is pretty interesting.
Steve Romer	Okay. Uh, the current, the current business of Swiss watch company now is Joshua is keeping us rather busy. We've come out now with, uh, with two model families. So first the diver's watch, which went really well, and then, uh, came along with the sports watch and that went well. Uh, sorry, there's three model families and now we're, we, we just came up with the field watch. Yeah. And we didn't think it would do, uh, phenomenal. And, uh, that one was just, uh, it was just incredible how it went, how it went ahead.
Everett	You guys didn't think the field watch was going to be successful? Not like it was. Not like that. You know, when I, when I look at your, when I look at your watches, I look at that bunker and I think, man, man. Really, really cool. So I think I look, I look at the, I look at the collection and I think, well, they have an easy one, the, the field watch, cause that's just universally appealing. Uh, and then they've got some, some funky stuff too. So, uh, but you guys had, you guys had a little bit different idea about what would be what?
Steve Romer	Yeah, there's, you know, we, I've been doing work for other companies, uh, OEM for How long now? 20, 25 years. And, uh, doing our own things. I don't, I don't like to copy other brands. Uh, if it's a small brand or a big brand or whatever, just no interest in doing that. So if it's on the technical side, if it's on technical and design side, we, we want to be original with everything that we're doing or as original as you can be. So. The, uh, with, with the field watch, we, we brought in a lot of technical aspects that were up to date, never seen. And, uh, you know, with, uh, with the AR coding that we have, it's, uh, as well as with the loom and we'll, uh, we'll bring in some crazy, crazy things that, uh, haven't been seen in the watch industry yet with additional lines that were going to come out this year as well. So we're looking forward. Josh was really excited about everything and we'll see how it's going to go.
Everett	Steve, I'm noticing an early trend, which is that you like to put things on Josh. He's keeping you busy. He's excited. We don't need to comment on it yet. I'm just pointing it out for posterity.
Steve Romer	It works well that way. It works well that way.
Josh Romer	It's a good balance. It's a good balance. I would show you guys the bunker, but because of the aforementioned loom, when I put my kids to bed, it never doesn't end up in one of their hands as they're going to bed. So they currently have mine right now.
Andrew	That's great, right? So the website's saying 20 layers. Yes. Not to get too far off track before we, before we just continue where we're going, but what's an industry standard in, in the way of layering for?
Steve Romer	Layers about three to five is industry standard.
Andrew	Holy shit.
Steve Romer	And we, uh, so you have about 0.05 to 0.1 millimeters height. That's, that's about standard. Yeah. It's kind of funny when we, uh, YouTubers when they test our field against a Rolex, a Tudor, or any of them high-end, and we always beat them. So it's nice to see those results a little bit, but hey, we want to be able to offer something that is not necessarily the standard. And Joshua does a good job marketing it.
Everett	Yeah, it's crazy. And this is a good segue. Steve, because I've read and I read an interview with you earlier, and I've heard you guys on Love & Watches and just, you know, doing our research thing and sort of trying to meet you guys a little bit before we meet you. But you talk, you in particular, Steve, talk about watches in a little bit of a dialect that is surprising to me, I think, because we don't hear it a lot. You know, I think we talk to a lot of micro brands at 40 and 20. primarily talking to brand owners who are folks like us, right, with a consumer-first experience to watches, knowledge about what watches look like and what's good about watches, but not perhaps a real specific industry experience. You talk about, you know, A-plus watches and A-plus lume and A-minus or B-plus specifications. And these are, this is phrasing that I'm not real familiar with, but I've heard you describe your Lume as perhaps A plus and your watches as B plus. And can you get into that a little bit? And then maybe we segue into your specific industry experience.
Steve Romer	Okay. The Swiss watch industry is partitioned into about four different slices. So you have A, A plus, A minus, which is one, you could throw in basically every brand that sells over $3,000. And then you have the B plus line that goes with brands from about 500 to about $2,000. So Tissot would probably be the number one brand in that area. You have other smaller ones, Maurice Lacroix, you have Sertina, you have Hamilton that's in there as well. And then you have the, the lower end, Victor Enox is, uh, is one of the, on the lower side and they, they retail, uh, somewhere from a hundred to $400. They might go a little bit higher as well, but, uh, and then you have, then you have the junk on the, which you can buy the junk on Alibaba. You can also buy the junk in Switzerland if you want, but, uh, uh, nobody, nobody that, that is listening to this podcast probably would be interested in, in stopping at an airport shop where you can buy two for $10. I mean, that's not something we do, but there's a market for it, so why not?
Everett	You'd be surprised, some of our listeners.
Andrew	I've done some things when I save more money than I spend. Yeah, you know, that's
Everett	That's actually the first time that anyone's ever described that system to me. And perhaps I've read about it and glossed over it or whatever, but that it's interesting, right? It's an interesting way to think about watches too, because I think a lot of times we describe watches in these sort of vague, but profound feeling, you know, brand A is as good as brand B or, you know, brand A is better in X regard than B. It's interesting to think, well, there's actually some really, uh, uh, really entrenched standards for these things.
Steve Romer	There is, there's industry norms. And if you put a watch in front of me, I could just, just alone by looking at it, uh, with a, with a micro or a lube magnification glass. Sorry. Sometimes my, uh, my Swiss comes, comes forward here. And, uh, I'd be able to tell you where, in which segment this, this brand is. It's, it's, uh, you know, once you've been in the, in the industry for about 40 years, it's, it's, it's second nature.
Andrew	What's the one thing to look for when you're, when you put a loop on a dial of a watch, what are you looking at to, to grade effectively a watch?
Steve Romer	Initially, uh, I always look at the finish of the case as well as, uh, You know, you can look at the finish of the crown as well, case back, uh, how it feels, uh, you can tell quite rapidly, uh, what kind of a manufacturing plant that, that, uh, part was, was made. It's, it's quite a self explanatory.
Andrew	And in that you're looking at the crispness of the lines between, uh, between texture changes, you're looking at just the actual, grain of the metal that's coming out. I just kind of want to pull out a little bit more detail.
Steve Romer	Correct. So the, if, if you look at some up to a certain, uh, dollar amount in the industry, you're looking at, uh, it's, it's not welcome that you have crisp corners that they are considered to be sharp, uh, and, and causing a discomfort. And then when you get into the high end, Uh, a Rolex and Omega, their, uh, their edges are rather crisp, but they're so uniform crisp that when you look at one edge, every single one looks exactly the same. And that's that then, and that's challenging to do. Uh, if you, if you're in the industry where you say, okay, you can, you can take the bracelet off and you can look at any. Any edge that is covered by the bracelet or by the leather strap, it's all the same. It's uniform wherever you look at. And that's challenging. There's, there's not that many manufacturers that can achieve that kind of detail.
Everett	So, so that's, that's great. And, and I think this is probably a good time for, for us to talk a little bit about your pre Swiss watch company experience then. Uh, because I do want to know more about the. Uh, I do want to know more about the connections to, to law enforcement or, or, or, uh, military and, and first responders, but you got started in Swatch Company. I believe in the seventies. In the eighties. In the eighties. Okay. I'm sorry.
Steve Romer	I'm really sorry, Steve. The seventies were just over. Okay. Uh, Switzerland, we go to school only nine years for high school. So an elementary school, not 12 years. So I, uh, I, uh, from 1980 to 1995, I worked for the Swatch Group. Uh, the most of it for ETA in movement manufacturing, uh, where we, uh, I was, I was for about three years, I was quite involved in the, in, in, in the manufacturing process of the Swatch Watch when it first came out. I remember I was, uh, working in the assembly for the, the female line. And, uh, it had a different construction than the male swatch watch. And it was, uh, back then if a watch didn't pass all of the quality requirements, you throw it away. So we, we made a habit of, we threw away every second or third only. And the other ones we took home because it passed 20 meters ATM instead of the 30. So we just took it and, uh, I, by the time I quit with that department, I think I had about two or 300 watches lined up, uh, on the bottom of my floor. It was just, it was just, it was crazy.
Everett	You know, I suspect you couldn't get away with that kind of thing today.
Steve Romer	Oh, no, no. It is so heavily guarded now. I mean, there's, first of all, you can't even get in. Back then it was quite, uh, quite lax, but, uh, nowadays it's, uh, it's, Uh, those, those secrets are, are kept quite, uh, quite heavily there and they're, they're well-guarded.
Josh Romer	And a lot of that, it was in, uh, Thailand, right?
Steve Romer	Yeah. I worked seven years in Thailand after that for manufacturing of, uh, movements as well, as well as watch assembly and manufacturing and quality assurance for, uh, companies that work for this watch group. Uh, sometimes, uh, you know, you think certain companies wouldn't be that excited to tell you that they're manufacturing dials in, uh, in Thailand or in China, but Omega is one of them. Okay.
Josh Romer	Yeah. We, we, we like to share, cause I was born in Thailand and people here swatch group. And I mean, it's not something they advertise obviously, but, uh, yeah, for a lot of it, we, we lived in Thailand for all he was working for swatch group.
Steve Romer	So there's, there's the, the vast portion of Swiss brands. They, uh, Thailand is a big hub for dial manufacturing because apparently their eyesight is, uh, on the top of the world. We took advantage of that. At one point that was responsible for well over a thousand people, uh, just, you know, doing assembly assembly work. So. It was, it was fun, but after seven years, it was time to leave.
Everett	And so, and so the, the way you've told this story, uh, I have a, I have a suspicion that you were working primarily with quartz movements.
Steve Romer	Yes, correct. Yeah. In the assembly, in the watch assembly, we did some mechanical as well, but the vast majority was quartz because from 19, 80, when the revolution came of the quartz movement, the Swiss were lagging behind the Japanese quite a bit. And it was not in anymore to have mechanical movements. It was in to have a thin, thin watch.
Andrew	How did that feel from inside the industry to see this quartz tsunami coming down on you and seeing the watch world overturn? Because we've talked, I mean, we've talked ad nauseum about the court's crisis, but we've never had the chance to talk to somebody who was there in the thick of it. What was that like to see that, I mean, to see the writing on the wall like that?
Steve Romer	It was stressful. I mean, you didn't walk down a manufacturing line without knowing exactly why you were walking there. If you were just taking a break or doing something wrong, Uh, anybody from human resources, they would just send you the letter to say, okay, we don't need you anymore. I mean, it was stressful. Uh, they didn't have the, the cashflow anymore to take care of all the, the employees that, that were required for the mechanical movements. And they, they needed excuses to get rid of a lot of them. And we, we worked on the furlough for. I think three or four months I was on furlough myself. Uh, first. I mean, it was you, you made sure at all times you were right there doing what you had to do.
Everett	You know, our very, our very last episode, uh, that we recorded last week was about the Valjoux at a 7750 and, uh, and the La Mania 5100. And we, we, you know, as we do, we don't, we don't know anything about anything. Right. So we spend, you know, between one and eight hours researching for an episode and then we make up the rest. I think part of our episode was this vignette about Edmund Kapt showing up in a hoodie and with a joint behind his ear presenting these preserved 7750 dyes or whatever at a board meeting
Andrew	It also makes it way more believable that he just left with all the dyes and everything after you telling the story of having 300 watches.
Everett	Like, oh no, that's definitely what happened. You know, but there's a context there, right? It's interesting. We didn't anticipate this portion of our interview when we talked last week, but there's this very real thing that was happening, right? Where It's a little bit, everybody's uncertain. Everybody's nervous. Nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow. So in, you know, in whatever, 75, they shit can the 77.50 and then 83, it's back and we need to get going. You know, that's the environment you're talking about working in.
Steve Romer	Correct. Yeah. So what we experienced back then, I mean, right now it's condensed quite a bit and there's It is very tense right now in Switzerland as well because of COVID. And, uh, because people are not, no, they're not buying the three to five to $10,000 watches anymore. They're just not doing it. And, uh, uh, there's a lot of companies that are going out of business because of it, because they just, they just can't carry it. They have inventory one year, two years, plus some, even up to three years of inventory. And, uh, yeah. You passed the test with the banks because you can say that you have inventory, but at one time you have to start selling something and it's just not happening right now. Yeah. Sitting on inventory is expensive.
Everett	Well, and do you suspect, I don't want to get us too far off of target here, but do you suspect that that is purely just general market feeling or is there Is there a thing happening here that's more sort of micro level? Are guys like you, Josh and Steve, are you disrupting the industry in any sort of real sense? And I say that obviously with tongue in cheek a little bit, but it does seem to me like we're in a bit of a situation here. And I'm not saying situation is a pejorative. There's a thing happening in our industry, in this watch industry. Are those things playing into that?
Steve Romer	They are somewhat, I mean, our business plan was always very, very disciplined in the price structure and what we offer in quality with that, which, uh, we want to be able to give value that, uh, that will carry over, not just once you purchased it, but that you can sell your, your product as well if wanted. And that's, that's challenging in the industry nowadays to do that. Secondly, uh, the. There are so many brands that, that started in, uh, 10, 15 years ago and that thought, well, the best place to sell watches is in the 1500 to about $5,000. And, uh, it just saturated that market in Switzerland by, and, uh, that there's only so many. Watches that can be sold in that price segment. And because of that right now, there's a, there's definitely Uh, some, uh, brands that are going away or just discontinuing or selling or whatever, but the market is thinning out right now because of all of that. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's tough to see that, but, uh, we saw it in the 1980s. The first thing that goes when something happens is the jewelry sector. And it's the last thing that will, that will ramp up again. And, uh, you can, you can gauge that by Gillette. Okay. If Gillette is starting to do good again, you can start shaving again. Okay.
Everett	That's good. That's good. I like that. This is like the, the Big Mac dollar standard, right?
Andrew	You get two for six right now. So, so all that I want to, I hate to pivot so quickly because there's so much more to talk about here, but I want to talk about how you got to where you are as Swiss watch company today. I want to, I want to see, I want to hear that journey that led us to today. And then I want to spend some time talking about today.
Steve Romer	Okay. Uh, well, 1995, we left Thailand and this watch group. And with that, uh, coming to the States, uh, well, the only thing I was able, I knew how to do was watches. So I started to design, uh, our first watch that was, uh, to be, uh, sold to the Marine Corps. And we visited the Marine Corps and they said, it's way too big. It's just too expensive. You'll never sell it. And, uh, we had a very happy Sergeant Major in the base in San Diego. That was, uh, you know, Sergeant Majors, you don't argue with those guys. They're unpleasant people. Yeah. They're unpleasant. Yes. And he took a liking to us, and he said every Wednesday when they got their haircuts, they had to line up and look at our display. And he said, I'll make sure they'll buy your watches. And they did, apparently. And they did. They did. I mean, it was not something that was forced on them, but Huh? We, uh... Steve, I want to hear that. It wasn't exactly not forced on them either.
Everett	It was forced on them. Just a couple of prior service guys, it was forced on them.
Andrew	So was that business model, you were producing direct-to-consumer, specifically built for Marines watches? Yes. How many lines were you producing at that point? Or how many models?
Steve Romer	Finally, we ended up in with about seven or eight lines that we had for the, for the Marine Corps. And then we, we had some lines for the army. Uh, we had some lines for the air force and then something horrible happened called attorneys that, uh, demanded licensing. And, uh, uh, they said, you have to list all your components and we have the right to go and visit all those manufacturers and, uh, You know, Switzerland will not give you the right to go and visit them. You know, the Swatch group says, Hey.
Andrew	Pound sand. Yeah, no.
Steve Romer	Good luck.
Andrew	Okay. US government contracting is a nightmare.
Steve Romer	So China took over, I think so.
Everett	And I can say, I can attest to the fact that attorneys are the actual worst. Yes. Yeah.
Andrew	Yeah, they are.
Everett	They're not great. So, so the bottom kind of falls out then, huh?
Steve Romer	Well, the bottom fell out with that business. We did that for about 10 years, rather successfully. And then we started doing OEM for other companies as well. And that went rather well. I mean, I think now we have somewhere around 15 or so companies that buy merchandise through us, complete watches. Uh, and some were big, rather big companies and others were, were smaller companies. The vast majority of small companies, because they are, they, uh, they don't have the experience and they need somebody in there that will do them right for what they want to do. And we want to, we want every micro brand to be successful. I mean, we are in the same industry. There's no competition or, you know, it's, I don't feel like, uh, if you buy his watch, then you will not buy my watch. That's, that's, that's not, that's not our philosophy.
Josh Romer	When you're dealing in runs of 500, a thousand at best, uh, you're, you're not really, you're not really stealing a huge chunk of the market enough to like anyone stealing from you. So it's, it's, I hope no micro brand has that. I don't think they do. We, we all, all the owners I've talked to, uh, we get along really well because I think most realize that, uh, because it's just, that there's so many people. And so few, well, there's a lot of micro brands, but so few micro brands that, uh, are established to the point where they have multiple pieces out. And it seems like there's a new one every day. And there probably is that it's just, it's not worth the time to compete with each other, uh, outside of the fact of trying to improve on what each other is doing, but direct competition, it just doesn't make sense in the micro brand space. If anything, I love that sentiment. All the owners we've ever talked to, I don't think I've ever once gotten the sense that there was any of that, right? Any of that sort of cold blooded...
Everett	So yeah, no, it's, and you guys are not the only micro brand that we've talked to that has dabbled in, in the OEM world either. I think that there's a really sort of genuine feeling that more is just more. Even if some of the consumers get grumpy about all the new watches or whatever, right. You know, which is a weird thing to get grumpy about, but yeah, we've... Like dwellers. Like dwellers. I can't think of a single time we've ever run into any sort of That person is going to take away from my sales sentiment.
Josh Romer	Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's, if anything, it's, uh, I'm sure, uh, we've, I know we've introduced some customers to the micro-brand space and it, it honestly helps. It's in every micro-brands best interest for people to get into micro-brands because once you buy one, you're going to realize, uh, that they do offer a lot of value and you're likely to look at others. So. We've gotten a lot of customers to where we weren't their first micro brand. So we owe, we owe all of that and this market to each other. So the better micro brands can do as a whole, the worst thing for a micro brand is for another micro brand to fail because it makes people wary of the space. And it's already, there's already a reason for people to be concerned getting into a new micro brand. Uh, there's, there's plenty of examples out there of, of, uh, failed Kickstarter attempts or, or successful Kickstarter attempts that then failed later down the road. Uh, so there there's already more than enough to make people think twice about getting into micro brands. So the best thing for micro brands is for others to succeed. So that's, that's always our goal. And as far as I can tell, talking to others, uh, I'm, I'm good friends with a lot of other micro brand owners. And I don't think, I don't know that that exists in many other industries.
Andrew	No, I'd say that it doesn't because so much of it is it's a it's a kind of fixed pie industry, whereas I kind of see the micro watch world is as filling this void that luxury watches you can have one and that's years of saving. And it it might be exactly that one watch that you want, but it's not a dozen watches. And we we talk about this all the time. That's that was the reason we we started this podcast is we wanted people. We wanted watches to be accessible to the normal dude who wants to be a discerning, a discerning consumer to say, look, this this is going to give you relatively the same value. And we've done a lot of side by sides with with very expensive watches to to well done micro watches. And the difference is there. But it's not much. And we have yet to be able to say that the difference in the way tangibly is worth the dollar value difference. And we talked about this, what, three weeks ago or so?
Everett	Yeah.
Andrew	I mean, we as consumers make the value. The value doesn't necessarily come from the watch.
Josh Romer	Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the fact that you see some Some larger brands now kind of adopting the micro brand marketing model. Yeah. You've even seen some show up on Kickstarter shows that, uh, it it's something I think they're starting to realize that it is a valuable space, which should be encouraging to all micro brands out there. I know a lot of people get upset when they see these bigger brands kind of encroaching on. the space. But all that means is that we're on the right track. It's working. That's what it means. Yeah, it's working. Yes, exactly. Disruption engaged. It's kind of cool to see that.
Everett	Yeah, exactly. You know, I think it bears sort of emphasizing, though, that there's something real happening in the industry. And, you know, I sort of said this tongue in cheek earlier, right, about disrupting the industry. There's really actually something tangible happening in the market, which I don't have my finger on quite yet. And I think we're going to see this play out. And I think in 30 years, we'll be able to look back and talk about what happened in a more concrete way. Who knows where it goes from here, right? Steve was talking about, well, there's all this stock in that $1,500 to $5,000 watch space. We've got backup stock. And who knows, right? Who knows what happens, and economies go up and down, and people's buying tastes go up and down. But yeah, there is something to this. So I think we probably transition a little bit to the development of the modern iteration of Swiss Watch Company. Again, Steve sort of pinning blame, I think, on Josh, perhaps, for getting the ball rolling. Based on the way I read the story, it sounds like Steve had designed a watch.
Josh Romer	Yeah. Yeah, he did. Yeah. He had the diver. I, I can't think off the top of my head where that design came from. You had it. He had it for a long time.
Steve Romer	I had it for some time. Yes. And then, uh, after that, uh, second watch was, uh, took, took about the sports watch took about a year to design and then another year to get rid of all of the complications that we, that we had because of using new materials. And, uh, then the, the field watch that didn't take too, too long.
Josh Romer	Yeah, that, that one where with the sport watch, uh, we, we focus more on pushing the design, uh, the field watch, we focus more on pushing the specs and then keep into a traditional design and the diver, uh, it's, it's pretty, It's pretty heavily based on one of the Marine Corps watches, right? There's some similarities.
Steve Romer	There's, there's some, not that many, not that many. There's some similarities. I mean, diver's watch, if you see one, then you, then you, then you can qualify that it is a diver's watch.
Josh Romer	So yeah. And there's, there's still a lot of, uh, if you go on, I guarantee if you go on eBay right now, there will be, uh, SWC Marine Corps watches. on eBay or firefighter watches. Oh, I like it. Every time I've checked, they've been there. There's a lot of them. How, how many are there out there floating around?
Steve Romer	There's, uh, for the Marine Corps, we probably manufactured somewhere around 30, 30 plus thousand watches for them. Oh my gosh. So, uh, they, uh, we, we had a good sergeant major. Okay. As I say, you know, it was nice, you know, whenever recruits sees a sergeant major and he probably only sees one or two in his lifespan. Okay. He will, uh, first of all, he will shake because he'll probably be more scared of seeing a sergeant major than a general, you know, general doesn't watch harm.
Everett	Uh, you, you know, uh, there was, so, so I, I went to, uh, a basic training camp at some point and there's drill sergeants and they're, they're drill sergeants, right? Uh, you, you, you know, uh, they wear these really particular hats, call them round browns. Uh, and, and there's a certain evocative sensation, uh, that is, very deeply instilled in you over the course of those several weeks that you spend with that person as your best friend. Uh, and, and I, I can remember a period probably no, no fewer than 18 months after that experience being in a, I was at a Burger King. I was at a Burger King in California and just in civilian clothes, not working. Uh, and in walks a group of three drill sergeants wearing, wearing round Browns and they take them off and they hold them in their hand. And I had this like, this visceral, right? So, so when you tell the story about the 30,000 watches, I picture this t-shirt I saw once that had the picture of the pyramids and it said slavery gets shit done. Right. It's like 30,000 watches, right? Uh huh. This is a sergeant major. That's yeah. Yeah. Nobody was forced to do anything, right, Steve?
Steve Romer	No, no, no. They got their haircut and their picture. And right after that, they looked at the watch and said, OK, you're going to graduate in four weeks. What do you want?
Andrew	And were they, was it called, was it still Swiss Watch Company at that time? Yes. So if I'm going to, if I'm going to eBay search it, it's going to be Swiss Watch Company Marine Corps Watch.
Josh Romer	If you searched on eBay, just search Marine Corps Watch. And the only place Swiss watch company was written is on the case back, right? Correct. It's not on the dial.
Steve Romer	We were not allowed to have any branding on the dial. That was, that was a no, no.
Josh Romer	So there was all green on the dial. Okay. So yeah, if, if the pictures include a picture of the case back, you'll be able to see, but yeah, if you just search a Marine Corps watch, uh, they'll, they'll be on there. Cause there's, there's quite a few floating around or firefight. There's not as many firefighter watches, but, uh, By far. Every time I've checked, there's been some on there and we still have some in inventory.
Steve Romer	We're just not allowed to sell them.
Andrew	I was just going to say, how much do you want for them?
Josh Romer	I think I found one.
Andrew	Is this what we're looking at?
Josh Romer	Is that one of yours?
Steve Romer	No, that's not one of ours, but they copied our design basically. Those bastards. Everybody back in those days that the logo, the insignia, that it, it, it took out the whole space of the watch. And, uh, we started doing it small on top and then on below center, we wrote down the U S Marines and, uh, they, they really took a liking. We kicked out Seiko. Seiko was a big seller back then. Uh, they sold 30,000 watches and then, uh, uh, well, we took their spot and we were, we were happy for, yeah. 10-12 years and then when the attorneys came, we were miserable again, so... Bring in the new guy.
Everett	That'll happen. Yeah. Well, so let's talk a little bit about your design. You know, we've spent a couple of weeks here with the Mark II diver.
Steve Romer	Okay.
Everett	And I don't have experience with the other watches in your catalog, but I've certainly experienced them through Instagram or whatever. You know, when I look at the Mark II Diver, really, it's not like any other watch, I think. In a lot of ways, it's not like any other watch I've ever used. I do think that there's, you know, knowing now that you spent a big portion of your career in Swatch Group, I think that there are some Swatch Group feels I get when looking at this watch.
Steve Romer	Oh, yes, there is.
Everett	Yes, definitely. Yeah. Which is not to say it's an homage of anything, because I don't think it is, but there are some feels. Let's talk about your design. What are your design keys, your design emphases, as it were? What are you trying to do when you're designing a watch?
Steve Romer	Well, with the diver's watch, the number one thing is that it has to be viable for I'd say up to about 20 years. Uh, so if we sold a watch in 1996, we still get those watches back now for servicing from the Marine Corps. And, uh, you know, if you look at the back, you cannot even read the insignia anymore, or the engraving on the case back, it's all gone. It's, uh, but the, those guys, they will, uh, you know, always faithful, I guess. So yeah, we actually have to pay, uh,
Josh Romer	on our YouTube channel of us servicing a watch that was sold back in the nineties. I think it was a firefighter watch. It might've been a Marine Corps watch, but yeah, we still service them for people who send them in.
Steve Romer	You didn't sell any cop watches, did you? Only a few, not that many, only a few. It was, it was a market that was riddled with, uh, with unions and with, uh, we're jewelry shops and so forth that, uh, we didn't have a Sergeant major. We, we, we, that Sergeant major was missing. Yeah.
Everett	There's no such thing in the police force. Cause they all have unions.
Andrew	Yeah. Continue. So you've got a YouTube video of you servicing a nineties sold watch, which is impressive.
Steve Romer	Yeah, we, so the main, the main focus is that we, that we, uh, as I said, the norm for, for layering of, uh, of super Luminova is three to five. And, uh, we, we figured fiddled around with, uh, with the dial manufacturer for a good portion of a year, maybe even longer than that to say, okay, we want to up that to, uh, make sure that the thickness of it is at least 0.3 millimeters thick. And it's just, it's just not possible to do that. So we, we went over it and over it and over again with them. And finally they, uh, they, they were able to, uh, yeah, succeed with it. And, uh, with that, we, uh, we, we, we launched the watch, uh, and, and now the second, the second, the Mark II. And the main thing was, okay, we want to be able that when you reckon, when you see your watch, when you look at it, the daytime or nighttime, it's always a different experience. It's a new experience. It's something, okay. You don't want to lose that wow factor. I want to make sure that that wow factor stays there.
Andrew	When you, when you, when you put it on, did you run into issues getting clearance for your hands with that much loom caked onto the dial?
Steve Romer	No, no, no. Because, uh, Now that was never an issue because, uh, your, our hand doesn't sweep over the, the indexes.
Everett	Uh, so it's your minute hands a millimeter or so up.
Steve Romer	Yeah. The minute hand is a little bit higher than that. Correct. So we, we, we, we, we don't have that issue. Uh, but yeah, so we, we did that and we applied the same structure then to, to the field watch. Uh, and. Uh, because of that, yeah, we were rather successful with it.
Josh Romer	Yeah. It looks like the indices are applied on the bunker and, and even on the mark too, but they're not, they're just, just loom.
Andrew	That was the first thing that struck me when I, when I saw this in person, I was like, holy cow, this, this is loom. Yes, I complain so regularly about not enough loom.
Everett	Yeah, crappy loom or just not enough loom.
Andrew	And I have no need for loom because when I work, I wear a G-Shock because I need loom on demand. This is loom on demand. This is like I feel like this will never run out.
Josh Romer	So the bunker would be a perfect fit for you because it it actually weighs if it's on the nylon strap, it weighs less than a G-Shock square by a few grams.
Andrew	Wow. Wow. It's I mean, it's titanium set tracks. I'm I'm yeah, it's titanium.
Josh Romer	It's really thin. So it's a really it's a really easy wear. It's the it's the only watch I have that if I'm sitting typing on my computer, I don't eventually take it off. Because it's kind of driving me nuts. So it's, yeah, it's, it's really easy to wear. One of the things that's unique about my dad, that I like to brag about is when and he mentioned it vaguely, but when you go to these manufacturers, and this is something that other micro brands have run into, when you go to these manufacturers, and you tell them you want to do something like 20 layers of loom, or with our sport watch, the ceramic ring, They'll tell you no. You can't do that. And that's the end. You can't do that.
Andrew	Yeah. Yeah. You can't do that. And you tell them why they can.
Everett	Acrylic crystal is only good to 30 meters and that's it. Yeah. That is the end of that conversation. Yeah.
Josh Romer	Yeah. So he's, he's in the unique position to where he has the background to say, no, you can, and this is how you do it. Where if you don't have that background, that's the end. You're at a dead end. There's, there's nothing you can do. Because what can you do?
Andrew	So you're bringing value to manufacturers also. You're introducing technologies to them like in processes.
Everett	Really disrupting the industry in both directions. Thank you, Steve.
Steve Romer	It happened many times.
Everett	You know, we're talking a little bit about design. I think we're probably going to go a little long today and that's okay. That's okay because we're having fun. So if you guys need to go, just press close on Skype and we'll carry on. But I think it's worth examining. You've got two editions of the Diver out now. You sold a version and then you came back and you sold a substantially similar watch in many respects with the Mark II. But I think we can learn a lot about you guys, your design process, your priorities in talking about what changed between Mark 1 and 2. I think that there's one really obvious change, but what else changed? How are you staying true to the things you want to do, but incorporating changes that you're thinking are important for ongoing marketability?
Josh Romer	So I actually had this conversation with someone in an email. The day before yesterday and the the thing that drives us for change is when we design watches We design them for the most part internally and we'll get Feedback on certain things the bunkers somewhat of an exception We got quite a bit of feedback for that one and it paid off immensely, but when we're changing a current design We base that almost exclusively on customer feedback because ultimately, uh, they are who we are making the watches for. And I have, uh, with the business background, I have one of the things they, they drill into you, uh, incessantly. And one of the few things I actually, uh, learned from my degree that I can actually apply in the field is it's really important to take care of your current customers that should take precedence over gaining new customers. So when you get, uh, when you get all these comments of what you should change, change this, change that, which happens anytime, especially if you go onto a forum, certain forums are more notorious than others. And, uh, yeah, I I've been down that road once. And, uh, do you do the date window or do you not do the date window? You get a lot of feedback and it's, it's just safest to to take the feedback you get from your customers who have the watch, have it in hand, who are most invested in your brand, that's who we listen to. It's not to say we ignore feedback out on the general market. We don't. But if the customers say one thing and we're getting a complete opposite thing on social media, we're going to go with the customers every time.
Andrew	So what you're saying is if I want to make a change to your watch first, I need to buy one. And then tell you that that is what they're saying. Yes, that's what they're saying.
Josh Romer	So, yeah, we made the changes with the mark to the square pattern wasn't it wasn't hated. It was hated by a lot on social media. But as far as customers go, it wasn't hated, but it wasn't really loved. No, no one really commented on it. Quite a few people said, I wish the dial was more sterile, more clean. And another thing we got was the access to the crown. Some customers said the crown's a little, it could be easier to unscrew and to grip. And another thing we got was customers wish there was a micro adjustments or ratcheting system in the clasp. So that's, that's exactly what we changed. So that's, that's what we do. So with the field watch, as of now, we're, we're kind of at an impasse because it's we haven't really had any feedback yet. So with the diver, uh, we, we collect the feedback from our customers as it comes in. And, uh, we, we make our judgments based on that feedback. And that's why, that's why we didn't change very much because customers love the bezel. So we didn't want to change anything with that. They love the loom. Uh, really it was, uh, it was that, that square pattern on the dial. So, and we, we don't want to, change things so drastically that customers feel like, well, now I could have had this. We don't, we don't ever want to make someone regret buying at the point they did. That's really important to us. And that's one of the reasons we let people know, uh, before our, uh, during our sport campaign that we did plan to release the bunker as well. Cause we didn't, we didn't want people to go in on the sport watch. And then we release another watch down the road. So it's, it's something that any decision we make will be centered around our customers.
Everett	And that's. And that experience, right? How the customer feels about the brand, right? Whether, whether it's dishonest or whatever people, people form opinions about a company, how they operate based on their experience with the transparency of the information, especially today, right? Where it's real time assessments of, of oftentimes, you know, years-long processes.
Andrew	And oftentimes a totally innocuous thing. Like, oh yeah, we didn't announce it because we weren't ready to announce it, dickhead.
Everett	Well, speaking of not ready to announce it, you know, we love any opportunity to be able to provide our listeners with sort of insider information, anything you guys can tell us about these watches that they might be expecting in the next year or so from you guys.
Steve Romer	Look at Josh. Look at that expression. That's fantastic. I cannot wait to turn that recording off. Josh was very sensitive to his clientele, okay?
Josh Romer	And I hear it, okay?
Everett	He's even blushing. I've been working on that expression all night. We got it. Well done.
Josh Romer	So I want to be careful of what we do announce. We do have a dress watch that is in the works that we're very excited about. That will be coming this year as well as a size down diver that is coming this year. And as far as unannounced things, I've told some people this who have reached out directly and asked, but we do have Uh, it's a quartz, but it's going to be an option for those who, who love the bunker, but wish it was considerably smaller, but it also will be courts. And that, that kind of goes into, we don't want to create something exactly the same, but only slightly different. for those that already purchase a watch. And then we don't want anyone to have any regrets. We never want that. So that's, that's also in the works. You have my attention.
Steve Romer	Well, well, the quartz watch, we probably can say a couple of things with it. So the loom will be, it should be identical to the current bunker. Uh, it's probably going to be, The field watch that weighs the least that you can purchase on the market. Crazy light. In fact, it's probably going to be less than an ounce.
Josh Romer	Yeah, it'll be, it's going to be really light.
Steve Romer	It's probably going to be less than an ounce. Yeah. So it's a, it's, it's challenging, but, uh, we, uh, we, we want to push the forefront in there so we can provide something that's technically advanced and people that buy it, they're going to be happy with it for, for quite some time.
Josh Romer	Yeah. And we're excited because it's going to be if everything goes to plan, it's going to be in a price range that we haven't even come near yet. So we'll be we'll be advertising to a whole new customer base because there seems to be in the micro brand space. There there's a hard $300 ceiling and a hard $500 ceiling. So it'll be the first time we get beneath that $300 because there's As surprising as it is to some people, there's a lot of people out there who have never spent more than $300 on a watch.
Everett	So it'll be interesting. They listen to this show, right?
Steve Romer	It's somewhat looking at that. I mean, I come from a culture where you buy for sure one watch that is really nice. Okay. And you won't have a problem spending Uh, the first watch that I bought was a, was a Rodo Dia star and I paid on a, on the apprenticeship salary, I think about three or four monthly incomes on it. And it was, it was, and I was proud of it. Uh, the American culture as a whole got destroyed by, uh, by the retail market. And this is somewhat resurrecting itself again, now looking at You know, I want something that is nice, reliable. And, uh, they're coming up with, uh, looking at products as a whole that, that are well over a hundred dollars again. But in the, in the eighties and nineties, I mean, boy, come 2000 years, uh, before Y2K, it was the average watch. What was it? 30 to $50. I mean, it was just, it was, uh, I can, I can, yeah.
Everett	You know, Steve, I've got an aunt, well, on my wife's side, we've got an aunt who is Swiss, and she said to me one time, I can't remember the exact context of the conversation, but she said that Americans eat French fries, and Swiss people eat French fries, but Americans eat seven French fries at one time. There you go. And we eat, we eat seven French fries total one at a time. Uh, right. Uh, it's a, it's right. There's a different approach. There's a different approach to consumption.
Andrew	Yes. Yeah.
Everett	You should eat seven French fries.
Andrew	Well, that's what I said.
Everett	I ate seven of those. That's fantastic. Right.
Steve Romer	Uh, you know, a lunch experience in the States is hum, hum, hum, hum. And let's, let's get going. Okay. Uh, the drive through, uh, experience in Switzerland is, is, uh, it's just starting to come right now. I mean, it was just, uh, if you go out for lunch, then, uh, you shut the factory for an hour and a half and you go and have lunch and then you come back again. Yeah.
Josh Romer	And, uh, yeah, everything really is closed. It's, uh, it's kind of, uh, infuriating when you're over there. Cause right at the time you want to go get something to eat or a snack at the store, because eating out over there, it costs a fortune. And it's not, it's not kid friendly at all. It's not like here where you can semi take your kids out to a meal if the kids let you. And over there, it's, it's just you, it's really not conducive. It's, it's a completely different, uh, culture than we have here. And, uh, yeah, so everything really does close at lunch and it closes really early too. So we're, we're kind of spoiled here. Yeah. That's right. Always available.
Everett	Yeah. Josh, speaking of kids, so you've got like seven kids, right?
Josh Romer	Or 12 kids, 13? I am one more set of twins away from seven kids.
Everett	That means you have more than one set of twins. You've got seven-month-old twins, is that right? Seven-month-old twins?
Josh Romer	Yeah, so we had three, and then we had twins that jumped straight to five. So my life right now is exactly as you imagine it.
Andrew	And right now, okay, this is your best life. You're just hanging out like we're drinking beer for you.
Everett	This is good. The nicest night you've had in the last seven months.
Steve Romer	The alternative doesn't look this relaxing.
Josh Romer	Yeah. Sleep, sleep there. It's just, even if the babies were to sleep through the night, it's, there's just too many kids for there not to be at least one or two of them waking up for something every night for some reason. So yeah. It's yeah, it's exactly as you would expect, but it's still enjoyable.
Andrew	You look really good, given that you haven't slept in seven months. Yeah. Yeah. God, I have two and that's enough.
Everett	Well, unfortunately, you guys, we are going to break on the SWC talk for right now. Obviously. So give us real quick. Give us your website. I think it's SWCUSA.com. Is that right?
Josh Romer	Yeah. SWCUSA.com, Instagram is SWUSA, and for those on YouTube, we have a YouTube channel, SwissWatchCompany, and that it's more kind of the stuff we talk about here, watch industry stuff. I do the best I can to share as much of my dad's knowledge as well as kind of give people a look at how micro brands are actually run behind the scenes. But those are the best places to reach us.
Everett	Really good. Nice. Andrew. Other things. What do you got?
Andrew	I have another thing. I knew you did. My other thing is an echo of your other thing from last week. WandaVision came very highly. No, shut up. Came very highly recommended from you. I've watched it. I'm fully caught up. I don't know if your glowing review is warranted.
Everett	It hasn't caught you, huh?
Andrew	No, I'm going to continue to watch it. It hasn't not caught me, but it's I'm also going to give no spoilers because it's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating. The way they've done it is terrific. The imagery is really great. The cinematography is terrific. Everything's really good. I just don't know if I'm getting it. I just don't. Maybe I'm not smart enough. Like that's a real option, right? Like there's a 90% chance it's just that I'm not smart enough.
Everett	I've known you for a long time. It's a possibility.
Andrew	But I, I feel like I fully understand it and I don't get it, but I'm going to keep watching it because of your glowing recommendation for the exact same thing that I've watched. Like, it's like we're watching this in tandem and you're saying, no, no, no, it's really good. It's really good. You got to watch it. I'm like, okay, I don't,
Everett	I watch it, but I don't, I don't get it. You know, you're the first person I've talked to though, that has gotten to the point where you're at. So you're through five episodes now.
Andrew	We're caught up. We have literally watched exactly the same thing. You're really jacked about it. And I'm like, I don't really understand, but you're jacked about it. So I'm going to stay involved with some peer pressure.
Everett	You're the first person I've talked to that's at that point that isn't like, holy cow, this is getting really freaking good. So, uh, I'm going to maintain my, my glowing recommendation. I'm sorry, you're not having a good experience.
Andrew	You're going to enjoy those five hours. Right. I have at no point not enjoyed it, but I've also at no point really enjoyed it.
Everett	I really appreciate your contribution to the show.
Andrew	I'm just like perfectly medium about it.
Everett	Well, so I've got another thing. It's also, it's also something you can watch. Uh, this is, this is a, this is a movie. Okay. This is a movie. This is a movie I watched. I watched it last night. I did not expect to like it. Oh. Sounds familiar. I did not expect to like it. It just wasn't interesting to me. So it's a movie with Steve Carell. It's made by Jon Stewart. I was going to say, it says Jon Stewart next to your notes. Steve Carell is in it. Jon Stewart is not. And when you watch the trailers, it looks like a small town political campaign movie, which is precisely what it is. And it's so much more. It's so much more. So I would say None of the acting is particularly phenomenal. However, Steve Carell is at his best. So good. Steve Carell is very good. The storyline, you get about two thirds of the way through and the storyline is like, OK, this is a little a little nothing burger, right? Because it's it's kind of predictable until it's not. And then and then once you realize what's happened, the whole movie is so Amazing. It's a political commentary. It's really well done. It's nonpartisan in the way I think you might be expecting when you hear a Jon Stewart political movie. It is not what you're expecting. It's just fantastic, and I don't want to tell you anything else about it. You can watch the trailers. It'll tell you anything I would tell you about it, but... And they'll do a better job. Small Town, Chris Cooper, Steve Carell, Lovely, lovely movie. Where can I watch it? I think we watched it on Amazon. Amazon Prime. I think it was Prime. We didn't pay for it.
Andrew	I was going to say, if you rented it, then I'm not going to.
Everett	It was either on Netflix or Amazon, but we didn't pay for it. Okay.
Josh Romer	That's important. All right. All right. And it's called Small Town?
Everett	No, it's called Irresistible. Irresistible. Irresistible. That's right. That's right. So either one, Josh, Steve, other things, what do you got?
Josh Romer	You know, I had one thing, but now you know, Andrew, maybe I want to share a show that I really like. So a thing, a thing I really enjoy, and this is it's going to be a little weird. It's not for everybody, but I have I have this this kind of weird thing with with homesteading, which which includes and he's going to he's going to laugh. He's laughing right now.
Andrew	He knows it's coming.
Josh Romer	I. I, uh, I have, uh, I have this thing where I, I like to raise, uh, animals like chickens, turkeys.
Everett	I've heard, I've heard about the egg apron.
Josh Romer	Yes. So I, if that tells you anything, people, when they get me gifts, they'll get me, um, they'll get me chicken stuff because I, I, it's not, it's not, uh, that uncommon to where I find myself talking about chickens and, uh, just about any scenario. Yeah, me too. Look at me right now talking about chickens. But yeah, that's a thing.
Andrew	I like having chickens. Who else was raising chickens? Was it Seals? He had the bucketload of chickens. Michael Seals? Yeah, Michael Seals had chickens too.
Josh Romer	You'd be really surprised.
Everett	He's doing that in like San Diego. Yeah.
Josh Romer	So the thing you need to know about chickens is there's no gray area. Either you have chickens and you're all about chickens or they're just not an interest to you. So you'd be amazed at the people who are into chickens. It's weird.
Everett	Yeah. I mean, we're both from Portland, right? So it's not that weird to us, right? Have you seen this show, Portlandia?
Josh Romer	I have not. It's real life.
Everett	So yeah, there's a show called Portlandia. There's a show called Portlandia. It's a farce. It's satirical. It's satirical. but it's so accurate that it's amazing. Uh, uh, you, you know, the very first episode of Portlandia, I believe episode one, season one, episode one, they go to this, uh, farm to table restaurant and there's this whole vignette about wanting to know the chicken who they're going to eat's name. Like they have adoption paperwork.
Andrew	Uh, right. So two real life anecdotes about that. I grew up with free range ducks in my backyard. We had like 30 of them. Anecdote two, uh, I worked at this restaurant... In the city of Portland. Yeah, in city limits. Oh, in the city. Oh, yeah. No, full city limits. I worked at this restaurant while I was in college and we would have... It's a quote unquote French restaurant. It is a quote unquote French restaurant. But we would nightly have a wheel of cheese that could accompany your desserts. That cheese had a name. That name was attributed to the cow from which the milk came from to produce said cheese. Yeah.
Steve Romer	Maybe the same thing in Switzerland. Right? So it's not weird there. But they add the farmer to it, the cow and the farmer, or the chicken and the farmer. And pictures of them standing together.
Josh Romer	Yeah. Yeah. It's just... See, I need to do that because there was a time when we had so many eggs, we did have to sell them locally. And so that, you know, that's something to think about.
Andrew	Yeah, we're familiar. So, yeah, no, the sentiment's not lost on us.
Josh Romer	That's good to hear because I never know when I throw it out there. You know, I get a pretty wide range of responses to to that.
Everett	What the hell is wrong with you?
Josh Romer	Yeah. Versus. Oh, that's so cool. Exactly.
Everett	Exactly. Steve, other things. What do you got?
Steve Romer	I might I might have the gothic thing here. My, uh, my father-in-law, he approached me a couple of weeks ago or three weeks ago. And he said, geez, he had these logs in his backyard. You know, he's the guy he, he, he, he gets wood for all of the senior citizens that don't have enough money to fire their, their, uh, their stove in the winter so they can have a warm winter. So he's getting firewood. He's getting fired with about 50 cord a winter. Okay. And he's almost 80 years old. Okay. The guy is nuts. So his idea was about three weeks ago or so, I'm going to build myself a coffin.
Everett	Totally reasonable. Totally reasonable.
Andrew	If you're chopping 50 cords of wood a winter at 80, yeah, that's a good thing.
Steve Romer	He showed me these cedar posts and he said, can I cut these things so he can build himself a coffin? And I started cutting. cedar posts.
Josh Romer	Oh, you are doing it. I can see him out the window. I just kind of put my headphones on and just kind of hunkered down behind my computer.
Steve Romer	It was quite the experience. So we're about 20-30% into it by the standard of the coffin size we're looking at. But it's going to be the experience building your own coffin, okay?
Josh Romer	Yeah, I planned. the boards today at my father-in-law's wood shop. So it's, this is happening. It's, it's happening. It's a happening thing. We'll have to do a post-op.
Everett	It takes a village. And in this case, the entire village.
Josh Romer	Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And here it's honestly not that crazy of a thing. It's he's not the first one to do it. So he's, he's the first one to harvest his own wood though, because he can never, it can never be just normal. It has to be to the extreme with him.
Steve Romer	That's incredible. Oh, this is my other thing.
Everett	Yeah, I'm not. I'm not sure what the other thing is.
Andrew	I'm having trouble thinking of how it's really good. I know that this other thing. Yeah, no, there's no link. I'm just going to link coffin building.
Steve Romer	There you go.
Everett	That's good stuff. I like that. OK, you guys, Steve, Josh, Really, just a ton of thanks for joining us. You know, we did recently, Will reviewed the Mark II Diver on the website, so there'll be a link to that, as well as Will made a wonderful, as he does, YouTube video with great macros.
Josh Romer	He's really talented with that.
Everett	It's amazing. He's fantastic, yeah. So there'll be a link to all of that in the show notes. If you want to check these guys out online, SWCUSA.com, or on Instagram SWCUSA. Anything you guys want to say before we get going today?
Josh Romer	Just thanks for having us and to anyone listening. I mean, our channels are always open. If you want to reach out, one of the nice things about micro brands is the communication is always there. So always feel free to reach out, email, any of the social media channels and you'll get an answer.
Steve Romer	Josh was good in answering immediately. Uh, appreciate that we were able to be on the show here. Thanks a bunch.
Everett	Thanks for coming. Thanks you guys so much. Andrew, anything you want to add before we go? Nah. Hey, thanks you guys for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, the WatchClicker podcast. It's been really fun. Check us out on Instagram at 40 and 20 at the WatchClicker. You can also check us out online, watchclicker.com. That's where we post every episode of the show, all of the reviews, articles, everything you hear about. If you want to support us, patreon.com slash 40 and 20. That's how we pay for all this stuff, hosting and microphones, etc. And don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye bye.