Episode 122 - NOT a Show About Rolex, with Kaz Mirza
Published on Wed, 24 Feb 2021 21:48:25 -0800
Synopsis
This podcast episode features a conversation between the hosts of the Watch Clicker podcast and Kaz from the Two Broke Watch Snobs podcast. They discuss various aspects of creating watch-related content, such as the types of content that perform well, engaging with audiences, maintaining integrity while seeking growth, and the challenges of monetization. Kaz shares insights from his experience with Two Broke Watch Snobs, including their approach to content creation, dealing with sponsored content, and finding a balance between what they want to cover and what resonates with their audience. The conversation also touches on other topics like investing, lawn mowers, and literature.
Links
Transcript
| Speaker | |
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| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. Listening to 40 in 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett. Hi. Here we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, before I ask how you are, I have to tell you, I don't have another thing prepared. It's just occurring to me now. But that being said, we'll get there. Everett, How are you? I'm doing really well. Actually, I think you're going to have time. Mike's suspicious today. You're going to have time to black out on your iPhone like you do sometimes. I totally black out. I just leave the conversation for minutes on end. I just, Oh, interesting. Tell me more. And it works. We get there. You know, I'm doing really well. I, uh, I moved this week, so there's a certain amount of exhaustion. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | We're in a new space. Tell me more. We're in a new space, so there's a certain amount of echo. There is. We're going to have to work on this. We'll work on this. I'm sorry, but this will be a short term. This will be short term, you guys. This will get fixed at some point, some way, somehow it will get fixed. But yeah, I'm good. I'm more alert today. I've had some serious work stuff, so that's been, it's almost been a break from the moving. I've almost been able to refresh by way of prepping for two solid days of depositions. How are you? That's troubling. I like your v-neck t-shirt. You know, this was a Valentine's Day gift from my wife. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | You look really good. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | This is her favorite color. I would call it like a Pinot Noir. I was going to say Merlot. Merlot? Okay, I'll go Merlot. It's kind of a Merlot v-neck and she gets me shirts that she likes the way I look in. does so I wear them. It does emphasize your night walker tendencies. Oh my existence. And I took a nap today on accident. I laid down on the couch and she then woke me up a little bit. Oh, careful here. This is a family show. It's a family show and this is family things. She's she didn't wake me up gently, literally family. It wasn't like a gentle like rub the back. We have families. It was like a bang on me like hey, I gotta go back to work. Wake your ass up and I was like whoa. I can't believe I fell asleep. That was amazing. I was such a good nap and I was super grateful because I was like man. She just let me sleep for like three hours on the couch while she's supposed to be working and there's two kids running amok come to find out later. It was about a twelve minute nap. Oh, but it felt really restful. Oh, dude. And that's what that's what I'm realizing is my day walker gene. And in fairness, also, half my life is spent in the dark because I work at night. I'm I hate daytime. Yeah, I hate it. Yeah, it is not for me. So sleep my day sleeping. So good. Yeah. Are you still doing the thing where you hang upside down? Yeah. Yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | OK, sure. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | No, I sleep in the day or in a coffin. Well, I'm gonna cut you off because I actually am tired of listening to you. Don't blame me. Is this maybe the coolest guest we've ever had? Perhaps. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Perhaps. He's shaking his head no. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | He's saying no, but you know what? This is like fangirling right now. I'm fangirling a little bit. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. About 50%. Kazmirza of Two Broke Watch Nobs, how are you? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Hey, Kaz here. I'm okay. I cannot be. Yeah, I feel like you guys have had cooler guests. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Yeah, probably not. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | You know, this can't be. Well, I will assure you that after me it's down. It's just going to be downhill. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I'll be perfectly honest with you. We may have had cooler guests like in the like in the like GQ cool sense. And that's OK. I think you may be one of our favorite guests though. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | For what it's worth, I was in GQ a couple of weeks ago. GQ UK. I've heard about that. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | So you mean you could be this. You could be the second most famous guest we've ever had. I think the only person that could beat you is Brett. Yeah, because he's got an IMDB page does and he's not on HBO shows. So if you could if you work on that and then you will be the reigning champion. Can you make your own IMDB page? Isn't that how it wasn't IMDB like originally a wiki based? It was a wiki based. Uh, I think so. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was. And then they did away with that because there's a lot of hubris in that industry. They're like, we actually have to stop people from editing their own IMDB pages. You can't be uncredited and credit yourself. That's not how it works. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | It's not how reality works, dude. But no, this is, this is going to be a lot of fun. I'm super happy to be on here. Super honored. I don't do guest spots. I think this is the second one I've ever done. And the first one I did, that show's gone now. So I just don't get the chance to just talk with other podcasters. Which show was that? Something Archives? Timepiece Archives? |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Oh, yeah, yeah. The Timepiece Archeology guys. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Oh, yeah. Archeology. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | We were on them too. Yeah, we went on their show. Yeah, yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | They were really good guys. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Young guys. Yeah, they were in their early 20s. They were super fun. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | young guys and then they disappeared they didn't just like pod fade they like deleted their profiles that's like what happens we out that's so funny though but yeah no this it's definitely definitely fun i'm looking at the roster of like talking points i think it's going to be pretty cool i do also enjoy the fact that i think my wine is the same color as your shirt it is is that a merlot kaz um because it's surprisingly similar color It's just I knew it. I know it's cheap and sweet. It's it's wet. It's some kind of wet wine. It's two bucks. It's two bucks. Chuck read to show it's we bought a case of it because I just I'm I'm particular about my wine. Casa Rosa. I don't know what the fuck that is. Doesn't matter. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | You find what you like. You buy it. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Red House basically. Yeah. But I do. I do enjoy that. Here's the color of your shirt. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | That's so cool. Looking handsome. And it's a V-neck. It is a V-neck. It's not a belly button deep V. I can see some clavicle. A little bit. Yeah. Just a touch. Just enough to tease you and make you want some more. Scandalous. Some scandalous clavicle. And should you see more, you're going to be like, I don't want it. I didn't want that. It's just enough. It's like buying the second Big Mac. That's right. It sounded good at the time, but turns out it wasn't. Yeah. So cool. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Upset. Yeah, totally, totally honored to be here. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Well, so we asked you to come on because I think you've got a unique perspective into this watch world that we're a part of. And doing a similar thing to what we do, I think Two Broke Watch Snobs has been around a lot longer, has a much more developed relationship with its audience. So in terms of just time in, you know, time, time and saddle, you guys are a little bit further along than we are. And I think that that'll be an interesting perspective, but the, the topic of tonight's show is what generally speaking, sort of the click bait nature of this, of this industry of this world, you know, what it is about watches that makes popular content, um, versus less popular content where the good is. uh how we make content etc so so the title being this is not a show about Rolex is total clickbait that is very much on purpose and if you didn't read it this is not a show about Rolex this is not a show about Rolex that that's right and and it really won't be we're excellent we're true to our words we're true to our words so on the off chance that there's anybody listening to this that doesn't know you, just can you give us a little bit of your background, who you are, where you come from, what you do? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Sure. You know, to Broke Watch Nobs, I'm Kaz. I do the show with my better half from Broke Watch Nobbery, Mike. The show, I guess, started because we started back in 2016. God, it feels so weird like elevator pitching the show. I don't talk about the show very often. Like not in this context. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Like even to your parents? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | I know. Well, my parents don't know I do the show and I never will. I'm taking that to the grave. My dad was like, how was your day? It was fine. Pushed a broom, went to sleep. That's about it. But we started the show in 2016. Oh my God. I remember we started in 2016. It was around the time the great NATO dudes had started and they were still in single digits. And it was around the time that Ariel and John show Our Time wasn't necessarily fizzling out. It's just changed, um, a lot. Right. That's right. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Then they were transitioning into a little bit different community. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah, exactly. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Doing what we're talking about tonight. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Right. And, um, I remember I was working at a place at the time and I would have on like watch podcast and I was only into watches for a little while, um, like a year or two at that point. And then I was listening to one of the great NATO episodes and it was just like, There was some watch talk and then it was like 30 minutes of like sailing talk with like the ocean and like knots and it's just like. This is not like the watch show. I kind of wanted like I wanted maybe a full hour Zodiac, not like 10 minutes of shoes and like 20 minutes of like a book that was kind of cool that someone saw on a shelf and like a gas station and like it just felt more like a lifestyle. And I'm not saying it's like should anyone. even though I know it really does sound like I am, but like different folks have been different shows. It doesn't matter. But basically it boiled down to Michael and I saying, and it's so, it's so fucking cliche. I'm saying it out loud. Now we can do a better show or like we can do a show that we want to listen to where you get the sense of you're hanging out with friends after work. And there's, um, there's joshing around. There is no sort of, preconceived, Oh, no matter what X, Y, Z brand does, it's awesome. Like there'll be episodes where something a branded is awesome. And the next episode will be like, well, that was a war crime. That brand has now done, you know what I mean? Um, we really just wanted it to be fun. Cause I think also at the time, Michael and I professionally in our like day jobs, we're just unhappy. So it just became an outlet. The show very much just feels like two friends. shooting the shit, because that's really what it is. And we happen to be recording it. And so if you listen to Book Watch Nobs, it's very unpolished. There's lots of cursing for the love of crap. Don't listen to it with your kids in the car. People do. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I don't know why they do. That's a weird choice. You shouldn't listen to us that way either. Please don't. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Please don't. You know, and that was it. A lot of folks latched on to the idea. A lot of folks really appreciated the notion of It's okay to be a collector that's congruent with your personality because a lot of the times there's this conception and we'll get to it I'm sure where in the watch community you get on social media you do all these things and it's like oh okay I'm this type of person but I need to be that type of person if I want to be a Rolex person I want to be a Panerai person and it's this weird notion And it's congruent with a lot of collecting niches, but you buy your way to being a happy collector. Right. Which is wrong. That's like the wrong, wrong thing to think. And I think Michael and I were like the first sort of outlet or show very aggressively to say that like, no, you are the perfect collector the way you are, as long as you're happy, you know? That was an incredibly long and rambling answer to your question. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | No, no, no. It's perfect. It's perfect. Thank you for doing that. You know, it's it actually lines up with my experience. You know, I got into I got into watches sort of late 2015. And so you guys sort of came into being at the same time. My interest, my love of watches was gestating. And and so it was just immediately like, Here's these guys that are talking about watches that I might think about, right? And certainly in the early days, uh, you guys were very much focused on affordable watches and not that you're, you've, you've changed from that, right? You're still the two broke watch snobs, right? But it just lined up. I was like, there's, there's 900 watch articles or podcasts published every day. And they're all about 5,000 plus dollar watches or 99. And that's the affordable watch. Yeah, that's right. Affordable. This is this is an affordable value proposition. That's right. That's like six months of my fucking mortgage. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Right. Who are we kidding here? |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Yeah. Who are we kidding? So, yeah, no, that's perfect. And thank you for doing that. And you guys paved the way, really, for our for our personal watch journeys into this is a like this is an accessible. This is a reachable, attainable world that we can be a part of. And then later paved the way for us as a show to enter as a affordable watch focused podcast. That's so cool. You know, it's really fun to hear. And, and I don't know, I don't know if you guys had this experience, but we have learned everything, you know, or I would say 98% of what I know about watches I've learned by way of doing the show. Right. So it more than anything, making this show was about wanting to learn more and, uh, wanting to engage in a productive way. Right. I think anybody who was a creator, right. Is I want to engage in this thing that I love and, and have a product that as a result of my, of my engagement. So nice force the issue of learning. That's right. Yeah. Forced learning. So with that, let's dive into it. Let's dive into our agenda. So we've got... I like soft G's today. Ayenda? Ayenda. Yeah. You guys had a soft G last week. Riya. Riya. What, we did? Yeah, I think so. Was it Riga? I don't know. Riga? I can't remember. That sounds made up. So we've got six points. I think that we're going to talk about them in a roundabout way. So it's not going to be... Okay. You know, that's my guess. I don't have any specific... plans for that. My guess is we're going to get to like 1, 2, 3, and 5 together and we'll double back. But I think a good place to start, point one, some content just does better without any regard to the quality of that content. And I think that touches really well on the point that you made when you guys were talking about the show. You were talking about, well, I got to buy my way into doing better. I got to do this. I got to be a Rolex person, a Panerai person. And I think that that kind of hits this that on this wall that we as content creators in the affordable watch space hit. And I wall ceiling call it what you will. There's a there's a limit. And in our pre show and I like this so I'm going to bring it up. I think I think Rolex is an example of that in the way of content creation. I think A hundred people view a Rolex advertisement, an advert. One of those people will buy it, perhaps, if even one. We could probably even go lower than one, but one of those people will buy that Rolex. And I think we can extrapolate that into any Rolex marketing articles, listicles, call it what you will. Five people view a, say, pick your small brand of choice. EMG. We'll go EMG. Five people are going to view an EMG advertisement. And probably all five people are going to buy that watch. Yeah. Or they're actually seriously contending for it. Yeah. And I think that's what it comes down to. In our space, some things just inherently do better because they appeal to a larger audience of people who aren't actually consuming the content. They're just clicking on the content because they like it. They like the idea of the Rolex. They like the idea of the Panerai. They like the idea of the AP. They like, they want to feel a part of it, but they have no part. They have no intention of engaging with it. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Well, it's a pretty complicated issue. And so just to give folks reference, I work in like digital marketing for my day job. And so my perspective of this is always going to come from that. But in terms of just like user psychology, most of the time someone's looking at that Rolex article, not because it's really even about the watch, it's about reinforcing something. Either maybe they want to be the watch to be a Rolex collector, or maybe they see it as something that's reinforcing something about a point of success they want to be at. Like, oh, as soon as I get to XYZ position, I'm going to get my first Rolex. It's the same folks who flip through Ferrari magazines and are never going to like drive a Ferrari or something like that. It's, it's, it's either making them feel like they're part of a lifestyle to your point that they're not a part of, or it's something they feel like they have to know about to reinforce something. You know, gender is usually a big thing, usually about gender or usually about, you know, just something in their life. But the thing is, Rolex is, it's always going to be that. It's, it's so very, less of the times about the actual watch when someone's reading a piece about a Rolex. I mean, with us, it's different. Like we're, we go and we're immediately going to be like, okay, what did they do with the sizing on these new blah, blah, blah. Okay. What are my dial options? Like most folk don't do that. They'll just see what cool new thing is Rolex doing. Cause I have to know. What Rolex is doing. No one's doing that with the EMG or Raven or the micro brands. The only folks who are looking at those micro brands in terms of user psychology are folks who are probably pretty open to spending four or five hundred bucks on something they want to support. That's pretty cool. Yeah. You know. So it's it's super it's super complicated. In terms of the content that usually does well, I guess the big thing that I see is people love being told what to think or what's cool. So like, the best XYZ blah blah blah for $75 or some shit, that stuff does really well. Again, because people don't necessarily want to be engaged to think critically. They just want to know what are the things I have to know to be a part of this community, which is the wrong way. Not I shouldn't say it's fucked up, it's not the wrong way, but it just doesn't feel like an appropriate way of thinking to me, you know? |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | You know, I think that there's a, I think that there's a certain amount of, uh, you know, time in time and see evolution that happens, right? I think someone that comes in, and they see the community and they want to be engaging with the community at a level as it were, um, you know, they come in and they, what watches do I need to buy to be part of the community? And, and I don't, that's a particularly cynical way to phrase that I think, because oftentimes I think people understand that there's a community who knows what's good, who knows what's good. And so maybe what they're asking is how do I, how do I jump the line, how do I jump the queue in terms of learning and figure out what's good, you know? And I do that stuff too, right? When I want to buy, you know, I want to buy a lawnmower, right? What's a good lawnmower? What do I need to know about buying a fucking lawnmower? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | I'm going to the lawnmower subreddit right fucking now and I'm going to search best XYZ. Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | He did do that and he bought a lawnmower. You know, there's a certain amount of value that can be ascertained by the way we learn and engage in the internet era, right? But there's both things, right? And they compete with each other. And it's a frustration I have when I see a Watch You Seek post where people say, hey, I'm looking for a good mechanical chronograph under $400 or whatever, right? Godspeed to you. The answer might be there isn't one. uh you know but but the unhelpful answer is there's been a hundred posts about this buy what you like right well okay so sure there's been a hundred posts thanks for your help fuck off uh and b buy what i like i i don't know what i like i don't know what i like tell me what to like help me understand what what's important here you you know so but but the person who says there's been a hundred posts about this is the guy who's pissed off about the new, they get off my long guy and that's me by the way. And the person who says, buy what you like is the other end of that spectrum. The person who's realized, I think probably what you're saying, right? And what Andrew often says, which is you make the value, you know, that's Andrew's, that's Andrew's sort of go to the value comes from you, right? The value is not inherent to the thing that you strapped to your wrist. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | That's such a hard cognitive connection for folks to make, because they ask themselves literally, you just said, what do I like? I don't know. I don't know what I like about anything. I like what people like that I like. Or, you know what I mean? So it's almost beyond watches at that point. That's why the stupid TBWS show always devolves into Michael and I talking about our feelings, and maybe watches. You know what I mean? It's definitely tough, but the thing is, Folks don't really get a sense of what it is to experience that journey until they do all the things of, I'm going to buy this because it just, it's Ellie and I know people are going to like it. And then that's why you get these watch collectors who've been collecting for a long time. They're just like, fuck, I have 20 watches and I'm kind of lukewarm about 18 of them. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | And I really love two. I don't know what to do with these 18. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I'm looking for my exit watch. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Exit watch. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | And I'm curious how this idea of being, I want to be told what to think has affected you in your day job, like in your real world, because it creates this environment where people want to be told what to think, but they're also cautious of people telling them what to think. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Well, they don't want to be told what to think, but they want to be, they want to get an inference of what to think from someone else, but have it be their own idea. I mean, it's, it's, it's a little oblique. So like everyone gets the sense that they want to be the head of their department and have two cars in the garage and all this stuff, because there's the notion that that's the correct thing to do. I'm a watch collector. I need to get at least one Omega and to round it out with one Rolex, because those are like the big ones and that's the right thing to do, but it's just, It's too, it's too ingrained. You're only going, and I'm speaking incredibly, like subjectively, like everyone, cause every time I do this in a show, everyone's like, Kez, you should calm down. It's like, no, record your own show and do whatever you want. But like, you will not get a sense of what it means to understand what you like until you run the whole gamut of just buying shit. You really realize at one point you, you don't want. You know what I mean? I bought a G-Shock because I heard it was a great go anywhere, do anything watch. Now I'm stuck with this giant hunk of watch and I don't really want to wear it. I can't wear it to work. I don't know what to do with it. There's no retail value. I paid $100 for it. What am I going to sell it for? You know what I mean? I can't throw it in the lake because that's illegal. What am I going to do with this watch? Tons of people get stuck in that. I'm talking as if there's a right answer. There's no right answer. There's just the journey of going through the process and then either hating watches and leaving it or finding happiness in watches in your own way. But the majority of people are always going to be the ones who want to be told what to think or who are going to be clicking on click-baity titles or who are just going to be looking up Seikos. That's always going to be the majority of people. That's why all of our traffic and viewership comes from those people because they're the majority. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | You know what I'm saying? Yeah, when we started really kind of getting into the weeds on researching or thinking about what we were going to talk about today, we went and looked at WatchClicker's five most popular articles of all time. And four of the five historically best performing articles were about Seiko. I think that's... And they weren't the newest Seiko. No, it was like an SNK, you know, the SRPE, which is a new Seiko. Which is cool, yeah. I mean, you know... A big release, though, in fairness. The one I found interesting, the fifth one was the Casio, the, you know, the Casioque is what we've been calling it, that G-sharp octagonal. And I wondered, I tried to elicit sort of search terms, but we're not savvy enough to pull that stuff. And we're not smart. I'm wondering if... the Royal Oak reference there, uh, perhaps increased search traffic, SEO traffic on that. I think Royal Oak is kind of a, I don't, I don't know that that's an SEO killer. I wish we had a digital marketing guy we could ask. Yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | The way the search engine in this, in this instance, the way Google would operate is basically based on trend topicality and what people are searching. So around that time, How did I think we're on the board also for Casio and Google and things like that. But literally, Google will respond to how users are searching. And I'll tell you right now, people are probably seeing the stupid Casio hashtag on Instagram and then Googling it. Right. And that's just driving up all the topicality. And that's where the traffic is coming from. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Arroborous, right? Is that how you say that word? Arroborous? You lost me when you said topicality. That was not English to me. I'm sorry. You know, and, and I think on that note, right, we sometimes spend very little time preparing for episodes. You know, our, one of our most popular repeating episode themes is, you know, three watches usually for 500. Three for six is our, is our thing. And yeah, three for six. That's right. And so we always come back to this and those episodes always just smash, right? They 130% of average listens, right? They're great. They're, but they're pithy and they're, you know, we, we always get into, into good stuff there, but it's like you said, people want to know, like, how can I start a collection or whatever? Right. Meanwhile, we do an episode on quartz, on sapphire crystals, you know, which we will spend hours researching these things. We will have, you know, hundreds of text message, long chains about the research we found and, you know, really sort of well thought out agenda And those episodes get okay traffic, right? But those are our favorite. They're our favorite. And the reason why they're our favorite is because, and I think for the people who listen to this show, for the listeners of our show, they are among the favorites. And the reason why is the reason we created this podcast. And it's because we wanted to make this accessible to people. We wanted to make the watch conversation where people are talking about movements and talking about the type of crystal that's being used and talking about all these weird minutiae of watches, we wanted to make that layman's terms. We wanted to make that language that was accessible to people. Because watch, like getting into the watch world, your first post on watch you seek is vulnerable, right? The guy who says hey long time lurker I'm looking I've made exactly one post on watch you seek and it was to say I'm here But the guy who goes on to watch you seek and says hey, I'm looking for a mechanical chronograph I think they're cool as shit. I want to spend less than $700 Send send That guy has been a hundred posts about this, but that guy has put probably thirty hours of research at the least into recognizing that he wants a mechanical chronograph to just to get there is a bucket load of research and then to get to watch you seek right. That's an easy fine. We're probably looking at like ten hours before you get to watch you seek and then and then you're at a point where you're saying, okay, I'm reading this, I'm looking for this, I recognize that I want a mechanical chronograph because they're cool as shit. This is how much I'm willing to pay because this is a first watch guy, right? To say I'm looking for a mechanical chronograph under $700, first Pochon watch you seek, that's his first watch. His first deliberate purchase watch. This guy has owned Invictus probably, he's probably owned a couple Seikos, he's owned some... An Eco Drive. Yeah, he's owned some shit, but he's not, this is his first purchase. that he's really thinking about, yeah. And he posts that and then gets, there's been a hundred posts about that. Like, no, fuck that. We want him to listen to people like us and say, these are your options. Like this is, this is how to understand, this is how this works. And whether that advice is, hey, you should, you should really think about Mecca courts or, or whatever, even if, even if it, they're giving them other ideas, you know, being able to engage with people at that level is a really tremendous thing. Oh yeah. Where do you guys, where do you, I guess, Kaz, I'll just ask you to speak for yourself. When you create content, who are you creating content for in your mind? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | I, I guess it's interesting. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I don't like... I mean, you have said on the record numerous times, I don't want people to listen to the show. So we'll just caveat, we'll just caveat with that. So me and Everett, that's who you're creating it for. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | I say it on air because it's just like I said. So the show is a bit different from the website in regards to what ends up going on there because it's just Michael and I on the show, it's literally just two friends catching up. And so just imagine if you had 300 iTunes reviews about conversations you have with your friends. It's just like, dude, mind your fucking business, guys. I'm trying to hang out with my friend Michael. But in terms of who we're creating content for, at the end of the day, and again, it's super cliche, I never want to do something on any of the TBWS properties that someone would see anywhere else. That's why we do our fucking best to not do Oris press releases, because everyone does Oris press releases, like, at the same time. Like, that's why we try not to have, like, the best XYZ watches for blah, blah, blah. Or any time we do those episodes, we are So last week's episode, or this, I'm shit at time. This week's episode, we did, I mean, quite timely based on the last point you were making, we did affordable, quote unquote, affordable mechanical chronographs. But we spent probably- It was this week's episode, just so you know. Was it this week's episode? Okay. I'm really bad. I don't know. I haven't listened to it yet. I was there. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I was in the room. I never listen to ours, but I'm the same way. Yeah, go ahead. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Well, we spent, we spent like the first third or half of the show I guess the argument was saying, if you want to spend under $1,000 for a chronograph, you have to understand what the supply chain and resource situation looks like for mechanical chronographs. You will get a chronograph that's probably one of four or five models. And we went through the models. We did the STP. STP, I wish. The ST-19. The ETAs, the 775s, the VALGY 7750, the stupid 201.211, whatever it is. 2894.01. The whole, yeah. All the bullshit. And then we ended up with the Polyot 3133, but we spent so much time not even talking about watch models, but talking about the movements just to get people to know if you only want to spend 700 bucks, expect to find something with this XYZ movement. You know, I don't think someone would do a or respond to an affordable chronograph question in that way. Usually it would be like, Oh, just save up again, no mega, or I guess you can get a Siegel 1963. You know what I mean? Like I wanted people to understand it's not about the watch that's informing the cost. It's really the movement, you know, with the chronograph. So I don't want to do stuff that people will see on other sites in relation to, I guess, more specifically, like, um, Obviously stuff that we find interesting, you know, you know, you'll a bunch of I'm looking at our stupid episode list right now. So I apologize. You guys are seeing the side of my head because I'm looking at my second monitor, but this is your good side. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | So it's okay. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Okay, good. A bunch of our episodes are riddled with the stupid Soviet watch talk. My Soviet watch episodes perform the worst. Hands down. They get the least listens. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I'm I'm actually really surprised by that. I think I like in my thinking, looking through your episode list, I would have felt like those would have been your best because of the international because the international appeal. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Interesting. I mean, the majority of our folks are in the US, UK, Australia and Southeast Asia. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | The majority of the listenership tracks. It's exactly as to camp. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Oh, yeah. OK, perfect. So, I mean, I I think it comes down to the fact that no one wants to listen to Kaz talking by himself for an hour and a half on lit watches and Soviet watch history. But they would totally love to listen to an episode title. I'm looking at it right now called Watch Regrets. That's just the name of the title. That sounds way more badass. It does. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | And it was a good episode. Yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Right. And meanwhile, meanwhile, these Soviet watch episodes are really filled with a lot of information, right? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Encyclopedic. Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | It's what? Encyclopedic knowledge, like that is accessible in one area. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah. The Soviet watch thing was pretty, for me, for a long time, when I was starting with watches, it was, I've always had slavophilic tendencies. I studied literature in grad school and undergrad and within that, you know, like Russian literature was always a thing. And so when I started getting into watches, I learned Soviet watches were a thing, obviously Soviet and Russian are different. It was, I'll tell you guys right now, I would spend hours, I would go to eBay, I would type in Vostok and I would just go through. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Boktok actually. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Boktok, Kaz, it's Boktok bro. And I would just go through page one, page two, page, page 98, page 95 and I would just I would just look at watches and then I would go and do research on Mark Gordon, Mae Reston Reese's PC's website, ussrtime.com. It used to be .com but he unfortunately passed and now there's a facsimile of ussrtime.com. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I'm sorry? Somebody's hosting that though, right? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah, a community in the Russian Watch You Seek area. I'm not on Watch You Seek. I've never posted on there. I hear it's awful so I'm not going on there. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I have browsed eBay and other similar sites while listening to your big zero commentary, looking for big zeros. You've instilled such a fear of getting a fake that I've never bought one. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | There are so many fakes. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I will tell you, if you get 20 emails about a big zero a week, you talk about this often, Uh, at least 17 of those are from Andrew under different emails. Yeah. No, I've never emailed you from the same, uh, email address. I own thousands of Gmail addresses. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Hello kids. Is my big zero real? No, no, no, no. Vlad. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | You get a lot of them from Vlad, from Androv. Uh, it's so good. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah. No, I've, I've listened to it on repeat. Look, there are so many fake big zeros out there. I don't know what the fuck happened. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I when I got it makes me feel like you are wearing the only real one. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | No, they're out there. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | You got the one. But that's you. You've created such a fear that I haven't bought one. And it looks to me like it's not it's not cracked. Or is there a crack there at six o'clock? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | I still have this crack in the crystal. My wife dropped it a couple of years ago, and I just haven't had the heart to replace it. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I mean, dropped it or threw it at. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Uh, it was on a book and she went to pick up the book and the watch, it just blended into like the cover of the book and it just, it just landed on the ground. She was like, I broke your watch. I'm like, eh, I, it's fine. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | It's fine. It's better this way. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | It's better this way. It's fine now. But, um, I've probably seen three real big zeros. Three real big zeros have been presented to me where someone's like, Hey, I found this. I looked at your article because we're number one on fucking Google for a big zero. And all this looks right. And I've had the pleasure three times of saying, yeah, you do it. You got it, dude. This is right. Do it. Otherwise, I'm just breaking hearts. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | That's why I bought one. Well, so so in the grand scheme of things, you know, we're both in a position where we are audience driven. I think that notwithstanding uh, whatever sort of personal motivations I have, there's this implicit desire to expand and increase and, um, communicate with more people. How do you guys find yourselves or even just you Kaz? I'm sorry, I did that again. Uh, how do you guys find yourself sort of communicating to a broader audience while still making material that you appreciate? And context for this question, right? You brought up Oris press releases. Well, we don't want to do Oris press releases because the day Oris releases a watch, there's seven publications who've got Oris releases. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Everyone has the same stupid green dial Oris. Oris breaks new ground with the blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, I really don't feel that. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | But yeah. I wake up to 12 to 30 DMs of folks just sending me no words, just a post by warn and wound of some, you know, of the latest Zodiac or whatever, right? And so in that context, right, it, I think we probably have similar, we probably have similar philosophies about this, but how do you, you know, drive sort of, I want to reach more people because more people, our currency is, is for better or worse listens and followers and likes and whatnot. How do you drive content while still doing a thing that you guys like and are proud of and don't feel as compromised? Oh yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Um, simple answer, more content. Uh, I mean the, the reality is I trying to grow an Instagram is very difficult these days in relation to how the Instagram algorithm has changed and, um, You know, different behaviors you can do can impact your posts. So if you have 20,000 followers on Instagram, only 2,000 are going to see. So growing an Instagram isn't like a thing anymore. I know people will say it is, but they're either lying or they're trying to sell you something or they're trying to sell you their digital marketing services. What we do is It's an order of operations of, okay, what don't we have on the site? Is there a watch review or maybe like a head to head piece or something we could write about that's not on the site? Um, if there, if there is also the next order of operations is, are people searching for it? Because for me, the gold, the, my cats here, the, the, the, the, the optimal thing is not people who already know about two book watch knobs and they look for us. I don't, I love those people, but in regards to growing what we're doing, I'm not worried about those people. I'm worried about what I call non-branded traffic. Folks who are curious about a watch, or maybe the history about a watch, or what kind of movement this Nudicta ProDiver has. Those people are the people I want to get in front of, because if I can get them a piece of information in relation to their watch, they then begin to start exploring the site, and they hear about the podcast, and they see the the stupid ballast cock bugle posts that we do on there. And then they start to really enjoy the brand. And then they become branded traffic. So the way to grow and the way we've always been trying to grow is just creating content for people who've never heard of us, but are searching for a particular thing that we know we can create content around, whether it's a listicle or review or something like that. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | They're looking for you, but don't know. I'm sorry. They're looking for you, but don't know. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Exactly there. They want something that we can share with them, but they have literally no idea what two book watch stops is a ton of the folks that get on the show or folks who are just getting into watches, which I love because the first thing I say to them is ignore everything on Instagram. You don't have to fall into any of the stupid like Instagram trends or any of that stuff like you do not need a Speedmaster. You do not need a Speedmaster. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I don't have one. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | I got one, but it broke. I don't know if you guys heard he was talking about that on air. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Yeah. Everyone has one because he got hit by a car. That's true. That's a true story. So if I get hit by a car, do I get a watch? You should buy one. It's a settlement money. It's about 18 months after you get hit by the car, in my experience. Oh my God. About 18 months later, you get a Speedmaster. That's the deal. Which is fitting, like in fairness. If you're going to buy a watch from getting hit by a car, it should be a Speedmaster. You know, I see. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Maybe a Monaco, but probably a Speedmaster. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Actually, I'll give you guys a real world example of that process that I just described in case it's helpful for anyone out there who's trying to do this or helpful for you guys as you ID and think of stuff for the site. Tiger Concept. You guys are aware of Tiger Concept? Very. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Like Tiger Woods? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Tiger Concept, like the watch, like do I think his name is William out in Hong Kong. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Yeah, he does. He does. He does these Rolex homages. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | So Millsap homages. A ton of people are aware of Tiger Concepts. He's all over Watch You Seek. A ton of people will post photos of their watch and be like, for 200 bucks, I'm super happy. And then but there are no watch reviews about Tiger Concept, but a ton of people are searching for it. So we did a review. I bought a tiger concept and I fucking hated it, but I did a review and we're ranking right underneath tiger concept for tiger concept. And the title is literally tiger concept box review. Here's what you're really buying. And that piece does really, really well. Um, people found that piece just from doing a tiger concept research and they learn about the site. So that's an example of saying what's not on the site, Um, what can we write about? What are people searching? Let's get it on the site, you know? |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Sure. Sure. So, so, so expanding your, expanding your content into the things that, that perhaps, uh, a non-branded listener or link click, uh, might be searching for. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | If someone types in Orient Bambino review, that's someone that can turn into two broke watch knobs listener, not someone typing in two broke watch knobs, which people do. I don't know why people Google two broke watch knobs. I like a lot. I don't know why. So just go to the URL, man. It's just, it's literally what you Googled, with.com. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | On your phone, there's a button for .com. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | It's there. So I hope that's a helpful answer in regards to just like our approach. It tends to be varied. We're hitting the issue right now of there's so much cool shit we want to write about, but we're like, how do we connect the dots with doing a really thoughtful piece on industrial design and watches? But also making it not necessarily interesting, because it's obviously interesting, but making people give a shit about it if people are only doing Timex expedition review searches and stuff like that. You know what I mean? So that's like the interesting thing. And I'm sure you guys, you guys get that all the time. You guys are kind of always, I mean, we talked about that a little bit. You're always putting up against that, what you want to write about versus what people probably are looking for. Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Well, I guess that's kind of my point, right? It's, it's, you know, what do we want to, what do we want to talk about? Well, we want to learn about the value 7750 and the LaManya 5100. And we want to talk about those things. And we do. In fact, we just do that. Super cool. Uh, but, but with that in mind, there, there's gotta be a balance there. If, if there's any interest at all in in reach, right? I guess that's an appropriate term for that. You've got to balance. And so how do you do that and maintain your integrity? You know, we talked a little bit pre-show about SEO and affiliate marketing and the kind of thing that you do professionally, right? And I think there's a really obvious and easily presented avenue of approach for websites like Two Broke Watch Snobs or perhaps Watch Clicker where you can instantly monetize your content. But the reality of that is you've got to find, you know, if you call Eric from EMG and say, Eric, I'd like to do an affiliate deal. I'm going to put you on my top 10 list and you're going to give me 10% of your, of your sales based on my clicks. He's going to laugh you off the phone. Eric's going to be like, hey, why don't you go eat a dick? And we like Eric. Eric likes us. And he's still going to tell us to eat a bag of dicks. And so, you know, all of a sudden we're writing about we're making a list of the best 10 watches. And, you know, maybe we put Eric on there anyway, because we've got credibility. But also we're putting the best selling EcoDrive, EcoZilla, you know, and we've got a ProDiver on there because I know I can get affiliate. And so even if it's ethical, quote unquote ethical-ish, you're compromising the content just by way of understanding that there's reality to what you can and can't make money on. And so I think that there's this constant sort of pressure regarding, you know, Is our listeners a commodity enough to advance in that direction or whatever? And there's some pressure there, but I think we have, and I suspect you guys are in the same boat, just made the decision, yeah, let's push forward and just make good content. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah. I mean, because the thing is also, it's It goes back to that formula I talked about. If I can do all those things, if I can figure out what's not on the site, and also figure out if users are searching for it, and if people want to read it, and if I can also then, you know, get like an Amazon affiliate link on there, that's perfect. But that's also why I've never done like a top five Seiko posts, because those posts are always just whatever the top five Seikos on Amazon are. That's right. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's exactly right. for what people do so if you're searching online for top blah blah blah Seiko's chances are fairly high you're probably not getting an authentic assessment you're probably just getting whatever the best sellers on on Amazon are so I mean that we don't do that but within our formula if we can find the opportunity to put an affiliate link and we tell people on the show all the time like hey if you know The this thing we just published, it has an affiliate link in there. If you want to support us, use it. If you don't, don't. You know what I mean? We don't always try and tell folk, but yeah, I mean, it's. But the other reality is. Affiliate links will only make this a viable ideas for a living thing if you bring in. Boatloads of traffic. Yeah, that's right. It's just it's just otherwise. The number like people will be surprised how much traffic you'd have to get to even sort of eek out anything remotely respectable for the time you put into the site. That's why all all these content. Publishers and. A lot of the other watch podcast. That's why I'm super happy doing this, doing this show with you, and that's why I'm very selective with who I talk about. But a lot of the other watch podcasts they create the show. With the idea of eventually doing like Uh, like a brand ad or like a brand sponsor deal or or something like that. You know what I mean? That's why And brands love to would love to leverage that like like oh, yeah I'll pay a podcast 1200 bucks and they'll say sponsored by blah blah blah go for it. You know, that's why it's just it's just so easy. So it's just I get it though because we were also talking about this in the pre-talk your time is valuable It's not fair for you to put in a full day's job worth of time into a website and basically not get compensated from it. That's your time. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Well, especially in an industry where there's so much money floating around, there's, you know, it, it, you almost have to make the decision to do what you like or to do what's profitable. And there's probably not a lot of in between. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Michael and I tried to toe the line. I'll be super candid. I love being open as hell with people. We tried to do that. We tried to, we used to have it advertised with this page and we used to like do stuff like that. And we tried it a couple of times and it was always just really, it hindered us too much. The trade-off wasn't worth it. I did a sponsored spot for this person on this show. And now they feel like we're almost a leg of their marketing team or it's just like, Hey guys, we're also, you know, doing this, cut us a deal or something like that. And so really early on when Michael and I were just trying to figure out, because, you know, we've been doing this for three or four years, um, of just trial and error, we gave it a shot and we're just like, you know what? We just have to stop. We just have to stop trying to do the sponsored thing. So we took down the stupid, fucking advertised with this page. It's just so cringy that I took the time to write that. And I'm just like, yeah, this is going to work. And it's just like and it was working. But it no longer became a show where I got to hang out with my friend and talk with my friend, you know, and it becomes less fun, right? |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | It becomes it becomes a chase for something other than what you got into it and an obligation to someone else. You're no longer Yeah, you compromise that that integrity that you have of doing the thing you want because you believe in it to I'm doing a thing that somebody else wants me to do because they've asked me to. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah, I don't tell you guys the truth. I don't know if I I don't know if I've said this on on air on my show, but the what I look forward to most with doing the show. I love entertaining people. I've always had that part of me where I've always loved to just Entertain people either with something that's gone wrong in my life or like my week or something like that and Whenever we like miss a week or if we take a break like I get flooded with emails like hey Is everything cool really miss you guys this week. You're the best part of my Monday blah blah blah blah, so How can I feel like entertaining people is my driving factor on the podcast when I also have to do this or a sponsorship? |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Just, you know, the email. Yeah, we're really happy with like in the neighborhood of two to nine thousand dollars a week. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | That would be that's entry level. Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Yeah. That's our entry level. That's that's our bronze tier. We can discuss silver and gold tiers later. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Um, you know, DMS, you got to do three bronze to your sponsorships before we can talk about silver. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | So obviously I don't take anything. I don't take anything away from these folks that do this. And I think that there's, I think that there's a motivation to make this thing profitable. And I think it's really reasonable because it is so much work. Um, it is so much work, right? You know, and it's, it's not, it's a labor of love. It's not painful. But it is a lot of work. And mowing your lawn. Yeah, that's right. It's mowing your lawn. You're satisfied that the lawn looks great. But sometimes it's actually just getting blisters and getting oil on your shoes. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | So step in a dog poop. I'll share this with you guys also. And this is probably something folks aren't entirely aware of. The idea of building your site and leveraging brand sponsorships, that whole model is basically not dying but it's really fucking hard because a lot of these brands are getting pretty savvy they know i can probably just do my own marketing or oh i pay this firm 10 000 bucks in new york they can just do my marketing i don't have to do sponsorships so a lot of the larger websites which really relied on like a banner ad and they would charge 20 000 bucks for that that is becoming super hard that's why you're seeing lots more overt sponsored post for just like garbage, garbage watches. That's why you're seeing a lot of... Ben Cherow. We won't say names. That's why you're seeing a lot of... We'll say names, just so you know. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | What'd you say? We'll say names. Oh, very good. Excellent. No shame. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | That's why you'll see a lot of like previously journalistic outlets getting into e-commerce because the idea or getting into more and more brand collab, I don't know why I'm holding the fucking watch like this, or more and more brand collaborations because the idea of, oh, my website's got, you know, a hundred thousand clicks. Um, it costs, you know, this part, uh, you know, my, my, my, my cost per view or cost per click on the ads is this much. Here's my media kit. And then they just give you a bag of money and you put their stupid little image on your site and that's it. Those days are not entirely gone, but that's not sustainable anymore. And Michael and I had a very, proper discussion where we didn't want to be reliant on something like that and then totally get fucked when it totally phased out. What do we do when our main source of revenue is no longer normal? |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Well, and I think it gets back to you got to love it, right? You got to love it to be here doing what you guys do and what we do week in and week out. You got to love it. So, Kaz, I think we're going to wrap. Anything else you want to say about that specifically right now? |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | No, this is cool. Appreciate you guys. Let me come on here and ramble. I'm sorry if it's been boring or weird or anything like that, but it's been a lot of fun for me. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | You've not been weird. You've been awesome. You've been awesome, Andrew. Other things. What do you got? I'm kind of a different. I believe I 100% believe that based on our earlier conversation about your other thing. It's an online game. Oh, my God, with your sponsored post with your friends, but it's League of Legends. How do you know it is called? It's a website. It's called Wealth Base dot com. OK, tell me more. So the whole premise of it is you and you need eight people. I don't know why I used a three. My assumption was that there was just a five. preceding it. You need eight people, and it's you and seven friends, and you all get a imaginary $100,000 money to invest. So this website tracks. It's not very well set up for day trading success. It's kind of day over day, not through the day success. It's a 30-day period where you and your seven friends all invest in the market and see who comes out on top. So I started this with some friends a month ago. I didn't get an invite. Well, no, because I was invited. I didn't invite anyone. Whatever, fucker. Somebody invited me and I participated. Now, here's the problem. Within the last month, The GameStop thing happened. So I was not a top tier player amongst my friends because I got in late to the GameStop thing in WealthBase and I ended up losing a significant amount of money. Imaginary money. I didn't lose any real money. Monopoly money. Yeah. Monopoly money in my in our WealthBase game. Barring my GameStop losses. I actually did pretty well, but the whole the fun of this is it's you and seven friends who get to all invest in the stock market and play games with imaginary money and see who makes the smartest investments. As it turns out, the guy who invested all of his money in Bitcoin won. You know, that's that's how it goes, but like you do. Yeah, but that that you get to pretend to be rich for a month and invest all kinds of money in all these different stocks, and it's totally risk And it was fun to like check daily on how you were doing, because it's got the leaderboard on how you're doing overall, how you're doing in the last 24 hour period. And it tracks pretty close, not exactly, to the stock market. Like open market, closed market, it's accurate. Throughout the day it's hit or miss, which is why I say day trading is not really it. But if you've got seven friends, you know, you're luckier than me. I just I was the extra guy who got invited. They're like, oh, I'm Andrew. Yeah, I don't know any of them. They just they had my email. But it was it was a fun exercise in, you know, in paying attention to the stock market and nothing and grown up and yeah, and investing in things and like GameStop isn't the answer. If you want to make money over the course of a month, if you want to make money this week, GameStop was no longer The answer. For about 17 hours, GameStop was the answer. As an aside, I was, I'm among the people involved in the Robin Hood class action lawsuit whose. Have you signed on officially? You're part of the class? Whose orders were canceled in the day preceding the Robin Hood lockdown of GameStop 6. I predict, I predict $13. I get like 64 cents. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | I predict $13. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Some lawyer is going to make three years worth of income and you're going to get $13. And justice will be served. I've got another thing. Do me. Want to talk about grown-uping? No. I bought my first lawnmower. Did you get a real? I'm a real mower. 39 years old. R-E-E-L, not R-E-A-L. I bought a four-stroke lawnmower. And four strokes. That's all it takes. That's all it takes. That's all it takes. So, you know, I did what you do. I went to the lawnmower subreddit r slash lawnmower. That's a real thing. Is it? I don't know. I don't know. There's a subreddit for everything. It's got to be. So I'm going to give you guys I'm going to give you guys some inside scoop. I'm going to give you the best mechanical chronograph under a thousand bucks here. So I bought so there's a company called Troy built. Troy built is known for making affordable lawn care stuff. I have a Troy built. I bought a Troybilt lawnmower. It's a $279 lawnmower. We have the same lawnmower. This is a lawnmower for a small yard, which I have. I don't have a lot of yard. No. I've got maybe a thousand square feet of yard. So I didn't, I didn't need something crazy. What I wanted was a reliable lawnmower. And so it was suggested to me by a person named Will, who's the editor in chief of WatchClicker. Daddy that stop fucking looking at lawnmowers by a Honda. Just stop doing what you're doing and buy a Honda because Honda's make the best lawnmowers period. Stop. Just stop. I find a Troy built with 160 CC Honda engine. Now this is like between a 400 and $500 engine in a Honda branded lawnmower. But Treybuilt has packed this into one of their entry-level models. It's got mulching blades. It's got a fantastic bag. It took me all of about 11 minutes to set up. Yep. It came in a box. I put the box in my minivan. I put the box out of my minivan. I didn't need any tools. It's got a little squeeze bag of 10w30. I squeezed the 10w30 in. I set it up, it ran perfectly. I think what happened here is I got maybe a really good deal on something because I just spent a little bit of extra time. Now, most of these cheaper lawnmowers comes with Briggs and Stratton engines. If your dad fought in Vietnam, he's probably going to tell you to buy a Briggs and Stratton. Briggs and Stratton is not today what Briggs and Stratton in the 60s was. They don't make very good engines anymore. You have to rebuild the carburetor annually. So get a Honda. I found a $279 Honda. I'm going to give you, you can buy these at Home Depot. It is a mulching 21 inch, 160 CC lawnmower. If you want, if you've got a small yard, if you live on acreage, don't buy this thing. No. I had a serial number just a second ago. Reference. You shouldn't have your serial number. Whatever. Yes, a reference number. OK, well, whatever. 160 CC Honda Troy built at Home Depot. Link will be in the show notes. Probably if I do. If you want to take advantage of my approximately 23 minutes of research into the topic, I think it's a great way to go. Yeah. Kaz other things. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Other other other non watch things, I guess, right? |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | You said, you know, there's no rules. No, this is. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | It's the Wild West. Oh, you know what's fun, actually? I'm in the process. So I think I was talking to him in pre-talk. I did my undergrad and graduate work in literature. I wanted to be an English teacher. But then when I was in grad school, I started writing copy digitally to pay the bills. And then after grad school, I just kept doing that and stayed in marketing. But I always had this love of reading that eventually kind of just withered and died inside me. Like most things I loved in my life, you know, that I've accumulated. They'll do that, yeah. Yeah, they'll do that. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | I've heard what I've been trying to do. I'm sorry. I've heard reading school. I've never tried it. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | I've never, I've heard of it. I'm aware of it. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | It's one of those things that people do. I just never got into it. Five letters or less. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Five letters or less. The problem is after undergrad and grad school and all that crap like that, I just accumulated a fuck ton of books that I hated. Just books that I hated. Um, and so like lab a year or so ago, I got rid of all of And then as you see behind me, you were never going to read. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | You know, I was going to comment on your, on your bookshelves that consisted of like 12 books and room for a hundred. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | You can't, you can't see half of it, but the room is just empty here. I'll try to turn the camera without making too much of a ruckus. It's just empty shelves down. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah. There's a Pikachu though. Oh yeah. That's Pikachu. He's my standing desk buddy. Cause I have a, I've turned one of my empty shelves into a standing desk. What I'm in the process of doing now is, Rereading books that I loved, but I really want to find nice, very, very nice expensive versions or printings of them. Not like paperbacks, like a reader copy is fine, but like a nice edition. And so I've been getting super into, there's a publisher, I think they're in Norwalk, Connecticut, it's called Easton Press. And they do really, really nice versions of mainly classics. A lot of stuff that's just kind of free domain at this point. What I'm doing is I'm reading something digitally, and if I like it, I'll spend the money and get the Easton Press version. And so that's just what I've been doing. I've been trying to do a book a week, and then I do it in bursts of four. I purchase the books in bursts of four. But the tip is don't buy them directly from Easton Press, because they're fucking expensive. It's like $300 or $400 a book if you buy it directly from them. Yeah, dude. And they're not full of gold bars. It's just wood, er, not wood, paper. It's just paper and ink and shit. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | That's like what the encyclopedia salesman would sell you for, like, volume one. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | That's some Cutco knife shit. But, uh, what I will say is you can... They print more than they sell, and sealed editions always just end up going to third-party sellers, and you can find them on eBay for, like, a quarter of the price. So if there's a book that's a classic that you like, go to eBay, type in Easton Press, fucking white fang Jack London, I have no idea. And you will find a very nice, most likely sealed copy for, I don't know, like 80 or 100 bucks. And it's a really, really, really cool thing. And eventually this shelf behind me is going to get filled. So that's other things. That's my tip in case folks are also dying. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | You're going to have the best, the best looking library. You are going to be excited to be on video chats. Look at all my leather bound books, motherfucker. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | I have two shelves right now that have stuff in them. The one with the colors, those are my J.D. Salinger's and my copy of The Bell Jar and then my Riverside Shakespeare and Riverside Chaucer. The one beneath it, those are Easton Press books and they look fucking awesome. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | They do. They look killer. Above it, I thought it was going to look to me to be like a dictionary, a thesaurus and then some like Um, self-help. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Yeah. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | That's what they look like. But below it, I was like, that's, this is a, this is a disjointed library. Watch blog writing for dummies. Yeah. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | It's Riverside Chaucer, Riverside Shakespeare, uh, Brothers Karamazov, Bell Jar, and then The Four Salinger Works, Ray's Had a Groove, Beam's Freddie and Zoe, Nine Stories, and Catcher in the Rye. Those are, those are my, Bell Jar is a personal favorite, but yeah, that's, these are the books I like. And then I have some random, random books I ended up keeping and just kind of putting over there. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | But that's other things. Brothers Karamazov is the most appropriate casual effect I could possibly think of. We just sold our house, obviously. And I have some bookshelves, some hanging bookshelves in my living room that are mostly cookbooks, right? Because it's adjacent to my kitchen. So I have all these cookbooks up there, but I have one shelf that was empty. And I spent two hours that could have been used on packing or any other number of things, painting, you know, take your pick on curating that one shelf of books of what would be on there. You're the worst. And I mean, I was sold for well over asking. So I'm attributing it entirely to the amount of time I spent curating the 12 books that are on that shelf. Wonderful. They're all there. They're all perfectly tapering in size. It was a thing. So good. At the risk of being a bit obtuse, Kaz, tell these people where to find you. |
| Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs | Oh, you can get into the show, 2bookwashknobs.com. You know, we're in the process. We revamped our editorial team and editorial process, so content's going out there more often. We're also We're on Spotify, we're on iTunes, we're on all the stupid, all the stupid shits. If you just type in 2BrokeWatchSnobs for the show, you'll find us, but then also the website 2BrokeWatchSnobs.com. It's all there. And you can find us on Instagram if you want to, but don't. It's at 2BrokeWatchSnobs. |
| Andrew from Watch Clicker | Kaz, this has been so much fun. Thanks for joining us. Cool, thanks for having me. Sort of something we've been talking about for a long time, but something I probably wanted to happen even longer than that. Andrew, anything you want to add before we go? Nope. Hey, thanks guys for joining us for this episode of 40 in 20. You check us out at WatchClicker.com. That's where we put all the episodes of the podcast, articles, reviews, et cetera, et cetera. If you want to check us out on Instagram, it's at WatchClicker at 40 and 20. If you want to support the show, you can do so on patreon.com slash 40 and 20. 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. |