Episode 210 - Interview with Abingdon Mullin

Published on Wed, 02 Nov 2022 21:51:41 -0700

Synopsis

In this podcast episode, Andrew and Everett interview Abingdon, the founder and CEO of Abingdon Watch Company. Abingdon shares the story behind her female-focused watch brand that caters to various niche communities like pilots, divers, and tactical gear enthusiasts. She discusses her unique design philosophy of building functional, purpose-built watches by soliciting input from women in those fields. Abingdon also talks about her company's growth, manufacturing process, and the Abingdon Foundation which aims to promote non-traditional industries to girls and women. The episode covers various other topics like her favorite airplanes, the design hallmarks of her watches, and her experience at the Wind Up watch fair.

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?
Everett Phenomenal. Yeah. I'm doing, yeah, I'm doing really good. You know, I've recovered from my, uh, New York weekend, which took, uh, a week and a half, five, five days longer than it had any business taking, but no, I am, I'm recovered, I'm good, I'm well, I'm healthy. Andrew, how are you?
Andrew I'm good. I had a weird couple of days. I learned last night that I punctured a piece of plumbing. Oh boy. Several months ago. It's the worst time to discover that you've punctured plumbing. I wasn't made aware of it until I removed the screw that had punctured said piece of plumbing. So my last 24 hours at this point were a little... odd with many of them being without water while I was trying to make the repairs. But the pipe is replaced. The drywall is back and it's painted. Everything is everything's done, sealed up and good. So I had a unexpectedly productive weekend.
Everett You're you're resourceful, if anything. Yeah.
Andrew I mean, I went to Lowe's and I bought the things that I needed to to fix the pipe that I punctured months ago.
Everett OK, real real question. How many trips to Lowe's?
Andrew It was two trips to Lowe's. That's always two trips to Lowe's. It's not a project unless you go twice.
Everett Two is not bad.
Andrew And I knew, leaving the first time, I was like, I should get what I need to just replace the pipe rather than patch this. Yeah. Nah, this'll work. This is gonna work, yeah. And then right back to Lowe's three hours later. Sure, sure. Same lady at the checkout stand.
Everett Did she make fun of you?
Andrew She just nodded.
Everett Like the knowing. Yep.
Andrew I went in for a piece of like a pipe repair patch And then came back later buying a chunk of pipe, a chunk of drywall. So it was clear what had happened.
Everett You went with the made as seen on TV fix.
Andrew No, I mean, it's a common thing. It's just, it wasn't the right fix for the conditions that I had. I was just being lazy and I knew I was being lazy. And then I paid the price for it. That's the worst part. When you do something that's lazy, you're like, this isn't going to work, but this is how I want to do it. And then it doesn't work and then you have to do it the right way anyway.
Everett Well, if it's any consolation after your successful repair, you are objectively speaking, 15% sexier. I can tell.
Andrew I know. I walked in and I lost weight. Holy cow. My beard thickened. Some of my hair returned forward. It was actually a pretty cool thing.
Everett Yeah. Uh, I didn't, I did nothing. So I did nothing so noble, uh, this weekend. And so I will, I just recovered. I will leave my, my stories at that because I'm more excited, more excited to talk about and to and with our guest for tonight's episode, who, who you at home probably already know who that person is. But Andrew, in any event, is going to introduce her.
Andrew We, we had the opportunity of meeting briefly at windup and I was very intrigued by this brand. So today we have Abingdon, the founder and CEO of Abingdon Watch Company. Welcome to 40 and 20, the watch clicker podcast. How are you?
Abingdon Mullen I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.
Andrew Well, thank you so much for joining. Um, you know, like, like I said, we got to meet briefly for what, I don't know, five minutes, maybe it wind up. Um, and I was intrigued not just by your watches, but by the whole sphere that you've created within this. And I'm very pleased that you decided to come and hang out with us for an hour.
Abingdon Mullen Well, I feel like I met my people at a windup. That was the first windup that I'd ever been to, both in attendance and then also exhibiting. So it was really, really refreshing to meet people like you and other watch collectors, aficionados, experts, people that were way smarter than me, and people I could relate to just on a watch-to-watch basis. So Um, yeah, this is, this is exciting. I'm, I'm really glad to be here talking with you guys.
Andrew It was my first wind up too. And you know, we're in the unique position that we talk to watch people all the time. Um, but I had that, I had a really similar experience there at wind up like, Oh, the, I get it now. Like these are, these are the people, these, these are the people who are not going to make fun of me for nerding out about watches in person. Cause that's, I mean, I have Everett to do that with, but that's it. So getting to like talk about watches incessantly for three days in person was very cool. Yeah.
Abingdon Mullen Very cool.
Andrew Well, so first, first wind up ever, I mean, as a brand and also as, you know, at all, what was your take on it?
Abingdon Mullen So, um, it was, it was very interesting because of course, you know, I'm, I'm coming at it from a business point of view where I was working with Worn and Wound for maybe about a month or two ahead of time, just in preparation for the event. They do such a bangering job of just having organization set up, different a la carte things set up, all sorts of things like that. And it was very easy for an exhibitor like myself, or as they call us sponsors, to just know what we're getting into. And that was probably one of the most refreshing things because as a brand who's been in business for 15 years, We always did. I've always done air shows, car shows, dive shows, outdoor shows. Because my brand is so focused on those industries, that's where I always was. And now I'm at a watch event because of course I am a watch company, right? And, and I was like, wow, this is super organized. This is very pro they they're creating all this content for you. They're pushing it out on their social channels and on their website. Uh, well done. So for me, that was probably one of the best surprises just to coming at it from an organizational point of view. And then of course, when you walk in, it's so well organized. It just, everything flowed really nicely. Um, I heard that previously it was at another place where it was just way too crowded. And this was the first year we did it in the Alton building. So, um, I, I was impressed 360 degrees all the way around.
Andrew It was awesome. I can't imagine that venue being smaller. I was claustrophobic in what was being described as way bigger than the previous venue. And I was like,
Everett Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a market difference just in terms of the flexibility of movement and your ability to get to tables. You know, I will say there were more people. So even with the amount of space and the amount of vendors, right, it's simple math that if there are 40 vendors and the same amount of people, it's going to be harder for each person to get through than if there are 60. but there was just more people. There were just, everything was bigger. So Abingdon, you actually, um, I think led into my first question for you, which is, as, as you said, you are new to wind up or, or maybe perhaps a watch specific, uh, show or conference or whatever we're going to call this, but you're no stranger to that environment, generally speaking, Do you feel like there were any surprises being in that context, that watch-specific context, beyond the obvious? You talked a little bit about the organization. We love the worn-and-wound guys. We think Wind-Up is just probably the best thing of its type in the world in terms of bringing like-minded individuals together in a social but also industry supportive way. Were there any big surprises for you to be at a watch specific event like that, having such a diverse experience in conferences and shows like this?
Abingdon Mullen So, yes. And I would say that the biggest thing was the reception that I received as a female focused watch brand. Um, I was to my knowledge and I did have an opportunity before the show opened on Saturday and Sunday to just walk around and see some of the other exhibitors. I think there were 61 this year, if I recall correctly. Yeah. And, uh, I, I know that there are some brands that have watches for both men and women, uh, smaller case sizes, bigger case sizes, some fashion and some purpose built all that. Um, but my brand is really. female focused. And though we do have a lot of watches that men wear and we even sold to many men at the show for themselves, not necessarily as a gift for like a woman in their life. We really do try to market for women because they're just so left out of the conversation when it comes to watches. So the biggest surprise that I had was that the women that were there, and even the men. I mean, we had Zodiac come up to us, Citizen came up to us, so many people came up to us, other brands there, and just other people that had been there for years, because I think it was in its eighth year as an event. They were just coming up and saying, this is amazing, the fact that you're actually doing this, that you're making tactical watches for women, you're doing these purpose-built GMTs and Chronos and like Sapphire crystals and all this hardcore stuff that you typically only see in men. men's watches, you're doing this with stones and pearl and you're making it smaller case sizes and you're using all these different things. So for me, um, I was quite nervous, to be honest, of being in attendance at this event as an exhibitor, because I just didn't know if I was stepping into a 100% guys world. And cause I followed worn and wound. I follow, um, wind up on social media. And I've always seen the videos and the reels and the content that they've built off of the Chicago show and the San Francisco show. And it's a lot of men and I primarily sell to women. So I didn't really know if this was going to be a good show for me. And it ended up being one of our best first shows that I've ever done. And I think at my height before, um, for the pandemic, we were doing about 20 shows a year. So to step into this event for the very first time, I was just kind of hoping to make a good impression and teach people about the brand. I didn't realize that we would sell out of several styles or else I would have brought more product. So that was a great, that was a great surprise.
Andrew That's awesome. So we're not going to spend the whole time talking about wind up. This is a good segue. Tell us about you and the brand. I mean, there's, there's, there's a lot of people out there who aren't familiar with, with this brand though. It's not brand new to the, to the game. Who's Abingdon?
Abingdon Mullen Well, I'm Abingdon. Abingdon is my first name and my full name is Abingdon Chelsea Cervantes Mullen. I'm married now, so I'm a Mullen. Born in England and Mexican mother, British father. I've always wanted to fly airplanes and that I think is one of the biggest things that define me is the fact that I am a pilot. I'm still a very active pilot. And I started this whole brand because of my flight training. So 15 years ago, I got my private pilot rating at a Santa Monica airport. And as we often do when it comes to purchasing a watch, either for ourselves or as a gift for somebody else, we use it to commemorate a moment in time. And so I was commemorating the fact that I got my private and this was the career that I wanted to do. I wanted to be, become a professional pilot and fly all around the world and get paid to travel basically. Um, and so I was looking for a pilot's watch. I'm five foot six, 110 dripping wet. And there was not a pilot watch that could fit on my wrist. That didn't look like a grandfather clock. Yeah, exactly. So, um, and to me, a pilot's watch is not something, and I should say to a, to an actual pilot. Um, and this is most of my customers who are pilots as well as myself, we're looking for either two things. Uh, one of two things, um, it's gotta have GMT cause everything is done in Greenwich meantime. Uh, and having a flight computer or the slide roll, um, bezel rotating bi-directional are the two things that really quantify what a pilot's watch should be. Um, if you're going to use it in flight, that's what I was looking for. So, um, because I didn't make anything that is the impetus of how I started the brand. We started as pilot watches for women. The first pilots watch for women, um, designed by female pilots for female pilots. It was with the 99s. If you've ever heard of that organization that was started by Amelia Earhart and 98 other women back in the early 1900s. And, uh, I am a member of the 99s. And so my local chapter in Santa Monica, we were all the group that was designing the first two Abingdon watch styles. And from there, it just kind of took off. I mean, this week, we're in SEMA for the big car show here in Vegas. And we have a huge following that is into motorcycles and the trades and cars and that whole industry. And they also want watches that have tachymeters or chronographs, timers, different things like that, but designed with the woman's wrist in mind. It's something a little bit maybe smaller, maybe just a tad more feminine, not so hard lines, that type of thing. So they still want it built very tough though. This isn't a fashion deal. This is something that is utility. It's purpose-built. That's really kind of how the brand started and then how it's evolved and where we're going from here. I mean, I'm talking to astronauts where we've got, uh, some pretty cool stuff down the pipeline. So it's, it's super fun. It's really exciting.
Everett So your company was launched in 2007. Um, and here we are, uh, what 15 years later? Um, I think in that period of time, watches have changed a lot. Uh, your. your debut watches, and I'm going to ask you about that a little bit, but you had two debut watches. I understand the Jackie and the Amelia. And both of those watches at the time were sized to be something that didn't exist. And at 40 millimeters with a 20 millimeter lug width, you'll note the name of our podcast refers to that sizing as what we like to think of as the perfect size, the perfect or the Cinderella, perhaps size of watches. And that's not with respect to a woman's wrist, that's with respect to our wrists, Everett and Andrew's wrists.
Abingdon Mullen It's a great ratio. It's perfect.
Everett preferred sizing for watches has changed so much in that time. Do you find that as you design and develop watches in 2022, going on 2023, that it's easier to design something with universal flavor, or perhaps that it's easier to get wide acceptance with these watches In today's marketplace for, you know, more more conservative sizes versus 2007.
Abingdon Mullen So I think what you're talking about is more of the trend of watch design. I'm doing is more of the purpose-built utility behind what a watch can do other than tell time. And for most of my customers, and we call them crew members, if you wear an Abingdon watch, you become a member of the crew. You are using it as a flight attendant. You're using it as a pilot, a mechanic. And so if you are timing intervals on an engine, you know, compression, Then you need to have a stopwatch that is able to be seen clearly. So having a tiny little sub dial on your, on the dial of your watch that, um, is showing not so, um, exact the seconds. That's not really going to work for you. Or if you have a watch that has a 200 meter depth with a battery in it, good Lord. You're not going to dive with that because you're, you got to go change a battery before your Fiji trip. And that's just ridiculous because getting it, you know, water, um, uh, sealed and all that kind of thing is going to take time. You might need to send your watch away six months before your Fiji trip. Just make it automatic. If you're a diver, make a dive watch automatic. It's super simple. So what, um, what I'm really trying to do is just take the guesswork out of the utility behind the watch. It doesn't ever really, in the 15 years of doing this, of building watches for these women that are doing these activities, nobody has ever questioned the size. They want to know, okay, what is the function in here? What else does it do other than give me an hour, minute, and a second hand? And is it going to break? I mean, one of the watches that we had a customer, because we threw a big reveal party of what we were announcing at Wind Up, which was the brand new brand of Abingdon. changed the logo, we changed all these things. We had crew members fly in from all corners of the country, and we had this huge party in a secret rooftop lounge, and one of my customers handed me her watch, she was four, and she said, hey, I need you to fix my watch. You know, I threw it on top of a pile of clothes, my husband put the clothes in the laundry, and this happened, and I'm really bummed. And she hands me the watch and literally one of the hour markings had come off the dial. It hadn't, it went through an entire laundry cycle and entire dryer cycle. And they just thought it was like money or something, you know, as you, as you always not realizing it's her watch, just clanking around the inside of a washing machine and a dryer. And the only thing that happened with this watch was one of the dial markings came off. So yeah, we reattached it and sent it back to her. It's already done. You know, it took a few days. But when you build something that can take a beating like that, they're not concerned about the size. They're concerned about, is it going to work? Is it not going to break? Will it hold up what I put it through? And does it do what I need it to do that maybe I can't use a phone for? If I'm an F-16 pilot at Nellis Air Force Base, or if I'm part of the Women Divers Hall of Fame and I'm doing a conservation dive off the keys of Florida. So that's what my customer base is concerned about. Not so much how case sizes have changed over the last 15 years.
Andrew I dig it. Let's, let's talk a little bit more about your design philosophy. So I, I, it makes perfect sense that you are designing pilots watches as a pilot, and I want to talk more about that, but I want to talk about what, who you're bringing in, how you're building these teams around your next design ideas and how are you soliciting that feedback for specifically females and what a predominantly male dominated environments, where are you finding these women to, to get this feedback and say, what do you want? What are you looking for? And what does that then design process look like?
Abingdon Mullen It's a really good question. It's a really fun process. And every now and then I should say that I get emails or requests from people that come through our contact page and just through our email and reach out to us in whatever way. And they're like, Hey, we're a watch designer and we have these designs that we want to present to you. And I say, thanks. What are, what are your activities that you're, that you do in your off time, other than designing watches? If they don't do anything that my customers do, then I politely tell them to kick rocks. I think what they're doing is phenomenal, but it's not for my brand. So when we started as a pilot's watch, it was, like I said, that group of 99s. Um, we were probably a group of about 20 women, all different ages and what we wanted in a pilot's watch. So, um, the flight computer, the GMT and the stopwatch feature. And so that's why Amelia and Jackie were the first two, because one was a GMT and one was a stopwatch. Both had flight computers. So it's function first, right? So then as we're selling all of these pilot watches and all these women are buying these watches because they're finally saying, Oh my gosh, somebody, somebody actually made a pilot's watch for us. This is amazing. Keep in mind the numbers of female pilots in the United States, even today is 28,000. That's it. About half of that is student pilot. So when you get to like the level of flying that I do, the airline level, there's less than a 10,000. I want to say there might even be less than 5,000. It's not a big market out of how many total. Uh, we're 6% of the industry. So there's approximately 650 to 700,000 pilots in the United States. So yeah, what watch company is going to make a female pilot watch, right? So there's no market for it. But what I discovered is that those women that are flying airplanes are kind of cut from a different cloth. So they're also riding motorcycles. They're also also scuba diving. They're serial travelers. So the next biggest request that we were getting was a dive watch. And so what I did was on social media, on our Facebook, I think at the time it was mostly Facebook was the big social media. I just reached out and said, Hey, If you own an Abingdon watch, because I wanted to find customers only, if you own an Abingdon watch and you have a scuba dive certification of any level, please private message me. And before I even told them what I was doing, I had them all sign NDAs, we had a group of I think seven customers and it was everybody from somebody who owned their own dive shop to an instructor to just a wreck diver, to like master divers and tech divers. And I said, okay, here's what I want to do. I want to build a dive watch as the next watch. It's the number one request I keep getting. Will you guys help me? And they all said yes. And they said, the first thing that you cannot do is make it only pink and purple. And please do not put a battery in it. So after those two things, it was like, all right, cool. Now we're off. And that's how we built the first, um, first dive watch that we introduced the Marina. And then after that, I did the same thing with the tactical watch. We had one woman in our group of eight who she could not tell us what she did for a job. It was top secret government, something. And, uh, but what she did for fun was she did shooting competitions on horseback. Super crazy. I want to do that. And we had a survivalist on our group. What she does, she owns an airplane and she goes, it's so cool what she does. She'll go into the backcountry of Utah. She'll tell the park rangers this is her grid for three months and then she'll just disappear. She'll take a bow and arrow and a fishing rod to get food with. She'll keep a gun just for safety. And then she just takes her airplane and lands in fields and camps out for a month or two by a lake. And so she was part of our group, you know, so it's like the super hardcore tactical people and and what they use what they could use a watch for. And that was how Jane was created. That was released last year. So I'm always using customers. Um, I'm creating these little secret groups of these like super niche women that do these things. And, uh, and then they're the ones building the watch. I just know how to reach out to the manufacturers to get it actually physically made.
Everett You know, we see a lot of watches that are marketed towards women from big companies and smaller companies alike. I think you've pointed out at least one thing that is typically wrong, and that's coloring, right? Yeah. Women's watches are oftentimes pink, oftentimes purple, right? What other things are folks missing when they are designing a watch for women? And how have you, you know, you've had extreme success in marketing your watches and in communicating with folks. The results speak for themselves. What are these companies missing and how have you specifically in terms of design language, how have you communicated your product and how have you been able to have success with your product in a way that is just being missed by these other companies?
Abingdon Mullen Oh my gosh, how long do we have? We're only at 26 minutes. You got time. You said you were down for three hours. We're ready to go. Um well I think the the one thing that they're missing is they're not involving the female consumer. I think that's that's a huge misstep and a lot of companies period I mean we're take for instance the super famous pink razor Bic razor that was made fun of so many years ago and it's like Okay, did a bunch of who sat down in that room and decided that that's what women wanted. And we're going to charge it charge it more than the blue Bic razors that are out there like me and it's just stupid, you know. So I think just putting a woman on your team is the first thing that they need to do. For for my customer base, and for what I'm doing, and like my contribution, I mean, there's some There's some stunning women's watches out there, uh, that I really am a huge fan of, but they're strictly fashion. Michelle watches. I'm it's one of my favorite brands, but they really are just 100% fashion. And they've got the stones and the platinum and the pearl and all those different things. And it is, it's a look it's, it's just like a designer jacket. You know, it's just, you're not wearing it to keep warm. You're wearing that jacket to, to make a statement when you step out the door. Um, but for a lot of women, especially the ones that are in the fields that I market to, they don't necessarily care about how many stones are on it or how much pearl is on the dial, or if it has, um, a certain color to it. And much like men, we, you guys, when you wear a watch and I mean, I'm, I'm married. I talked to my husband about his watch collection all the time. And, and it's like, okay, well, I just I need the watch to do this, you know, or I need it to do that. Yes, I do want it to look good. I want it to have an interchangeable strap. So I can wear it with a suit, or I can wear it to the gym, or I can, you know, wear whatever watch I need to for the purpose that I'm using it for. And I think that the biggest thing that these brands when they're coming out with a women's watch, when they are misstepping is when they're not realizing they're not putting themselves in that woman's shoes and if they could just maybe bring a couple women onto their design team and onto their execution team so they might have a certain design how do we bring this to market what's the messaging behind this watch that we're about to bring out if you're just bringing out a pink dial watch to raise money for breast cancer awareness okay well Yeah, okay, great that you brought it out on October. But what about the other 11 months of the year? Like that, that organ, those organizations need that type of money all year round. So don't just wait for October to do it. Or don't just wait for March to come out with a woman's watch. Those are the token months, those are the months that everybody does something. So Why don't you do something in June, July? Why don't you do something throughout the entire year? And so even just like the execution that brands sometimes do when they are producing a watch intended for a female market, they don't quite hear what the female consumer is looking for. And some of my personal pet peeves for watch design, I think it's silly to put stones as the hour markers. Uh, that's just, that's a personal preference for me. Um, but I also am getting to that age where I need to see, uh, better. So I haven't, I haven't reached yet in glasses, but I'm, I'm close.
Andrew Bioluminescent stones. That's the answer. We've done it.
Abingdon Mullen Great idea. All right. Um, but you know, those types of things, uh, I, I just, I just don't see the point. And if there is a feature on a watch that doesn't have a point to me, doesn't have a function or doesn't have a use or usefulness, then I kind of say, okay, let's start over with that part and let's do something different.
Everett One of the things that I think stands out about your watch are some of the design hallmarks that you've adopted and really stuck with. In particular, I'm thinking of what I'm going to call is your chevron bracelet or the chevron links on your bracelet. And I, excuse me, I don't know if those are the terms you use, but it is, What kind of things are you incorporating into your design language that you think really demonstrate your identity and the way you're packaging your watches and selling them to people?
Abingdon Mullen So, uh, I love that you brought it up. Um, the Chevron link strap and, and that is what we call it. We call it the Chevron strap. Um, when one of my, one of my favorite brands is Breitling, uh, probably because of my aviation background. And I've always noticed, uh, there's one, one of Breitling straps, which is like an angled, I don't know what the name of it is. I love it though. I know exactly what you're talking about. You can see it across the room and you don't even have to see the face of the watch. You know, it's a Breitling just based off that strap. And I have wanted to have something like that with my brand. So when I looked at all the industries that we do market to, aviation uses chevrons, diving uses chevrons, rescue, search and rescue uses chevrons, military, tactical, all of those use chevrons, automotive use chevrons. Every single one of my crew members is connected by a chevron, by that symbol. So that was where we started to build designs of a chevron strap or chevrons incorporated into the strap. And that is by far, that's definitely our signature piece. And it was neat because I was at an event that I, it wasn't like a, an event that the company was a part of or anything. It was just me being at an event here in Las Vegas. And across the room, I saw somebody with a Chevron strap and I realized, oh my gosh, that's a crew member. And I hadn't known them either. So it was even better because I went up and introduced myself and they were like, oh my gosh, yes, I've had your watch for X amount of years. I love it. And this and that, and I was like, I noticed it from a strap and they were like, Oh yeah, totally. So the special opportunity. Yeah, it was, you know, mission accomplished. Right. So, um, I, uh, I definitely want that Chevron strap is going to be part of the ethos and the brand identity for as least as long as I'm around with the brand.
Andrew And it kind of has to be because that's the unifying feature of all of your watches because they're all so unique to the function. I mean, when the whole time you were telling us about your design ideas and the committee that comes together and talking about where other brands fail is they're looking for form. This is what our watch looks like. And you take this is what our watch does. And it also happens to look good. So you're welcome. You got both the things. And because of that uniqueness in your actual watch, finding something as the unifying, we call it the design DNA and we coined that, so trademark. But that's the terminology we like to use because it's so visible in your entire family of watches when everything else is so diverse, which I think is one of the really unique things about your brand is that everything is so different. You have this really diverse portfolio all unified by the thing that holds you together, which is the strap or the bracelet and within the identity of your brand, it's a family through activity and doing things and these adventurous pursuits that link you, which is cool.
Abingdon Mullen Yeah. Thank you. Um, I think the, uh, the one other thing that, Um, defines like if you were to see an Abingdon watch, you'll other than that strap, cause if it's a leather strap, of course, you're not going to see the Chevron, but, uh, that inner rotating chapter ring, that's a universal across every watch that we have.
Everett And it does different things for different watches.
Abingdon Mullen And they all do different things. You are not wrong. Um, so yeah, from, uh, the 33 millimeter to the 42 millimeter, everything has an inner rotating bezel. And that is where most of the function where you're going to find most of the function.
Andrew So you don't have like a video on how to use a slide rule, do you?
Abingdon Mullen Not only do I have a video, I've got like six videos, one on time, speed and distance, one on the basics, multiplication, division. I've got one on fuel consumption calcs and my personal favorite. And the one I was demonstrating the most at windup was how to convert currency. I have haggled in the streets of Hong Kong with street vendors in the ladies market for like a pair of Converse, like knockoff Converse. And I would just glance at my watch and I'd tell her what I wanted in Hong Kong dollars. She'd come back to me in Hong Kong dollars. I'd glance at my watch again. I'd tell her something else. We settled on a price. And she's like, what, you got to be somewhere while you keep looking at your watch. And I said, no, no, I've got the currency set up on my watch. I'm doing the math. And she was like, no way. Yeah, that's cool.
Andrew That's very cool.
Everett One of our recurring gags on this show is joking about things that we could possibly use a slide rule for. Neither of us with any actual knowledge on how to use a slide rule. So I have noticed that you have a YouTube channel. We will be linking to your YouTube channel in the show notes because those are valuable videos. And I don't think there's a lot of that information that exists.
Abingdon Mullen No, most people think about just, I mean, even in the aviation world, right? Most people think about just the time, speed, distance, or fuel consumption or different aviation things that you use it for. Cause that's what you learn in your private pilot training, but something like converting currency, it's super useful for as much as people are traveling and dealing with other countries all the time. So, um, if I think of any unique ones, I'll definitely let you know, you can add it to your list.
Everett I like it. I like it. Soft-boiled eggs. That's the recurring one. Yes. So Abingdon, now a 15-year-old company, you have sold watches on QVC. You have had watches. In fact, today there are watches, Abingdon watches that you can buy on Walmart.com. You have an incredibly diverse, both retail and direct-to-consumer model. I understand that you were on Shark Tank in season six, or at least did a bit for Shark Tank in season six. All that to say, you've had a ton of presence in media. You've had a ton of presence in popular retail networks. You are now, as far as I can tell, primarily a direct-to-consumer model. And furthermore, as my observations are, that you are pushing into this sort of watch specific, this enthusiast market in a way that I find really compelling. What do you think the sales model for Abingdon looks like moving forward? Is it more of the same? Is it just more of more? How are you positioning yourself in the market moving forward?
Abingdon Mullen So we definitely have been primarily direct to consumer and that is always the best way to buy from an independent small micro whatever kind of name you want to put on those types of watch brands like ours. And, and that does give us as a business, the best margin, but I would rather that an Abingdon watch would be available to anybody at any time. So like this year we also launched with Macy's and then the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum they just put us in their museum gift shop for their big reopening and we're talking to other major retailers like Nordstrom and even Marcus and then of course we have our Amazon store and basically the Sales model, as your question states, is make it available to anyone, anywhere, at any time for as long as we can. And that way, if it's an easy barrier to entry for you as a consumer, then it's going to be a better user experience for you. And then when we do things like make watch video manuals, as opposed to the little tiny booklet that you often get with a watch that nobody ever reads, and it's rated in 30 different languages, and you need a magnifying glass to read it, that's not a great user experience. But going to our YouTube channel, going to our website, seeing the videos in both places, having them shared on social media, all that type of thing just makes for just a better experience. And I think Having not been really in the watch industry so much as I was just in these industries that my consumers and my customers were in. um probably set a different type of tone or vibe because I'm kind of thinking as a as a consumer myself like why would I why would I create a tiny little booklet I'm never going to read that so I'm not going to create that for somebody else plus it's a cost of paper and I can just make a video and then it's just good forever and anywhere can figure out, you know, can watch it up on their phone. So there's a few little things like that that we've really tried to kind of incorporate into not just our retailer network, but also how people are buying from us direct to our website or through Facebook or through Instagram shopping or any of that kind of thing. And it just, at the end of the day, it's about the consumer, it's about the crew member, and it's about what type of experience they're going to have with our brand because we want them to stick around for a long time. I mean, you haven't seen this yet because you've only seen me at one show. But do not be surprised at Wind Up San Francisco, the next one that's coming up that we'll be at. We always bring watch tools to do free battery changes on site. And we always were sizing watches for people that bought at the show. We did this at Wind Up a couple of weeks ago, too, where we're sizing them on site right there for the consumer. And I was shocked to find out that other watch brands didn't do that. Because they know how to do it and it's doesn't take very long, so I would rather like at the women in aviation show that we've been attending since 2008. We have customers come up to us in droves I have to have a 10 by 30 space there because one full 10 feet. is just dedicated to people coming up with their 567 watches saying, Hey, here's all my watches. Can you change all the batteries? I'll be right here shopping and then just let me know when they're done. 15 minutes later, we have eight battery changes done for that customer and they're buying their ninth watch. And that's just something that we've always done at every show is we always make sure we have a watch tech on our staff. And we always make sure that we're doing free battery changes, cleanings and sizings at any event that we're at.
Everett It's phenomenal.
Andrew And so you More than just your consumers though, your crew members, pardon me. You've got more to the organization than that. The foundation is something that got me really excited and I'd like to hear more about it. So tell me, what is it?
Abingdon Mullen That is the heart of the company. Abingdon Foundation was established on the 10 year anniversary of the company in 2017. As a 501c3, we are a certified non-profit here in Nevada, and our mission is to promote non-traditional industries to girls and women in not just STEM and STEAM fields, but industries that are not always promoted to them. And from the young age on up, And so what we do is we primarily what I call we walk the walk and we talk the talk. And when I say walk the walk, what we're literally doing is taking somebody, giving them a scholarship, flying them into the United States, oftentimes they are international, and we will take them to an industry show of a particular profession that they want to get into, but they don't know how. Um, and this kind of stemmed from the fact that when I was learning how to fly and I wanted to be a pilot since I was 14, my parents knew nothing about flying. And so I had to kind of figure it out on my own and I didn't know where to look. And there's so much information out there online. You don't know what the good information is and what the bad information is. And unfortunately there's a lot of information that you got to pay for. And you just don't know if what you're buying is what you need. So what we do is, for our scholarship program, is we say, you apply to us in any way that fits you. Some people are great at essay writing. Phenomenal. I wish I was. I never got a scholarship from the essays I wrote. Some people are way better visual. We had one of our key giveaways at the event at WindUp, as well as any other event, are stickers. And that was designed by a graphic designer from Dominican Republic. She designed a sticker that we've been passing out for, gosh, I want to say the last maybe nine, nine to 11 years. And it's one of like the things that people just recognize it's so on brand with us. We've had people write poetry. We've had people make videos. We've had people run social media accounts for several months. We've had so many different applications in so many different ways because everybody is cut from a different type of cloth and they express themselves differently. So if you win the scholarship, what we do is we fly you out, we put you up, we give you registration to a conference. It could be shot show, shooting, hunting, outdoor trade show. It could be CES if you want to get into the tech space. WITI, Women in Technology International, Women in Aviation, DEMA, SEMA, I mean, you name it, like anything that's in the trades, in STEM, on STEAM, if that's where you want to pursue, but you don't know where to start, then you apply for the scholarship. If you win, we take you to it, and then we link you arm in arm, and we walk you through the show, and then we introduce you to all sorts of people. So I'll give you a quick example. We had a winner from South Africa, And her name is Kodani. And she built watch straps. She actually designed 10 African watch straps, which we are completely, we're going to incorporate into our product line eventually, once I can figure out a couple of technical details with it. But she came out, we flew her in from South Africa to the Women in Aviation Show. And I sat down with her and I said, okay, so you want to pursue aviation, we get that you want to be a pilot, Where would you have any idea? Do you want to do airlines? Do you want to do corporate? What are you thinking? She's like, I really want to do corporate. And I said, okay, great. So we're going to go talk to Walmart. And we're going to go talk to Disney. And we're going to go talk to Netflix. And she's like, what? And I said, all of them have corporate fleet departments. They all have their own fleets of aircraft that they fly the C-suite around in, that they fly big clients around in. And they have, um, some of them as little as three airplanes and some, as many as 30 airplanes. So I want to make sure that, you know, who these companies are and that you find out what the flight requirements are so that when you want to fly a corporate job, you can start looking at those types of companies and see if they have flight departments. And she was like, I would have never thought to talk to Walmart. I would have never thought to talk to Netflix. And that's what we do. So that's the scholarship program. And then the other thing is, uh, our brilliant books and our talk that talk. So we talk at schools, we talk at, uh, different events. Girls in aviation day is a big event that we do. Um, and we make these brilliant books, which are activity books for kids. We've got two age groups for our brilliant books, and they're available on Amazon, $9.99. 100% of the proceeds goes towards our scholarship funds. And the books are aged 10 and below or 10 and above. And it's everything from ABCs to crossword puzzles, Sudokus, and different things, but they're all oriented around trades. around aviation, around engineering, around orology, around just different fields that maybe, you know, a mother doesn't know how to talk to her daughter about chemical engineering or why that might be something that they want to maybe explore. They don't necessarily need to explore these things as a career. They could just do it as a hobby. I mean, I would love for every girl to know what the differences between AC and DC or how to change a tire or hey, how to fix a plumbing leak and do it in less than one trip to Lowe's, right?
Andrew I wish I could do it in less than one trip.
Everett If you have that book, I'll buy it for Andrew.
Abingdon Mullen So that's, yeah, that's what the foundation is about. And it is, like I said, it's the heart of the company.
Andrew And you kind of answered it up front, but one of my questions was, um, kind of when I, when, after we met and I was thinking about this foundation, um, my, I was wondering if this is, something that, that came from your heart because you had that person in your life or people in your life who reached out a hand and said, Hey, these are the directions. Like these are the things, or if you were doing it because of the absence of that for you.
Abingdon Mullen For me, it was definitely the absence. And, um, it also, it just happened to be, it was 2009, 10, somewhere around there. I was a demo pilot and sales pilot for a company called Lancer. Uh, they're at a Redmond, Oregon, and they make experimental home-built racer airplanes. And, um, when I was there, a father had contacted the company and said, Hey, I want to bring my daughter over and tour the company. She's going to go to Embry-Riddle, which is a big aeronautical university. They've got two locations, one in Arizona and one in Florida. And he said she doesn't quite know yet if she wants to be an aircraft designer and engineer, aeronautical engineer, or if she wants to pursue the piloting. But I know that you guys build airplanes, we're located in Portland, you guys are in Redmond. Would you mind if I brought her down and is there anybody that can give her a tour? Well, I wasn't typically the person who did tours, but on this particular day, they asked me to tour around this father-daughter. And I did. I spent the day with them. I showed them how we built airplanes. I showed them, you know, where we were flying and test flying and doing all these things. And as I was talking to them, I said, gosh, you know, it'd be really advantageous next month to go to the Women in Aviation Conference in Orlando. And you could really talk to engineers. Embry-Riddle will be there. You could talk to pilots. You can kind of figure out maybe a little bit more about where you want to pursue, what road you want to go down. And he was like, oh, wow, that sounds amazing. And she was like, oh my gosh, yeah, I'd love to. And I said, I'm going to be there. And at the risk of sounding really creepy, I will chaperone you if you want, because I'm going to be there anyway. with this watch company that I also own, even though I'm selling airplanes at Lancer. So, um, but I said, but think about it, you know, you, you just met me today. So I completely understand. And, and, um, if you do end up going and you see me there, I'm happy to introduce you to whoever you want. And, uh, they did, they ended up sending, uh, Haley with me, her parents must've been a little crazy, but, um, were you living in Redmond at the time? What's that?
Andrew Were you living in Redmond at the time? Oh, so we live a hundred miles west of there. That's where we're located out of. So that's a real trustworthy city. Like that's, that's reasonable that they trusted you.
Abingdon Mullen Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I was, um, I grew up in LA, so we don't do a lot of trust.
Andrew No, no, that's reasonable. Yeah.
Abingdon Mullen But, um, but no, that, and that was kind of the first time that I saw a young girl. I mean, she was 17, maybe. And she just lit up when I took her to this conference of 5,000 women in the industry. And she just ran off like a kid in a candy store and talked to all the engineers, talked to all the mechanics, talked to all the pilots, talked to everybody. And at the end of the three-day conference, she was like, I know what I want to do. I want to do engineering. And it was like, oh my gosh, that was amazing. And we follow each other on social. Sure enough, she's an engineer and she's working at an aircraft company.
Everett Hell yeah, Haley.
Abingdon Mullen Right?
Andrew Yeah. When you say you were a demo pilot for a company that builds racing aircraft, is that, that's not like, describe that more. That's totally beyond me.
Abingdon Mullen So, uh, a home built experimental, um, is a, uh, it's basically, you know, when you buy like a model airplane and you put it together and you maybe follow the instructions or you don't, um, imagine that just life size and you build it.
Everett And then you fly it, you sit inside it and demo it. Yes. Yeah. It sounds a little crazy. Whoa. Okay.
Abingdon Mullen These are commonly raced at Reno air races. If you've heard of Reno, the big event, um, every September and, uh, the Lancer is, um, one of the higher performance experimental airplanes that are out there.
Andrew And, and are they, well, I mean, I imagine it's just, I mean, it's hot rotting, right. But in the air, so most, if not all of those are 90% or more home built home designed stuff. So that's, I'm, I'm, I'm accepting of it, but I feel like aircraft shouldn't be home built. It's making you uncomfortable. I'm not comfortable with flight. So when you say experimental and home built, I'm like that, those are synonymous.
Abingdon Mullen And sometimes people take years to build them and it's kind of a hobby that they do. You know, the wing is used as their dining table for a few years until they get the fuselage done. And other people, they get theirs done in eight months and they are touring all around the country, flying their airplane with their family, having a blast.
Everett Dope. Abingdon, do you mind telling us a little bit about the makeup of your company? You know, we, we talked to a lot of brand owners who are struggling to keep stock in their ordering watches in MOQ runs. You, on the other hand, have a ton of circulation. Your goal is to have the watch available to the consumer anywhere they want to get it all the time. And by my by my examination, I think that you're doing a very good job. You've got, you know, dozens of of different watches that I could buy today at dozens of different locations. Tell us about the company. Tell us about the framework of and the personnel and the the various suppliers and how do you do this? How have you created such a big and powerful company? And who do you rely on day to day to keep that going?
Abingdon Mullen Well, I will say that for 15 years, I have made every mistake in the book for how to do this properly.
Andrew That's called learning.
Abingdon Mullen And, uh, I think, uh, you know, it's when, when I was 22 and I started the company, I didn't know what MOQ meant. And it's, it's interesting when you talk about a watch company, because it's not just the watch that is the MOQ that you're, that you're having to purchase perhaps. Um, it's also the box. It's, uh, you know, there's, there's a variety of other parts of that equation.
Everett Engraving on the buckle.
Abingdon Mullen Totally. So, and we do all the final assembly in Las Vegas. There is a point where I would love to have the CNC machines, all the polishing machines, um, even the leather machines, the finish work, those types of machines. At our facility in Las Vegas. We, I don't know if it warrants it just yet, but it's definitely something I'm looking at right now so that we can bring a lot of that more in house manufacturing, but as of right now. Um, I work directly with Miyota. Uh, I don't work directly with Ronda though. We do use a lot of Ronda movements. Um, and I worked with FTS and down in Phoenix, the AmeriCorps guys. Very cool company. Yeah. We're using three movements, Japanese, Swiss, and American. Uh, and then I will purchase in, uh, whatever quantities I need. And at this point, when you're 15 years in business, They know that it's not just a one-off or a two-off order. They know that I'm a long-time customer. So I can ask for MOQs that are potentially smaller. If it's a brand new movement that I've never used before, but I've maybe only tested for a few months, then I can say, Hey, I only want a hundred pieces of this one until it passes my sniff test. And then from that, your second order will be a thousand pieces. So, you know, allow me this smaller MOQ at the beginning and have a long-term customer in the end. And that's a really, um, it's a, it's a valuable conversation that I can have now, but that does, I mean, that took a long time to build.
Andrew That's a lot of trust with a manufacturer across the world. I mean, that's a big deal. Yeah.
Abingdon Mullen Totally, totally. And. I wish I had known those, those types of conversations at the beginning, but honestly, I don't think anybody would have agreed with me at the beginning because they're looking at some 22 year old young woman who's never owned a watch company before. And she's a pilot that wants to make some weird watch. So yes, no, thank you. Have a great day. And, um, and I, I remember the first box packaging order that I'm placed was 3000 pieces. You know how long it took me to get through 3,000 pieces? That's a lot. That's a lot. And I didn't realize that it was just that company's MOQ. It wasn't a standard MOQ for box packaging. But now, you know, I know. And so it was definitely a learning curve. But to kind of finish up what you were asking, how my team looks and all of that, Um, I do have a core team of, um, five full time. And then, uh, I don't know if this is how granular you want it, but I'm giving it to you anyway. More granular is more better. And that involves everybody from watch tech and repair to customer service to my retail account manager. So that that core group that we're dealing with retailers every single day, we're dealing with customers every single day, we get private messages on our social media, on our chat on our on our website, and through our contact us all that. So That kind of stuff is daily. But then we have our YouTube editor. We've got our PR press person who just deals with all of our media. We've got our trade show staff. I probably have a list of around 30 women that I work with in trade show environments. If it's an aviation show, then I work with the pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics in the aviation space. If it's a dive show, I work with, uh, divers, ship captains and people in the nautical space. So depending on what show we're doing, uh, there's a certain group of women that I request to help work that show. Cause they can have a conversation with people.
Andrew Who did you bring to wind up?
Abingdon Mullen Uh, it was myself, my husband, um, Mrs. Nevada, who's one of my customers. Diana, and she's also a captain at United Airlines on the 737. And she transferred bases to Dulles. So she was kind of in about the vicinity. She wanted a vacation to New York. So I said, Hey, I'm going out to this New York event. So would you want to come and she's like, Are you kidding me? Absolutely. So she came up, it was the three of us. And then, um, I did have the folks that, that work with my PR. Um, they're all based in New York because that is probably if you have a watch company, let me give you this piece of advice. Anything in fashion, your PR team should be in either New York or Los Angeles, because that's where all the editors are. That's where all the magazines and the publications are. They're the ones who need to have that Rolodex with their local group of people. So, um, my PR team helped out a lot.
Everett Abingdon, what questions should we have asked you today that we didn't?
Abingdon Mullen Oh my gosh. I feel like I just like talked a million miles. So, um, what's my favorite airplane to fly? What is your favorite? We didn't even get to that.
Andrew Cause cause you, you mentioned you have a private license. You mentioned your commercial. Stuff. What's your favorite airplane fly?
Abingdon Mullen Fly. So, um, I am rated and this is fun because you can actually call my BS or not. Um, but freedom of information act dictates that you can go to the FAA website and look up my name and see what ratings I have. So you can do that for any pilot. So that's a really good bar trick too. When somebody is like, Oh yeah, I fly this and that and the other. And I just kind of like, no, you don't. You're a light sport pilot, buddy. I have fun. But, uh, I have a airline transport pilot rating. Um, the largest airplane I've flown is a Boeing seven 47. That's a, that's a big, that's a big airplane. That is a big airplane. Yep. And there's a YouTube video on this, on our channel about when we ferried it to, um, we dropped it, dropped off 30,000 pounds of oxygen concentrators to India, uh, during the pandemic. And then we took the airplane to Germany and dropped it off to its new owners. That's a long flight. It took like 24 hours. It took no time at all.
Andrew That's a full day.
Abingdon Mullen Yeah, I guess so. I'm, uh, I'm right now, um, my husband and I are maybe shopping for a glass air, which is an experimental two seat airplane. There's a really, really cherry one right now that's being sold. Uh, and that would be aerobatic, uh, super, super fast. Um, we could probably get to New York in, uh, I would say probably 15 hours. I might be a little off on that, but Vegas to New York in 15 hours in a two seater airplane. That's pretty, that's rocking.
Andrew Do you like aerobatic flying? Like, is that like a, or acrobatic? Aerobatic would make more sense in my head. Here we go. I'm broken.
Abingdon Mullen Uh, Cartwheels and airplanes. If it's 747, that would be the only acrobatic I could do, but aerobatic flying, I do like doing. Oh, wow. Inside joke to myself.
Everett I like it. I like it. It took me a second. Yeah. You actually are doing cartwheels in the, uh, because you have the room. Yeah. Uh, so wait, I, I don't know anything about flying, but the, the, the vomit comet, I don't, you know, these zero G airplanes. Have you ever flown anything like that?
Abingdon Mullen No, but did you meet Diana, Mrs. Nevada? She used to be zero G pilot.
Andrew Was she, she was a rotary. Was she the rotary pilot?
Abingdon Mullen No.
Andrew So I met Brandy. I did not meet Diana.
Abingdon Mullen Brandy and Genevieve. Uh, those were the rotary pilots. Brandy has a helicopter hog hunting operation in Oklahoma. She does crazy stuff. She'll be calling her.
Everett They're hunting hogs.
Andrew I'll be calling her. Yeah. With night vision. It's real. Jesus. They used to do that. They did that in East Texas too.
Everett Yeah. I need to, I need to hook up with Brandy. Cause that sounds fucking rad.
Abingdon Mullen Yeah. Brandy's Brandy's a boss. She's a, um, a helicopter mechanic and pilot. Uh, I believe she's rated in both airplanes and helis. But she was an aerial gunner in the military. And, um, so she built this whole business doing what she got trained on how to do in the military.
Andrew And you can do in Oklahoma and Texas and charge people to do it.
Everett I'm like 99% sure that that's illegal in Oregon.
Andrew It's definitely illegal in Oregon, but in the South, like in God's country, you can do whatever you want.
Everett Speaking of aerial hog hunting, Andrew, my good friend, Other things, what do you got?
Andrew It's pretty low level relative to aerial hog hunting.
Everett It's not aerial hog hunting?
Andrew It's not. I don't even like this as another thing anymore. So I'm a snackaholic, like my thing, my physique shows it even. I'm a snacker.
Everett I've heard this about you.
Andrew One of my like new go-to snacks that I was not new. One of my go-to snacks that was introduced to me when Sam decided she was going to be keto was WHISPS. W-H-I-S-P-S. They are cheese crisps and they're not Cheez-Its, right? They're not crackers. They're just like cheese circles that are either baked or fried. I haven't done a whole lot of research into their, manufacturing process because I don't care. They are so delicious. They're about the size of a Cheez-It, but they're round and they look exactly as if you had fried cheese in your pan on purpose. So I'm assuming they're baked because they don't have like the real like browned edges. My go-to, which is a fairly recent discovery, is the Asiago and Pepper Jack flavor variety. They are perfectly spicy. just like just a little, little bite, a heat and so cheesy.
Everett Like a, like a Flamin' Hot, like a Flamin' Hot.
Andrew Less, less than a Flamin' Hot. Okay. Closer to like the, like I'm using Cheez-Its because these are the best analog that I have. Closer to like the Tabasco Cheez-Its. Okay. Fair enough. I know what you're talking about. Just a little bit of warmth. Every once in a while you get like a little, little kick from one. You're like, Ooh, you ain't got me. Uh, these are available on Amazon. The, the bag says it's two servings. It's not. It's one. Of course. They are so good. They're like just a little bit greasy still. They keep for a long time. Surprisingly, they do not get stale. The cheese is really stable. They're super stable. These are amazing. I didn't pull up the Amazon price. It's worth it. Pay the money to Amazon to get your wisps.
Everett And they're snack cheeses.
Andrew This is not a meaningful purchase. No, it's just cheese snack crackers. They're so good. I always, we always have three bags lined up in the cabinet. Like I will go to the store just to get more so that we don't run out. So Wisps, I like the Asiago and Pepper Jack. They have cheddar, original Parmesan ranch, which is just ranch. It's cool ranch Dorito, but it's a cheese crisp. But these Asiago and Pepper Jack, they're the truth.
Everett I feel like this is, I feel like this is the perfect other thing. It's, it's not, It's not meaningful. No. It's, it's good for everybody. There's a hot and spicy. I'm gonna buy those. It's, it's inexpensive. It's like, actually, as you're listening to the show, pull the car over, order some on Amazon or go to Albertsons that's just down the street. You know where it is. Grab a bag. It's a, it's a perfect other thing.
Andrew Oh, it has a buy on Amazon button and the button says, Oh, something went wrong on our end. Apparently they're not available anymore. Uh, they're not expensive. I'm hang on.
Everett Abingdon, I understand that you've brought another thing, and although it is not a cheese wisp, I have a feeling that it may go well with cheese wisps. Other things, Abingdon, what do you got?
Abingdon Mullen Everything goes well with cheese wisps.
Everett Yes, that's right.
Abingdon Mullen That's my take on that. So my contribution is this surprise that was introduced to me today.
Everett Just today? Actually today?
Abingdon Mullen Yeah. Those are the best. Serendipitous for our podcast recording here.
Everett Contemporaneous, serendipitous, other things. It's the best. That's our jam.
Abingdon Mullen It's and I'm not even a huge fan of Peeps but these are this is a Peeps hot chocolate kit called Marshmallow Monsters and your hot chocolate is green and then the Peep is like a Frankenstein head so it looks like Frankenstein is floating in your hot chocolate and it's it's absolutely delicious. It's this like color changing hot chocolate kit it's like white powder it turns green and You throw the marshmallow in there, a little Frankenstein peep head, and it's pretty flippin delicious. So I've been sipping on that tonight and enjoying every second of it.
Andrew Did you also add whipped cream? Because that is step two of the instructions. Add whipped cream if preferred.
Abingdon Mullen I did not prefer it.
Andrew She did not prefer it. Frankenstein propped on the whipped cream.
Everett You know, I think if you're in like the marketing department at Peeps, I assume they have a marketing department, you're like, Listen, what do I even have to do? We've got Easter. And then what? And then what? Because we can really, I think, hit these other holidays. It sounds like mission accomplished. Pretty.
Abingdon Mullen Yeah. You did a great job. I want to work for them.
Everett I've got a question. You did leak this to us prior to us starting the episode. So we've had a bit of time to think about your other thing. And you've had a bit of time to analyze your other thing. What was the color change? You've referred to this now, both before and during the episode, from what to what?
Abingdon Mullen So I believe it goes from white to green. I think that's the color change it's referring to. I was hoping for maybe like a heat color change. Like a hyper color. color or something like that. Um, but no, it's just, it's just stayed green.
Andrew As the marshmallow melts, it becomes more and more green.
Abingdon Mullen Exactly. Yep.
Everett Did the peep melt?
Abingdon Mullen No, not yet. I still have a surprise at the bottom of the cup.
Everett So when you're done, you get to eat the peep.
Andrew I do. Oh, it's gonna be all chocolatey too. Yeah. That's gonna be really good. I'm into it.
Everett Yeah. I'm into it. So you, You at this point are going to give a thumbs up. Two of them, the monster kit.
Andrew It's going to be linked.
Everett All right. I've got another thing and it's not something you can consume. I mean, maybe if you, if you worked really hard, uh, I bought a pair of running shoes as we're heading into the fall. I won't be eating them as we're heading into the fall. I wanted something with a little bit of water resistance as we are in Oregon, there are puddles and mud. So I bought a pair of Nike Pegasus Trail 4 Gore-Tex running shoes. And I've had, I think, prior iterations of this shoe and did not love, but I was at the running shoe place and trying on running shoes. And I put this on my foot and I was instantly like, I think I'm going to give this a try. This has got Nike's React foam. That's a bunch of marketing gobbledygook. However, I do understand that it is one of the more popular branded mid soles in the industry. I don't think or worry too much about that. However, this shoe is insanely comfortable. And as soon as I put them on my foot, I was like, yes, it's got like a neoprene heel, like Achilles cover sock. Yeah, it's like a sock. And I've I've got, I guess, an anatomy that I've at times, you can just say that, that I've struggled with the Achilles or the heel portion of shoes where it'll dig or it won't be tight enough. I really like these. So, you know, I've talked on the show about running in the past, and this is a thing I have done. and I continued to do. I bought these and I instantly fell in love with them and I'm already thinking about, you know, sticking with this shoe through the winter, perhaps buying another pair.
Andrew Does the bootie offer extra, like the good top-down water resistance?
Everett It does. So I had an opportunity this last weekend. We've been unseasonably dry pretty much everywhere in the United States, but in Oregon, unseasonably dry. I hadn't had a chance to really put these things to the test. I've worn them on the trails now for, I don't know, 30 or 40 miles. Uh, but I hadn't had an opportunity to test them in the wet. And just this last weekend, I did have an opportunity and did so test them and they, they, they did everything I wanted. So from my ankle bone down, totally dry, except for, you know, sweat or whatever. Um, Yeah, this is like, I think my favorite light trail running shoe I've ever had. And I've had, as you know, a lot of trail running shoes. I've never had one that I thought, Oh, well, this is something cool enough to talk about on the show. Although I maybe have because we have to come up with something every week, you guys. But seriously, for a trail runner, I've never had a shoe that I liked this much. Comfortable, easy to wear, great lugs, super good traction. I think that, I mean, this is the most comfortable trail running show I've ever had. They're expensive.
Andrew Yeah. 150 bucks, 160 bucks.
Everett 150 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe it was 160, uh, which is a downside, you know, I'd like to be closer to a hundred, but for everything they're doing react foam, yeah. Gore-Tex. Uh, I, I understand why, why they're priced where they are.
Andrew It could be the Gore-Tex cause I think the, uh, I have to look at it again, but the non Gore-Tex are like right at the a hundred bucks. Yeah. If only Nike would, oh no, the true winner for 140 bucks.
Everett So yeah, well, it's not the cortex. You're only paying 20 bucks for the cortex. But I mean, I, you know, inflation, yada, yada, yada, but these shoes are great. Uh, I highly recommend them. I've got a bit of a narrow foot, so I think if you're a wider foot person, they might not work for you. And I think that's a pretty common thing for Nike.
Andrew Um, they have a weird toe box.
Everett Yeah, that's right. I've got a fairly narrow foot, but these work great for me. I'm all about it.
Andrew I like it. I won't buy them because I'm not going to run on trails. Or perhaps just run. In general, no, it's not for recreation. It's for survival purposes only.
Everett Abingdon, can you please tell these fine, fine folks where to find you? And I don't mean you like your person.
Abingdon Mullen I mean, you don't need your home address in Las Vegas.
Everett Where do we, where do we find your products?
Abingdon Mullen Abingdonco.com. So I'll spell it to you like a pilot. Alpha Bravo, India, November golf, Delta, Oscar, November, charlieoscar.com. Um, you can search us on Google maps. We've got a showroom in downtown Las Vegas in the arts district. We do this is I think the first time I've, I mentioned this publicly, but we've nicknamed it the mullet so it's all business in the front and party in the back, because all offices are in the front and our warehouses in the back. So, we do have occasional nerf gun wars in our warehouse you are welcome to come by. And then you can find us if you are in the military on all of the exchanges. So Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines, there are exchanges. Use your veterans discount. And thank you for your service. And then if you're at the Smithsonian, you could find us there now as of this year. That was an awesome, awesome surprise when they reached out to us about that. And then you can find us on social media. So Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube. Our channel features a lot of our customers. So like Brandy, the helicopter hog hunter, she's got an episode and flying the 747, all that kind of thing. And then there's also a lot of watch tutorial videos that I do as well. So check that out. And yeah, I hope to hear from you.
Andrew That's awesome. I have an interruption. Usually we would go straight into an outro. Uh, you said the air and space museum reached out to you.
Abingdon Mullen They did.
Andrew That is awesome. How good did that feel when, when the Smithsonian air and space reached out to you, right? Cause you're already doing a really cool thing that you deserve to feel really good about. And then Aaron space reaches out and like, Hey, we're the Smithsonian.
Abingdon Mullen Yeah, I know. Um, yeah, they, uh, they were like, Oh yeah, we're doing this a big remodel. We're going to be remote or reopening fall of 2022. We'd like to bring you into our gift shop and And what's your minimum order to start with as a retailer? And that's a great conversation to have with somebody.
Andrew Wow. Congratulations. That's awesome.
Abingdon Mullen Thank you.
Andrew Now, sorry, I interrupted you.
Everett I've ruined the flow. No, no, we're good. I was just going to say, can confirm. I've searched Abingdon on multiple social medias. And if you type in Abingdon in the search bar, you will find these guys.
Abingdon Mullen Excellent. Then we did something right.
Everett Well, you did that right. Yeah. Amongst amongst many other things. Andrew, anything you want to add before we go?
Andrew I'm a lot of things.
Everett Well, hey, folks, thanks for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20. The Watch Clicker podcast. And thank you, Abingdon, for joining us. Please check them out. AbingdonCo.com. If you're on Instagram, which most of you folks are, the AbingdonCo on Instagram, you can check us out at WatchClicker.com. or on Instagram at watch clicker or at 40 and 20. That's where we post updates, all the things we're doing, uh, and you know, weekly reviews and articles and all sorts of good stuff. If you want to support what we're doing, you can do that at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Look, that's how we continue to do this. We're not being paid except for those contributions to Patreon and we really need them and we love them and we love you. So, Maybe, maybe, maybe think about just logging in. And don't forget to tune in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye bye.