Fresh off a plane from Chicago’s Windup Watch Fair, Studio Underd0g’s Richard Benc talks to Tracey Llewellyn about the whirlwind of the past four years for the independent British watchmaker.
WATCHPRO: Where did it all start for Studio Underd0g?
RICHARD BENC: My background is in product design. I graduated from Nottingham, but at that point I hadn’t discovered the watch industry – I didn’t even own a watch.
But I always gravitated towards designing smaller objects, because it allows you to refine certain elements and obviously that’s incredibly prevalent when it comes to designing wristwatches where we’re talking fractions of millimetres.
I wanted to move to London and was applying for jobs like a madman. I was really looking for a consultancy role but that was incredibly competitive so I broadened my horizons and stumbled into the watch industry by securing a job designing character timepieces for Zeon. From there, I kind of fell head over heels in love – not just from a design perspective, but also from an enthusiast perspective.
After about nine months, I moved to Braun and spent five or six years there in product development. I always think Studio Underd0g came about as a rebellion from the semi restrictive nature of Braun’s Bauhaus elements – we’re talking about black or white dials and, if I was feeling particularly extravagant, maybe I’d consider grey.
But, joking aside, Braun was the best training ground and I think people will find there are actually a lot of Bauhaus principles, proportions and elements within Studio Underd0g.
When it comes to functionality and proportions the rules have trickled through. Even though we’re quite fun and playful, there is a real refinement that means Studio Underd0g will never look, or be considered, gimmicky.
We don’t take the industry too seriously, but at the same time, I consider our watches to be serious and a huge amount of our customers are serious collectors.
WP: Where did the brand name come from?
RB: I’m an underdog coming into the big scary watch world and everyone loves an underdog, right? The zero in dog references the modern digital age where we are encouraged to have numbers in passwords. And I basically run a design studio. So, Studio Underd0g!
WP: Why do you think that serious watch collectors have fallen in love with your brand
RB: What really set the brand apart and allowed it to stand out in the first place is that I came into the industry from a very different perspective to most brands. So, when I was launching, I wasn’t thinking commercially. I had no intention then of creating a brand, it was just a design brief that I set myself.
I had become an enthusiast and was starting to collect watches and was really engaged in the industry, so the challenge was to make a watch for myself with a colourful dial and whimsical features, plus vintage elements.
WP: So, whimsical but not gimmicky?
RB: Exactly. Look at our straps. It would be so easy to make a lime green strap with pink stitching, but suddenly that’s too gimmicky. We like to keep things incredibly traditional when it comes to the straps to make the dials pop more. Same thing with our packaging. People might expect it to be incredibly playful and vibrant, but we really keep it traditional. Everything’s really refined from that sort of perspective. And because I was designing for myself, as an enthusiast, that has resonated with other enthusiasts who have the same mindset.
It is the smallest details that make something look good.
One of the first watches I bought was a Black Bay 58, and I decided to buy it on the NATO strap because even though I like bracelets, the idea of faux rivets was enough to confuse me. It’s a way of thinking that might seem ridiculous, but those micro decisions are important.
Another example of how serious we are about each piece can be seen in the core range. The four models in the 01Series today are the same four items that we launched with.
It would be so easy to introduce a new colourway every month, but in terms of the longevity of the brand, I think it’s really important that we are able to cement those products. This isn’t fast fashion.
WP: You launched the company during covid? Do you think that Studio Underd0g would have happened without lockdown or would it just have happened later?
RB: I’d love to see how things would look in an alternate reality. Lockdown gave me the time to develop a very rough blueprint into a concept, without it, there would always have been an excuse. I realised, if not now, then when? Then, when it came to launching, the brand got a lot of visibility because people were at home and engaging with new brands on social media. If I was starting now, it would be very different.
WP: At what point did it move from a personal project to a commercial launch?
RB: Most entrepreneurs are willing to take risks, but I’d say I’m actually quite risk-averse, so it was lots of small stepping stones for me. I posted some images and renders in a Facebook community group and they got a really positive response, which encouraged me to proceed to the next step, which was samples.
I had built up a network of suppliers because I’d been in the industry for a while, so when it came to moving from the design to sampling I already had a leg up. I’d put a little bit of my personal savings into developing the project and thought that even if things went no further, having made my own watch was good enough for me.
The samples exceeded expectations and that motivated me to take the next step, which was a crowdfunding campaign. That was my proof of concept – from a few people on Facebook telling me it was a great idea to finding out how commercial it really was.
The moment I knew I had a brand was when we hit the initial crowdfunding target of £20,000 ($26,000). By the end of it, we had raised £90,000 ($117,000). After that point, I was a lot more willing to invest more time and more resources.
WP: Who were your big supporters in the early days of the company?
RB: Initially, it was quite difficult because the product didn’t exist and people had been burnt before by new brands that were full of promise but didn’t follow through with a quality product delivered on time. I really had to beat the drum and bang my chest to try and make noise in order to be discovered.
A few people were on board from the outset – journalists Miguel Seabra and Rob Nudds, and online magazine Fratello. Other brands were also great in helping me to understand the industry. Nicholas Bowman-Scargill from Fears bought one of the very first watches and was championing the brand from the outset.
Once we had physical products out there, I was really able to pick up steam in terms of visibility and more people talking about us. A milestone moment was when the watches were first featured on the Watchfinder YouTube channel. To have Andrew Morgan talk about us was always kind of the holy grail.
WP: So it was organic growth?
RB: Absolutely. If I look at this year, we have spent about 1% of sales on marketing, which is pretty much unheard of. In terms of communication, it is 99% word of mouth with enthusiasts telling other enthusiasts. They are usually knowledgeable – collectors or journalists – and if we’re able to meet their expectations and make products for those people who are usually real influencers, then there is a ripple effect.
Until six months ago our customer base was almost exclusively the watch community, but now we are seeing a trickle-down effect with the wider public picking up on this up-and-coming British microbrand.
We can tell by the questions coming in that new people are discovering Studio Underd0g, which is amazing.
WP: And all within four years. Have you been surprised by how rapid the growth has been?
RB: We launched in March 2020 and delivered the first watches in September 2021. So, in terms of physical product, we are not even three years old yet. We have always been open with communicating our sales and production figures because it’s something that I always found interesting.
From the start we’ve always had a pre-order window – I think the first one ended with 300 orders over a three week period. The last order window we did was earlier this year and was for nine hours. In that time, we sold just shy of 6,000 watches. The growth is quite visible from those numbers and is well beyond my expectations.
My background is in design and that’s what I’m good at. Then suddenly I’m having to learn how to do all the other bits and bobs involved with a business, but I’m doing it in my own way and it continues to resonate with people. I have always been relatively open and contactable – you can send an Instagram DM, and I’ll be the one replying. And I can tell you anything about my brand and my product.
WP: And then there was last year’s GPHG nomination. How did that feel?
RB: It was confirmation that we have been accepted by the Swiss industry. At the awards ceremony itself we felt so welcomed. In the past few years, we’ve seen the GPHG become more open to brands from outside of Switzerland, which is great.
Seeing the Watermel0n up on that huge screen with everyone in the industry forced to look at for a few seconds was such a buzz – and we were fully cheering on Christopher Ward when they won.
WP: It’s still just you running the company? No investors on board?
RB: I own 100% of the brand and I’m not interested in investment, but the team is growing, there’s four of us at Studio Underd0g HQ down in Brighton. We assemble all our watches in the UK, which is something that maybe isn’t really communicated as much as it should be right now.
Other than Mr. Jones, I believe we’re the largest assembler of watches in the UK, but it’s not something that too many people know. We work with a company called Horologium, which assembles all of our watches just outside of Reading.
We’ve been working with them and their team of about 15 people from the outset, and currently about 80 to 90% of their work is with Studio Underd0g, so they are truly an essential part of our business.
WP: So if Richemont or LVMH come knocking, the answer is no?
RB: I love having full control and not having to speak to anyone about whatever decision I want to make. I’m still enjoying what I’m doing at the moment and I think there’s a lot more value that I can give to the business, so that’s not really the intention. I don’t look too far forward because, as you said, a lot can change in the space of three years.
I’m product focused so I’ve got a good understanding of where I want to take the brand in the next 12 to 18 months. It’s not just a case of, ‘let’s pick some new colours’, I want each watch to be born out of a story and that’s what I want to double down on this year, along with the fact that we are 100% assembled in the UK by Horologium.
WP: Being risk averse, do you find the growth and the necessary investment a frightening prospect?
RB: It’s been a step-by-step process. The launches we do today, are 10- or 20-fold the size of the initial launch, but I have had the opportunity to learn along the way and the mistakes that I have made, for example navigating the tax and duty issues caused by Brexit, have been with smaller production numbers.
The pre-order model that we have is good for the business, and it’s good for the customer. In the beginning it felt like a setback, and I was quickly trying to get to a point where I had stock. But the benefit for the customer are that there is no risk of a watch being sold out because people have got there before you.
We’re communicative and open about delivery, so it makes for a good experience. And, from our side, it allows us to have the most accurate forecasts that you can imagine, because we have the exact data that we require for the next six months or so, as well as giving us the cash flow in advance to grow the business.
Customers wait an average of three months for their order. This is a huge strength for us because it allows us to build a relationship with that client. We send them really detailed order updates. I’ll do a video, you know, telling them exactly how the order is progressing and whether we have managed to fulfil more watches that month than predicted.
We are open and transparent, which is a really important part of the brand, and it means that when people do place an order, even if they’re waiting longer than three months, most are more than happy to wait, because they’re seeing the process and they have a better understanding of the product when they do receive it.
WP: Would you consider going into multi-brand retailers?
RB: I’ve sort of dipped my toe into retail with James Porter in Scotland and Time+Tide in Melbourne. It’s very challenging, because of the way we do our launches and because demand continues to outstrip supply to an extent – mainly because we’re assembling the watches in the UK and that’s something we’re having to grow bit by bit.
I built the business based on the direct-to-consumer model and I built the margins and the price point based on that model. Retail is expensive, distribution is really expensive, so full retail would bring a very different price proposition – close to double what it is currently.
We make little to no margin by working with the two retailers we are currently with but it is an experiment for me to see what the benefits are and what retail can offer in terms of events and visibility in enabling customers to get their hands on the product.
WP: And will we see you in the new Time+Tide space in London,
RB: Potentially. We are a British brand and it would be great to have a physical location in London. We get messages all the time from people asking if we have a boutique but, unfortunately, that’s something we’re unable to do. So, yes it would be good but to allow customers to see the watches rather than actively growing the business.
WP: We keep coming back to the fact that Studio Underd0g is at heart a British brand. Is this something that is becoming more relevant on the global watch stage?
RB: I think it’s been bubbling under the surface for a while, and it’s kind of taken the Alliance of British Watch and Clock Makers to really bring the brands together. British Watchmakers Day in March was a huge success and they are already figuring out how to scale up for future years.
As I said, when I started my brand, I was knocking on doors and speaking to the people in the industry, and it was other British brands that let me pick their brains. No doors were slammed in my face, everyone was very welcoming and very happy to share the information. I think that’s because – especially within the UK – there’s a consensus that a rising tide lifts all boats.
WP: Where do you find inspiration?
RB: It’s anywhere and everywhere. A lot of people assumed from the 01Series that Studio Underd0g was all about fruit on a dial. But the 02Series helped us to better communicate what it means to be a Studio Underd0g product.
In the design process, we look to the industry. With the 01Series we looked at 1960s chronographs and combined vintage elements with a modern twist. The watches were a tribute to colour with a playful influence and more vintage cues. For the 02Series we looked to the Ministry of Defence brief from the 1940s field watches, but again added subtle twists through colour and materials.
Obviously we don’t have an archive to look to so I’m able to sculpt the future of the brand exactly how I want to, and without any feelings of being restricted. That has its pros and cons – it will be a long time before Studio Underd0g is doing a Remaster collection.
WP: What’s in the pipeline at Studio Underd0g?
RB: There’s a project that we’re launching towards the end of the year that I think is going to signal a new direction for the brand, or represent a new milestone. There’s a few other projects that we are working on, including some collaborations that will enable us to do some exciting things outside of the Studio Underd0g brand.
WP: When should we be looking for the next drop?
RB: I would say around the end of September or early October.
WATCHPRO SALON 2024
Studio Underd0g is among an exciting line-up of independent watchmakers from around the world that will gather in London on November 1 and 2 for this year’s WatchPro Salon.
Salon takes place in the luxury ballroom of The Londoner on Leicester Square, one of the most prestigious, designer hotels to have opened in Central London in the past five years.
The growing list of exhibitors at WatchPro Salon includes:
M.A.D.Editions, Studio Underd0g, Out of Order, Awake Concept, Trilogy, HERBELIN, Ollech & Wajs, Brew Watch Co., Sinn, BA111OD, Serica, eBay, Escudo, ID Geneve, Moels & Co., Mondaine, Luminox, Victorinox, Backes & Strauss, Atowak, HEGID, Apiar, Duckworth Prestex, ChronoSwiss, Nottaris, WREN, HTD Instruments, MICROMILSPEC, Horage, Orkos and Tsar Bomba
