Episode 214 - Interview with Richard Benc of Studio Underdog

Published on Wed, 30 Nov 2022 21:11:14 -0800

Synopsis

Richard Vance, the founder and designer of Studio Underdog, joins Andrew and Everett to discuss his journey from designing character watches to launching his successful microbrand. They talk about Richard's background in product design, his experience working for Braun, and the collaborative nature of the watch community, especially in the UK. Richard shares insights into the design process behind his popular watermelon-themed chronograph, the decision to use the Seagull ST1901 movement, and his plans for future releases like a field watch.

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Transcript

Speaker
Andrew	Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 1420 The Watch Quicker Podcast with your host Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Everett	I'm so good. Speaking of talking about drinks, uh, you, you managed to like drink like a third of that beer in between the time you cracked it and your time you started talking. I was like, this isn't going to work out. I'm a pro. And it totally did. Well done, Andrew.
Andrew	I'm really, uh, I'm actually, and I didn't have a shotgun.
Everett	Uh, I'm doing really well. I am, uh, I'm, I'm having a great weekend. Things are very exciting. Uh, Why? You know, just stuff is happening. Cool stuff is happening. We're not here to talk about my good weekend.
Andrew	Andrew, how are you? I don't know. The jury is out. I've been up for 19 minutes. I overslept today because we're recording it at a different time. Yes, we are. It's not. It's not Tuesday evening. It's Sunday early afternoon. This is usually my sweet spot to be waking up. Slept right through my alarms. And my wife came woke me up and was like, Hey, Everett's here. Neat. No, no, no. You're supposed to be awake. I was like, Oh, oh yeah, I am supposed to be awake. So I'm a, I'm just still a touch in that like jolted awake mode. This beer is helping.
Everett	Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Andrew	And we're in studio. So everything is starting to make sense around me. The world is no longer spinning.
Everett	This is my, my rock right now. And, and we're recording in a different time. We're recording at a different time for a good reason because we've got, we made a promise to you guys a while ago. We made a promise to you that we were, there was a couple of brands at windup, a couple of runs at windup that everybody would talk to was like, you guys got to go check those folks out. You guys got to go, you guys got to check these up. This is my favorite thing at windup. It's two brands. One of those was Abingdon and we had Abingdon on the show. Completely lovely, super interesting. approach to the watch industry. We had her on the show. We made one other promise to you, and that's that we were going to track down Richard of Studio Underdog. Yeah. And we did it. Finally. We did it, finally. To no fault of Richard's, this has been a long time coming. I'll take the blame entirely. Is that what I do in this situation?
Andrew	I think that's probably the best answer.
Everett	I'll take the blame. I'll take the blame entirely. Nonetheless, Today, joining us from Brighton in the UK, we've got the owner, the face of, per the website, founder, the head of design, and the marketing manager for Studio Underdog, Richard Vance. Welcome to 40 in 20 WatchCooker Podcast. How are you?
Richard Vance	Very good. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.
Everett	Thank you for joining us and thank you for being patient with us. And I'm so glad to finally have you here.
Richard Vance	I mean, it's, it's absolutely my pleasure. I think you guys have got one of my, one of my favorite podcast jingles to, to get, to get the show going. I was quite glad that I actually get to hear it a lot. I think a lot of the time that's added in post, but I got to kind of, you know, really feel the spotlights come down, the jingle come on and, you know, feel like I'm in the show.
Andrew	Oh yeah, we produce live. It's purely laziness. We produce purely in flight. So that way we don't have to do very much after the fact.
Everett	I will say it does make the post podcast editing process easier. And frankly, I think it does. It gets you in the mood, right? It's like that 15 seconds that sort of puts you in your moment of zen, get your podcast voice on. It's time. We're ready. And here we are. And here we are. So Richard, Studio Underdog, probably at least in the enthusiast micro-brand world, the hottest brand of 2022, I'd guess. Holy shit, right?
Richard Vance	Yeah, that still doesn't quite feel real, but it always surprises me when people happen to be aware of the brand because it's a fairly new thing. It's something I only started you know, just over 18 months ago. So for it to kind of have a reputation where, you know, you guys might be thinking that is, is pretty insane.
Everett	Well, and I'll tell you, it's not for nothing that we think that, um, we do, when we do wind up, we have, you know, this year was nice. They gave us an hour to sort of run around and grab brands. And that's tricky. An hour is not really enough time to do it because you're running from brand to brand. One of us will be doing an interview and Andrew will be trying to catch someone's eye who's got three people in front of him to be like, I need five minutes. And if we get them, we get them. And if not, because there's 17 people at their table, then we just need to move on and get someone else. I think we did for this year, we interviewed seven people for our post windup show. We had seven interviews that we went with, and I would say five of those five of the people that we interviewed, um, quoted you cited you as the most interesting thing at windup. So of the seven interviews, five of them said, you know, we said, what's the coolest thing you've seen studio underdog.
Richard Vance	I like to think it was probably, uh, It's probably the watermelon that I got, I got carved. I think that seemed to catch a lot of, a lot of people's eyes. And it's funny to think that probably one of the biggest draws to the table wasn't, wasn't necessarily the watches. It was actually this, uh, this watermelon that I'd got carved with the, uh, the wind up, wind up logo.
Andrew	So you didn't carve that. That was, that was every time I walked by there was your, I couldn't get to your table ever. I'm not, I'm not a big guys. And so I'm not going to like fight my way through a mosh pit. Uh, you were always loaded down with people. So you, you didn't carve that one, that watermelon yourself.
Richard Vance	No, I didn't. I, uh, you know, you can find anyone to do anything in New York. And I, a couple of weeks before the show, I Googled watermelon carver in New York and the first link that popped up, I sent them a message and, and yeah, it got them to do it the day before the show. was couriered over, a guy on a moped brought it over sort of minutes before the show. And it somehow, it lasted the three days. Every night, every, yeah, at the end of every show, I'd wrap it in cling film, I stuck it in the fridge, which fortunately there was a big fridge freezer in the basement, stuck it there every morning, went to get it to see if it was kind of turned to mush. each day it was still standing and yeah, it managed to last the full three days which I was pretty impressed with.
Everett	Did you have to like spray it with lemon juice or anything?
Richard Vance	No, like I wrapped it with cling film and then in the mornings, on the last day I kind of tried to, literally with one of my credit cards, tried to take off some of the kind of the fleshy layer to make it look slightly more fresh again. which actually worked. My, my girlfriend gave me a really weird look and was, was wondering what on earth I was doing, but yeah, it seemed to, it seemed to have the desired effects, which is good.
Andrew	New York is such a weird place.
Everett	I mean, there's everything, there's everything, everything that could possibly exist exists in New York. It feels like watermelon carvers with mopeds. Yeah. Right. You know, he said the first one I found meaning there was more, there were more yielded results. Yikes.
Richard Vance	This was your first windup. This was my first windup. Yeah. This was my, my first time stepping foot in the U S as well. So it was, uh, yeah, quite an exciting trip. And as you said that the windup was kind of, it was nonstop. It was, it was, it was great talking to so many enthusiasts that I've not had a chance to kind of get in front of myself, let alone my watches. So. Yeah, it was, it was so much fun, but my voice after the first couple of days was, was totally gone from, you know, just, just from talking and, uh, yeah.
Andrew	Screaming in that space. Yeah. Screaming just to be heard in there.
Richard Vance	Right. It was insane. I couldn't, I couldn't believe the number of, number of people. And it was, it was a, it was a huge space, but there was just a constant, you know, I couldn't tell you a time where there was sort of a limbo of any kind. It was just, it was just nonstop. There was, there was always people there, uh, which is, yeah, honestly, I was super impressed, uh, by the whole show and yeah, really, really enjoyable.
Everett	And how long were you in the U S for?
Richard Vance	So the show itself was three days, but you know, it was, I couldn't think of a better excuse to make a bit of a holiday of it. So I stayed for eight nights in total in the end. So, Yeah, three or four days of kind of with my watch hat on and then about four days to be a tourist and explore the city. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. Went and saw an NBA game, which was an absolute highlight. So yeah, I think I got to, made the most of it for sure.
Andrew	Who'd you go see play?
Richard Vance	I went and saw the Knicks, the New York Knicks versus the Charlotte Hornets. at Madison Square Gardens.
Everett	That's kind of like, uh, that's, that's one of the, the few Meccas for NBA basketball, Madison Square, MSG as it were. Yeah.
Andrew	It's like pinnacle NBA viewing.
Richard Vance	It was, it was incredible. Like, um, the UK doesn't really have much of a scene for basketball. Spike Lee now, unfortunately not, but the UK doesn't really have much of a basketball scene. So I, you know, I, I know the rules of the sport, that's about it, but I didn't really quite understand how huge it was. And not only the athletes, it was insane to watch, but just the show as a whole, you know, every time out something was going on. There would be the cheerleaders or, you know, an award ceremony or a t-shirt cannon. It was just, it was nonstop action. And yeah, for me, it was something else.
Andrew	And that's early season basketball too. You're not looking like that's, that was a pretty tame environment for, for a game.
Everett	Yeah. Stuff gets cut through towards the end of the season.
Richard Vance	Yeah. I can imagine. I think we, I think we got quite lucky cause it was, it was a super close game as well. So that kind of kept, kept everyone kind of engaged and it went, went to extra time or overtime or whatever. Um, so yeah, it was, it was honestly, it was so much fun. So that's, it's on my, on my, To-do lists to do anytime I do come to the U.S. I think.
Everett	What was the coolest thing you saw in New York?
Richard Vance	Um, I liked the, uh, the, I don't know what it's called. The, the walk, the it's sort of a skyline, skyline walk, something like that.
Everett	Oh, I guess I don't know what that is.
Richard Vance	Oh, really?
Everett	But it was cool. It's something, it's something I need to check out apparently.
Richard Vance	Yeah, definitely. It's sort of a kind of a, Skyline, I think that's what it's called. It's sort of a walkway that's I believe built on top of or along a redundant railroad, a railway track. So it kind of goes through.
Everett	I do know what you're talking about. I do know what you're talking about.
Richard Vance	Yeah. Cool. That was, that was really, really good fun. But, but yeah, to me, the highlight was definitely that, that NBA game. It was something that I wasn't expecting to enjoy as much as I did.
Everett	Are you a basketball fan now?
Richard Vance	Uh, I could, yeah, I could, if the games weren't on that sort of two, 3am in the morning, I think I could definitely, uh, yeah, if I moved to the U S that would, that would probably be my, uh, my sport of choice.
Everett	I think after that, it's a hundred percent my sport of choice.
Andrew	Does the NBA do London games?
Everett	They do. They, they've done a few games in London. Not very many. It's usually one or two a year, but their price is like super difficult to get tickets to and a total pain in the neck.
Andrew	So what about like, When American football comes to London, is that like a big spectacle or is it, are they begging people to come?
Richard Vance	No, I think it is, you know, I think it is a big, a big show. It's, I've not been to one myself, but the kind of the first person feedback I can, I can say is that anytime there's, there's a game on, you know, any sort of American sport, even, even ice hockey occasionally, you can tell just because of how busy the tubes are in terms of people getting to and from the game and you know looking and seeing sort of nfl shirts and trying to figure out what on earth is going on i think there was one a couple of weeks ago and i was on the tube and there was a football game there was an arsenal game as well as some sort of nfl game and yeah there was thousands and thousands of people kind of trying to get to and from by the tube which is mildly uncomfortable the tube's not great at the best of times But it's a big show even, even here.
Everett	So Richard, uh, we're not here to talk about basketball, although we could, we could, uh, we're not here to talk about basketball. Rather. We're here to talk about this brand, this brand studio underdog concede from your brain. Um, and, and, and not out of nowhere. Right. So you've got a background. You've got a background in design. You're formerly a product designer. I understand that you have a history working with watches and with probably one of my favorite companies or brands of all time, Braun, which I think is really exciting. Tell us about your background. Tell us how you got into product design.
Richard Vance	Yeah, so I studied product design. That's what I did at university. Absolutely loved it. Originally, I didn't know that that's what I wanted to study. I was initially thought I wanted to do architecture for a good few years. And then I went and did a week's work experience in the architecture firm and, and realized, you know, within that week, okay, this is not what I want to do. Um, and found myself doing product design instead, which I absolutely loved. Um, so then I took that degree and was more or less trying to get the first job that would have me, uh, in London. that's where I wanted to go that was the next step try and get my foot in the door of London. So I was applying to loads and loads of different jobs and design related jobs and the first job that I was able to get was one that was for a watch distribution company who kind of licensed and worked with a number of sort of watch brands. So I you know went to the interview didn't really have much of a a knowledge of the industry. I, I didn't really, I don't think I owned a watch. I borrowed my dad's watch to the interview. Um, got the job.
Andrew	Um, but you got one though. You, you were wearing a watch.
Richard Vance	I was, I had to exactly. Yeah.
Everett	Yeah. Can we ask what you were wearing?
Richard Vance	I think it was a Vitorinox. I think, is that how you say it? Yeah, that'll work. Yeah.
Everett	Like a Swiss army watch.
Richard Vance	Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, So it's one of those, who knows, we'll never know if that helped me get the job or not, but I like to think it probably played its part. We'll say it did. But that's where I kind of started and that's where I sort of started to discover, you know, the watch industry. It wasn't something I was aware of before and as soon as I kind of fell into it, just kind of, you know, fell head over heels, just found it so interesting. So I started designing
Everett	Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, what kind of watches were you, were you working on?
Richard Vance	So at the start it was very, uh, uh, very bottom rung of the ladder. I was designing anything from Peppa Pig watches, Minions watches. I think a Minions watch was one of the first watches that I did, but I can't for the life of me remember which one, cause I wish, I wish I could, so I could just, you know, buy it and have that as, you know, this was my first, uh, first watch that I designed. Um, Darth Vader.
Everett	Are these like hyper affordable quartz watches?
Richard Vance	Yeah, so the ones that kind of the character watches, Peppa Pig, Minions, Star Wars stuff, etc. Most of it was kind of sort of it was an art worker role. So it was it was almost like you've got a template for a watch, super cheap plastic quartz watch, mostly aimed at kids, sort of £10, you know, which is essentially $10 now. You know, 10 bucks. We talk about that all the time. We love it.
Andrew	It's our favorite thing.
Richard Vance	Yeah, no, my trip to New York was far more expensive than I could ever have imagined. But yeah, moving swiftly on. Yeah, so it was mostly existing kind of templates of these cheap watches and applying approved artworks from these kind of licensees, such as, you know, Peppa Pig, whatever. So it was kind of a, at first it was, yeah, I was, I was happy to be doing it because it was my first job in London. It was a design related role, but I kind of got a little bit sick of it fairly quickly because it wasn't all that challenging. But that was my, that was, that was my start really.
Andrew	You really, really clung to the Peppa Pig part of that, you know, you were talking about several others. Was there like something weird that happened with Peppa Pig or was that the first one you designed? And it was just like, that's what stuck with you. Like I'm, I'm putting Peppa Pig on a watch.
Richard Vance	I think that's, that's the one that I talk about because I think most, most people from all countries seem to know Peppa Pig. You know, if I talk about like Pusheen or something, I don't know if that's like a global thing. Have you heard of that? Exactly, so it might not have resonated. So that's the reason I kind of stick to the ones that people seem to know. So Star Wars as well, that was one that those ones are actually quite fun to work on. I've still got a couple of samples of a Yoda watch and a Darth Vader watch that I designed probably five or six years ago.
Everett	And I actually, I think Peppa Pig, the artwork in Peppa Pig lends itself particularly well to a two-dimensional watch. Much like, like South Park, right? Peppa Pig is that very two-dimensional. I can actually see like... See yourself wearing Peppa Pig watches?
Andrew	I could, yeah. I'd wear a Peppa Pig watch. There's a whole line. Are you originally from London or was London like, go to the big city, go to university, get a job in London kind of thing?
Richard Vance	Yeah, the latter. I mean, so I only moved to the UK when I was 12. And then I was came to went to secondary school in Liverpool. So London for me was, yeah, it was it was just it was something else. It was kind of, you know, life in the big city. It was also when I finished, finished uni, I studied in Nottingham. I kind of I didn't really know where I should be going home was Liverpool, but it never really felt like home because I wasn't really brought up there. So I was kind of, yeah, kind of trying to figure out where I wanted to be. And London, you know, just to start a career is there's lots of opportunities. It's an exciting city. And one of the most important things, it's just where all my mates were as well.
Andrew	So, yeah. Where are you from originally then?
Richard Vance	So I was brought up in Southeast Asia in, uh, on the islands of Borneo, a country called Brunei. It's, uh, yeah. Yeah. My dad, so my, basically my dad, uh, specialized in tropical medicine. So kind of brought up in some, some weird and wonderful places, but yeah, coming to the UK was a bit of a culture shock, uh, from there, but no, I absolutely love my, my time there.
Andrew	You said tropical medicine.
Richard Vance	Yeah. Yeah.
Everett	Okay. Like the application of medicine in the tropics.
Richard Vance	Yeah, exactly. So, so, so for the first four years, for example, so from zero to four, I was in, um, in West Africa again with my dad's job and then from four to 12, um, in Brunei. And then when I went off to uni, my parents moved back out to, uh, to Gabon in West Africa, which meant any sort of summer holiday or Christmas holiday or any of the holidays during, during the uni term. You know, I'd go back and see my parents, which was pretty much just an awesome, awesome holiday, uh, for me and my brother. Um, yeah.
Everett	So, yeah, that sounds fantastic.
Richard Vance	Yeah, it was, it was, it was a lot of fun, a lot of fishing, um, a lot of relaxing. Yeah, it was, it was amazing.
Everett	Boats and beaches.
Richard Vance	Absolutely. Yeah.
Everett	Great. Can we talk a little bit, a little bit briefly, you don't have to talk much about it, but can we talk a little bit about your time at Braun? Because I think anybody who knows design, design, particularly 20th century design is familiar with Braun and Dieter Rams and, you know, what that company means for modern design. Braun obviously has moved on from the times where it was sort of the king of, you know, Bauhaus design. It's a different world, but, but still I assume those, those aspects of the culture are still there.
Richard Vance	A hundred percent. Yeah. So, It's funny because now when I talk about Braun or Brown, the first thing I often say is, you know, when people, if people don't know it straight away, then I'll say, oh, it's, you know, it's the Shaver brand. And they go, oh, yeah, you know, I know it. But you're right. It's a brand that's over 100 years old now and has, yeah, pretty, pretty incredible history, design history. As you said, D.Taram's kind of pioneered the Bauhaus movement and brought out some Some, yeah, pretty iconic products, uh, for the iPhone calculator, for instance. Yeah, exactly. That's, that's based off an old, I think that it's the E T 66, some sort of, you know, calculator that was introduced in, I think either the fifties or sixties. So, uh, I think even the, the clock as well, that was, that was based off, um, one of the original sort of clocks that was designed by Dietrich lubes, who was a guy that, yeah, throughout the sixties and I think up until the 80s, um, was responsible for the watches and clocks under, under, under Brown working with, with Dieter Rams. And for one of the projects that I was working on when I was there, he kind of came back. We, we plan to introduce, uh, reintroduce or reissue some of the watches that, that he designed, um, in the late 80s. Um, and then there's a kind of continuation on for, for that project. We worked on like an evolution watch where, you know, the original watches that he designed in the eighties, they were sort of, you know, 32 mil case size because that was the style, that was the fashion. Even reintroducing those now, they're kind of quirky and cool, but we worked on a project together to sort of, yeah, bring out an evolution watch, which was sort of more designed for, you know, the modern where it was, I think 39 or 40 mil. But that was a really fun project because it was this, you know, obviously generational gap in terms of, uh, you know, not only design practices, but, you know, even language, you know, my German is, is limited. I say limited, I mean, non-existent, uh, and, and, and, you know, his, his English wasn't so great. So it was a lot of kind of communicating very much, you know, via sketch. And he'd send me these technical drawings, which. You know, what I do when I'm building a watch is I do it on my computer. I use CADs, computer-aided design to, you know, to build it out. He was essentially kind of producing the finished product, but just via, you know, via hand. And it was, yeah, it's kind of a, it felt like a bit of a lost art and yeah, it was, it was a super cool, uh, super cool project.
Everett	Now, did I, did I, so, so you're very polite as we would expect from the English Uh, did I mispronounce Braun and did I hear you very subtly correct me on my pronunciation?
Richard Vance	Not really. It's sort of the, so the German pronunciation, the German pronunciation is Brown. Uh, but in English or it's, you know, most people say Braun, but the thing is even Braun or Brown haven't necessarily made up their mind because you look at adverts for the, you know, for the English market, either the UK market or the American market. And it's a 50-50 split, whether in the advert they say Braun or whether they say Brown. So they don't even know. So yeah, absolutely not correcting you. Half the time I just kind of flick between the two.
Andrew	They just want you to know how it's spelled. That's it. So you can Google it.
Everett	Fair enough. I'm going to stick with Braun based on that.
Andrew	You've talked about a pretty wide spectrum of design experience from I'm distilling it. I know you did more than this, but from like slapping Peppa Pig stickers on the dial of a watch and figuring out how to make it work to this really historic, really rich in culture Bauhaus design world. And now hearing that you have it shows in your watch designs. And I want to figure out where that transition occurred because you're in You're, you're in this design career. You're not, I mean, you're not nowhere. You're doing some really cool stuff. What causes you to pivot into launching your own brand?
Richard Vance	So the, the biggest thing was, well, the biggest credit is, is probably just boredom. Not with the work that I was doing, but the fact that lockdown hit, you know, restrictions were in place. And I just suddenly had loads of time on my hands. So I kind of started working away on some side projects to, you know, to, to try and refine my design skillset, uh, that weren't to do with my work directly. It was just working on some projects in my free time. And so that was kind of, that's kind of where it all started. And I think in terms of how it actually, you know, came to fruition, it was possibly in part like a bit of a rebellion from. Some of the brawn principles are kind of, to simplify it is sort of, it's quite minimalist. There's kind of almost rules that you follow to design a product and it just means it's sometimes somewhat restricting. So, for example, if you look at the entire kind of brawn assortment, the dials are either black or white, you know, color didn't really necessarily kind of serve as a, as a function for the base color of the dial. So hence why it was.
Everett	And if you want to color, if you want to color, it's going to be yellow.
Richard Vance	Yeah, exactly. And it's just on the hand, just on the hand. It's yellow. Exactly. But you know, never a yellow dial, for example. So I think that was almost my, my kind of rebellion. Um, so my, my rebellion in, in my free time was to go, all right, you know, first thing to do colorful dials. Um, So yeah, that's what I say, kind of the start of Studio Underdog was in part a rebellion from that, really.
Everett	Well, but that's, so there's two things. One, there's the idea, right? Or the feeling, right? What you're describing is an emotion, right? Rebellion is actually two parts, right? One is an emotion and two is the action. So at some point you were feeling rebellious enough to take action. How do you make that decision? And what does that decision making process look like in retrospect, obviously? Cause looking back so you can tell the story, however the hell you want Richard, it's our damn show. So, so you tell your story, how you make the decision to a draw a watch right in the way you draw products and B say, let's turn this into metal.
Richard Vance	So the decision to actually get started was, you know, it was an easy one because I was As I said, it was just a project that I was doing in my free time, and I didn't have any sort of great grand ambitions for it. Originally, I kind of gave myself a brief of a project where the finish line was pretty much uploading some illustrations and some renders to a Facebook group, a group called Microbrand Watches. So that was the project. That was the brief I'd set myself. So for a couple of weeks, I kind of worked, worked on that. Um, and it was, it was, it was just, yeah, a project to kill time during lockdown, uh, whilst the pubs were shut. So as soon as I pressed kind of upload on that Facebook group, uploaded some images, kind of gave a list of specs. At that point, I had no intention to kind of bring a product to market, which I think really, really not.
Andrew	I mean, you went through this entire process. Was that like your beta test of like, would people buy this?
Richard Vance	Who knows? Maybe.
Andrew	Cause that's a lot of effort, right? That's not, that's not an insignificant, you know, you can, you can write off. I had a ton of time. We all had a ton of time.
Richard Vance	None of us did this. Who knows? Maybe that's just a way that I was kind of justifying it to myself. Cause you know, the idea of kind of bringing a brand or a product to market, you know, without even, you know, that in itself seems like a, an impossible task. So maybe this was just my way of breaking it down. But for me, it very much felt like, you know, this was this was the project. And to be honest, I guess maybe a part of it was that was it was almost like it felt like a finish line, because if it didn't get any comments or if nobody really thought much about, you know, about the renders or the illustrations, that would have been end of project. Um, so I think I, yeah, that's, that's the approach I took and that's the way I was thinking about it. But fortunately, um, you know, the kind of the community in the, in this Facebook group sort of, you know, gave some, some really awesome, some really awesome feedback. Most of the comments were, were really positive and it encouraged me to kind of go ahead and make samples. There was some, you know, really kind of constructive criticisms and some changes that I made based on. on those Facebook comments that were made. So yeah, that was then kind of stage two was, right, let's get some samples made based on this. And fortunately, because of my experience, I had some connections, I had some contacts, and I knew instantly who I wanted to work with. Because I've met them, I've visited a number of factories in Switzerland in the Far East, So that was where I definitely had a head start compared to, you know, a lot of, a lot of brands that are kind of trying to bring products to market, especially during a pandemic where, you know, even now, if you're trying to find this, you know, a supplier in China, you can't go there, you can't meet them, which is so important. So that was something that I was very fortunate that I was able to do beforehand. Um, which meant I was able to kind of kickstart the sample process. And I had a relationship already with people that I trusted. And more importantly, they, you know, they knew who I was and it wasn't just an email out of the blue asking, you know, asking for samples. It was, you know, they knew who I was and unfortunately they, you know, they were willing to work together. So that was the next phase as it were, I kind of made samples based on the kind of the specs. And again, feedback was good. So, went on to the next step. So I very much kind of broke it down into mini projects. So it didn't feel like this incredibly daunting challenge of trying to bring a product to market. I think had I started out thinking that, yeah, it would have shaped up very differently. I'd have made very different decisions. One of the huge things I kind of credit the success of Studio Underdog to is the fact that when I was bringing it to market, I wasn't, I wasn't thinking commercially. I wasn't thinking, how can I bring a product to market that sells the most watches? Um, so that I think is, is a huge kind of part of, of the success. Cause it, you know, it meant I wasn't steered in terms of any of my decisions thinking, is someone going to buy this? I think had I, had I thought like that, I certainly wouldn't have ended up with a watermelon themes, you know, buy compacts chronograph.
Everett	Yeah. Right. Well, let's talk a little bit about the watch, because I think that's a good time to segue. You have a Bicompax. You're based on a Segal movement, which Andrew and I have waxed poetic about that movement a number of times on this show. We're huge fans of it. It's a swan neck regulator. It's also a beautiful movement. It's a column wheel chronograph. It's a fantastic movement, uh, really underappreciated for what it is. And I think that, uh, we see, uh, we've seen in the last three years, a number of brands starting to use it. What was that? So a, how, how much did that decision play into the watch, right? How much did the Seagull 1901 ST 1901 play into your design decision-making? Cause it's a huge part designing a chronograph is not like designing a three-hander. you can design a three-hander without knowing what your movement is. You cannot design a chronograph unless you know what your movement is. You've got to know ahead of time or at least have a pretty good idea.
Richard Vance	Yeah. It's actually kind of one of the first decisions that you have to make if, you know, unless you're, you have the luxury of, you know, having a, a manufacturer that's going to make a movement for you. The first thing, one of the first steps that you have to take is kind of selecting a movement. I remember in a podcast that Mike France was on, I think a few years ago, he said when they started with their watch brands, you know, with Christopher Ward, they didn't have that much experience initially. So they kind of worked with their design team, worked on a few watches, And they were creating all these kind of, you know, they started with the doll in terms of the aesthetic and they were creating all these cool functions, right? This is where the power reserve is going to go. This is where, you know, the sub seconds going to go. This is, you know, and, and then when it came to, all right, where's, where can we get a movement that does that? Oh, it, it doesn't exist. Oh, it's going to cost, it's going to cost X, you know, X hundreds of thousands, if not millions to actually get it made in years and years. So, you know, the process really has to kind of start with the selection of the movement. And as you said, it's a movement that sort of is quite widely appreciated among enthusiasts. And by this point, you know, I was an enthusiast and it was something that I thought was, you know, a great starting point because, you know, A, to the end consumer, but also to me, it's affordable, it's doable. And it's, it's a movement with an incredible history.
Andrew	Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Vance	That's a killer choice. Yeah, it's accessible. Sorry.
Everett	I think that the, no, that, that's okay. That happens. So we've got a little bit of just, I would say just a little bit of delay because of Zoom. Thank you. Thank you, Zoom, for, for giving us the ability to talk, but just a touch of delay. Um, the, the, For me, I think the cool thing about the seagull, the ST-1901 in particular, is that it's still extremely affordable. So if you compare that to, say, a 7750, which is a little bit different animal, obviously, and Swiss made and yada, yada, yada. But if you compare the the options from ETA or Valjoux or whatever, the SD-1901 is impossibly affordable. Like impossibly affordable because of the way it's made, where it's made, the marketing efforts, aka nil. You know, that movement does a thing in a way that really doesn't exist. A 1901, for instance, costs just a few dollars more than a Seiko MechaQuartz. Um, meanwhile, you've got a Columbo chronograph with, you know, at least in your instance, a swan neck regulator. I mean, that's an incredible, that's a horological, a horological mechanical movement that is important and beautiful and gorgeous. So yeah, I think it's a great choice.
Richard Vance	And there's nothing that even sort of comes remotely. Yeah. Remotely close, you know, close to in terms of price and, and as you, as, so as, as as I interrupted you as you're about to say, it's got that history. It's got that kind of, you know, that extra little bit of, of sort of where it's history. It's, and that's part of the storytelling of it as well.
Andrew	Yeah. So we start with the 1901. That was the decision that you made early on. I mean, this isn't a watch that you just drew a dial. I mean, you, you started with a chronograph. That was, that was your choice. I'm going to do a chronograph and I'm going to base it on a 1901. Yeah.
Everett	And then what? And then what? Yeah. Great, great question.
Richard Vance	Then it was, I guess that's where the kind of, that's where I started with the design challenges that I kind of put upon myself. So I knew I wanted to use color because that was a restriction that I had with the kind of the watches that I was working on for my job. Um, and I also just liked the aesthetic of, of a big eye chrono. So that's kind of where I started. And because I was using quite vibrant colors that with a two layer dial with the big eye, quite contrasting. It was, it creates quite a weight to one side of the dial. And then I was working with different sort of working with the text to kind of try and offset that and rebalance the dial. And that's where I kind of was moving the logo around with some of the text at the 12 o'clock position. And I split the text between the chrono hand, which was something initially that I was doing purely to try and aesthetically balance out that dial. And it worked out in such a way that it all clicked into position where the fact that because I'd done that, it meant the chrono hand, when at 12, passed seamlessly through the text without interrupting it or cutting the logo in half. Right. Yeah, it kind of just clicked into place. And that was sort of, that was kind of the fun of the, you know, the design process. And that was the challenge that at that point, you know, I felt like I'd overcome and, and, and hence why I was kind of happy to, to share the project. And that's, that's, I think, you know, also been one of the things that, that, that people quite enjoyed.
Everett	Did you find, so, so you, you eventually finalize your design, you, you, you go live, you're, you're, in existing communities, how quick was the reception? Because for us, from my perspective here in the Pacific Northwest United States, it's like Studio Underdog came out of nowhere. We didn't know about them one month and then the next month it was like Studio Underdog's a major player in the enthusiast microbrand watch scene. Did it feel that way from the London offices of Studio Underdog, aka your bedroom?
Richard Vance	So at the start it was, it's, yeah, it's difficult to kind of pinpoint exactly when, you know, if there was a flip, a switch that flipped that it sort of everybody suddenly knew about the brand. I think it's, it's obviously happened quite quickly in the, you know, I only launched the brand in March of last year. That's when I went, you know, started the crowdfunding campaign and that's, that's, you know, what, what helped to bring the products to market. You know, when I was starting with that, When I was starting with that, people were obviously writing great comments on my Facebook and sharing some stuff on Instagram and people were saying, this is great. But, you know, whether anyone's actually going to put their hard-earned cash into backing a project, you never know until you go live.
Everett	Yeah, that was the money's in the bank account.
Richard Vance	Right. Exactly. Um, so, so that was, you know, the, the day I went live, that, that was a, you know, a lot of fun. I kind of hit my goal quite quickly. Um, and I was like, okay, you know, shit, this is, this is really, really happening now. And I was excited because it was really happening, but I was also, I was, I was nervous. So this was a level of responsibility. Now people were putting their trust in me.
Andrew	Um, and now you had a bucket load of other people's money.
Richard Vance	Yeah. Exactly it's it's it's a responsibility um but no that was yeah i'm so obviously i'm so glad i i did do that and uh you know i think after i've kind of fulfilled quite a few batches now as it were that was the way i've sort of been operating uh where i've been kind of ordering as many watches as i could and then making them available and rinse and repeat um so now people have seen that you know i'm watches are getting out there and yeah, it's just been great.
Everett	Let's talk about the watch. And I'm going to go kind of, I'm going to go kind of piece by piece. We've talked about the big eye chronograph by Compax design, uh, split text on the dial. So we've talked about those things. Uh, let's go to the next thing that really catches my eye, which is that crystal. Tell me about the crystal.
Richard Vance	So the, the crystal is, so it's a Sapphire crystal, uh, double domed, I kind of wanted to have that sort of like a vintage aesthetic. So that was kind of the kind of one of the challenges again, or one of the design goals that I set myself was, I wanted it to look, you know, referencing sort of vintage chronos from the 60s. So that's why I chose this. Yeah, this double domed box style sapphire. And as well as kind of the case shape. And one of the reasons that I keep the straps quite subtle in their color. They're usually sort of, uh, you know, fairly monotone is because I almost want the watch from any of any other angle of the front to look like a watch from the sixties. And then when you see it from the front, that modern dial is, is super punchy.
Everett	Um, did, did you ever consider a, uh, a Sapphire crystal?
Richard Vance	Yeah, it is. It is Sapphire.
Everett	All right. Excuse me. Excuse me. Did you ever consider an acrylic crystal?
Richard Vance	I considered it, yeah. But I decided to go with sapphire. I can't remember why. It's the right decision.
Everett	It seems like acrylic would
Andrew	distort the color, like the pop and the vibrance of a vibrancy.
Everett	Yeah. You get that really laser. Yeah.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	It seems like it would be disruptive to the, I want this Sapphire to be crystal personally, because it's so much crystal that, you know, you're going to bash it. Like I want this crystal to be Sapphire. If I'm wearing this watch, uh, I want it to be Sapphire. So I'm glad you did that. Um, talk to us about the pushers because the, the, the pusher design here, I think is perhaps the it's understated, but perhaps the most striking design detail of the watch. Once you get past the dials, once you get past the, Oh my fucking God, look at that pink dial. Uh, talk to us about the pushers.
Richard Vance	I mean, again, a lot of it was sort of referencing, referencing watches that, you know, that I'd seen and that I'd appreciated and this sort of this juxtaposition between super old-school tech, you know, a movement that was designed in the 40s, case shape that again was referencing chronos from the 60s, and I thought these pushes just kind of, you know, aesthetically worked quite well, kind of didn't sort of draw the focus or the attention away from the dial, which is kind of what I wanted the, you know, the focus to be. So it was Again, it was just, it was part of the process. I've got sketches and I've got illustrations where I've, I've tried different, um, pusher styles, but this was the one that I felt just, you know, just worked.
Everett	I think, I think rectangular pushers are, are really underused. And I think part of that is because of integration, you know, the round plunger style or whatever is, is easy, right. Or, or perhaps, you know, expected and common expected.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	I really like, you know, so there's obviously the Speedmaster Moonwatch, of which I'm an owner, but then there's the Bulova Moonwatch, formerly known as the Moonwatch, which has those rectangles. And I think, gosh, that is such a modern, but not modern like 2021 or 2022 modern, but modern like 1960s modern Disneyland. Yeah.
Andrew	Future. We're looking at 2025 right now. That's right.
Everett	Modern in that design sense and I think it's a great aesthetic for the watch you've done here.
Richard Vance	Thank you.
Everett	Gen 2, let's talk about Gen 2 because your Gen 2s are just through pre-order. You've closed your pre-orders, I think on everything, is that right?
Richard Vance	Yeah, yeah. So at the moment, the model that I've been following, originally what I was doing was, as I said, I would order as much stock as I possibly could. I've not taken on any sort of, uh, investors. Um, so after, after the original campaign, I was just using them my own money to place as many orders as I could. I'd make them available via my website. Um, and then I'd sort of, I guess, rinse and repeat as it were, but the kind of the, the demand was, um, was increasing faster than my production capacity. So, what was happening is I'd make the products available and they'd sell out quite quickly, which is obviously great, but it was leaving people quite rightly frustrated, uh, where they, you know, they'd come on, they'd be, you know, following the brand for a while, wanting to, you know, wanting to get a watch, wanting to support, wanting to, to, to play a part, uh, in the growth of the brand and, you know, entering the credit card details sold out, which is not fun for anyone. So, In September of this year, so a couple of months ago, I kind of changed the model where instead of having a certain number available, I kind of took a step backwards and went more to the, I guess the pre-order model where I set a window. So in September there was a six hour window where people could place their order and then it would be fulfilled, uh, you know, uh, up to sort of five months or so later. which has worked quite well. People seem to be, to be happy with that because at least they can kind of, you know, get the order in and it's not as frustrating as, as you know, seeing the sold out sign. So yeah, that's kind of the model that I'm, that I'm following now. Six hours. Yeah. So I, you know, I, six hours felt like enough, you know, if it felt like a good, a good window, um, where anyone that was, was excited enough or, or wanting to, to get their hands on one, it was, it was six hours. There's plenty of time to, to be, to place the order.
Everett	So that was the one minute if you, if you, if you're ready for it, right. If you're ready for it, you know, you want it and you're ready.
Richard Vance	And I guess the, the, the people that I wanted to get, get the watches were the people that on prior launches had been there on the launch, you know, I usually launch at three o'clock. So they'd been there at three o'clock. They've been there with their, you know, their cards. They kind of, they've done everything right. And then they, you know, just someone would get there before them and it would sell out. And that's, that's who I wanted to make sure was able to get the watches. So that's why six hours, you know, for, for anyone like that, or anyone that, you know, looks at their watch and it's four o'clock and they go, Oh no, I've missed it. You know, but I desperately wanted it. Well, again, six hours kind of, you know, covers that. So.
Everett	Why not, why not, uh, 12 hours or 24 hours or a week?
Richard Vance	Um, I could have done, but you know, six. So, so interestingly enough, actually, I did, um, uh, a collaboration piece earlier in the, earlier in the year, which was a strawberries and cream, uh, themed chrono. And that was, uh, I did it for a week. So it was essentially, yeah, it was essentially I did a pre-order system for a week. And I can see from that, that, you know, the, the sales data from that week, day one, vast majority of the sales, you know, were done. So it was often kind of the enthusiast market. If they want a product, they'll, they'll pick it up on day one. You think maybe people might wait, you know, to the end, to the last day before pulling the trigger, but that's, yeah, that just doesn't happen. And it's, it's the same for, for Kickstarters. If you, if you look at kind of the, um, sales across, if a Kickstarter, whether it does a week, two weeks, a month, you know, day one is always the, um, is always the lion's share. Exactly. And, and it kind of, it applied on, on a micro scale. to six hours as well. So, you know, hour one, vast majority of the people that wanted, well, you know, within 10 minutes, I'd say even, was the vast majority. And then, yeah, in the next few hours, people had that time. So yeah.
Andrew	And you just chum the water and, you know, everyone shows up and gets the feeding frenzy done and then.
Richard Vance	And then the hard work and then the hard work begins. Yeah, that's when I have to, uh, start making watches. So yeah, the, the, the one in September was, was brilliant because it, it kind of, it really gave me a, an understanding as to how many people were really wanting a watch before it was, I'd have a certain quantity and, and that would go. And I never really knew the level of demand, whereas this kind of gave me, gave me an insight, which, which was great.
Everett	So your colors are all to a watch named after your watches are all named to a watch after a color. Uh, you don't have a, there's no obvious model name now with your gen two that you've just wrapped up or that you've wrapped up pre-orders on now. Um, they're referred to as the color and, and gen two, at this point, we're talking about all essentially the same watch. Um, I assume, and maybe I shouldn't, but I assume that at some point you are probably thinking about other watches because you're a designer and you're going to, your brain's going to go in different directions. Two questions, two parter. A, um, does that naming convention feel restrictive now that you've, that you've decided and it's, those decisions have been made and two, moving down the road, what do you do with that?
Richard Vance	So for the naming, what do you mean?
Andrew	Well, if you were to make a field watch, what do you name that watch? Yeah, I'll pull it up. Because it can't just be your watermelon anymore. Because watermelon is your watermelon chronograph.
Everett	Or perhaps pumpkin. Pumpkin is a Bicompax ST1901 Big Eye Chronograph. But you've not called it that. You've called it pumpkin. So does Does that naming convention in and of itself seem limiting to you? And perhaps not. I can see you're not quite offended at the question, but there's a hint of offense.
Richard Vance	No, there's not. No, I'm sort of laughing because the truth is, a lot of other watch brands will have that knowledge, future-proofing their product assortment. And it's probably why many watches have ridiculous codes for their names instead of names. But for me, when I started, you know, I wasn't trying to future-proof the brand. I wasn't thinking, you know, years ahead. I was figuring out what I might do tomorrow. So yeah, I hadn't actually crossed my mind before I'd launched a watch, but I'm sure I'll find some solution. You'll figure it out.
Andrew	You're going to have a whole pumpkin line of different varieties of pumpkin. You're going to have, you know, a gourd.
Richard Vance	Exactly. That's sort of my approach is very much, you know, I'll figure it out as I go. I think that's the easiest way I kind of manage things rather than getting too ahead of myself or wrapped up.
Andrew	It seems to be working. I want to touch on something A little, I mean, definitely related. One of the ways that we became aware of the brand was via Mike France with respect to the UK based watchmaking world community. I'm not really sure how to define that community. Uh, I know that it exists, uh, and I forget the name of it. I should've looked it up before I decided to talk about this. Um, yeah, the Alliance. Can you talk to me about that? Talk to me about the value that that's added to you. And I mean, Mike talked about it with a lot of pride, like a lot of excitement. This is a revitalization of British watchmaking. And I want to hear your perspective as a newcomer to the industry, as a newcomer to the Alliance and just what that means to you.
Richard Vance	So yeah, I'm glad you've asked that. So when I was starting out, you know, nobody knew who or what Studio Underdog was. So of course, the people that I wanted to reach out to were the people that I respected, the people that, you know, were doing or had done it, you know, had brought, you know, were watch brands, had brought products to market. And I wanted to, you know, to learn off those people. So I sent messages to to various watch brands. I sent messages to Nicholas from Fears Watches, Mike from Christopher Ward. And I was just trying to get some either feedback or some advice. I would take a one word email reply would have made my day. But I was expecting, I'd expect hostility or I'd expect in any other market if a potential competitor or even a non-existent competitor is sending you emails, I think a lot of the time they wouldn't really expect a response. But it was the total opposite. Any question I had, I was getting a wealth of advice. I was able to to meet Mike France and we spoke openly about what Christopher Ward was doing, what I was planning on doing. And I think that it really surprised me. And it was a case where, because British watchmaking as a whole is such a small little pocket, small little market, every sort of British watch brand is almost under the understanding that A rising tide lifts all boats. Every, you know, if we, if it's almost, if we all kind of work together, it's, you know, everyone succeeds. It's not, it doesn't feel like a competition or that we're competing. So that was something that, you know, that, that really surprised me. And I think that's what, you know, the Alliance has been great for. It's, it's sort of a network where people are able to ask questions. And now it also means when, when brands are coming to me or I get students who are studying product design. They're coming to me and asking questions. I'm quite keen to share what I've learned in the last few years, which is kind of a knock-on effect of that. So, yeah, it seems to be something that we're working together towards, and it's something that I'm interested in as well. British watchmaking in the UK is such a small market. and I'm even as a little brand, I'm kind of trying to take the steps to play my small, small role. So that's what, you know, you've referred to the generation two that's gen two models. Now they're assembled in the UK and we've, we work with a British strap maker, a guy called the strap tailor. So he makes all our straps. He's a, you know, again, a British brand. So I'm kind of doing my small things to, to, you know, to, to try and play my part in, in, Yeah, and the growth of British horology. Not developing a British movement just yet, leave that to Roger Smith, but yeah.
Andrew	That sense of community and collaboration has been something that has been, that I've seen just permeate throughout this small brand industry. And it is, So cool. And I think windup was really one of the coolest examples that I really got to see that in person. Cause we talked to brand owners all the time and they're like, Oh yeah, you know, I talked to this person, they helped talk to this person, they helped. And you never really can tell if it's just paying lip service, if it's like, Oh, like, Oh, I know this guy and they're cool and we're friends. And that means that I'm cool. Or if there's like really that collaborative environment. And when I, when I saw all these people together at windup, not just friendly, but truly in support of one another. It was, it was a really cool thing. That's, that's, I mean, spanning the globe evidently and in watchmaking and in this small brand industry. And I'm, I'm, I don't know. I'm just, I may be waxing poetic on it because it's, it's a really cool thing to see in an industry that really ought to be really competitive. Uh, and it's just not, it's really collaborative. And I'm glad that you got to experience that and be a part of that and are paying it back now in the ways that you've talked about. And that's awesome.
Richard Vance	Yeah. And that's, you know, again, I guess that's not necessarily just restricted kind of to, you know, to British Horology. I mean, even at Windup, you know, I went and I picked up a watch from a different brand. You know, I bought a watch and I had a couple of brand owners come to me and buy you know, one of my watches. So it's also, you know, I like to think it's probably not necessarily a case that we're buying them to kind of be comparing and contrasting. It's because we're genuinely interested. I think that's one of the great things about micro brands, which I consider myself one, is the fact that often the owners behind them are enthusiasts themselves, which is something that, again, is quite unique in terms of, yeah, it's quite unique to that you know, that micro-brand market. And if you, if you message a micro-brand on Instagram, you're more than likely going to get the person replying is the person that designed the watch, developed the watch, sourced the, you know, sourced the components, et cetera, which again is, is quite a, quite a novelty. And I think that's something that's super cool. So yeah, there's my, uh, picked up, uh, one of the brew watches, which, uh, I've been, I've admired for a long time.
Everett	That's such a good watch. That's such a good watch. And I think in some ways you've tapped in on some of the same hype. I don't mean that word pejoratively at all. The same feel. The same feel as, you know, John showed up a handful of years ago and I think his first few releases were incredibly cool and super different. It took him a couple generations to kind of figure out, you know, this is the actual, this is actually what brew is.
Andrew	You're talking about brew watches. He showed us a brew watch that he acquired at Windham.
Everett	Yeah, sorry. That's good, Andrew. I forget sometimes that people can't see us.
Andrew	It's best that they don't.
Everett	It feels like you've tapped into some of that same, you know, like, what is this? Why is this in front of me? And holy shit, where can I get one, right?
Andrew	Yeah, that seemed like whimsy and fun simultaneously with something that's cool as shit. really delicate balance that's been struck.
Richard Vance	Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And that was, that was, um, you know, I credit, I credit Jonathan a lot actually, cause again, before I'd even started the brand, it was, you know, when Clubhouse was all the rage, you remember that?
Everett	Yeah, right. Mid 2020.
Richard Vance	A hundred percent. So that was, that was before I'd even, that was before I'd even started, uh, started the brand. And he was an inspiration really, because When I decided that I was wanting to bring this product to market, I could look at his products and say, right, look, what he's doing is a niche within a niche and it's successful. My ambition is also to do that. It's something quite quirky. It's a niche within a niche. So again, anytime I saw him being on Clubhouse talking, I'd tune in and I'd listen to him and I'd be learning. And occasionally I'd raise the courage to lift your hand. I think that's what you had to do in clubhouse and you could be invited in to, you know, to, to talk and have your word. So again, you know, he, he gave me the time of day before I'd even launched and I was talking about what I was doing and he was giving me advice and, and again, he's, you know, and he still, he still does so, which is, which is awesome. So yeah, just a kind of final point on that kind of collaborative, uh, you know, sense in, in this industry.
Everett	Well, and I think someone like Jonathan, and we've talked a lot about him today, Mike France, these are two guys that in some ways define this industry, right? They're both heads of incredibly successful companies, much different companies, right? Companies that are different in terms of their trajectories, their experience and backgrounds, and in terms of the watches they create. But nonetheless, I think that those two people for me probably And there's a couple other brands that I throw into this conversation as well. But when I think about personalities, it's those two people that I think really define what this community is. These are people with their own success and their own reasons to not give a shit about anybody else. And yet they're both so gracious and so magnanimous. humble in ways that they probably shouldn't be humble or that you might not expect them to be humble. And that is in some way, I think the personality that the industry sort of idolizes, right? It's these people that will talk to you, you know, talk to you about what it is, whether it's watches or life, you know, your job, or, you know, we've had conversations with Mike off the air. And it's like, this guy is so... You wanna be my dad? Yeah. Michael, you adopt me. Because here's this guy who's a serious businessman running a serious business, and he just has time and is interested and curious and lovely. So I'm glad that we got to John too, because I really do think those guys are amazing. And for us, I know they've both been huge in what we're doing here with 40 and 20, and it's been Uh, you know, a long time now that we've known those guys and still today, you know, I, I see Mike and it's like, Hey, when are we going to get coffee? You know? Uh, yeah, that is, that is this environment. And I think you guys have something special in the UK as well. Um, the Alliance and whatever, but still just this burgeoning community that is maybe not, maybe not the most obvious place for such a fantastic, you know, the companies that I think of from the UK, you know, off the top of my head. Obviously you can just start with Christopher Ward if you want to, but we've got you, we've got Nick and a handful of others. It's just a crazy cool environment for interesting things to be happening.
Andrew	And it's really ripe too. British watchmaking has a very long and fascinating and exciting history and to see it revitalization is cool. And it's not revitalization in the way of zombie brands. It's revitalization in the way of the idea of British watchmaking and this independent spirit and this exciting spirit and you being a part of it is really cool.
Richard Vance	For sure. For sure. And you know, and on that as well in terms of kind of, you know, the development of British horology, the, the Christopher Woods sort of latest release there, Bel Canto, which no doubt you guys have spoken about.
Everett	We were one of the first, we were amongst the first people to put hands on that watch.
Andrew	I watched Mike France open up his trench coat and expose it to me.
Richard Vance	Yeah. So you guys got the inside scoop. I didn't, you know, I didn't even have that luxury. So, you know, you guys.
Andrew	You were bogged down. You were otherwise engaged.
Richard Vance	But that, you know, that's a watch that really is kind of, that shows that is hugely motivating, you know, for me seeing a British brand, fine. They've got 15 years experience on me. So, you know, I'm under no illusions that I'm not going to be able to sort of emulate anything quite close to that. So split seconds is next. Exactly. You know, that seems somewhat more achievable when compared to what they've done with the Valcanto. Yeah, in terms of kind of British horology, steps are already happening. I think that's something that even that watch alone is going to be pushing the envelope forward, as it were.
Everett	So Richard, in your social media and on your website, you haven't been all too expressive about what's coming next for you. And so I assume that there Uh, uh, there is a certain amount of secrecy still at this stage of the game. But if you would, if you would humor us, give us a sneak peek or a tease or, or even, even some philosophies. Yeah, there's a smile. There's a big smile.
Andrew	There's a, there's a big smile.
Richard Vance	There's some, what do we got to look forward to? There's a few projects. There's a, there's a couple of projects, but the one that I'm sort of most excited about is, uh, is a field watch that I've been developing. Um, which. yeah i think is i'm excited about i i can see because i think you meant yeah you mentioned a field watch and i uh yeah i was i was laughing about that but um yeah field watches is is the next thing on the agenda originally i was planning on launching it at uh wind up um because i'm to be honest i'm i'm pretty much there with the development of it and i'm i'm really excited to launch it but sometimes i know that i need to kind of slow down pace myself I want to make sure that I've fulfilled my outstanding orders. There's people that pre-ordered and are waiting for a watch. I want to make sure that they get a watch, they're happy before I start releasing newness.
Everett	Are we talking about like dirty dozen meets peanut butter and jelly? What do we, give us a teaser here.
Richard Vance	That's a great idea. I'll have to start working on that actually.
Andrew	We're also open to collaborative releases.
Everett	You can pay us for that one.
Richard Vance	I, yeah, I actually do really like that. Um, so, so the field watch I think is really, so I've obviously had a really successful chronograph introduction and you know, people are aware of the Studio Underdog brand, but I don't think, you know, everyone's kind of vision as to what next, what's next is probably slightly different. I'm sure some people just think that, okay, Studio Underdog, watermelon man, he just puts watermelon colors on a watch. That's his, that's his thing. Whereas I think there's which is what I've done currently, but I think there's a lot more to the brand than that. I think the way I kind of am thinking about it is for the Corona range, you know, the innovation that I brought to it was the use of color and the use of, you know, playfulness on the dial and, and, and, and working with the text elements, et cetera. So it was kind of, the innovation was by design and color. And I kind of want to do something slightly different for the Field Watch, where there's innovation. Don't get me wrong, colour is always going to be an important thing for Studio Underdog, but there's innovation in different ways. It sounds a little bit abstract, but I think this is, yeah, this is kind of going to cement, you know, what the DNA of the brand is and hopefully is kind of my second album, as it were. And, you know, if we're talking about second albums, successful second albums, is always something that doesn't sound like the first album. Right. Yeah. So it's something that, again, I'm super excited to launch. I'm really happy with it. So, yeah, just a little bit more time, I think probably Q2, Q3, Q2 next year is what I'm looking at now.
Andrew	I have a final question. How do you as a one-man show who is kind of the definition of pushing boundaries, tempering that. How are you alone looking at your designs and keeping them from going too far? I mean, I know there must be some bizarro shit that is saved as an idea on your computer? Like the things that even you were like, nah, that's just not going to work. What are you using as your litmus test for like, this is palatable, this is reasonable. And how are you kind of keeping yourself in that safe space of I'm going to push the envelope a little bit without like just throwing that thing off the table?
Richard Vance	So it's a good question. So it's kind of tough. So, One thing that's challenging being a one-man band is, yeah, is don't necessarily have people to, I don't have a team to bounce ideas off. So I'm just working away.
Andrew	You have nobody to say, no, no, no, Richard, that's a terrible idea. No.
Richard Vance	Yeah, exactly.
Andrew	I like it. I like the innovation. I appreciate the, the, you know, the, the ambition, but no, that's stupid.
Richard Vance	But again, do you know what, if, if I did have someone, you know, saying that again, people would have looked at a watermelon being chronograph and gone, come on, man, you've got to, If you want to sell watches, you can't be doing that. So, so, so maybe that's.
Andrew	Bizarro markers on your chocolate chips. Like. Exactly.
Richard Vance	Exactly. So, so, so maybe that's, maybe that's a good thing. And, and, and again, sort of my, my limitation to some extent, again, because it's a one man band, I'm doing the design. I'm also doing the product development and, you know, working with suppliers to get that made. If I do a design that is so incredibly bonkers that it's impossible to manufacture. well, I'm the one that's going to have to deal with that challenge. Um, so there's, there's always that, that, and you know, that, that again, part of my background in terms of sort of my product design and degree I worked in was, was an engineering degree. I'm always thinking about fit for manufacture. So, so that's something where I'm some, you know, I sometimes limit myself in terms of what's actually achievable. Um, but yeah, I, I don't know. I kind of, One thing that I am, I'll admit, that I'm struggling with now is when I started, the focus was the design, was the product design and then kind of bringing it to market was the part that I just, you know, was the next step that I have to do. Now I'm running a business. I've got no experience running a business and now I have to try and figure all that out. So we're going to see safer designs in the name of running a business. No, the biggest challenge is making sure that I dedicate the time to what makes my brand successful, which is the design. Because at the moment I can lose a day by looking at you know, accounts, trying to figure out bookkeeping, looking at VAT returns. And my head just wants to explode. And, and, you know, what would be best for the brand is if I'm just designing, which is, is, you know, so I need to always keep that on the back of my mind.
Everett	You need a business guy is what you need.
Richard Vance	I need a business dude. Yeah.
Everett	Yeah. Yeah. Well, that I'm really excited. So, so tell us, so tell us right now where we can find Studio Underdog and because pre-orders are closed, tell people when the next opportunity they might have to be able to take part in this.
Richard Vance	So, um, studio underdog, so underdog.com, uh, the O dog is a zero. Yeah.
Everett	It's a zero, right?
Richard Vance	Yeah. So underdog.com, um, or just type in, I guess, I think watermelon watch. I think now that, that shoots you to studio underdog, which is great. So that, that'll get you there. Um, yeah, Instagram, Facebook, all the same stuff. Um, and then in terms of the next kind of, yeah, the future availability, I don't really know, to be honest, my, my main focus at the moment is fulfilling outstanding orders. Um, I've, I've kind of from the orders that I placed, I've overordered so I will have stock available so I'd say probably April time possibly but the best thing to do is you know again I'm as is quite evident I'm figuring out as I go but the best thing to do is is go onto my website and I've got a link that to sign up to get to get notified with with updates so that's that's probably the best The best thing to do if anyone is interested in seeing what I'm doing in terms of being updated with newness or, or, or interested in, in grabbing a restock in, in, in one of the short windows. Yeah.
Everett	Richard, we're going to move on to other things. And I always start with Andrew, Andrew, other things. What do you got? I have another thing.
Andrew	And it's, it's a little bit of a, of a weird other thing.
Everett	Always. Always. Other things are supposed to be weird.
Andrew	So it's something I've had for a really long time. And it's something I really like. And when I got it, I got it for a specific purpose. And the longer I've had it, I've realized just the versatility. So it's from a company called Tactical Taylor. I know that company. Tactical Taylor is a gear-do, which is colloquialism for a gear weirdo. It's a gear-do Aimed towards the tactical folks in the world. Manufacture military people by tactical Taylor or like real Geardo.
Everett	Right. Right. Military adjacent. Yeah. By way of their stylistic decisions.
Andrew	But also the functionality. Yeah. Yeah. So I have this thing. It's called their fight light admin pouch enhanced. And we've talked about kind of utility things before, you know, you had your like EDC, like hardened board, elastic straps. Yeah. This is really, really similar to that. And it is a, I need to get the dimensions five by eight by two inches deep pouch. It's a, it's a clutch. It's a, it's a dude's clutch. Okay. Yeah.
Everett	I need a dude's clutch.
Andrew	But the thing is, it doesn't have a strap that you can like wrap around your wrist. uh nor nor does it have like a a weird gold uh pin on it denoting the brand okay um so i dig this thing i got it while i was in the army and i i got it for its very specific application there and this is a five by eight by two inch deep pouch with a full zipper on three sides of the rectangle that opens up it's got some uh cord to keep it from opening up all the way. Elastic straps on the inside for which to hold your things like elastic, like molly webbing, but elastic to hold your things, a waterproof Velcro topped pouch for which to hold documents. And that's it.
Everett	It's very simple. One side has to have like a little, like a notebook holder, like a right in the rain holder or something.
Andrew	It has It is. It has a little pocket. It's a clutch, right? And the reason it's acceptable for me to have this clutch is because it is made by a company called Tactical Tailor.
Everett	And also because we don't care about rules.
Andrew	Exactly. So I, when I got out of the army and I stopped having this on a vest, I was like, well, I still want to use this thing because it costs 70 bucks. And it was really, really valuable to me while I was wearing it in its application. Since then, This has become like my, uh, my, my car emergency kit.
Everett	Okay.
Andrew	It, it goes in any car I get into when I'm going to be driving it for a prolonged period of time. It's small, right? I just grab it. I throw it in the little pocket in your, in your door panel. Sure. I keep my, I keep a pen in it. I keep a knife in it, a multi-tool, a window break thing, just like no, like little shit, double a batteries. It's got little, those elastic bands hold themselves well enough that you can put all the stupid things that you need that you don't think you need, right? It's got chapstick pens, a window break, a seatbelt cutter, all those little things like that, that little emergency kit that just like, yeah, just in case. And it takes up absolutely no space. So maybe this isn't the one for you because it is 70 bucks, but there'll be a link to it in the show notes. It's it.
Everett	No, wait, hold on. I'm going to interrupt you. because it's 70 bucks and it's worth 70 bucks. This is a super fucking cool thing from a super cool company. You could buy this thing, very similar thing I'm guessing, from China and it would be fine and it would probably even be good. This is a really cool company owned by really cool people and this device is fantastic.
Andrew	And it's a no bullshit thing. This thing has been through the absolute ringer. It's Cordura, it's got a like a bomb proof zipper. Made in the United States. Yep. And I love this thing. It is my clutch that goes with me in any car I'm ever in. And I love it. And I would recommend that you build your own little small emergency kit because emergencies don't happen when you want them to. And if you're not prepared, you're not prepared. And that's where I keep all my emergency shit. Because number one, I have all that stuff already in my truck. My wife does not have it in her car.
Everett	There's an agenda here.
Andrew	Rental cars don't have it. This is my like, I'm going to throw it. I'm going to have it because I know that unless I'm in my car and unless I'm living like the life that I live, like whether it be, you know, call it whatever you will. Neurosis is probably what most people would call it. It doesn't exist outside of the little sphere of influence that I have. So I have my little pouch that I have all my things. When I go places, like if I have to have like additional documents, like a passport or something that goes right in there, I fucking love this thing. Yeah. I was so glad that I finally pulled it off of my stuff and filled it with normal, useful things. It, for those of you who are gear does, it has, uh molly stripping and velcro on the front they use malice clips which is the molly alice combination uh clips on the back for mounting this thing is money and it was worth every penny and i've gotten 70 dollars and more of use out of this thing link in the show notes check it out and just look at tactical taylor stuff if you are in any way a geardo Tactical Taylor's got some good shit. And if you are a Gyrdo, you are aware of Tactical Taylor.
Everett	Richard Bentz, pronounced like fence.
Andrew	Not bonk. Not bank.
Everett	Not bonk or bank. Richard Bentz, other things. What do you got?
Richard Vance	Nice. So I've thought long and hard about this. I've absolutely not just looked around my desk. It's been weeks. No, no. It's been weeks. This has been weeks. Weeks in the meeting. Yeah. Yeah. So my other thing. is as you can probably tell i'm sort of i'm not the most organized person yeah i'm british that's true but i'm also not the most organized person and i like many many people have drawers that are just filled with random stuff you know if i've got some batteries i've got some batteries are they new are they dead I don't know. They're going in the drawer. Who knows? You know, I've got a pen. We'll know when we put them in the thing. Exactly. There's only one way to find out. So, you know, you've got markers, you've got pens, you've got wires and cables, you stick them in the drawer, they're gone forever. You know, they just disappear into the ether that is this drawer.
Andrew	You need a fightlight admin pouch.
Richard Vance	My other thing is, you know, it's kind of like a, you know, an admin pouch. a desk drawer divider. I assume that's what you call it. And it's just, this one's a kind of a rigid felt divider, pretty much in the exact dimensions of the drawer that I have that separates, that kind of separates what is, you know, the drawer is originally just a single cavity where everything gets jumbled together. It splits it into, let's see, one, two, eight different cavities that you can then organize stuff in. So I've got one that's full of pens, one that's full of batteries. Again, I still don't really know if the batteries are full or empty, but, uh, yeah, that's my, they're in one place and I know where they are and they don't disappear. You know, I can see them, you know, if I need a battery, I'll go, all right, I'm going to the, you know, the drawer that is now beautifully laid out and I'm picking up a battery. So that's, That's my other thing. I guess they're called drawer dividers. I think that probably cost a couple of quid on Amazon.
Andrew	I got to say, just looking at the divider you pulled out, it was very organized.
Everett	And it was deep too. You know what? I feel like desk dividers are usually thin.
Andrew	And I want to, I want, give me. Give me something that I can mound. Give me the depth of my drawer.
Everett	That was good.
Andrew	I need a mountain of dead batteries. I don't need a fucking battery.
Everett	Alright, I've got another thing. Do me. It is not a new thing. It is not a new thing. It is an old thing, much like yours, Andrew. It's not a thing I've had for a while. It's actually a new thing to me. I, this weekend, watched a movie with my kids, and it's an old movie. It is a movie from, I don't know, a long time ago. It's a movie from so long ago that Shia LaBeouf was a baby, and not a baby, but he was a teenager. It's a movie called Holes, and this is based on a book that I read a long time ago. 2003 film. By Lewis Sacker. And the book is really good. And I recommend it. It's like, I think you'd call this young adult fiction, which I'm not above. I'm a young adult. But I watched this movie and I don't know why, but I always suspected that this movie would be a letdown.
Andrew	You've never seen that movie?
Everett	Because the movie is so good. Or because the book is so good. Excuse me. And I could not have been more wrong. So I'm going to say that this movie is very much in the vein of the Sandlot, which is very much. I think the Sandlot is like perhaps the defining movie of that genre of that generation and that genre. And I think this thing stands up toe to toe. I was, you know, this this movie's been out for 20 years now, as Andrew stated, and it is probably many of you have seen it. But but I think it I think it deserves a second look. And so I'm just going to walk through I'm just going to walk through the cast. The notable cast, not the entire cast. Shia LaBeouf, Patricia Arquette, Jon Voight, Sigourney Weaver, Henry Winkler, Chauvin Fallon Hogan, Ertha Kitt, Tim Blake Nelson, Rick motherfucking Fox. Yes. So look, this is kind of a box office bust. Just start with the cast. Start with the cast. And this cast is totally incredible. The storytelling is done in a way that I found completely charming. They stuck with the book in a lot of ways, and also kind of did their own thing in important ways. The way they told the story was really, really lovely. And I'm watching this movie with my kids, and they're like, yeah, this is fine, dad. This is a good... And meanwhile, I'm like overwhelmed by how good this movie was.
Andrew	You're remembering turning pages in the book when you watch it. You're like, oh my God, this is... Correct. Season one game of thrones page for page remake.
Everett	And it's really saccharine and, and sort of pulpy. And, and this is not high literature or, or even high filmmaking, but that does not change the fact that it's an absolutely fantastic story. The story is really good. And you get to the punchline and you're like, you can kind of see it for a million miles away. Right? It's like, okay, I got it. But it, It's so, so well done. And the acting is so good. And it doesn't take itself too seriously, much like a watermelon watch. I was like, this is amazing. And how is it that I've never seen this? How is it that this is not the Sandlot? Because I think this thing stands toe to toe. If you haven't seen Hulse, and I think there's probably only about two of you, maybe three is my guess based on the conversations I've had with people. It stands up. There is nothing about this movie that felt dated or like nothing about it. I was like, this movie is just as good today as it was when it was made. There's no technological problems with it. There is no pacing problems with it. The pacing is great. The storytelling is great. The acting is great. The story is great.
Andrew	It's before Shia LaBeouf changed his name to Post Malone.
Everett	Oh, that was good, Andrew. I don't think Richard liked that joke at all.
Richard Vance	That has gone straight over my head. I've no idea what that's referencing, I'm afraid.
Andrew	Are you familiar with who Shia LaBeouf is?
Richard Vance	I am. Yes. Yes.
Everett	What was the name of that movie?
Andrew	Are you familiar with Post Malone?
Richard Vance	I am. I am. I have no idea what the crossover is.
Everett	He made a movie where he played Post Malone, basically. Yeah. So Holes. I recommend it. That's my other thing for the week. I'm sorry to be 19 years late, 20 years late. I apologize.
Richard Vance	I think it's, it's probably quite good being that late because now it also, I very much feel like I need to rewatch that. Cause I've, you know, it's, it's been so long that I, you know, I remember absolutely loving it, you know, the first time I saw it, but it's certainly been a decade since I last saw it. And I definitely think it's one of those films that you can rewatch.
Andrew	And I think I think you and I probably watched it in a more like we it came out. You guys are younger. We're just a little we're a little bit younger than you. And though I'm shocked because you have older kids, I'm surprised it never came. But you were just a little bit too old to watch it when it came out. And Richard and I were like right in that zone.
Everett	It's really good. There's I will say there's a there's just a tiny bit of CGI in it. Very small, though. It's a very small amount of CGI. And that was dated, but it was so short and so brief and so inconsequential. The lizards are CGI. You guys know the story. And the snake. Yeah. The lizards were CGI. And so that was like, that's not great. But it was so inconsequential to the story that it didn't bother me at all.
Andrew	No. And we're accustomed to like our favorite movies having a little bit dated CGI. That's right.
Everett	That's right. Richard, underdog.com. Remember to put a zero. At the it's the, it's the, the, Oh, and the only, Oh, the only, Oh, is a zero underdog.com studio underdog, or just Google the fucking watermelon watch because he's the one Richard. I'm so glad you joined us. Anything you want to add before we, before we check out for the day?
Richard Vance	No, that just, just thanks very much for having me. And yeah, thanks for kind of being, you know, enthusiastic about, about what I'm doing and yeah, just appreciate that.
Andrew	We're super pleased to have had you. We're glad we can finally make this work.
Everett	Hey, you guys. Thanks for joining us for this episode of 40 in 20, the WatchClicker podcast. Uh, thanks for, thanks for checking us out. Go check out, go check out Richard's stuff. If you don't know, go check out studio underdog, Google the watermelon watch, whatever you need to do, check it out. Uh, these are really, really neat watches. And I think he's doing a cool thing. I think he's doing a cool thing. Uh, if you want to check us out, you can do that at watchclicker.com. That's where we post weekly articles, reviews, et cetera. You can also check us out on Instagram at WatchClicker or at 40 and 20 underscore WatchClicker. If you want to support us and we really hope you do, you can do that at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Look, we don't get paid to do this. That's how we get the very small amount of money that we have to pay for hosting and all the other things we have to buy. Uh, patreon.com slash 40 and 20. And don't forget to check us out next Thursday. for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
Andrew	Bye bye.