In 2021 Horage had achieved the impossible. Our engineers and watchmakers through brutal determination managed to deliver the first Tourbillon 1's that spring. The second pre-order window was open till August 1st, 2021 to allow those just discovering Horage a chance at ordering Tourbillon 1 in addition to help us recoup some costs pertaining to the development.
What does it cost to make a movement?
This question is very misunderstood. As mentioned in part 1 of this recap there are varying levels of what is deemed "in-house" and those levels determine the level of investment. The most costly aspect of movement development is engineering and T0 production because this is when a brand can develop proprietary architecture not available elsewhere and T0 is the development of all tools to make the parts needed as well as analyzing, testing, prototyping along with assembly of the sub-assemblies that make up the movement. The reality is, is that this is the most expensive part of movement development and because of that the part most skip.
Silvan visually inspecting each and every part such as the tourbillon cage bridge.
The cost of production is dependent on just how lean of a philosophy your brand follows and Horage is about as lean as they get. This is quite a different approach to many in Switzerland as the few brands capable of making movements do not need to get lean to produce a movement they simply have enough liquid funds to do so... most of the time. A movement can cost anywhere from a very low 5 million upwards to 100 million depending on how efficient or inefficient a company is and even then it's not guaranteed that the movement will work. With 15 million invested across three movements, plus all brand activities at Horage we are a bit of an anomaly.
Things can only be cut back so far because we are making movements in Switzerland, which is one of the most expensive countries to produce anything. Understanding each and everyone of the 3500 process steps needed to complete a movement as well not just ours but our suppliers production cost is imperative. Our team knows the cost of each individual part such as a screw or jewel and this enables us to plan accordingly before actually producing a part.
Making a movement is a parts war that involves relentless inspection, measuring, testing and re-production until everything is just right. Silvan inspecting tourbillon main plates.
Horage founder Andi Felsl always says "Cost comes from not knowing". If you know the cost throughout the entire supply chain, not just what you buy things at, but at a granular level, what a suppliers operating costs are then you can adequately realize a cost of doing business that can result in a fair value product. This is how Tourbillon 1 and all our products achieve what is deemed a "disruptive" price, something we call a fair price. We still need to have margin, but we have managed to cut the fat to arrive at a fair price for our customers.
So what does the above have to do with Tourbillon 1?
Despite our best efforts to cut costs there simply was one part of the equation missing which we had to take a chance on and that was volume. By August 2021 we had sold around 100 Tourbillon 1's and although we felt it was an impressive achievement, the books told us other wise. Thankfully in April of 2021 we manage to catch some luck with an article posted by Hodinkee on just who we were. Cole Pennington and I talked at length as he was genuinely fascinated by our story and simply wondered why the big media outlets were not covering us.
I loved the title "This Scrappy Swiss Challenger Brand Is Not Here to Make Friends". I suppose honest transparency like Horage is not what the watch industry is known for, but Cole did a great job conveying just who we are.
Read the article here
Cole's article was a catalyst for greater exposure and with tourbillon's on wrist customers would start showing their communities the watch they took a risk on and some even would put them to the test.
Benson Ko is a chef that keeps fit by competing in triathlons. He had wondered if anyone had taken part in a triathlon with a tourbillon and so he set out to be the first, that he and us had known of. His report of the day put a real world perspective on our tourbillon as being something that was a true everyday wear.
Benson coming out of the swim with a tourbillon on wrist and ready to run! Check the forum post here.
Heading into July we had many customers sharing their watches on social media such as @watches_abr who Andi and I had met in February 2020 in Glasgow and across the pond on the west coast @watch_diversion was sharing his Tourbillon 1 wrist shots. Seeing the tourbillon outside of Switzerland and in these far off lands was wonderful to witness in addition to the comments and feedback from their followers.
Check out all of @watches_abr photos and give him a follow 😉.
Check out all of @watch_diversion photos and give him a follow 😉.
Erik Slaven is the US editor of Monochrome received the watch he ordered and did a review on the Tourbillon 1. Which I believe was the first media review of the real production version watch.
A crispy silver colour dial Tourbillon 1. Did you know that the silver is actually platinum coated? Check out the article here.
Cole at Hodinkee would also get a watch in hand and shared his take on the Tourbillon 1 on July 1st.
Cole posing with the gold case Tourbillon 1. I think this might just be the case I now have on my "Frankenstien" watch, but with a different movement. Check the article here.
This is my beloved Frankenstein in 3N gold out for a hike. The name is what the watchmakers gave it because it was made with left over parts with a few small scratches on the bridges that couldn't be used in production. I thought it would be cool to do a two tone homage to the Submariner. It's also called the Turbo Sub.
Rikki at Scottish Watches was eager to get a watch as well and to give a review as he had one himself on order. I sent it up to him and little did I know he would be taking it to the shooting range with Bark & Jack. That same tourbillon after surviving five shotgun rounds would then go onto Watchfinder for review.
Rikki really let off five rounds and the Tourbillon 1 survived. Typically that is not something any watchmaker recommends 😅. Check the podcast here.
Adi from IsoChrono has become a friend and fan of Horage since we first met him in Singapore in February 2020. At that time I couldn't stop but think that he was wondering where we parked our flying saucer based on the expression he had on his face when we explained our company and just what we were doing.
He would piece together seven reasons for folks to consider the Tourbillon 1.
Check out Adi's article here.
Marketing Horage
In a previous post I mentioned that getting media exposure had been difficult in the past. I have had many saying we need to invest more in marketing. I believe marketing is effective when the market is ready for you, meaning you have the correct product market fit. The right product, at the right price, in the right time.
Andi and I have had discussions at great lengths over this. At the end it is always summed up quite simply.
Would customers rather us spend money on making a better product or cut cost to market a sub-par product?
As the marketing director with a record of marketing little known brands that have become quite successful I can say it's a much longer road to market the better product. Sub-par product, following some time sensitive design trends and sugarcoated with hype terminology are here today and gone tomorrow and Horage is not that kind of brand. The long road is the only way for us.
After proving we had a physical tourbillon produced and shipped to customers that they really loved we were finally getting some press and positive word of mouth. More people were getting exposed to the horological anomaly that is Horage.
In late July prior to the pre-order ending on August 1st it was apparent that we would be coming up short on development costs. Andi suggested that we ask the community if all were ok with us extending the pre-order by an extra month to allow for us to try to capture some more sales. The response in the comments on that forum post and email were overwhelmingly positive and so I got work on how we could make the most of this extended time.
Read the forum post here.
Tourbillon $1
Tzuyu and I always have quite lengthly calls covering everything from production, design to marketing. On one particular call on August 2nd, 2021 she said she had the idea of using the old prototype La Joux Perret samples to help promote Tourbillon 1. At first the idea was to auction off a watch, but like all auctions the funds go to the highest bidder and that typically means that the watch goes to the person with the highest income or available funds. I like the idea of letting everyone have a chance at lady luck regardless of where they sit on the income ladder. The Tourbillon 1 product name has a number 1 in the name and I simply said let's let anyone try to win it for as little as $1. Tourbillon $1 was born and everyone that donated would receive an entry ticket for each dollar donated. Donations would go on to support the local watchmaking school ZeitZentrum in Solothurn.
We were giving way five Tourbillon 1 prototypes and the project went viral. It turns out a lot of people wanted to win a tourbillon, I mean who wouldn't? Over 1,200 people took part with donations ranging from $1-$200 per person with some coming back to donate again.
Monochrome Watches August 16th, 2021. Read the article here.
Fuel To The Fire
Adding fuel to the Tourbillon $1 wild fire was our first review of an Horage product on Watchfinder. Anyone with any interest in horology has watched the talking hand man of Watchfinder and his impressive display of imagery and story telling. It was because of our community that Watchfinder actually reached out to us. Essentially they said some people in their comments were correcting them that in fact Tag Heuer's Carrera Heuer 02T was no longer the most accessible Swiss Made tourbillon and that Horage was. I believe @watches_abr was might have also been one in the comments amongst others so Watchfinder did what any good media group does and they listened to their community and asked if we could send them a watch to review.
The story is really on point and it tells the Horage story in great detail.
This was the video that had the community suggesting Horage.
A stroke of divine luck would have both Tourbillon $1 and Watchfinders video go out around the same time and with just 15 days till the pre-order ended. Horage was now on the global watch collectors radar and the enquiries and orders for Tourbillon 1 were nothing short of insanity.
For the next two weeks myself and Tzuyu would have our customer service abilities put to the test. We were running on around 4 hours of sleep a day just trying to keep up with order inquiries and donations. It was an incredibly intense time, but we knew this was the inflection point to bring Horage out of the red and into the black.
When it was all said and done a total of 260 Tourbillon 1's were ordered. 259 are on customer wrists with the case number 260 here in the Horage archive.
Silvan and the team were nothing short of amazed by the amount of tourbillons on order. These were some serious numbers as tourbillons are concerned and he and the team got to work to produce this next final run of watches.
With the majority of parts ready to go the team was confident in delivering by October/November 2021... Unfortunately fate would have other plans for our team.
Troubles In Production
Over the summer months Silvan, Jonas and Pascal looked to optimize the hand feel of the crown to fall in line with that of K1 & K2 movements. To achieve this they would re-engineering the winding mechanism and it would make use of a much larger ratchet wheel. This would make a new change to the main plate which meant it would need to have the machine it was milled on re-programmed before going into production. It was a change to the architecture that we called K-TOU 1.2.
No problem right?
Programming a new main plate takes a few weeks to complete as with each test fine tuning must be made to the machine to ensure the part is within the required tolerances. Following this it must go in for de-burring and then into coating, a month process that would to ours and our customers dismay turn into a multi-month project. Plates and bridges are typically the last parts done in movement production and they are also the most time consuming to finish.
Preparing main plates for machining
In 2020 such changes in production were normal and were a non-issue as machines were running flawlessly and we had easy access to them due to the fact few were actually doing any machining at all. Fast forward to late summer 2021 and the Swiss watch industry was playing catch up after a year of hibernation. Brands were purchasing up to 4x the amount of production volume needed to safeguard themselves and as a tactical move to push out competition from being able to produce parts.
As an engineering company we machined close by to our HQ together with a few other brands. The machine we relied on broken down and would need to be replaced. This meant sourcing a new machine and re-programming not only our parts but the parts of the others. Given the scheduling everyone was pushed back and when back online we were already well into autumn. Luck was not on our side as this machine would also breakdown and require servicing, again the process was repeated and by this time we were into December. The hope was that we would be back at it after the holidays, but again we could not skip the line as others were waiting to machine as well.
Now into 2022 covid had caught up with our team and one by one each of us would need to take sick leave. Adding to the frustrations the machinists also became ill and this meant production was again at a stand still.
Time For Our Own Machines
It was apparent that demand for machining was not going to subside and that we could always be pitted in the same situation leading to our inability to deliver as promised to our customers. Much of the last year I spent on email, phone and meeting with customers in person relaying delays. It was extremely difficult because on the outside it just didn't make sense because after all, how did we manage to do it in the past and now we were unable to deliver.
Enough was enough and Andi started looking at which machines we should purchase to get these critical and time consuming parts produced under our roof and on our terms. In December 2021 we decided to purchase a milling machine and by April 2022 we had found a facility called Paoluzzo that would both house our machines and one that had capacity available for milling parts. This meant we now had triple sourcing. Our original location for milling, our own machines and now Paoluzzo.
A glimpse to our new facility Paoluzzo that would get us out of harms way and would get tourbillons onto wrists. Mike is getting ready to run main plates production for the Tourbillon 1.
After a lot of programming, the arrival of spring and our staff and production staff back at work from covid illnesses we were able to finally start milling the remaining main plates and bridges for Tourbillon 1.
What ended up being a very unpredictable and drawn out production than any of us could have imagined turned into a process that solidified our future production.
Today we have now added a fourth location to machine and this ensures we can meet production timelines. During this process all watches were finally produced much to yours and our teams delight.
Customer Feedback
The most important part of the Tourbillon 1 project was delivering ordered watches to all who purchased. There is nothing quite like hearing the excitement and relief from customers after they received their highly anticipated watch. Looking back there are so many kind emails from everyone that I simply can't share them all here, but one thing that was consistent across all the feedback was that the watch was better in person than most could have imagined. Seeing a watch online and then in the metal for the first time after waiting so long for delivery could go either way, but it seems the Tourbillon 1 is a watch that knocked it out of the park so to speak.
Tzuyu reminded me of a customer Mr. Lee from Taipei. Retired and a happy watch collector it was his dream to always own a Swiss Made tourbillon. He never thought that it would be possible until he discovered Horage. Mr. Lee didn't have a computer, but rather he submitted his order in writing which I have included below. We delivered his watch and he was over the moon with finally having his grail piece. Mr. Lee passed away a few months later and we are happy we could make his dream of owning a Swiss tourbillon a reality. His son has now inherited the watch and this memory of his father continues to live on with the Tourbillon 1.
A photo of Mr. Lee's order.
All of us at Horage are extremely grateful for the patience and trust you placed in us with your orders. Without you this simply could have not been possible.
Thank you!
The Future
With a tourbillon movement in our catalogue it would be silly for us to stop now. In the past year there have been countless requests for Tourbillon 1 and we have had to turn them down as we promised Tourbillon 1 would remain a single edition. With requests piling up we continually discussed what we could or would do next.
Scouring over feedback from the community on what you have wanted from a tourbillon as well as the interests of our team we have quietly been working on something new.
Next week on Tuesday October 11th there will be a little teaser that is sure to raise some questions and later on at some point this month a full reveal will be made.
The Tourbillon 1 recap is now a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this four post series. It was a lot of fun to put together and it brought back a lot of memories.
Be sure to keep up with the newsletter this month!
Till next time...
Landon Stirling
至從看到K2機芯,對您的品牌作品感到驚豔。
很期待新的陀飛輪產品,更想入手一只您所出產的陀飛輪腕錶。
台灣之光+瑞士之光
I was wondering when the mainspring barrel moved from off center to be in center line with the Tourbillon? Was that T1.2? I like the symmetry of mine much better than the initial design, when it was still off center.