Episode 152 - Welsbro: Interview with Owners Rich Reichbach and Katie Willis

Published on Wed, 22 Sep 2021 23:59:00 -0700

Synopsis

This is a podcast episode featuring Rich Reichbach and Katie Willis of the Wellsboro Watch Company. They discuss the origins of the Wellsboro brand, their design philosophy of making fun and relatable watches, and the successful launch of their "soda" collection that sold out in under a minute. Rich shares his background as a second-generation watch dealer and his inspirations for resurrecting the Wellsboro name. Katie provides insights into her creative process for the brand's quirky aesthetic and marketing approach. They also touch on future product plans, the importance of charitable giving, and their other hobbies like yoga and improv comedy.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 in 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you? Hi. You know, it's weird that sliding that slider is a one finger job. And when using your other hand, you were not as efficient at it. We really are going to have to hire an engineer just to slide the slider.
Everett Well, it's my left hand now. I was better with my right hand. It's just, I've got more dexterity in my right hand. The left hand is just hard. You're making a lot of excuses.
Andrew So again, we are, we do have an open posting for a board slide slider. We pay nothing, but we will make sure that you also have beers on the table.
Everett You will have to be in Eugene, Oregon.
Unknown One night a week.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew It's a local.
Everett Usually determined the night of. Uh, yeah, no, I'm good. I, it's been, uh, I Andrew, something important happened today.
Andrew What happened?
Everett I golfed for the first time in two and a half months. Really appreciate the invitation. Thanks for that. Well, it was kind of impromptu. It was at the club and I like didn't have to pay for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, it was awesome, but it was like, how'd you feel? I felt great, man. You know, it's a little tired. Uh, the, my knee is just a little tired. It just feels like it's Tired, but nothing hurt. I felt great. It was awesome.
Andrew Even with torsion in the swing, in your stroke, you didn't feel any. It's my right knee.
Everett I think if it was my left knee, I might feel something, but that right knee is just pushing. So yeah, no, nothing, no pain. It was great. I shot, I had a good score too, considering I haven't golfed. I like have not hit a golf ball really in two and a half months. Like I shot like a 44. It's like, all right, I can take that. Yeah.
Andrew Yeah, so Andrew, how are you? I'm good. I'm a little tired a little banged up I've been I've had a strikeout of a hunting season So I was not expecting to even be in town right now, but through a series of really unfortunate events I didn't stay out in Eastern, Oregon and Ended up on the coast for a couple days And I'm just getting banged up and striking out. I found on a scree shoot yesterday Or yeah yesterday. Oh There are two days ago brew yesterday cut a little bit And I'm just banged up, you know? I've slid in them before, but this one was like, it was unlike any I've ever fallen in. I stepped on what appeared to be a big rock, tested it, felt good, shifted my weight, and it was not a big rock. It just rolled out from under me, and then I was just gone. It was like a goonie slide. Yeah, it was just a goonie slide. Like, I hit a bunch of big rocks, a couple little sapling trees. It was just a shit show. Fortunately, I wasn't impaled by anything, you know, nothing broke. And so I just really, really angrily, uh, got back in my truck and came home to rest for a couple of days.
Everett Well, great. I'm glad you're here. I mean, I'm sorry you had a little bit of a strike up, but I'm glad you're here. And, and, and I'm also glad that it's not just you because I get a little bored of just you who doesn't. Yeah. Well, we've actually got some really fun guests. We've got, we've got the newest hottest stars of the newest hottest watch brand. Well, maybe the oldest, hottest. Anyway, we have on the show today, I'm going to mess this up. Rich Reichbach and Katie Willis.
Andrew We got a full thumbs up on that one.
Everett We're going to thumbs up of Wellsboro Watch Company. Rich and Katie, how are you?
Katie Willis Oh, good.
Rich Reichbach Amazing.
Audio editing noise My voice just cracks.
Andrew That's okay. It's first time nerves. You know, it happens.
Everett That was your one opportunity.
Katie Willis Dang it. I blew it.
Andrew It's fully, you know, acceptable and to be expected because as I understand you, you're sold out. You're, you're, you did it. Right?
Katie Willis We did it. They are all gone. They sold out within 60 seconds. Like we can see the orders coming in as I was moving all of our products to buyable. And the orders, which I couldn't keep up with it. It was, it was insane. Yeah. Overwhelming. Yeah.
Everett Did you guys expect that?
Katie Willis No. I was like, Oh, we're just making this. It's kind of like a project thing. We're making watches and our friends and family will buy them. And it got so popular that our friends and family could not even buy them.
Rich Reichbach So this is true. My little brother and her older brother and my dad. Tried to get watches and could not get watches shut out.
Everett So, and you couldn't like, you, you weren't going to reserve them. You were like first come, sir, sir, dad should have hit refresh faster.
Rich Reichbach I gave out two gift, uh, divers, which were the number one of each of, uh, lemon, lime, orange soda. I gave one to the dude who is supplying the straps and the other to the artist, Oscar Bastidas.
Katie Willis Yeah. We did all of our cool branding.
Rich Reichbach Yeah.
Katie Willis So we did, we gave out two, but otherwise first come first serve.
Everett Where, where to even start with you guys, right? Yeah. Okay. So first I'll just say Cole Pennington did a write-up on you guys on Ferho Denki last week.
Rich Reichbach And it's two weeks ago, two weeks ago. A week on Monday.
Everett A week on Monday. Okay. So really good write-up and just a ton of information, you know, Rich and I go back several years at this point. Um, from Portland red bar. So we've met and I've sort of talked to you along the way of this thing that you've been doing. Um, and, and so some of this stuff I knew, but others, you know, other parts of this, I just didn't have any, any awareness of, I mean, you've like slow rolled me, you know, artwork along the way I've gotten sneak peeks at stuff, but, um, Where to even begin? I mean, can you guys just talk a little bit about what you're even doing here making watches?
Rich Reichbach Where to begin?
Katie Willis You start, Rich. Do not jump in.
Rich Reichbach So, like the article said, in 2015, I bought a Wellsboro. And the backstory, of course, is that I'm a watch dealer. And I'm not even just a watch dealer, I'm a second generation watch dealer. I've been doing this professionally and full-time for 17 years. I know I look very young, but... Young and stylish.
Audio editing noise Young and stylish, as the Hodinkee article said.
Andrew Did you print that and hang it on the fridge and just highlight those lines? Because that's that's exactly what I would do if I got a public compliment like that. I'd be like, look at that.
Katie Willis Man, that was daily mantra. I am young and stylish. I am young and stylish.
Everett Well, and Cole Pennington is sort of the arbiter of these things in the watch world. Right. I mean, amongst others, but.
Rich Reichbach The Ernst Hemingway of the watch world. Yeah, I suppose he is.
Everett And so so, Rich, you actually go way back in watches, right? You're not new to watches.
Rich Reichbach No, I go to the fishing vest days because that's what the old timer, the greatest generations would wear to watch shows. They were fishing vests. The more pockets, the more better. And they put in those pockets, watches, stuff, watches, pocket watches, parts, you know, hard candy. Yeah.
Andrew In case you get hungry, that makes sense.
Rich Reichbach Checks out. Uh, so I, you know, I always thought the watch world was really ripe for a best in show sort of a, you know, Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just so full of characters, but, uh, I have loved watches since the nineties and on my Instagram a week or so ago, I found an amazing picture of my dad, uh, at work on watches. There's a watchmaker clockmaker at nearly the same age as I am today. So I have always been fascinated by this stuff that's been around me my whole life, uh, reading watch magazines in the nineties and starting to buy and sell. When I was at Tulane, that was like eight in the nineties. I was not, I was, I was born in 82. So I've definitely experienced the nineties. I experienced seventh Avenue and, uh, fake ID at the end of 7th Avenue Grime and fake IDs and, you know, like dudes buying me beer and live peep shows.
Katie Willis I am learning so much right now about my husband.
Andrew This is the format to learn it because you can't get mad. This is why like later maybe, but right now, no.
Rich Reichbach I'd cut school, get on my rollerblades from Staten Island where I grew up and get go on the ferry and like rollerblade to graze papaya. which is definitely one of the inspirations for the watches, right? Ketchup, mustard. Yeah, we can get to that later. But you know, I go back.
Everett And your dad, your dad was a watch dealer.
Rich Reichbach He was. He had a store in Bedford, New York, and that's where Martha Stewart and people of that ilk lived.
Audio editing noise Glenn Close.
Rich Reichbach Glenn Close. He had, let's see, his customers were Michael Fuchs, the guy who founded HBO. He fixed Ralph Lauren's clocks.
Everett Um, Paul, that sounds sexual.
Rich Reichbach It does. Yeah. Paul from, uh, Paul Schaefer, Paul Schaefer was a, was a good customer. Paul Schaefer collected, um, cane clocks, uh, canes that had a watch or clock, you know, watch at the top of the cane.
Andrew That's an interesting thing to collect. He must be the only one. So it's gotta be easy to collect those.
Everett He's got, he owns them all. It turns out Paul Schaefer owns all the king clocks.
Rich Reichbach It's good to have a niche of like what you collect to dominate the market on that. Yeah.
Everett The weirder the niche, the better. Right.
Rich Reichbach I agree.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. Well, so, so you guys met in New York, correct?
Katie Willis Yes. A desktop version of OkCupid is how we met because I didn't have a smartphone. in 2010. Yeah, and we had our first date in Grand Central. We played Scrabble in the basement food court. Then we got ramen for dinner. Then Rich was like, I need to go to the grocery store. Do you want to come with me? So I went to the grocery store.
Everett It got serious.
Katie Willis It got serious.
Andrew That's a good first date idea because you get like you get a real peek behind the curtain of somebody in their behavior at the grocery store.
Katie Willis Yes, and he is, yeah, seeing Rich in a grocery store is special.
Rich Reichbach We'll get to it, but that's really a hobby of mine.
Katie Willis I don't know what my hobbies are. I'm like, the hobbies are just weird.
Everett Grocery stores, being one of them.
Rich Reichbach Who loves the grocery store? It's like my, it's my, it's my temple. I love the grocery store.
Everett Now, Katie, this is important. You're from Virginia.
Katie Willis Yes, I'm from Virginia.
Everett Richmond, Virginia. So I assume, I'm going to make an assumption here. I assume you're a Harris Teeter girl.
Katie Willis Okay. So isn't Harris Teeter originally from North Carolina? So we had them when I would go to the beach in North Carolina.
Everett Okay. Okay.
Katie Willis Okay. Yeah.
Everett When I was in Charlottesville, We shopped at the Harris Teeter. We called it the teat. Yeah, the teat. The teat.
Katie Willis I went to the teat.
Everett I made Andrew spit beer out of his nose. That's been a while.
Andrew I didn't spend enough time in Virginia.
Everett And now, Rich, are you like a bodega man or do you have a grocery store that you prefer?
Rich Reichbach Katie has romanticized the bodega. I got like up
Katie Willis I miss our bodegas in New York.
Rich Reichbach So in high school, I went to a Curtis High School and there was Curtis Hill Deli and like I'd come out of the deli and it just I just get hit up like for just like other bully kids and like you couldn't go in there with money. We're just doing a bad look. So I kind of have not romanticized the deli.
Katie Willis He just associates it with like kids. Getting beat up. Getting mugged.
Andrew No, that's a perfectly reasonable thing as if that, if your experience was getting mugged every time you went.
Katie Willis Love a bodega.
Rich Reichbach Um, so.
Katie Willis Rich has like three grocery stores in Portland that he goes to and he knows exactly what he gets at each one. Oh, I have that. Yeah.
Andrew Yep. I even know where to go. I don't even need to look. I've gotten the wrong thing because they had to faced fate label. They were out of my thing and they faced over the next thing and I just grabbed it and put it in my cart. I'm going to get home. I'm like, what, where did you come from?
Everett And it's where, where in Portland are you guys? You guys are Northwest, Northeast, Northeast. Okay. So I'm from Southeast 72nd foster real. That's real Portland. Nice rural Portland. You're you're Southwest, right?
Andrew Yeah. Southwest like Washington square area, but still Portland city limits.
Rich Reichbach Oh, I see you make the drive down to do this.
Andrew No, no, no, no. We live across the street from each other. That's why we can drink so many beers. But yeah, no, that's where we grew up.
Everett Yeah, we both grew up in Portland.
Rich Reichbach Yeah, that's right. We are in King neighborhood. Oh, OK. Probably changed dramatically since the time.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I went to elementary school at Boise Elliott, which is now, you know, not Boise Elliott, but like that was the fucking hood. And now it's like it's not now. It's not right.
Rich Reichbach So, uh, Katie grew up, uh, hood adjacent and I actually grew up in section eight housing projects, actual hood. Yeah. I didn't live in, in Bedford. My parents were divorced and, uh, and I grew up in rent controlled housing, you know? Uh, so yeah. Uh, but our neighborhood now is somewhat fairly changed. Uh, now it's a little different in 2022. Um, police don't actually want to police anymore, but you know, whatever.
Everett And so from New York, from working at the watch shop with dad in New York, or maybe just hanging out and watch shop ratting in New York to becoming a fairly prolific dealer of vintage watches, not all vintage, quote unquote vintage, but you're a used watch dealer at this point and a pretty credible one. You've sold, I assume thousands of watches.
Katie Willis Yes. Rich. He's like top eight, wait, top 50, uh, watch dealers on eBay. No shit. Right. Yeah. 50 out of like thousands, 20,000, 20,000.
Andrew So that includes the people that are selling like the $1 watches. Just like you're pushing weight.
Everett Yeah. Wow. You're pushing weight. How did you, how did you get into being a broker for watches?
Rich Reichbach Tulane, which is where I went to undergrad, I began. My dad first gave me a Tudor 7928, a small rose Tudor that today I think would be about $35,000. He got it over the counter at $600 in the year 2000. I guess he valued it at $900 at the time. And that shows you how watches have changed in 20 years.
Katie Willis They gave it to you and then what?
Rich Reichbach I traded it back to him for a Fortis Operation Enduring Freedom, which was a Fortis Flieger limited edition for, you know, yeah, war in Afghanistan, right? Logo on it. So I traded my dad that tutor back was real excited. I got a 7750. It was chunky. I was like all about it. And, you know, and then some glycines along the way and you know, whatever was in vogue at that time. Um, but I went to my dad, I actually, I, I got out of Tulane and I thought I would go get a, a master's in food studies at NYU. And I was working in organic food distributor in Hunts Point, the Bronx. And after a couple of months, my dad had fired his manager and he said, come work for me. And I was miserable commuting from Staten Island to the Bronx. It was a five hours a day commuting. It was untenable, uh, for me.
Andrew That's untenable for anyone. I don't know how anybody could do that. Yeah. That sounds miserable.
Rich Reichbach It wasn't a good experience, but it was an interesting experience of doing that. But in another life, I would have had a career in food in some way. Food is my number one passion. It's my first passion. But I went to work for my dad. And right off the bat, I started listing his stuff on eBay. I've just always been e-commerce. I was on forums. I was on eBay.
Katie Willis So you got your dad online?
Rich Reichbach I did, yeah.
Unknown eBay.
Rich Reichbach I mean, you know, I got the concept of Bicel. I didn't do it with panache. That is Katie. You know, Katie add panache.
Katie Willis What is that?
Everett The ice cream layer. Yeah, it's that green ice cream.
Andrew That's what that's what gets you back coming for more.
Katie Willis I love the panache flavor.
Rich Reichbach The professional creative veneer that Katie adds to anything that she does.
Everett Well, so we're going to get we're going to get to Katie. We're we're we're we're we're we're doing you, Rich. We're sure we are going to get to Katie. Katie's the real story here.
Rich Reichbach Sure. So a lot of like a lot of I had five turbulent years with my dad, which I hadn't lived with my dad really much in my life. Like after I was six years old, we just didn't live together. I live with my mom. And so those five years I lived with him were really, really amazing. Um, my dad was a really cool guy and he, he's the kind of guy, like my friends would come over and he'd just be sitting on the couch and he'd like roll a joint and smoke joints with my friends. And that's just, that was just my dad. Like he was, he was just a cool dude. Um, but it just sort of became apparent to me over those five years that I had to branch out on my own. Uh, my dad was a little bit unfocused. He, he was a real genius. Um, and he was a master watchmaker clockmaker, but he wasn't the most amazing businessman. He was a little bit too spread out. He was a little bit of a pussy cat with other dealers who would push him around. And don't say that he just was a pushover. He was a pushover with, with other dealers. And that sort of gave me a chip on my shoulder, which Unfortunately, I've retained and it's made me less likely to collaborate and just a lot of other like issues. You know, an apocryphal story here is that the first or second Miami Beach Antique Show I did, and that's these US Antique Show group, it's the best antique show of the year. It's like getting to go to a museum, but to buy stuff, like if you could buy the stuff, you know, you can go buy a million dollar Tiffany lamp and stuff of that nature. He had a mentor, this guy Howard Gedalia. Howard Gedalia was IWC, NAWCC member number two or three. And he had a store on the Bowery for decades. And he just collected up the most incredible stuff. And my dad, after he died, my dad was friends with his daughter and he sold off his collection. It was millions, millions over, over years, they sold this collection. So there was a miniature enamel pocket watch was lovely that like seed pearls and diamonds and painting. And it was incredible. And this one dealer bought it from my dad and he bought it for maybe $2,500 and he walked it a hundred feet down the aisle to Peter Plains and he sold it for $25,000. And it just, it just stopped, stay with me. And that, you know, it made me, never want to be in that position, never want to be sort of battered by somebody else's knowledge. And so during this time of working with my dad, I went to Pace Law School. And I thought during that time that I would be an environmental lawyer. And Riverkeeper of Bobby Kennedy started there and Pace is pretty terrible law school, but they're known for environmental law. If they're listening, it's cool. They're terrible.
Andrew You can take the bar when you're done though. So, I mean, that's what matters.
Rich Reichbach I've taken it and I passed in a few States, but not all the States. Not the States we live in. Not the States we live in. It's fine. I don't actually want a lawyer. You're meant to be.
Everett Katie had her law school grad too, right?
Audio editing noise Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Everett Yeah. That's what I thought.
Audio editing noise No, she didn't. No? Katie did not go to law school.
Everett Oh, okay. I'm remembering this story wrong. Okay.
Rich Reichbach Okay. She'll get to that. But during this process, it was pretty abundantly clear to me during law school that I was going to continue to be a watch dealer, that that was going to be my lot and it was a better life. And I just saw the life that I would have as a lawyer kind of stretching out before me and that I wouldn't have a good life, the life I wanted, and that I couldn't do good. I felt strongly that to do good, you need to come from independent wealth. You need to come from family wealth or some other form of wealth. You know, I would have had to compromise and in ways that didn't want to. And so after I graduated law school, I took a friend's apartment, which is where I met Katie. It was a single room occupancy at 45th between Lex and third, a fourth floor walk up. The second floor was like a well-known kitchen in Rich's apartment.
Katie Willis You just had a mini fridge. a George Foreman grill and a camping stove.
Everett That's all you need, man.
Rich Reichbach I make Katie, uh, I made meals on there. No problem. Um, but I, I linked up with a friend who I knew from Westchester from my dad's store and we started time Titans. And I took, I started with a 22 K of inventory and I just kind of went from there and I was walking distance to 47th street, which, at the time was a little more viable. It was still a filter for good inventory. It's probably been four or five years that it's diminished due to the internets, but at the time it was still pretty good. And churning it out, I was cranking, I was making auctions. I was selling close to a thousand watches a year in the beginning. And that led me to the Wellsboro watch that I bought on eBay in 2015.
Everett So you, so you at some point start running into, you know, movements and other things, right? You, you start just sort of getting a hold of materials versus watches themselves. At one point, did you, did it really sort of click that I've got to do something with these versus, you know, cause there's a market for that stuff. Right. But what point did you. make that decision that instead of dealing these things, you were going to keep them and make use of these things, right? We, you know, we can talk about the specifics of your original models. In fact, this is a good time to do that. Although no one can buy them anymore and they're probably sold out for forever, but you've got, you know, these fantastic new old stock three hand movements in these modern cases, these coveted modern cases. And then you've got, These wonderful La Mania movements in these Zen cases, like you've, you've, you acquired this stuff. At what point did you realize I'm going to put these things together and make a watch? A watch watches.
Rich Reichbach 17, 18, 2017, 2018. I've been sitting on the diver ones for like over three years. And then the Zen cases came together from a Swiss dealer. who's a good dealer of materiel and a different Swiss older guy who sold me a bunch of movements that I got the 5100 movements from and thus it was born. But prior to that, I still have a lot of movements that I've owned for longer than that, that will be future Wellsboro models. It was sometime in 16 that I just sort of made this concept
Katie Willis It was after you found the Wellsboro Chronograph.
Rich Reichbach Yeah, yeah, yeah. I found this amazing stepped case, Wellsboro Chrono, first one I bought, that I looked in the brand and I said, oh, what is this? And I took the name, I took the name on social and began the process of trademark, which is now complete and I'm moving from intent to use to end use, but I've been awarded it. And the idea was formed to resuscitate the brand and to use vintage movements because it was my background. Because I come to a micro brand as a vintage watch dealer that sold over 10,000 watches and as a watchmaker father and really, you know, deep knowledge.
Andrew Number one, I love that you use the term materiel and that you used it appropriately.
Everett It's a first on 40 and 20, an appropriate use of a term.
Andrew Yeah, no, we're not known for that, in fact. I get that this idea for a brand is born, or not even necessarily a brand, because the brand exists, that this idea to revitalize, to breathe new life into a brand exists. But what's that transition between just amassing these new old stock parts and making that connection that, Oh, there's some, there's something here. And I, and I know you, you kind of touched on it and like vintage is your thing. And I, and I get that, but I mean, for me, I have, I have shit sitting in my garage that I could, that I could do stuff with, but it just, it just remains in my garage. Cause I like to amass things and stuff and have said stuff. I imagine you're much the same way, just based on the fact that you just produced a bunch of watches based on stuff that you had on hand, mostly. So where's that turning point that you're going to breathe new life into this brand with what you already have amassed?
Rich Reichbach I don't remember the eureka moment, to be honest with you. It just, it just happened. It was just a natural evolution of buy and sell and vended watches all day, every day. It's just, it's literally my, my job. So make them.
Andrew It's effectively what you've done. I mean, you've made vintage watches that are new old stock, that are awesome, that have all these new dynamics and these new feels and these new designs, but that are unobtainium, really, in so many regards.
Katie Willis I think that's just how Rich's brain works. He's the kind of person where he can look in our fridge and look in our pantry And I'll be like, we don't have anything to eat. And then two seconds later, Rich is like whipping up some weird ass meal that tastes delicious. Both all these ingredients don't really go together. I just feel like he does. I don't know. That's just like how his brain works.
Andrew Just a true artist.
Katie Willis He's an artist.
Rich Reichbach This is a fair point. I'm super neurotic. I'm super obsessive in some ways. And I hate waste. I hate food waste. I hate all waste. And like I said, I'm environmentally minded. And I also grew up with a Holocaust survivor in the same bedroom. My grandmother, identical twin Holocaust survivor.
Katie Willis Your grandma has an identical twin.
Rich Reichbach She did.
Katie Willis Yes. Holocaust survivors. Yes. Sorry.
Everett It wasn't your identical twin. The timing on that would be weird.
Katie Willis Yeah. Which was an only child until his that brother and sister came along like 12 years later.
Rich Reichbach And the fundamental of my job is to see value. And so I see value. But I wanted a brand from a long ways. And so I wanted to get Benris, I wanted to, which was, I can't remember the name of the corp that owns it, but they they offered to lease out the name. uh, at 50 K a year. And I was like, Oh no, I, I buy it for that much maybe. Um, but all of the good names have been taken, you know, and, and, and there wasn't anything left for me. And then I stumbled upon Wellsboro and it was like the vehicle for my dreams.
Everett I love it. And you know, having watched this thing sort of develop, um, you know, I think when, when we met Rich, you already had Wellsboro, but, um, you, you, this thing was very much in its infancy. So watching it develop has been really fun. Um, and, and I would say I had, um, I would, I had like a second row seat or maybe like I was up on the first balcony. Uh, but you, you know, seeing these things happen in real time, I will say you, it, it was in the early days. It was very rich. Uh, you know, I'm going to reveal what I know about you, which is that you think big. Um, you think big, but you also think very certainly and definitely. And so I remember at one point we're kind of early on, I can't remember where we were somewhere in Northwest. Like it was one of those like movie scene buildings down on the park blocks. Um, but I remember thinking, I think this guy's kind of crazy. Like, I don't think he can actually fucking do this. Like he's just full of shit, you know, not that you were full of shit. Right. Because you're, you're clearly, you know, selling watches and you have this stuff and But just like a little bit of, so I think the, the difference in my mind happened when you sent me the first artwork and that is where I would like to transition to talking to you, Katie, because so Katie, you are a marketing person. You were one of these, uh, mad men types. You work at Wyden Kennedy. I understand. And you are apparently a fucking genius. So tell us, tell us how you came into this, because I imagine, I imagine, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Katie, but I imagine you had some of the same thoughts I did. Like you're, you're out of your fucking mind, Rich. So, so talk us through how you come in and you turn this thing from the idea of a sort of energetic, watch dealer to probably the coolest brand and watches that I've ever seen. I mean, right. This is a brand new, brand new brand and it's super cool. So what happens there?
Katie Willis Yeah. Well, I first want to say that Rich and I've been together for like 12 years and just, I do not give a dick about watches at all. Like I'm just, I don't wear one. I'm not interested in them. Like I support him, but I'm just like, Rich just talks at me with all this, you know, watch knowledge and it just goes over.
Andrew Sounds familiar.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. We're in, we're in relationships where we're in relationships. We started a podcast.
Unknown That was, that was our answer.
Andrew Um,
Katie Willis But yeah, Rich is, I mean, I had a similar reaction, first reaction to Rich too. I was like, this guy's full of shit.
Andrew Were you not excited to get the garage cleaned out? Were you not excited to get all this stuff out of the garage, like, like assembled and found a home? Cause it's not all this stuff, but at least like one box has got to now be addressed.
Katie Willis Yeah, totally. Well, I think there's like, our basement has all sorts of boxes that I just don't even go in that zone. The zone of Richie.
Everett That's where he keeps all his, that's where he keeps all his secret stuff.
Katie Willis Yeah. The secret stuff. That's where the good stuff is. I don't know what this is. I'm like, I can say, this looks like trash. We don't need this. Um, but no.
Andrew So you think he's crazy. And, and then what, I mean, when does, when does the light bulb turn on for you?
Katie Willis Rich is always, he's just such, um, I don't know. He's just always has ideas for businesses. Like,
Audio editing noise At one point, he was really into the idea of making Japanese soft serve, like his own restaurant for that.
Rich Reichbach It was a soft cream dream.
Audio editing noise A soft cream dream.
Katie Willis I couldn't shut up about it. And I was like, Rich, bro, like you've never made this. I'd go there. This was when we were living in New York and he wanted to buy this like $5,000 soft cream machine. I was like, where the fuck is that going to go in our tiny ass apartment?
Audio editing noise That's the worst name.
Rich Reichbach It wasn't a name. It was just a reference to my tree.
Andrew No, no, no. She said it's a soft cream machine. So bad.
Unknown He keeps the soft cream dream in the hidden boxes.
Everett Yeah.
Katie Willis Probably in parts downstairs. Oh, then he made rugs. He wanted to do these rugs that are made out of watches that look like watches. And so we made a bunch of those and they're still sitting in our basement.
Everett But yeah, I'm going to have to get one of these rugs now, right?
Katie Willis Please do. I think I have like two or three of them left. But anyways, we're just always He's very creative and he just, you know, had these, had these dreams. Um, but so to back up, I'm an art director. I work at Wyden Kennedy. Um, I I've worked on KFC, so I wrote a lot of scripts for Colonel Sanders, that kind of vibe, Samsung, Converse.
Rich Reichbach Wait, let me toot her horn for one second here. When she was at Droga5, uh, cause she, she has worked at the two best ad agencies in America and, uh, At Droga5, she made a campaign for MailChimp. It's literally the template for digital advertising. Oh, Richie, stop.
Everett Anyways. That's good stuff. She is. So Rich one day tells you, I bought this brand.
Audio editing noise Yeah.
Everett We're going to make watches. I'm actually making watches now.
Audio editing noise Yeah.
Everett And then you're like, hold the fuck on.
Katie Willis Yes. So it was probably like two years. Like, I've got all these movements. And he's just saying like, Lamani at 5100. This is a great movement. And like this at the time is one of the things going straight over my head. I'm like, I don't know what this means. Anyways, he had partner, he had met this watchmaker, Kenkichi Kamata online because Rich meets all the wonderful people in his life online, apparently. Via desktop. Yeah, yeah, desktop. And he, Rich had the first design, the first drawing of, you know, what the dials were going to look like. And he was like, Katie, these are the colors we've picked out. And I was like, wait, what? Because, you know, I'm an art director. It's like color and typography and design. I'm like, that's my language. So I was like, give me that. And then I was like, okay, we, you need help. We need to focus this.
Andrew It was just a red sheet of paper at the conclusion of your first iteration.
Katie Willis Yeah. But then, yeah, so it was just like giving this thing, you know, being totally, I guess, dumb about the watch world and just bringing like stuff. I like, you know, illustrators, I know illustration styles. I like, um, all the things I've tried to make on other projects and advertising that I couldn't. I'm like, well, I'm the client now, so I'm greenlighting all my ideas. Right. Yeah. I just like not taking it seriously and just really having fun. And yeah, and that's how we came up with the food theme, just because, you know, Richie loves to cook. I love to eat. Most people do seem fun and dumb.
Everett Yeah. And so Oscar Bastidas, fantastic artist, someone, you know, I understand. And so you, that first meeting you have with him, what does that sound like?
Katie Willis I was just like, Hey, my husband's making this watch brand and I want to make a lunch box that we sell them in. And basically, basically, I'm not talking alumni. Um, we have to say, yeah, Uh, the first time Rich told me he was a watch dealer on our first OkCupid desktop date, um, I was like, Oh, haha. Do you wear a trench coat and stand on the corner?
Everett I bet he does.
Andrew By the way, it's a fishing vest.
Katie Willis Yeah. And he got so offended that I asked him that and I was like, well, I'm just, I was just joking. But then Ever since anytime I introduced rich to one of my friends, they would all make that same joke. They'd be like, Oh, do you have a trench coat full of watches? And so it was always like this, I don't know, sticking point for rich. And it was just a negative thing that people would always say to him. So it was like, let's, uh, let's take this negative thing in our life and kind of own it. So we made Tony, our dog, on the cover of the lunchbox and he's wearing a trench coat and he's got his trench coat open and he's selling all the watches on the street. Um, so he's kind of our unofficial mascot of Wellsboro.
Everett I love that. It's, it's really, it's really cool. You know, what we see, what I see with this project that you guys are doing, and I think we can call it more than a project at this point. Right. Um, what you guys have done is so weird. And so different and, you know, the approach is so, you know, in hindsight, right. So obvious, uh, it's just, I mean, really delightful. Right. I think that's been, that's been the, the reaction, um, of everybody we talked to, you know, one of our, one of our writers, Mike has actually in the 45 seconds they were available or whatever, was able to reserve one of the lemon lime, um, you know, We, everybody that sees this thing is like, this is really neat. So I mean, do you think that that different approach is sustainable? How do you, how do you maintain that character over time? You know, not, not to suggest that it's a novelty or that it's, that it's doesn't have any back backbone, but how do you maintain that over time?
Katie Willis That's totally a great question. Um, And I think it's, you know, giving this brand the food theme. It's like, we have so many, that just like, it gave it enough structure. Like we have a sandbox to play in, but it's a really big sandbox for at least what we're calling the next watches, what the colors are going to be, like who we partner with, like what type of merch falls out of it. Like, it's just this thing that has a lot of legs. And I think there's just like we can evolve the illustration style but I think we, we see ourselves more of a watch company it's like I just want this to be a platform that we make cool stuff that, you know, so I just like I stay and like keeps me up at night I'm like, Oh, we could make this we could make a content series, we can make cool merch line like NFTs.
Andrew I mean, those are the thing, right? I mean, you guys, you hit the nail on the head. You created this really whimsical. Kind of out there idea that's also super familiar. I don't think anyone can see anything from your lineup and not feel an immediate connection to it. And just just in the design work and then they get into, oh yeah, this is a Monin case. Like what the fuck? That collision of super modern and fun with nostalgic and also like real, like vintage chops and real watch chops is a really cool collision that we've clearly never seen before. And I don't think we would see again from anyone but this partnership right here at Wellsboro now. It's super cool. You guys did something special.
Everett Normally when people come on our show, they're coming on our show because they've got a product. We're like the Tonight Show or whatever. People come on their show because this is my new book. You can buy it on Amazon. You guys have come on the show, uh, and you have nothing to sell. So, uh, we feel, Oh, okay. I'll give you, I'll let you do it.
Rich Reichbach Go ahead. For one, uh, how do we sustain? So, uh, I think I love Oscar. I don't want to move from Oscar. I feel like he's a part of the brand.
Katie Willis And, uh, so each,
Rich Reichbach Subsequent release, we flesh this out more. We flesh these characters, these weird characters he's made and this universe that he's made. Cool. So the next watch, I think it's going to be for your Christmas return monies. I think it might be mid-January. If we're super lucky, it's mid-December. Unclear. And in COVID times, it's kind of, you can't peg these things. Project Pete Davidson.
Katie Willis That's Code's name.
Rich Reichbach Okay. Okay. Okay.
Katie Willis That's coming in mid-January.
Rich Reichbach It's very exciting. I'm very excited about it. I'm already thinking into 2023.
Andrew That's how much new old stock you have in the basement?
Rich Reichbach Well, I'm always trying to buy more. And anybody who's listening that wants to sell me groupings of movements, I want to buy them.
Everett So I've heard of these. I've heard of these two tourbillon watches, which, you know, the cold cold Pennington told us about. So excited for the new stuff. So I've got a really important question, Rich. And Katie, you can weigh in, too, if you want, but I suspect you're going to be like, fuck off. One of my favorite 40 and 20 episodes of all time is our 7750 versus 5100 episode where we, it wasn't really like a battle or anything, but we talked about those two movements and what they meant to the industry. Cause I think they're in my mind, they're probably the two most important movements that have ever come out. They are the most important movements and you people can argue with me and they do. But, um, as between those two, do you have a favorite?
Rich Reichbach I do. I do. As a watch dealer, I do. And as somebody interacts with watch bakers, I do.
Audio editing noise I'm sorry, he's just so serious. I do. I take this shit seriously.
Andrew And he's building the drama. I just want an answer.
Everett There was no smile on his face until you said that. It was very serious, but please.
Rich Reichbach So the 5100 is a great movement, but it's full of plastic parts. And that's not optimal for longevity or the long term. And I think on that basis, I actually prefer a 7750. I don't prefer the layout. I prefer, obviously, a central minute. And I liked what we did, right? The best 5100 is an EZM1. And so that has no date. It has a date, but it's just kind of decluttered. It's deregulated there. Right. So that is amazing. And I was happy to get some new old stock movements. Uh, the 7750 is more overall important and it's, it's, um, a movement that was saved over, over the years. It just never, um, I think the story was that it was the cast or mold or whatever for it was, was saved.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. We, we talk about this in our episode and, and, and I know that I hate to sell our episodes. I think we did a good job with that, but, but the owner, of these designs, the designer realized that they were going to be sort of dodo and stole all the architecture, stole it, you know, but basically took it from work. That's stealing. He preserved it. And then after sort of the, the worst throws of the courts crisis brought it back and was like, Hey guys, I got this stuff here. We should, we should do this. And, and thus the greatest movement of all time was, uh, was saved, was saved. And, and you, when I say that, I mean that very seriously, uh, cause I think that is the best. And your answer was right. And if it wasn't right, we were not going to pander to your opinions.
Andrew We were probably going to say that for the run a new episode tomorrow. Right.
Rich Reichbach I want to say two more things about software sale. Uh, we have, straps. And interestingly, and this wasn't covered by Cole, because probably they push back on it, because we're one third the price of what basically Houdinki is selling.
Everett You mean a $7 strap from China isn't worth 95 bucks?
Rich Reichbach Well, they're not getting $7 straps from China. They're getting they're just, they're just branding. No, they're, they're selling essentially the same thing. But Uh, and I would never say a bad word against Houdinki. They're good for me. They're good for me as a wash dealer. They've been good for me as Wellsboro. I have only love for Houdinki, for Cole, for everybody there. Uh, and I'll never really be able to compete with them, but, uh, our straps are awesome and they are phenomenal value.
Katie Willis And they have really cool, dumb names. Great names.
Everett Made by yours truly, I assume, Katie.
Katie Willis Absolutely.
Rich Reichbach Joint effort.
Katie Willis Yeah, we did. We like sat in bed one night. We're like, oh, this one's brown. Let's call it double fudge brownie.
Andrew That sounds like really fun pillow talk.
Katie Willis What's a green food?
Andrew Peas.
Rich Reichbach So the straps sort of are what will sustain us and allow us to, if you want to call it lost lead on the watches, we will never be expensive on the watches, we will always be super inexpensive. And, you know, I, I surmise that those divers might be worth triple what we sold them for. And God bless. I'm happy for people.
Andrew Um, No, they are. It's not surmised that they are. Yeah.
Everett Just the kid, the cases. Yeah. Well that you guys really, truly, uh, it's such a cool project and such a cool brand, such a cool the whole, the whole thing is just really insane and beautiful, you know? And so really glad that you guys came on to talk about it. Um, at this point we're going to transition. Anything else you guys want to say about, uh, anything else you want to say about Wellsboro before we go?
Katie Willis Oh yes. Two things.
Everett Well, one, I think, I'm sorry, you guys get one. I'm joking. You can say it.
Katie Willis Um, I think what you guys were saying earlier about how it felt very relatable, the branding, and I think that was sort of, I mean, my very, very outside perspective of the watch world is that it's somewhat pretentious.
Andrew Oh, what? No. Who says that?
Katie Willis I'm just like, what is all this? I looked at all these, all these, you know, other other watch brands and whatnot. I was like, gosh, I was like, I don't want to be anything like this. I just want to make something dumb and fun and like, you know, something we can all relate to. Like who doesn't like orange soda and lemon lime soda and mustard and I don't know, bright colors. So I think that I just wanted to say that.
Everett Well, Katie, we've got a really similar approach to what we do here. And so I'm glad you said that because We've always sort of, we eschew a lot of the, you know, when we started this podcast, it was because reading websites like Hodinkee, which Rich, I share your affinity for Hodinkee. I think they're, I think they've got the best watch journalists on earth. They've got the best product. You know, there's a lot of sort of anger about Hodinkee's business model, I think in the watch world. And I think by and large, it's unfounded, you know, even if it's fair, I think by and large, it's unfounded. But with that said, I think both of us coming from where we've come from and having the priorities that we have were of the opinion that watches kind of suck, by and large. Oh, 100% they suck. And not that watches suck. Watches are wonderful. I love watches. Andrew loves watches. But the media, watch media and watch branding. Watch people. Watch people.
Andrew so much and I'm gonna I'm gonna I don't think watch people what neckbeard sucks he's he's an asshole and he's the one who answers your forum questions and neckbeard is the he's the outspoken minority who we all hear from and he sucks I hate him and so and so what we wanted to do is dumb which is fair because we that's where we are but also you know really sort of
Everett getting rid of all the pretense, getting rid of all the, you know, expense. And, you know, we often will, times we'll do episodes where we talk about watches, the most expensive watch we'll talk about is 300 bucks, perhaps, you know.
Andrew Oh, that's a big one too.
Everett And, and so it's like, uh, this thing that you guys are doing fits so well into, I think that philosophy. And that's what, for me, makes this brand so attractive.
Andrew It's cool. It's such a collision with this really legacy and heritage-oriented urology side of watches that is inaccessible to most people entering the watch world and to a lot of people who exist in the watch world new for a long time. You're offering these unobtainium things for a very accessible price. It's It's astounding. It's super cool. Super cool.
Everett Really well done, you guys.
Rich Reichbach Thank you. I want to make the last most important points. The thread that ties everything together. It's full circle to the lawyer. I didn't become the environmental crusader. I didn't become, uh, no, no, we, we are giving 10%. Oh yeah. I'm really sorry. Yes. Everett charity. Um, so on Monday I went over to my volunteer shift and I gave him a check. Meals on Us, PDX, and we're going to make a button on our site for people to donate if they want to. That was one of the greatest moments of my life. I feel that I've spent a lot of years selling watches to very wealthy people. I've been a good merchant.
Katie Willis I think you've always kind of struggled with that, like a bit of guilt, like you are a person that sells these luxury goods to rich ass people. You know, you don't need a luxury watch.
Unknown I want it.
Katie Willis Yeah, it's I mean, it's incongruous to my character.
Rich Reichbach None of my friends. So I don't want to shoot out watches because, you know, no, if you have look, if I had millions of dollars, I'd buy whatever the hell I wanted as well. But I hope if all goes well, we will be near 50K by the end of next year, which I think should underscore of donations. We should underscore all of the incredible amount of things that we have. Project Pete Davidson, 90 pieces. The release after that, 115 pieces.
Andrew Remember how Pete doesn't come for you. I know he might.
Rich Reichbach I won't complain. It's all love for my fellow Staten Island brethren, Pete Davidson.
Everett Such a great dude.
Rich Reichbach Diver 2 in about a year from now, which, so I only had so many vintage cases. Now I do have vintage movements. I will move to making cases in China where, look, if you want to buy a carbon fiber bike, you go to Taiwan. If you want to buy, you know, if you want the best watch case production, most of it is happening in China and then the finishing is happening in Europe. And so I'm not going to shy away from that. That's what we'll do. I, my preference would be to upcycle great vintage cases, but there were only so many to go around, but diver two in about a year will be 125 pieces. And that will be five times what we had to start. So this is a, to, to circle back to, you know, were we expecting this? No, I thought we were gonna have a soft launch. I wasn't expecting to be Supreme level drop, hard, hard launch, hard launch.
Katie Willis Or hard opening. Hard opening. Soft. Yeah. Wanted a soft opening. It was very hard.
Everett Just like grocery shopping on the first date.
Rich Reichbach But if we had a soft cream opening, we would have wanted it to be very hard.
Everett We just brought it back. Full circle. Well, really cool. Really cool. You guys. Wonderful. So website real quick.
Rich Reichbach Wellsboro.com.
Everett Wellsboro.com. And if you want to, and if you want to buy, Really dope vintage watches. Check out Tong Titans. You know, I, uh, I always check your inventory because I'm just sure someday you're going to have like a $200 Porsche or Fiat or something on there. You never have. And I suspect you never will, but I'm going to, there's always a chance though.
Andrew There's just always a chance.
Rich Reichbach On my last reel I put up the other day, cause I figured out that Instagram wants the reels. They want to be, we've been trying it.
Andrew We're not finding success. People don't like us.
Rich Reichbach On my last one, my only reel that I have, at the end of it, I have a couple of new old stock Orfinas. I have like maybe nine total pieces of new old stock Orfina Day-Dates. Hit me up. I'll hook you up.
Everett Fucking A, man. It's putting the pedal to the metal here. Oh, okay. You guys, really fun. We're going to transition to other things. Andrew, other things. What you got?
Andrew I have another thing. You always do. Not always. Sometimes I'm like, oh god, I'm not ready. Pass. So this is something that I use year-round. And it's a mapping software. So it's an app with a web-based integration. So you can use it on your computer and you can use it on your phone. It's called onxmaps.com. It's primarily a hunting map. Right, they have a lot of hunting focused things on it.
Everett Sure, like Gaia, but for hunters.
Andrew Yeah, but what they also have is tons of trail information, road information, area information, wildfires, weather, water information. This is kind of, if you spend any time out of doors and away from cell phone service, this is the mapping platform for you to use on your phone because you can save and download and save map sections to your phone that you can use without service. So you have super high resolution, detailed satellite, topographical and 3D mapping capabilities all all over, overlapped by a GPS connection, all overlaid through your GPS connection. It it is a subscription. One state annually 30 bucks to have total access to your entire state that you choose for all 50. It's 100 bucks. So if you spend time like if you're one of these traveling or if you're one of those people who's on like the border of a state and you do a lot of hiking and like Yellowstone, you're kind of crossing back and forth or something like that. There's some value there. You know, maybe you just buy to stay. I don't know if you buy two states that you might as well pay the whole thing, but it is Super intuitive. It's like Google Maps with more functionality and you can use it without service because you can download these maps. It's terrific. If you spend it like it's they've got water tables for people who are out fishing. They've got all your hiking trails, closures, the whole suite of things that you would need when you move away from the pavement is there and available for $30 a year if you stay in your home state.
Everett And so you've been using this last couple of weeks when you've been out hunting.
Andrew Oh, I use it throughout the year. When I go fishing, I use it. I use it when anytime I'm going to be away from the cell phone service for any period of time. This is the map platform that I use. They've got tracking so you can track the route that you've taken. You can add waypoint, all the mapping things that you would expect right on your phone. And really the important part for me is that I can use it without service.
Unknown Yeah.
Andrew Yeah. Super high resolution. It's great. And very affordable, 30 bucks a year. My membership renews like every April, I think.
Everett And they market to hunters, right?
Andrew That was their genesis. They've got like an onyx hike and a fish and all other manner of things, but it's really just a super, super high amenity platform for people who spend time away from pavement.
Everett Cool, man.
Andrew That's my thing.
Everett You know, I've used Gaia GPS in the past, uh, but, uh, I just let my Gaia GPS subscription lapse. So maybe I'll check that out for the next time.
Andrew It's worth it. It's, it's affordable. I mean, I don't, I pull up a map for you when we're done.
Everett I got another thing. Do me. So I, about eight months ago, uh, I purchased a, no, not even that long ago, but, but several months ago I purchased a device meant to be used with a circular saw. And I purchased it without any specific task. You know, usually when you buy tools, you buy them because you've got a project that you're working on, right? You bought this because you were also buying a circular saw. I bought it because I was buying a circular saw and I thought, well, I'm going to get this thing because it's just in case. Uh, but I haven't used it and I haven't had any really need to use it. Um, but this last weekend I, um, got a bed for my daughter and my daughter, her bedroom is on the second floor of our house. And the stairwell to get up to the second floor of the house is, it's circular. It's like a steel spiral staircase. And we could not get the box spring up there. And we tried, you know, for about a half hour, my father-in-law's in town and we tried to get it up there and it's like, this is just not going to happen. So, um, okay. No box spring. So we have a mattress and mattress that you don't really need a box spring anymore. Right. That's, it's sort of like, One of these vestiges of another era. Most mattresses don't need a box spring. The box spring isn't doing anything besides sort of lifting the bed up a little bit and providing a structure underneath. So knowing that, I thought, well, we're just going to fucking throw away the box spring and I'm just going to build a frame for it on on the existing frame that we had. So I'm just going to basically build slats. So what I needed to do was cut down a piece of plywood. I had this thing called a AccuCut made by Craig. So most people have seen this brand, Craig, because they make the pocket hole jig.
Andrew But their jig, they're magic.
Everett So I had this AccuCut Craig AccuCut and I almost didn't get it out because I thought, well, these are just slats, right? So they don't need to be perfect, but I made this. I'm just going to break this thing out. So I opened the package. I pull it out. It goes together. It's like a couple of bolts, um, and these long sort of aluminum rails and a, and a, and a device that screws onto your circular saw, whatever your circular saw is. And And I was like, okay, this is going to take 10 minutes to set up. I'll just try it out. And if it's stupid, I'll get rid of it. And you just use your table saw. And just, well, I could have used my table saw, but I don't like putting plywood through the table saw. Anyway, I get this thing out and it's like, this is the coolest fucking thing, man. So I think, you know, people who do a lot of woodworking have track saws, right? You can buy a track saw for a thousand bucks and it does the same thing. But I don't do very much woodworking, so I don't want a $1,000 track saw. I want a $90. I want a $90. And so I got this thing out. I didn't know how well it was going to work. A, I didn't know how well it was going to work. And B, I didn't know if it was going to be worth all the hassle. Totally worth the hassle and, and worked so well. I made, I think, 20 cuts. with this thing. Things cuts like I actually should have done with the table saw, but I had this thing out and I was using and I was like, this is so easy. So I think I have it up 80 bucks, 80 bucks at Lowe's. Um, it is the stupidest device and it just works so well. So if you are trying to rip big pieces of plywood down, um, or, or anything right, big pieces of wood and you have a circular saw, this thing is fan, Fantastic. I was so impressed by how well it worked.
Andrew It could hold you over until you have to buy a table saw. If you already have a circular saw.
Everett Yeah, I mean, really, it could. You know, there's things that I'd want to do on a table saw, but certainly, unless you're doing regular plywood ripping, this versus, I would, I will never buy a track saw. I will never buy a track saw because I don't need anything besides People make circular saw guides, and I had looked at a lot of videos when I bought this thing, and I bought this thing instead of making a circular saw guide, and I'm just going to tell you right now, get a Kreg AccuCut. Don't make a circular saw guide.
Andrew Do you know what I use? What?
Everett A 2x4 clamps and a speed square. Go buy this thing, Andrew. I'm telling you.
Andrew I was going to use yours.
Everett Go. It's so good. It's so good. Blew my mind how good it was. So. It's Craig, you know it's going to be good. Other things. Rich, Katie, I don't care who goes first. What do you guys got?
Rich Reichbach You go. OK, well, so I'm going to go with a hot vinyasa, which is both of us one of our favorite things, and I have a lot of experience as an athlete from Triathlon, a CrossFit, I've, I've just spent a lot of my life doing athletics. It's something that's huge, important in my life. And, uh, you know, it's a funny thing. You only get one body.
Everett It's true.
Rich Reichbach You just get the one and hot vinyasa is a real restorative thing. And, uh, it's a forced hour. of no screen time and of being very present, which is kind of buzzwordy, but it's an important state to be in. The past is depression and the future is anxiety, but the moment is good. If you're breathing and you're feeling all right, it's good. And it's for all body types. It's for all people types. And even if you don't want the heat, just go do some vinyasa yoga.
Everett So let's just assume for a second, let's just assume for a second that the people listening and your hosts are mouth breathing knuckle draggers and don't know what, I mean, of course we do, but just assume that we don't tell us what happened. I thought it was a cocktail until I Googled it. It's a juniper spice mold wine drink.
Rich Reichbach Very good. The, you know, the classic sun salutation it's derived.
Katie Willis Hot yoga.
Rich Reichbach Hot yoga in a hot room. Uh, so here in Oregon, we're still wearing a mask for it, which is fine. So they've moderated the heat a bit, which is also fine. Um, You don't even need the heat. You could just go find yourself a vinyasa.
Katie Willis You could literally just go into that class and sleep for an hour and you would still sweat. And then you'd feel like you got a workout, but really you just got a nap.
Andrew Sounds like my dream. It's less rapey than Bikram too, right? From what I understand.
Rich Reichbach Correct. And you know, I, you know, I started with Bikram. Bikram was the first hot room that I ever was in. And I loved the heat more than I loved the, The poses.
Katie Willis Vikram is always the same, the same poses every class and they don't play music and the lights are on.
Rich Reichbach Yeah, it's a little harsh.
Katie Willis different every time. They play music. They turn off the lights.
Andrew It's a recipe for a nap.
Katie Willis They give you a cold lavender towel afterwards.
Everett What kind of music are we talking about? Are we talking about like Jodeci?
Rich Reichbach Our yoga instructor, who's our friend, who's also a musician, she plays like that music from the commercial.
Katie Willis So sad that I'm like, Oh, that song, that track is using the Modelo. Okay.
Andrew So it's upbeat and lively and fun. Okay. I'm there.
Katie Willis Um, but yeah, every teacher has their own taste in music. Yeah.
Rich Reichbach So it just kind of depends as long as there's any music at all. And like the lights are dimmed. It's like pretty legit.
Everett That's been, that's been my experience. I mean, that's how I made two kids.
Rich Reichbach There you go. It's, it's, it's probably the most important bit of athletics I do. I do a lot of other athletics that matter to me, but, um, I feel on another level about the vinyasa. And so that's my, my other thing. I have a million other things I could talk about because watches are not my main thing, um, in life, but, uh, vinyasa is important to me.
Everett It's wonderful. Wonderful. Katie, what do you got?
Katie Willis Oh boy. Uh, I do improv.
Everett Yes. Yes.
Katie Willis Yeah.
Andrew I feel like that's more important to us than red bar.
Katie Willis Yes. Well, my theater hasn't opened back up for shows yet. We're rehearsing. We're practicing, but I think sometime in October, um, I'm on a main stage team at curious comedy in Portland. Um, And yeah, I'll have a main stage or a show at least once a month. And it's really fun. And, um, I used to do it. So prior to getting into advertising, I was, uh, an aspiring actor in New York when I met rich and I did all like the upright citizens, brigade theater training program. I was really into the improv scene in New York. And then Rich was like, you gotta quit that shit and make my website.
Andrew How long were you in UCB?
Katie Willis Like four years? Yeah.
Audio editing noise Really?
Rich Reichbach Yeah. UCB side note.
Katie Willis It was I was taking classes there and I was like on an indie team. I wasn't like, okay. Yeah, I don't like
Andrew I was like, that's like some big deal shit.
Katie Willis Just to be clear, I was like small potatoes in New York, but in Portland, I'm like big potatoes.
Rich Reichbach Side note. So I was in high school and UCB formed and they had ASCAP 2000. They had two shows.
Katie Willis Isn't it 9,000?
Rich Reichbach I don't know. It was ASCAP 2000 and it was two shows. My memory's bad. My memory sucks. That's true. Two shows, 7 p.m., 9 p.m. The first show was free and the next show was like five or ten dollars.
Andrew But if you're in for the first show, are you in for the second show?
Rich Reichbach I mean, either one of that I could get into. They kick you out. Oh, no, no. You don't get to stay in. Oh, yeah.
Andrew You hide in the bathroom. Yeah, exactly. I was just going to say you pick a brown show.
Rich Reichbach The like ladies room. I forgot they had like that. They had like this like weird room when you walked in with all these like broken mannequins that they ended up having on the show. But this is the original four, Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, all of this. I sat next to Claire Danes one time. And so I was in high school. I was, uh, you know, 16, 17 years old going to these shows and I would take dates. And I thought that I was the coolest thing going around. I thought that I was amazing taking these people to ask cat.
Everett Um, so Katie improv. Is your other thing. Give us just briefly your baseline approach to improv. How do you approach any given, I don't know what I'm going to be doing tonight, but what's my attitude about this?
Katie Willis I think my improv mantra is follow the fun.
Everett Follow the fun.
Andrew I like that. And you're also a perfectionist.
Katie Willis I'm a perfectionist, yes. Yeah, it's mostly anxiety related.
Andrew That's normal. That tracks. We're there together. No, that's awesome. Awesome. Yeah. You said the Curious Comedy Theater in Portland.
Unknown Yep.
Andrew So if anybody's in the upper left, once they reopen, we can go see Katie in Portland. improv shows. We're going, man. We are. It's way more boring than Red Bar.
Katie Willis Pretty rusty after a year and a half of not doing improv. There was a brief moment when I tried zoom improv, but it was like taking an already awkward art form and putting it on the most awkward platform. And it was just, it was eating me alive.
Everett Katie, I've got a bit of a theater background myself, and I'll tell you the, my favorite shows, my favorite shows that we ever did. were shows that were super rusty and everything went wrong, but you, but the recoveries were so good that it made the show, it gave the show so much character. So, uh, that you, you guys are going to be fine. Really fun. We're, we're going to wrap. We're going to wrap. I'm going to tell you at home, the W I'm going to tell you at home, check these guys out. Wellsboro.com Wellsboro on Instagram at Wellsboro, I believe.
Katie Willis At Wellsboro Watch.
Everett At Wellsboro Watch, excuse me. Yeah. You can also check out Time Titans, both online, timetitans.com, as well as on Instagram, where they post fantastic reels, I've heard. But if you're looking for vintage watches, Time Titans is the shit. They've got, I mean, we were looking, Andrew and I were looking at your inventory earlier, just tons of cool stuff. And everything from, literally everything from $200 Caravels to $14,000, really wonderful pieces. So check out Time Titans, check out Wellsboro, look for more watches coming soon.
Andrew Andrew? Plenty of great straps still available on their website. Check them out right now. You got anything else? No, dude, I'm out of things. Hey, you guys, thank you.
Everett Thank you. Sincerely, honestly, for joining us and thank you at home for joining us for this episode of 40 in 20, the watch clicker podcast. Hey, if you'd like to do so, you could check us out on Instagram at 40 and 20 or at the watch clicker. Also don't forget to check out Wellsboro watch. If you want to check out our website, you can find it at watch clicker.com. That's where we post every single episode of this. podcast as well as weekly reviews, all sorts of good stuff. If you'd like to support the show, you can do so at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. That's where we get all our money for hosting and photograph, uh, hosting and podcast hosting and microphones and microphone stands, et cetera. And don't forget to check us out next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye-bye.
Unknown You were like right on an edge and if I lost it you were gone.