You may not think of quality when you think of Indian watches. The main extant brand is Titan, a Tata Group-owned producer of cheap fashion watches that can be found everywhere in the subcontinent. HMT was shut down in 2016 due to mismanagement (though is still a favorite for vintage lovers on the hunt for a good deal and a fun watch). With the powerhouses dead and making unappealing watches, where does that leave Indian watch lovers and the Indian watch industry?
That’s the question that was bugging Nirupeshi Joshi (NJ) and his wife Mercy when they founded Bangalore Watch Company. They saw an opportunity to bring quality watchmaking back to India with watches that weren’t just from the country, but told the country’s stories. We sat down with NJ and spoke about the challenges of starting an Indian watch brand, designing to tell stories, how they refined the successful MACH 1, and more.
Tempus Fugit: I know watches are a second career for you and your wife, Mercy. But going back even further than that, I’d like to ask what was your first watch ever?
Nirupesh Joshi: If you ask most people in India, the first watch ever would be a Titan. And Titan is like the Swatch of India. They make 15 million watches now, they’re the second largest watch company, even now by volume. Everybody starts with a Titan. I grew up in the ‘80s. My first watch was a Titan.
TF: Describe the watch. What was the model?
NJ: So, when you graduate high school, like class 10, you move up to… in India it’s called 11th grade, when you move up. It was a Titan dress watch. It was a white dial with indices and a steel bracelet. I cannot remember what the name was because Titan wasn’t big about model names back then. That was my first watch ever.
But really, the interesting watches really did not take off with the first watch. I do not have a memory of being attached to watches from a very young age. I do not have a grandfather’s watch that was passed down to me. Watches really started much later when we had the opportunity to travel and see a lot of nice watches when we lived overseas. We worked for an MIT-based tech company called Akamai. Then in the cloud business, Internet Cloud Security business. I was a consultant with them. I moved around, built teams for them, built businesses for them. We lived in Boston for a little bit and then in we were in Seoul. And then we were in Hong Kong.
TF: So, what got you hooked on watches? I mean you were exposed to them, but everybody sees watches.
NJ: I remember in 2013 I started visiting Hong Kong more often. We lived in Seoul at that time and there were talks of me moving to Hong Kong, and every visit to Hong Kong was fascinating. It’s such a small place, extremely crowded, and there’s a watch boutique at every corner. So, you cannot not like watches if you’re in Hong Kong. I had a boss who was involved in watches and the first brand I got into was Glashütte Original. And when I went into that boutique and I saw the GO, I saw the finishing, that’s when I got hooked me into watches.
I also came extremely close to buying the Omega Dark Side of the Moon in Hong Kong. The style of the watch appealed to me, the theme of the watch appealed to me, I’m a science buff, I’m a science fiction buff, I’m a space buff. That all appealed to me, but it just did not emotionally appeal to me. I couldn’t connect with it beyond the fact that it’s a very cool watch, it’s a technically advanced watch, and it’s a watch that’s themed after space but that’s it. I was really drawn to Omega because technically I liked what they did. So obviously you get drawn to it and you had a bit of disposable income, so you spent some money on some nice watches. But that’s where it started.
TF: How did it shift then from this interest in buying watches to even thinking about creating your own watches?
NJ: In 2013 we were spending a lot of time at the watch boutiques. Every weekend, we’d be at one or the other boutiques. And then, we started thinking two things stood out: one was the craftsmanship of watches, especially the high horology, was not very different from the jewelry industry in India. India is very good at making jewelry but watchmaking never took off. The second observation was the fact that watches are not just about the technical details in the finishing, but it’s also about the storytelling behind the watches which is also fascinating. That’s what made us look back to India to see what was going on in India and sadly, there wasn’t anything exciting going on in India that time. HMT was shutting down. Titan, the largest watchmaker of the country, was making watches but they were not doing anything exciting. We really thought the grammar of watch design from India was outdated. You either had the Indian numbers on the dial, which is done to death by every brand or you had the Taj Mahal on the dial and you call it a 100-piece India limited edition. We said to ourselves, “Look we think there’s an opportunity to create a watch brand from India with exciting storytelling, make good quality watches.”
Mercy and I have been together for many years and we also decided that we should get back to working together professionally because she’s extremely good at certain things, we can play off each other strengths, and we said, “Look, why don’t we do something together, we can start a business on our own.” So, it was either going to be a ramen restaurant in Bangalore or something different. And then in 2016 we started thinking, “Okay, why don’t we consider the possibility of starting a watch company?” And we started going down he rabbit hole of spending hours and hours on Watchuseek figuring out is it even possible to start an independent watch brand. In 2016, we took a sabbatical for personal reasons. We spent 16 years in the tech industry and we were really considering do we want to spend the next 16 years in tech or do we want to do something different. And we made the decision to move back to India.
TF: So, tell me about that process. You made this decision, you did all the research, you figured it out, and then what? Where do you go? Once you figured it out, what was that like starting it up?
NJ: First, we wanted to figure out what would this brand stand for, because you want to start a watch company, sounds cool, but what would it stand for? How would you differentiate because you have to look at things in perspective of what’s going on in India. India is not what it used to be 10 years ago. There’s a lot of people with disposable income. There’s a rising class of millionaires in India. People are buying expensive watches in India. The country is changing, you have a lot of people like ourselves who are well traveled, well-read, they understand brands globally, but they still crave something Indian with the local identity that they can wear or they can use. We saw this trend not just in watches, we saw this in clothing, we saw this in spirits, we saw this in other fashion brands. Indian-origin brands were popping up across the board and there was this new affinity for those brands. But there was nobody doing anything like that in watches, so the first thing we decided was that we will make watches with stories from a modern Indian point of view. And hence you see that executed through the Space series, you see that executed through the Pilot series, the Cricket series. And the second thing we decided, we’ll make them with what we consider is respectable build quality. We’ll not make crappy watches. If people can spend $1000 on an iPhone and change it every two years, why don’t people spend $1000 on a good watch that they can keep for 10-15 years, or longer.
TF: What were what were the biggest obstacles in creating this brand for you? Before you press that button and everything went for sale, what was the hardest thing in getting there?
NJ: The biggest challenge was the fact that we started looking for ecosystem manufacturers in India and we realized that the watch ecosystem in India was not ready to support a brand with the quality expectations that we had. We met a lot of the suppliers in India and they were simply not making components to the standard that we felt was adequate for a watch that we wanted to sell back then at a $500- $600 price point. So, we had to go to Hong Kong; we visited the Hong Kong fair 2-3 times before we found the partners that we thought we could work with. The biggest challenge was finding the manufacturing partners.
The second biggest challenge was nobody believed in the idea that you could create a respectable watch company—a premium watch company—from India. I think we made the mistake of seeking validation from people in the watch industry because we were just these newbies. I think we were being naive that we would be warmly welcomed by the industry, which did not happen. Everybody that we spoke to tried to turn us down and said, “Pack your bags and go back home. This is not gonna work. Nobody’s gonna buy your watches. You will not be able to push it in retail. Nobody’s gonna buy and stock your watches.”
TF: Now for those people who are saying “No no no,” was that just watch community members or were those the manufacturers you were going to and saying, “Hey, we’d like to do this” and they were saying “Uh, no thank you…”?
NJ: I think the watch enthusiast community was excited about the prospect of having a watch brand from India. I don’t think they were the naysayers, but the established watch industry, the retailers, the distributors, the manufacturers—those were the ones that thought this was a crazy idea. And the Indian manufacturing ecosystem simply could not meet our expectations. We went there, we met them, we saw the productivity. We saw the quality of case factories, dial factories, you know, just wouldn’t cut it, so we had to look overseas.
TF: Was that a disappointment?
NJ: We kind of expected it. I mean, look, we’re not from overseas. We were born here, we were raised here, we understand what to expect when you go to India and expect a certain standard. We knew going in that we may not be lucky, and we were proven right. But now, right now, our watch hands are made in India, our dials for some of our collections are made in India. This company that we work with makes dials and hands for Breitling, Oris, Bell and Ross, and they they’re based in India. We’re their smallest customer by volume.
TF: NJ! NJ! Are you telling me that all those Swiss made brands don’t have all their parts made in Switzerland?
NJ: Oh, did you not know?
TF: What! I have to take a breather now. This is world-shattering information.
NJ: But look: we found them. The hard part was to convince them to supply to someone like us. We’re like “We need this handset design and we need 300.” They’re like “We’re not gonna do a separate order just for you. If it’s already in production in a batch, pick what’s already there.” But we had our own design. They told us out tooling costs would exceed the cost of the hands and asked if we were sure. Of course we were sure! And they did it. We’re their smallest customer, we know that. We met the leadership team; they saw the logic in the vision to create a respectable quality watch company from India and I think they they’re supportive now.
TF: Tell me about the jump from you first watch the Renaissance dress watch, to the MACH 1.
NJ: In the beginning, we thought we’d start with a dress watch and establish what we called a standard collection before we jump to the special collections with back stories in each of them. And we realized that there was no appetite, and the product was not—there was extreme competition in that category. The product was not placed right, it was not priced right, the appetite wasn’t there, so we had to switch. We had to instantly switch. And the MACH 1 was a gamble because we didn’t know at that time that if we create the MACH 1 there would be appetite or excitement. We just got lucky, or rather we were probably lucky that we chose the right product strategy at the right time because clearly, there’s a lot more excitement for the MACH 1 or the Apogee or the Cover Drive than the dress line.
TF: And you just released the second generation of the MACH 1. This wasn’t just a dial change. You guys scaled down the case, you changed the strap, which I was thankful for because the first one was a little stiff for my liking, you moved the date. There were some physical and cosmetic changes that you made. What drove you to make those changes as opposed to leaving the original where it was and developing something new?
NJ: The MACH 1 is a line that we plan to keep in production continuously, permanently. All of the lines would stay in production permanently with just different models within each. The Apogee as a platform will have multiple models within the Apogee. The Cover Drive is a platform, we will have multiple models within the Cover Drive in the future. The MACH 1 is a platform which allows us to tell Indian aviation stories and within the MACH 1 platform we will have multiple watches.
The MACH 1 second generation is just a generational upgrade. We thought after about two years, the product needed some improvements. We thought we needed to make a few things better, a few things that are our owners, our community asked us to do and a few things that we thought would be genuine improvements to the product. For instance, the strap is something that we heard from everybody wasn’t the best, so we moved to a genuine leather.
You’d be surprised that we have a lot of owners now in the owner’s community that are not watch enthusiasts. They are not used to automatic watches and mechanical watches. They’re drawn to these watches because there are stories that we’re telling them. The screw down crown wasn’t working for the general population, so we moved to a push and pull crown while still guaranteeing 100 meters of water tightness. The size reduction was simply because we saw sizes moving down across the board. A lot of women are wearing these watches, so we had to move to what we believe is a gender neutral 40mm. With the move to 40mm, also raised the question keeping the day and date; it was looking too cramped in the 40 millimeter, so we had to make that decision to take off the day wheel and keep the date only. But if we keep the date only, we didn’t want to keep it at three because we then probably have to cut an index or do something cranky, so we moved it to six to keep the symmetry. The logo remains at the 3:00 position just as it did in the in the in the first generation. That was it, a combination of things that we wanted to do, things that our customers asked of us, and things that were improvements or an upgrade to the product.
TF: You mentioned that India is your biggest market, I was going to ask about that because I’ve spoken to a lot of brands and depending on the size and the direction of the brand, the domestic market may or may not be the largest.
NJ: Yeah, 70% of our market is India. 30% is overseas. No surprise that overseas markets, you’ll have a lot of the markets that are heavy with Indian ex-pats, the US, the Middle East, the UK. But we also have an interesting mix of people that have nothing to do with India, they like the design aesthetic, especially the MACH 1. They appreciate what we’re trying to build and we have a lot of owners like that. But yeah, 70% of our market remains India.
TF: One of the things I’ve noted in my reviews of your watches is how you communicate the stories in the watch designs. You were talking earlier about how when you looked at the current market prior to starting Bangalore Watch Company, you saw gimmicky Indian watches, right? Indian numerals all over the place, Taj Mahal on the dial, stuff like that. Your cues and nods towards India and its culture and history are baked into the watches but not in an in-your-face way.
NJ: Yes, that’s right, that was a deliberate design choice. Take the Cover Drive, for example, which probably across the collection is the only watch that has a little bit exaggerated design cues because of the four and the six and the wickets at the 12:00 position. The design details and keeping it toned down is very deliberate because we always believe that we’re building a brand from India for the world. Even in India, we have people that are well traveled, well read, that have more refined tastes in products that they use. They don’t want things that are tacky, they don’t want things that are clichéd, they don’t want things that scream Indian in your face. They want things that are subtle, more refined. That’s our design aesthetic, it’s very deliberate choice and I don’t see us ever changing that. I think that’s the key and perhaps that’s also why it appeals to a lot of non-Indian folks as well, because they do not see design cues that are tacky, they see subtle cues in design. Like, we put the latitude/longitude of the rocket launch station on the Apogee watch, it’s so subtle.
TF: Or the fin flash on the MACH 1 dial. You don’t need to know what it is to like it. But if you do, it’s a lot cooler and if you have Indian heritage yourself, then it is even cooler still. I think that with the Cover Drive, it is a little bit more overt, mainly because of the bezel. In a sense, that’s my favorite watch you’ve made because I think it’s just beautifully done. But I like how many things you fit in without being too overt. With the wickets and the six and the four and it could just be seen as quirky and that would be enough for some people: “Oh, this is a neat little watch, I like how this looks.” Which is how most people buy watches—is this well-made and do I like how it looks?
NJ: It’s a tough design choice. Every time we go through design, we have to make tough choices. Thankfully, we have a good designer. We can see things in 3D renderings before we make these design choices. We spend a lot of time in design, in figuring out how to tell these stories without complicating the watch, without cluttering the watch and keeping it in a way that it still appeals to a worldwide audience and not just a strictly Indian audience.
I think that will never change. I think you’re right; I think we should give ourselves credit for being able to pull it off in a complicated watch like Cover Drive while keeping it sober still. But you won’t believe the number of people that ask us, “If it’s an Indian Air Force watch, why don’t you have the MiG plane on the dial?” If you want a plane on the dial, you’re you’ve come to the wrong brand. But it’s hard to communicate that. Basically, you’re telling them to go away.
TF: You may get people who want a normal GMT watch and you’re saying, “Well, we can’t. That doesn’t really work for us, so we’re not going to do that.” I can imagine some people being turned off from the brand for that reason. But there’s this commitment you’ve made, you’re not creating a dive watch without a story just so you have a dive watch. Do you find that is a challenge of, we need to have this Indian story built in, and we’re not going to create watches just to have them in our catalog if we can’t build in a story?
NJ: I think it’s a double-edged sword. I’ll give you an example. Everybody’s asking us to do a dive watch right now. We could make a dive watch and we could just try to fit the story into the watch because we need a story. But it will not have longevity, it will die. What can we offer that’s compelling enough 10 years from now that’s not compelling in a Tissot Sea Star or a Rado Captain Cook? Until we find that answer, we’re not going to embark on that.
We’re a small company, we’re going to have to choose where the money goes. I can’t make a watch and then say, “Let’s see how it goes.” I have to be 200% confident that this story has longevity, and the story will stick, if you know what I mean. I need mileage with the story. If I if I know I can stretch the story for 10 years in the future, then I would invest in that platform.
I know that Indian space is getting exciting. We’re sending rockets to Mars, the moon, the sun, and we’re planning to put people in space. It’s an exciting area that we could use as a strong foundation to make watches that appeal to people. I haven’t found that story with the with the dive watch yet, if we find one, we’ll make it so.
TF: So where are you looking now for inspiration? What are you guys working on now? What is the next watch, but also the next steps for the brand?
NJ: There’s a line extension of the MACH 1 coming in August. We have a new story within the Indian aviation line that’s coming in August. Then most likely, if everything goes well, we’ll also have an extension within the Apogee line of a new space story from India by the end of the year. That’s where the near-term focus is for now. I think next year we’d probably look at a—I don’t want to call it a dive watch—an outdoor watch, if you know what I mean. Because there’s no fun in making a dive watch and dive watch alone. I think there’s an opportunity to do something that’s outdoor-friendly. Go underwater, go climb a mountain, do what you want.
TF: Where do you where do you see the brand in five years? Do you see big growth and expansion? Some people don’t want that, some people like to kind of cruise at a comfortable altitude where they’ve found a good pace. The money’s coming in and it allows them to create and live and stuff like that. What do you see for Bangalore Watch Company?
NJ: The next five years would be building step-by-step. What that means is there’s an opportunity to expand and grow. We really want to leave this as legacy and let the brand be around even beyond our lifetimes. So that’s clearly the plan. There aren’t many luxury brands from India that the world knows of except in the hospitality sector and I think there’s an opportunity for us to do something with the BWC identity. That’s the path we’re on. We’ve actually made a lot of investments recently; we have our own space. We took a yoga studio, 1,500 square foot blank space, and converted that into our own studio.
NJ: We made a big investment with Witschi. We have a ProofMaster, an accuracy checker, and a demagnetizer. We have an entire lab and a clean room set up which can house two watchmakers in the future. But everything’s in-house now, we have more control. We have an integrated shipping station. We’re doing assembly with a contract facility at the moment in Bangalore. But we do plan to bring it in-house. Then we have full control over every single watch that leaves the facility. That gives us a lot more confidence to talk the talk and hold the promise of making quality watches.
This is not a lifestyle business for me and Mercy. If we want this to be a lifestyle business, we could. The money is okay, but frankly, we’re probably making four times less money than what we did in Hong Kong. The motivation is really not about the money. But that being said, we strongly believe there’s an opportunity to build a true premium or accessible luxury brand out of this identity, a brand from India for the world.
You can find out more about Bangalore Watch Company and explore its watches at the BWC website.