Colors were just burgundy, blue, and black. We used good movements: the STP111 as well as the NH35. It had to be no-nonsense, just a dressy diver. We wanted something that was not offensive in any way - no cushion cases, the size has to be modest, 41mm, in terms of styling, we didn’t want it to be too vintage. Why did you discontinue it?Ī: WK: It was called the Trieste. Q: I’m curious about that discontinued watch, the Trieste, since it was your first. But also to churn models out, to show that we’re serious about this. One way we did that was not going through Kickstarter. So we wanted to show people that this is a real thing for us - we’re not just a mushroom brand. And one of those things, like you said, for all microbrands, is moving pretty slowly. In everything that we do, we want to do it at least an order of magnitude better than the average. So while we work on production and shipping and QC and that stuff, on the back end we were still working with our engineers to develop new stuff. I’m curious how you’ve gotten such a quick start out of the gate.Ī: WK: As soon as we put the first one out - it’s since been discontinued, but it was called the Trieste - we’d already started work on the Avalon, and then as soon as that was done, we started on the Retrospect. Usually, with microbrands, that growth is much slower. And the number of watches you’ve put out already is phenomenal. Q: You’ve been going for around two years now. So we went to Asia to visit these factories, and then put all these things together. We were like, it looks pretty good - think anyone would buy it? Then we wondered how much it would cost. Over I’m sure way too many beers, instead we decided to design a watch. I thought it was going to be a coffee shop, or something for fun. As a kid, I always knew I wanted to start something with him. I moved out here to LA after I graduated college. Q: And when did you decide to start your own watch brand?Ī: WK: Originally we didn’t have plans to start a business. Then we ended up gifting each other our first automatics. We went out for dinner and I noticed he was wearing a watch. So we got into it at the same time, but totally independently. There was always something new you could see in the watch. I started peeling the onion back, and I never got to the bottom of it. You look deeper and deeper and find all these layers. The size was good, comfortable bracelet, the counterbalance on the seconds hand was the Tissot logo. Not really that special, no watch enthusiast would know what it is. Wesley Kwok: And then for my high school graduation, my dad got me a Tissot quartz sport watch, the PRC200.

I started modding Seikos, and that’s how I got into assembly. I got a Seiko quartz chronograph after that, and that’s what started my passion. It was a department store brand, a $200 watch. This was back in college.Ī: CC: It was my high school graduation gift. It started out with computers and then guitars, and then I got my first watch, and it was downhill from there. You have one watch, and then you have that personality where you wanna dig deeper, and you start obsessing over it. We recently sat down with the two near their home base in Los Angeles to talk about their inspirations, the challenges of starting and running a microbrand, tool watch design and more.Ī: Cullen Chen: I guess how everyone else gets into watches. “Or uphill, depending on how you look at it.” “I would say that’s when it really went downhill for us,” says Kwok. “Yeah, the perfect first dive watches,” Cullen says. “And then he turns around and pulls out an Orient Ray for me.” Or you could say the success was destined from the moment the two middle- and high-school buddies simultaneously gifted each other their first automatics. You could credit their excellent design, and their eye for what watch enthusiasts want (quality finishing, tool watch-utility, American-based assembly and highly regulated and accurate movements). You could credit this success with the tenacity of their business model, which rejected Kickstarter, relied on their own life savings, and required the two to build a strong supply chain among Asian parts producers. Since then, they’ve doubled their production and released a slew of successful - and fast-selling - tool watch models. Wesley Kwok and Cullen Chen started their indie watch brand, Nodus, just two years ago.

Nodus avalon