Independent Thinking - Benoît Mintiens (@Ressence_Watches)

[Music] Welcome to the independent thinking show at the 5th wrist radio. This is a place dedicated to showcasing that cool people doing interesting things in the world of horology. My name is Roman and my co-host with me is Adam Mediumoč. Hello Adam, it's been ages since we've done one of these. Indeed, it's good to see you, how have you been? I'm alright just chugging along, getting older quietly, with dignity, otherwise now I'm good. I'm good. The cool thing is we get whenever we get together, there's like a cool guest that that we've got with us. And I want to thank you for setting this conversation up. Do you want to tee up our guests today? Sure, if you've been listening for many years, you may have met one of the guests the show Victor. Victor and I were hanging out in New York City a few weeks ago and he mentioned that there was a very cool event that was happening at Chillini Jewelers. It was an event regarding residents and a visit by Benoit Minton's. So I brought my little son and we sat for over an hour in Chillini Jewelers and we had a great chance to meet Benoit and it was such a wonderful conversation that I figured, you know what? We should get him on independent thinking. And so here he is. We are very pleased to introduce Manuel Minton's who is the founder of Rust. Thank you. Thank you for having me on your show. Both of you and everyone that's listening, of course. Thank you for being here. Yeah, it's absolutely a pleasure. I am surprised you let Adam's children anywhere near you watch us, you're. I would, you're a brave man that I am Benoit. It was a table in between us, it was safe. Exactly. Nothing was broken. No one survived. But look Benoit, it's a real pleasure to speak with you. I said the main impact, interest in this sort of series of podcasts that Adam and Adam and I do are often independent watchmaking or watchmaking with a particular interesting view or slap or take on things. And I think there are very few modern watch brands or watch companies that have come out straight out of the gates with such a beautifully formulated clear idea of how you wanted to revolutionize if that's not too big a word, how time is displayed. So it's a real thrill to talk to you. So thank you. Thank you. Let me explain you a little bit more about it, yeah? Sure. Please do. Just now, yes, okay, go. So yeah, the background of our thinking of our vision is inspired by the fact that we are a company that is looking at fine watchmaking from an industrial design point of view. And the result of that is the watches that we make and the way they display the time, the way they work, the way they do actually everything, the way they interact with you. That's really driven by this idea that a watch is a tool to show the time. We sometimes forget that in our industry, that in the end we sell a product that has a function. And how can you improve within a context of a 21st century context? How can you improve the product watch, wristwatch today? How can you still do it? And basically to make it more relevant, in a sometimes when I'm a little more mean, I would say, as you said, I was, I did not have to be politically correct. I don't want to have a shihuahua on my wrist. I want a real dog. So the whole idea is to make a watch a relevant tool, a relevant functional tool. And for sure, there are many, as there are many plenty of brands in the world, and they all have their way of expressing the time, but also how they conceive their own reason of existence. But as an industrial designer, I think that a product is an object that should fulfill a service. And I sometimes compare it to, if I would talk in dog terms, I wouldn't like to have a shihuahua on my wrist, but I would like to have a real dog on my wrist. Maybe preferably even a wolf on my wrist. And so how do you do that? How do you make sure that the dog is a good hunter, he can run well, et cetera, instead of being an accessory? Because that's a little bit the problem that we sometimes see in our industry, is that watchmaking sometimes is a bit too much about the fact it's an accessory. But it's perfect because most people buy a watch for that reason. So we are an exception to the rule. I'm only explaining the exception in a very plastic way. But the whole idea is really to make sure that we can be meaningful as a product by making sure that the functionality of that product has been revisited, re-improved, et cetera. Interesting. So do you see yourself as offering a tool watch? We see ourselves as offering a watch that is a tool, not a tool watch. I sometimes also compare it to a butler because a butler would, you would walk around and say, hey, whatever Roman, how late is it? And as a good butler, you would say, I don't know why, it's five o'clock, 31 minutes. Or even better, the best, the best butler would say, you still have enough time to reach your next destination. You even don't have to worry about how many minutes that is. And that is actually what we do when we check our watch. When we check our watch, we check an angle. We don't look at where the hand is pointing. There's an image that is projected by the dial of a mechanical watch with hands and that angle will give you enough information to know if the distance to your next moment in time is long enough. If the angle is big enough, if the angle is too small, you will start to run. If the angle is big, you will slow down your pace or maybe stop and buy a journal or whatever our coffee. The watch is, the way time is represented with hands is actually a very efficient way to read the time. A lot more than a digital way, like with numbers, because with numbers, you need to read every number to know the time it is. And there is no relevant aspect of it. There's no relative aspect to it. With hands, you have a relative aspect to it. For example, in your car, now the cars more and more, they have a digital indication of the speed you're driving. But with a hand, when it's up, that's my maximum speed. How far am I from there? A digital way to represent an information will never give you a relative information. So I think hands is a very, very effective way to represent the time. And yes, we believe that a watch should be a tool, should be a tool to show the time. And what we do at Resonce, all the innovations that we have, and there are many, are all driven by this idea that we want to improve the efficiency of reading, of wearing, of interacting, of all the aspects that are related to the relationship that you can have with a watch. Or any other product. But here we talk about watches that we apply to watches. So this is how we conceive the brand resource and the philosophy that we have according to fine watchmaking. Thank you for that explanation. It does for a glimpse into your creative process, or at least the conception, the conception of the thing. It struck me, given that your your background is as an industrial designer. I'm struck by another industrial designer that has revolutionized time displays in the watch industry in another brand would be somebody like Martin Fry from Erwerk. Again, is that kind of, so I wonder if being an industrial designer actually gives you that license to step away from the tradition of Harrison, tradition of Bregey and all of that sort of stuff. I wonder if that's necessarily. Well, some people think you are a designer and because of that, you try to be different. And that's a misconception, I believe. That's marketing. An industrial designer is there to challenge the status quo. That's my job as a designer. And if I think that the status quo is perfect, I don't need to be there. And then my job is not necessary. But if I think that I can improve something, improve a functional aspect of the product I have in front of me, yes, then I'm relevant to the evolution of the evolution of products. What, all the watches that we wear, except resents and except in Erwerk. And we are talking about marginal quantities of watches when we take those two brands together even. They were all conceived, the system architecture of these watches, of all the watches that we know, were conceived 200 years ago. Only one year, 100 years ago, we added the bracelet to go on the battlefield with it. But the concept, the system of a watch is never changed. There is a barrel, there is an excitement, there is a movement, there is an axle in the middle with two, three, four hands. There's a dial, there's a case, there's a glass, there's a crown that sticks out and 100 years ago they've added something to attach a bracelet to it. And nothing has changed in 200 years. Can you imagine any industry in the world that didn't change for 200 years, that didn't change the system architecture for 200 years? There are not so many. And that's what we do, basically. We have changed the system architecture of a watch with resents. We still have a movement, yes. But the dial is a system. The dial is not part, is not a dial. The dial is a mechanical system that shows the time in a different way. The case is part of the dial, the case is part of the watch. So the inside and the outside of a resource is actually one thing. Certainly when you talk about the watches with oil inside. So you have also something I call the de-materialization, meaning that we take away the physical presence of components on our watches. You would say, wow, Benoit, that's really bizarre because the whole industry is trying to do exactly the opposite. To materialize everything, to show more parts, to show more complexity, to show more things inside. Sure. And from a marketing point of view, it's a good idea because you can explain why a watch is expensive with us. We probably have twice the amount of components in our watches than the watch you would compare it to, but you don't see it. And that's the whole idea of also something that has been influenced by the fact we have an industrial design background is the fact that we try to take away everything that is unnecessary. We, if you have taken away something that is necessary, then you have taken away too much. But all the rest you can take off. And so it's really this idea of trying to reduce the watch to its maximum function. That's really the basic ID behind. So you have the model beyond hands. You mentioned the importance of the hands in looking at the arc, seeing how much time is remaining. How do you have that model, also that philosophy? How do the two coincide and go together? The beyond hands. The beyond hands was our previous tagline. We moved to ahead of time, where it's a little more aspirational. It's only marketing, guys. But the whole idea is really to say that beyond hands comes from the idea that it's there no hands on our watches. It's graphical hands. So the time is represented. I invite everyone to take a look at our website, of course, but because it's really hard to explain. But the idea is that all the time representation is done by a set of disks on which there are hands that are printed. So it's a kind of one-surface mechanical screen, basically, what you. So the whole idea of the beyond hands really comes from the idea. It's we go further than hands. We go a step further and we go ahead of time. That's really the philosophy behind the brand. What, by the way, also the philosophy of the book that we made for our 15th anniversary, ahead of time, where we asked 20 customers mainly to share our vision on the future of their industry in the coming five to ten years. You literally took the words right out of my mouth. That's exactly what I was going to say is for everyone listening while you're on the website, make sure you click on and order the book because the book looks really excellent. Get the catalog resonate as well. But yeah, that's yeah, while you get both. We're working on the new one now. It should come out by the end of the year. So update the catalog resonate. We do every second year. We update the catalog resonate. The book you refer to is one time just for our 15th anniversary. Yeah, fantastic. I was reflecting on we should talk about the range of watches you may have. You established a company in 2010, the range of models and the evolution and the innovations in them. It's actually quite staggering for everything from e-grounds to oil field watches to. Yeah, it's an incredible, incredible journey. And again, all these things, all these innovations are all driven by the purpose of making the watch more user-friendly in a general term because a product, according to an industrial designer, only has gets his relevance. The relevance of being a product only comes from the way it executes its function. I will take a car as an example to illustrate that. If you have a very beautiful car, I think, oh my god, I'm going to look so good in that car. And you step inside and when you start the engine makes a very cool sound. But then you start to drive with it and you feel scared because you have the feeling you have no control over the car. Do you have a good car then? And so the whole idea behind this is really to make sure that the function, that the reason why you buy cars to drive it, make sure that you don't make a shihuahua, that's the beautiful car that doesn't drive well, but make it a real good, genuine car, where you feel safe, where you have the feel that you are in control, etc., etc. The things that you appreciate about the car, and that's the same for watches. So if you all the things that we do are always inspired by this simple thinking of why do you wear a watch? Why do you buy one? What's the reason? What's the purpose? What's your context? Where do you live? And I live in Australia, maybe that has a consequence, warm, super warm sometimes. Then you have maybe this, maybe you need to have a special strap then because you start to sweat, so how do you avoid that? It's all these very practical things that when they add up and they are coherent altogether, that you have a better product. And that's really what we try to do at Ressence is to have just simply set a better product, a better according to us of course. This is a philosophy that we have that I think not many others have in the industry. They have other philosophies that also are very valid, but here you ask about our vision. So our vision is really driven by this idea. So you've spoken about the visual interaction with your watches. How do you think about the tactile interaction with the watch setting, the wearing, the sitting, the wrist? Yeah, it's a very good question actually because I think we don't think about that enough and the haptics. So when you look at the results, the first thing you will see is that it's very organic. It's a very organic shape where most watches in the industry are not so organic. There are many reasons for that. The main reason why we made our watches organic is because we want to make sure that we believe that humans have a tendency to have a better relation with organic shapes than with geometrical shapes. And this idea comes from the observation that in nature nothing is geometric. Actually, all things in nature are organic. You will not find a geometrical animal or a geometrical tree or a geometrical stone. This does not exist in nature. And so with our caveman brain, we still associate organic with closer to me. And that is why our watches have an organic shape, because they should be close to you. They should be as close to you as your glasses. Did you ever see geometrical glasses? No one wears geometrical glasses because we look silly with geometrical glasses. So watches as much as glasses part of our identity. And so we have to make sure that the language of forms that we talk, that we speak, sorry, should be in line with who we are biologically, geoshape wise, etc. The idea of having organic shapes is a very, very important aspect for us because of the empathy you can have with the watch. It's a kind of factor, an empathy factor that we try to have into the watches. And of course, the consequence of that is that the feel that they have makes it very nice to have in your hands, basically, but that's just okay. I give you a coin the size of a pebble and I give you a pebble and I ask you which one would you like to hold in your hand? You will go for the pebble because it's round, it's curved, it feels nice. And so this idea of, yeah, talking a language of forms you feel good with is, I believe, an important aspect. Did I answer your question? No, most definitely. And look, and one of the things I've said, so I've been lucky to have a play with one of your watches, one of our fifth-thrissed crew T-san, who's Melbourne-based as well, has a type one square. And it is a fantastic watch. And again, what you say is exactly right, it's impossible when you have it in your hand, it's impossible to not caress it and soak it in a way like a beautiful pocket watch would be that organic, very pleasing shape, it is very meditative just to play with it. And it is a striking watch, beautiful watch to interact with, for sure. Thank you. Yeah, I think also when you refer to the type one, for example, the setting of our watches is not done through a crown. Why is that? First of all, because a crown is actually not a such a good ergonomical solution for the problem you try to solve with it. Crowns sticks out or too big or too small, but it's never the right size. It's not very clear what you have to do with it on every watch. It reacts a bit differently, so you have to pull it out, you don't know how much, you will turn and see what happens and then go back and try to cancel what you did. So this is a typical solution that watchmaking has for 150 years now. So you would think that's perfect. If no one changes it for 150 years, must be the best solution that came out of the evolution of products. It's like a crocodile. You have a digital crown. It's perfect. The crocodile is perfect. It's the same animal for millions of years. So that's our crown. The crocodile is the crown of the watch. So we decided to change that. Because we believe that we are bigger than midgets, we are bigger than five-year-old kids, we have fingers that are a certain scale. When you look at the crown, it seems to be a crown for a five-year-old. We have put the crown on the back of the watch and make it the scale of your fingers. Certainly, when it comes to interacting with it, you will have noticed by setting the time with the back case, you exactly do what there is no slack. There is no acceleration or deserulation or when you turn five degrees, your dial changes five degrees. There is a direct link between what you do and what these are very basic ergonomical principles. But it helps again to improve your relation to the watch, your trust in the product. And in the end, eventually, you have a better relation with it. And that is what I believe is our job as designers. Amazing. How much of the visual and identity and the haptic goals of it? How much of that you did you have at the very outset back in? If I stopped you at 2010 at Baselworld or whatever the insert name of a now-defunct industry, if I set you down at 2010, could you have drawn me a diagram that said, I have these five or ten pillars that I wanted to do. This is the visual thing. I'm not a visionary. Some people try to romanticize things. It's an interactive process. I did not think of putting oil in a resource before, after one year, I started the resource. And I did not think of putting an e-crown into a resource before I met an ex colleague of mine that is in IoT. It is something, it's a path, it's an evolution. For example, the crown, we just talked about, why did I move away from the traditional crown? Because I had customers that were breaking their nails on the crown. They were complaining about the fact that they brought their nails. So I said, "Oh, indeed, it's really not a good idea, so we should revisit the crown and rethink the way it works and how it's conceived." It's an ongoing process. It's an iterative process. A resource is an iterative process. By the way, last week we had a, for the first time, a little retrospective where we had watches from over the 15 years. And what strikes is that even the first watch we did, the DNA is already there. You see the brand has a very specific way of looking at fine watchmaking. It's there, of course, the watch is less refined as it is now. It's maybe less complicated as it is now. It still had a crown, what they don't have now, etc. So the dial was flat, where now it's all curved, etc. So there are many things, but what is clearly a resource. And still today we are very close to this initial idea that we had, this vision that we had. We are only refining it, improving it, but the basic concept is still valid. Where is the room for refinement? A lot. So mechanically, there's a lot of refinement has been done. The way, so only that is already a lot of refinement. There is the refinement of the shape of the watch, the outside. There is clearly the refinement of the finishing. So no, it's multi-dimensional. The refinement has gone through all the different aspects of watches is built from. I cannot imagine something we didn't refine in all these years. It is really the evolution that we have as a brand, going from this, yeah, basic concept. So it's really still very much a concept at the start. Where now you see products and certainly in the coming years, things we are preparing are more and more products that are developing these two aspects that we have in the brand in our DNA is, on the one hand, we have fine watchmaking. On the other hand, we have industrial design. And the products that we are developing for the future are more watchmaking and more design at the same time. So it's really this evolution that we are going through as a brand. Yeah, it's clear, but it was there from the start. It was just a small tree and now it's bigger tree. I think it's a whole orchard now. I think looking at your, looking from type one to type nine, it would be all the variants in between. It's an incredible amount of innovation in a very relatively short blink of an eye. 15 years is not that much. When I look at some of my colleagues that when young brands, we are on the path of development that has shorter cycles. In the beginning, as a brand, you usually have faster cycles because you more and more where you need to go when you launch. I didn't know anything about watchmaking when I started the brand. So I didn't, I wasn't, I'm not Swiss. I'm still not. I was not watchmaker. I'm still not. But I can speak Swiss and I can repair a watch if I want to now. But still in my DNA, I'm not. And it's this whole process that you go through. Yeah, it gets you to a more and more point where you start to being able to mix all these aspects together. I'm fascinated by you know, all the models that you have, the oil field, the type three and type five really fascinate me because I would love to have been a fly on the wall when you as a Belgian non watchmaker were trying to explain the vision that you had of an oil field mechanical watch to a bunch of watchmakers for whom that's not a natural conversation to have. I would imagine. It didn't go that way. So what I did was I took the components of a series one. Series one was at that time the watch that I was selling. So I took the dial components. I glued them on a CD. We are we are old guys. Or I am going to listen and not Adam, but we are old guys. That's right. So we had CD players in our, we had to deal with CD players at one time. And so the CD player had a disk and in that on the CD disk, you had a hole in the middle. So what I did, I glued a dial, I glued a dial on a CD CD in the middle. Then I glued a glass on top of that. And then I turned it around and I filled the hole with a liquid. And then I duct taped the back hole. So I turned it around and so I had I suffered the first time the effect of oil in the watch. Oh, I see. So that was the validation of the concept. In the process. Then the next the next one was to make a prototype. And I remember I worked with a certain supplier at that time in Geneva to make the series one. And so I decided to make a prototype based on series one, but with oil inside. So I had to modify certain parts from which one of them was the case. Because after a lot of research, I decided to split the watch in two halves, one with oil, where you had the dial. And then one with air, where you had the movement. Because the movement cannot run in a liquid. And so I asked this guy to make the case of the watch. And then when everything was nearly ready, I was there to check the parts. And they said, I think you made a conceptual mistake in your new watch. I said, while I'm very intrigued now, I was a bit scared, of course, because the guy had 30 years experience in making watch parts. I was a bit. What is going to tell me now? I said, what is the mistake? He said, I think I want to put the movement behind the dial. I said, yeah, that's the idea. It's like the same as you already make for us. He said, but there is no opening between the movement and the dial. So how how are you going to drive the module if you have no opening? So it was a bit worried about the concept. I explained him that we will do it magnetically. And of course, something he would, he had never thought about. Nothing makes watchmakers feel comfortable. I said, oh, don't worry, we'll put magnets in there. Put magnets inside. Of course, his reaction was, oh, yes, okay, a good idea. But the magnet's not so good for your movement. I said, yes, but you also had to make a fairly cage. You have that in the parts that you're making. There is also a cage around the moon. And, et cetera, indeed, it was, it was a quite a special thing. And you know what? I don't understand why it was never done. Because now that we have this, our oil filled watches we require half the energy to run, then our oil, then our air filled watches. So it's an extremely efficient way, mechanically, also, not only visually or from a legibility point of view, but also mechanically, it's a better watch. You have a longer power reserve. Your parts don't wear. You don't need the oil because it's all in the oil. It cannot, the oil cannot evaporate because it's completely closed, sealed off. So it cannot go anywhere. And the parts are, yeah, 100% lubricated, obviously, all the time, all the time. And even better, they are relatively lighter, because they float in the oil. So they have less wear and lighter. So you have a double advantage of having the oil inside. So it's, yeah, it's rare that we have to service the oil section of our watches. It's something that's super well protected, actually, thanks to the oil. I mean, it's really interesting because I guess you approached it because there have been other oil filled watches, Zinn, for example, Max, the Hydro UX, I think, or whatever. But there have always been quartz watches, obviously, for obvious reasons. And they really used the oil as a to reduce reflections to prove visibility underwater. Whereas, so that was, I think, oil was only used from a optical for its optical properties and its depth compression, rather than as a mechanical solution to a mechanical problem that you've approached it as both. Yeah, wow. Yeah, that's super interesting. And we're often, sorry, go ahead, Adam. What's wrong? Well, you also have an air-filled watch, so you've got the type two, or you made a mechatronic movement, essentially. Well, that's not a mechatronic movement. It's a mechanical standard, to standard mechanical movement, automatic. And there is a component or a development that we did that we call e-crown. And basically, e-crown is an electronic system, or an electric system that is embedded in the mechanical watch. And as the word says it, e-crown stands for electric or electronic crown. That means that the crown function, that even for a resource, but also on a traditional watch. It's something a wheel that you turn around with your hands to set the watch. E-crown does that for you. So instead of you turning that crown with your fingers, we have installed a little electric motor that will turn the crown for you. Obviously, there is a little bit of intelligence inside this electronic module. It knows different time zones. How does it know different time zones? Because when you set the watch manually, it will remember it. And so you can do that for two different time zones. And once you, so when you set, for example, the watch for the first time zone, you put it on Melbourne. And the other time zone, you put it on Bombay, whatever, you will, the watch will remember it. So the electronics part will remember it. And so when you wear the watch, the mechanical watch, your digital part of the watch will constantly monitor the hands, the mechanical watch is indicating, are indicating and will reset if necessary. Or you can tap the dial or the glass and the watch will go to the next, the other time zone. So it will move from one time zone to the other just automatically. There are a little more, a lot more things about it, but the whole idea here is to keep the mechanical integrity of the watch. We wanted to have a watch that works perfectly in on a mechanical way. So it's 100% mechanical. It's only the crown function that has been automated. You can still do it yourself because the whole watch was also designed that if you take the electronics out physically, the watch will normally run normally. It will not go from one time zone to the other obviously, but it will run like a normal mechanical watch. And even more important to us was the idea to tackle the obsolescence that people sometimes associate with digital products. Because we consider ourselves as a fine watchmaking brand, high end watchmaking, and when we design our watches, we design them not to run for one year or six months, we design them to at least run for 25 years. And so that means that the electronics you put inside that are on board the watch. They should also be designed in such a way that easily in 25 years, you will still use that watch. Even when there are no smartphones anymore, even when the watch works, all these functions that I'm talking about, they all work independently from anything outside. There is, there you don't need a GPS, you don't need a Wi-Fi connection, you don't need a Bluetooth, you don't need a smartphone, it will do it all just because of you interacting with the watch. So it does it on a completely autonomous way. And it's a bit comparable to the electronics in your gearbox of your car. You can have a 25-year old car. It will still shift the gears automatically, even when it's 25 years old. There is no reason that electronics break down after six months is because we update them, it's because manufacturers want to update them that they become outdated. It's the choice of the manufacturer to make them outdated. But if you as a manufacturer decide I'm going to do electronics that will not be updated and so outdated, then you end up in a solution that is extremely solid because yeah, what what will happen to a transistor, nothing can break down on a transistor. So it's it's a very stable technology if you don't touch it. Oh look and I think for and for everyone listening or for anyone listening, everyone listening, there'll definitely be people. I highly encourage, have a look on the website. You've got these really great explanatory videos for all of your models, how they operate, the bottom of the page, the bottom of the page, beautiful voice, whoever's doing the voiceover, fantastic, very captivating. But the type 2, the e-crant, it's so cool. It's the double tap and then the one tap to switch. It's so cool. It is genuinely because I showed it to my 11-year-old son. I showed it to him. He's he's interested in the mechanical stuff that his dad likes, but he's also obviously a child who is a modern child. And just to show him the see the ticking things like dad likes, but also there's this cool double tap thing which they all intuitively understand that like it is such a cool thing. It's an amazing thing for the industry to have. So no, well done you. That's just that's incredible. Incredible. Thanks. So there you go. There you go. There you go Adam, you go. I've been talking a lot. We've talked about a lot of really innovative ways of doing things with different types of parts. We've talked about fluid filled dials, you know, electronics. Where do you source all this stuff? And how does this impact your supply chain? Yeah, it's a tough one because you have to find new new channels, new sources when you do these things because we didn't watch making you don't have them. Sure. Typically the oil, why do you find the oil first of all, how do you define the oil you need? What is what type of oil do you need? I'm not a chemist at least that is already a question. And then when you found the right oil, where do you buy it? We don't need the 15 trucks of it. It needs to be something that is available. So all these things are very challenging when we develop these ideas, but oil is on itself. Okay, you find the oil, but for example, you were referring to these quartz watches that are filled with oil, what you will probably have noticed is that they have a bubble inside. They do. And the reason why they have a bubble inside is because they did not have a or they don't have a bellow system or at least a system that compensates for the oil that expands or contracts because of the heat. Of course. And so they use a bubble of air to do that. The bubble of air is actually their bellow so that because if you fill the watch without any air inside, you close it and you heat it up, it will explode. Of course. Or at least the oil will creep out. It will not stay in. It's hydraulics. You cannot. That's why hydraulics exist is because you cannot compress it. The oil will come out anyway. Whatever you try to do, it will come out. That's why on a resource, we didn't want a bubble, obviously. And so we also developed a bellow system. Okay, where do you start? You need a bellow system. And so these are all these things that you have to find out. And in the end, we found a solution because we sell them, but yeah, sometimes it takes a lot of time to find the right company to make these parts, because obviously you don't find them in the watch industry. So you have to search outside. Typically, the first bellows that we had, they were actually, they were connectors. They were coming from the electronics environment. So they were like dynamic connectors. So they were gold plated. Obviously not to oxidate. But they were really used as connectors, as mobile connectors. So it's these things, but yeah, how do you get there? This is really a sourcing thing. But that's the whole, yeah, that's also the creative part of doing things that no one has ever done is that for sure on your path, you will find things that there's no obvious solution. So you have to search for it. Electronics, same thing. I didn't know anything about electronics. So I also learned I didn't do them myself. I only designed the PCB. So I designed the board with all the parts on it, but they gave me the parts. They said, okay, you need all these parts. You have to organize them about this way, because we need to define all the cabling between components and circuits. And so because, yeah, of course, I had the vision of the whole watch. And it had to fit in. There is not much room in the watch, but I didn't, well, okay, after doing a project, I knew, okay, this is an accelerometer, and this is a processor, and this is a battery management part, whatever. Or a Bluetooth antenna, these things, yes, when you do it, but before you don't know. So do other watch companies come to you, let's say, I don't know, the only other watch brand with bellows I can think of would be somebody like hyt, for example. Did they come to you and say, listen, we've got, we also need bellows, but our bellows are different to your bellows. Can you tell us what you're getting your bellows? Like how much of the conversation, if you're allowed to say, you might not be allowed to say, and I don't really understand. It's no problem, but I'll be not on your door. Yes, let's talk about that. I'm not Swiss, so I can talk. But no, yeah, hyt started a bit a little bit after us. Yeah, they came a bit later. But I think we had the same supplier. Yeah, I think we had a discussion once about it. It's a company in the US that makes these parts, but also for them, they were not made for being a bellow, they were made for other reasons. Yeah, sure. The technology to have a metal thing that could go in and out. For example, where you have them is on the beetle. On the beetle, you all know the car folks who are going on the car. Yeah, of course. Yeah, you have a bellow system to manage the temperature of the engine, because it was an air-cooled engine, and it has, it had a bellow physical thing that would go, yeah, longer or shorter depending on the temperature of the engine. And it was attached to a little cable and that cable would open flaps to to let more air go through the cylinder zone. So this technology is not like space-age technology. You just don't find it in watchmaking, and then certainly not that small watchmaking, the scale is so small that you can go to the guy that made them for the folks out on the beetle, because it probably will not be able to make them that small. So you have to find the right, the right sourcing is a very important one. But again, I think this is your training as an industrial designer that kind of, that you have a much more open mind to where can a possible solution to this specific problem come from. It's a fascinating thing. But in the end, you're always confronted with the scale of things. You can find solutions, but the scale of things is something very specific to watchmaking, and certainly not only the scale, but also the tolerances that are applied to these scales. And there are actually not so many industries where you can have the combination of end small scale and super high precision. It's not so, they're not so many. Sometimes they're like the bello, you can find it in a car, but that's not the right scale. And the industry are making, will never make them that small. Sorry. Medical devices? Is that more some more interesting? Yeah, sometimes. For example, we have been working with companies that make stents for in the blood vessels. This was also one of the routes we went through. For example, yeah, but then you need to have a specific size, and they cannot do it, or unless you take one million of them. So it's not always so simple to find the right things, and then you change the concept a bit, because you cannot find the right supply to make the parts, so you have to adapt the complete concept to be able to avoid, to have to need certain parts that you cannot find. So it is a very iterative process always, certainly when you come up with a completely new ideas, and you are a small player, because if you're a big player, you can say, okay, but develop it then, and then you get your part as you want it. But that's something we could not do, for example, for the type two. There are batteries in that watch. The batteries, I cannot develop my own batteries. And that's all as well. Yeah, of course. So we have to find batteries with a certain shape that would fit in the watch with the sufficient energy insights that could charge through, because there's also a light that you charge a battery with light. So we also had to develop a solar cell, specific for the watch. So it goes really far. The batteries, in the end, we bought batteries from a company that developed them for the earpods. And so in the end, it is a German company that had the contract, but there was also a Japanese company that was in competition. They lost the competition, but they developed the batteries, and they were allowed to sell them just on the market. So it's all these things that you go through, but that's yeah, that's when you innovate. I think it's for everyone that wants to innovate. You have to, yeah, use the tools that are available to you at some point. And the more we grow, the more we say, okay, it doesn't exist, then we will develop it. If it's reasonable, but certainly in the start, you cannot do that. So you have to be very flexible. It strikes me, the bravery of the path that you are walking strikes me as incredible. And the reason I say that is traditionally in the historical independent high-horology watch space, right? So if you're a brand that independent brand that shows that your watchers are made well of high quality, the traditional path as you create a sapphire case back, you do very nice Geneva striping and you do three or four interior angles. And this is why our watch costs 50,000, whereas your stuff is no one else is doing it. You have to create it from scratch. And often it's invisible. And it requires a lot of explanation because it's not found anywhere else. And the needle that you're threading is the bravery to do that is amazing. So full of admiration. Doesn't feel brave. It feels like it's an necessity. It's not really bravery for me. It's okay, if you want to achieve the vision that you have to go through this. And sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not that easy. Sometimes it's available and sometimes it's not. But you don't ask yourself the question, okay, this time, this is too much for me. I'm not going to do it. So you see, you just say, okay, I'm going to do it. And we'll find out along the way. And sometimes it takes more money or more time or more resources or more people or more nerves or more whatever. But sweat and tears. But in the end, the idea is that you have this vision and you want to get there. Typically, I'm working on a watch that will come out in a few years. It's, yeah, there are some things in that watch that are also new to the industry. Okay, I have to think after four or five concepts, I have to work them out in 3D because you never know the scale or the consequences of what you do. See how it works. See how you can make these parts. Are they too small now? Are they big enough? Is it a stable solution? Do you have to draw it completely? There's a lot of work to say in the end. Well, doesn't look good. So it's sorry. Oh, it will work, but doesn't look good now. So you see, it's all these balances that you have to that you find and that that's my job. It's my job as a designer. Absolutely. The designing and the making is one challenge and it's an enormous challenge. But then explaining it to the collector community must be an equally daunting challenge. Yeah, that's true. We are in a world that has been heavily shaped by the industry itself. It's the industry that that is teaching us what we have to appreciate and what we should not appreciate. Absolutely. The marketing machine behind watchmaking industry is a very strong one. And so when you come as a player that does not follow these rules or these logics where polishing the angles of the movement is not your core business and where putting Geneva stripes on the case is not your core business. Sure. And putting a tourbillon is not what you think should be done in a watch. But completely other things that no one talks about. Yes, it's it's not the easiest path. It's not the easiest path. But I believe it's the most coherent one for us. Again, we are only one way to look at it. Sure. We are a minority, the most watches that are sold. The vast majority follows a certain path, a certain rule, and most people buy them because of that. There is certainly good reasons to do it. It's just that we don't look we don't think that way. We don't look at it that way. And so we have a different way of conceiving our products. That's that's how it goes. So there's an artist named Jenny Holzer who does a lot of word art and one of her pieces of art says money creates taste. And I was thinking of that because I'm talking about how there's been all this money that's created a taste for this traditional watchmaking look that's been going in for centuries. Now you've got to market something new. And what people like is often not something that's a need to their own preferences, but instead something that's imposed upon them. That's the force of marketing. That's the power of marketing. That's why I'm very envious of all these brands that can sell watches that were the same already 50 years ago. They were selling exactly the same ones, but maybe the blue didn't change the little bit or the green is a bit different, but they're still selling them exactly the same way and all the rest is marketing. And it's great because again the vast majority of people buy a brand. They don't buy a watch. So it's so it's a very strong thing to do. It's not our it's not our vision. That's all we have another vision. It's not a better one. It's not worse. It's just different. And it's yes it's a little more energy in the product and a little less in the marketing. But it's valid the same way maybe less because we sell less watches. If you say your idea is more valid because you make more of them. Yeah, then they are more right than I am. But this is not the way we look at it. So it's a choice. It's just a vision. That's why you call it a vision, I think. Are there any other designers that have influenced your vision? So sometimes when I look at recent watches, I think about the work of Dietrich Lobs and Braun because there's this purity of the visuals. You can very clearly see what the title is on a broad clock or watch although more conventional. Yeah, I think of course Rams is an interesting reference with our others. More modern, also a little more contemporary designers that are interesting. I think I share a design culture with drums. I share a design culture with a few other designers. I believe that are well known. And sure they will probably have influenced me. But there is also something else that I believe I'm influenced by is the fact that very often, even with drums, the system architecture is not changed. So he's changing the interface. He's changing the way it looks. And the way the information is represented. But it's not changing the system behind it. And I think that's the strength, the strong differentiating parameter of results is that we are and visually different, but we also technically different. We are economically different. And the whole interaction is different. And so I think we go a lot deeper into the modification of what is seen as a mechanical watch. We don't just change between brackets. The shape of the case and the shape of the hands. And maybe the graphics behind it. But it goes a lot further than that. And I believe that's the strong point about the results is that we changed nearly everything and to come up with in the end, a product that we believe expresses time in a more efficient way than a traditional watch. We have even the proof that it does it. And really to try to, I call this, create a new reality for watchmaking, say, this is a new way of defining a wristwatch, a more 21st century way to define a wristwatch. Would there be no watches? Would it not exist? Adam, imagine yourself, there is no mechanical watchmaking. It does not exist. And you come to me and you say, I made a lot of money. And I'm fed up in always trying to take this phone out of my pocket to know the time. Can you not think of something you were wearable, whatever, something you attached to your wrist, showing the time? What would it look like? Would we not be biased by 100, 200 years of watchmaking? I hope it would look like a resource. See that. But to people don't see it because it's recorded. There's no video. Yes, one of the things we've got over excited. One of the things we forgot to do was the wrist check. So why don't we do one now? And I think that's a good way to do that. We don't have to watch a better watch. We've got two on each wrist. We don't have a type 7 on wire wrist at a type 2 on the other wrist. Okay, we got it. You got it. And unfortunately, I'm not an octopus. So otherwise, I would eat watches. Yeah, that's right. The watch that I flashed to my full of podcasters here is a drill gentle by retro. And the reason why I flashed a by retro is I was thinking, what are my collection best symbolizes telling time differently? And way back in the day, a drill gentle thought, oh, maybe we could use two hands that are both retrogrades and then a jump hour to tell hands in a quasi-digital fashion. Now, there have been many other retrograde movements before. This is not as unique as what restants is doing. But there have been other people that have thought about this. There's also the IWC pull-webber as well that digitized the way that time is displayed. I'll be in a mechanical fashion. So Robin, what do you have? Like you ice-truggled to. So what we try to do, BenWares, we try to come up with a thematically relevant watch, if we don't own a watch by the guests. And unfortunately, I don't. But the watch I have in my collection, which I think has a little bit of adjacency to yours is I have a Remain Jerome craft. So, hey, I like it because it's a different way to tell the time. So, it's got, so it's a jump hour, minutes on top. But the other reason I selected this one is you recently did a collaboration for your type one watch with for revolution with Waco with Elaine Silberstein, who is one of my favorite sort of designers. And this watch is a Remain Jerome subcraft that Elaine designed as well. Ah, I guess. So I thought this is the. There's a link. There is a link. And I must say, and I must say that type one that you've designed for revolution, the Memento Mori, there is something about the way you create your make your watches that really make you think about the passage of time, not just as hands moving, but as the dials moving around, almost like the like you can like the planets moving in space and we're all. There is something that Memento Mori type thing that really makes you pause and think about that time is changing because every time you look at that dial of your type one or any rest, it's never the same. So, yeah, I thought that was the most relevant I could think of. It's the best way to define that time is passing is because there's change. So it's the better you show, it's the more you're aligned with the concept of time, but okay, this is getting very philosophical now. No, yeah, absolutely. Look, one thing, as we're starting to wrap up, I love the conversation. I'm loving the intensity of the discussion. This is exactly what we were hoping to get. Okay. What I'm keen to think about, if you look at the sort of historical what complications, whatever that might be, is there one that's sitting at the back of your mind or something like, I could really re-sensify this to make it better to make it better. I've done that a few times for these typical watch complications. I have a few concepts that I worked out, but in the end, I applied a very simple rule to if we do it or not, and the rule is if I don't use it more than once a week, right, it's not a relevant function. Interesting. It's really something that we think, okay, if we do these things, even though they look good or they're very, whatever, exciting to work on or maybe for the user, let's say, look at how beautiful it does this or that. If you don't need it often, then I think it's not so relevant to have it on a watch, but okay, this again, this is only a choice. So where does the perpetual calendar fit in that? I think it's not so necessary in the end because the chance that you will take off your watch before is bigger. But I understand why people like it. I'm not against the idea. It's just that I think it doesn't fit our philosophy. I prefer to think of, for example, making a diver watch that you can obviously read on the water. It makes a lot more sense to me because you improve the functionality of a diver watch by making it readable on the water. Whereas all the other mechanical diver watches that are airfields, they become a mirror on the water and you really have to face them straight on to be able to read them. That means you have to stop swimming. So it's this functional approach that we have more than, let's say, references that the watch industry is imposing to us or it's not imposing because you're free to buy them, but it's marketing to us because of the extraordinary technical complexity of it and the fact that someone was able to to work something out that works. Like that, I'm impressed by it. Don't get me wrong. I really think it's very impressive to see it. But yes, it doesn't fit our vision on fine watchmaking, that's all. And it's just, yeah, you have to know what's in and what's not in. And I think making minute repeaters is not in for us. Even though every time I see one, I think, oh God, so beautiful. And how did they do it? It's just crazy. But yes, it's not the way we look at fine watchmaking. And so it doesn't fit the brand. It's like being Ferrari and making a truck makes no sense for them, but doesn't fit the brand. Even though it would be a very cool truck, I think, but it's not fitting the brand. It's just not their DNA. So for anyone who's sitting there listening to this thinking about buying their next minute repeater, put that money towards a couple of wrestling swatches. That's the lesson of the podcast. Absolutely. That's not money. Roman, now you're talking. Oh, marketing. Listen, it's all marketing. If they can push their message, we can try and push out. That will now think that you want to buy a resource for a very good price. So let's discuss this after the podcast. We only pay on this podcast, Manuel. We only pay retail. That is the formal policy of this podcast. As we've ever bought, as we're wrapping up, I'm curious, what advice, in 15 years, you've had this journey with the rest of the 15 years, what advice would you give somebody who's sitting there thinking about creating something of their own, particularly in the non-traditional part? If they think I want to do something, I don't want to file in arangles, I've got a unique, is there any advice you could give them apart from do something that brings you more happiness? Less worries. It has to be what I, unfortunately, see too often are people that start in watchmaking and their unique selling proposition is super weak. It's not unique very often. And when it's unique, it makes no sense. So it's a very, it's a difficult, it's a very difficult, it's not, it's not negative. It's just that these people are blinded by their own idea, that their idea is the best. And I can tell you, even if you have a very good idea, you could have the best idea ever. You need so much more to succeed in watchmaking or any other business, than your good idea is that you have to make sure that you can think 360 degrees and not only be very good at creating a new idea or being very good at creating a nice design, having a watch company is a lot more than that. And so, yeah, sometimes I believe that people underestimate the amount of things that come, the fact that we are here in this discussion. You really think I thought that one day, maybe if I start a watch band, I will have podcasts. You don't think about that. It's something that comes on your path, as well as I have to hire or fire someone or I have to train watchmakers or I have to anything that you have to do. It has nothing to do with designing watches. So it is a very broad spectrum of things you need to be good at. Sometimes I give the example, the metaphor of a jet plane with multiple engines. And every engine is basically an aspect of your business. There is a marketing engine, there is a production engine, there is a finance engine, there is a design engine, there is a market, etc. And you have to make sure that in the development of your brand and your company, all these engines go about the same speed. That means that you have to give attention about the same amount of attention to all these different engines. Otherwise, your plane starts to swirl. So you have to drive the path. So you have to make sure that I think many people aren't under, they don't think about these aspects. I have been through very difficult periods also, like most people that start a company, because yes, you have bad suppliers, you have bad clients, you don't know them, you start with someone because you are new to the industry. Of course, the ones that have enough job because they are good, they don't want to work with you. So you end up with the bad ones, and you suffer from it, and you have to survive it. So it's the struggle of when the sea turtle is still very small, it's a big struggle because they are so small and everyone can need them. Only a few that survive when they are big, no one touches them, of course. Yes, you don't want to be a way you like, that's right. But when you're the little sea turtle, yeah, then you're super vulnerable, so you have to eat well and swim well and be safe and be decent with that. Even when you're a very small sea turtle and never forget, for a customer, it's not relevant to fact you are small. Yes. He expects from you the same as he does from a big large corporation that is there already for 100 years. And for a customer, it's not different. He pays, let's say, 25,000, if he has 25,000 resorts or 25,000 mainstream brands, he will expect the same service, he will expect the same quality, he will expect and it's normal. But for us, it's a lot more effort to get to that because of the fact that we are a small organization. Yeah, you have to be tough. I cannot say differently, you have to be really tough and be ready to endure a lot and be extremely cautious. I am someone that is very cautious. How many brands I've seen come and go in these 15 years? We refer to HYT. They were funded massively when they started. I think it's their third time they go bankrupt. They start again, so it means that someone believes in it again, but it's not because you have money that you're going to succeed. It's really not enough. Actually, it's better not to have enough money. Both Adam and I are wearing watches from independent brands who are no longer around. Gerald Jenter is not Gerald Jenter. Remain to Rome's coming on. Watchers are great. The products can be great. You've got to be more lucky. It's just more than watchmaking. Being a watch brand. It's more than watchmaking. Sometimes people, they're naive or even naive. They're just not aware of the 360 degree approach you need to have and make sure that all these stakeholders are addressed. I'm sorry. I don't have a Barbie or a Barbie story here. It's really not easy. It's a hard business. It's a difficult business, but I think most people suffer, it's a big word, but I think we all have our challenges. Whatever business we're in and watchmaking is not different. It's also very tough. Certainly, in the first 10 years, it's extremely tough and you have to be extremely resilient and agile to move around all the obstacles that are thrown in your path. When you're small, an obstacle looks bigger. When you're bigger, the same obstacle is maybe not such a problem anymore, but when you're small, yes, but bigger companies have bigger problems too. It's always something. Firstly, thank you so much for being so open. Thank you. It was invaluable advice. From my perspective, it's been a terrific episode. Fantastic discussion. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. This has been wonderful. Likewise, thank you for spending all this time in person as well, so we appreciate you coming to America. Thank you for coming to Australia. It takes a lot of time. Congratulations on 15 amazing years from 2010 to 2025. May the next 15 be easier for the grave little sea turtle that Ressons was. Now it's growing up. It's been wonderful. For everyone listening, make sure you check go on Instagram, ressons_watchers.com, ressonswatchers.com. Have a look at the collection definitely by the book, either the catalogue resume or the about time ahead of time. Both look amazing. Benoit, thank you so much. It's been amazing. Thank you to both of you and thank you for all the listeners that are interested in watchmaking and in ressons of course. I hope you will, I will make you happy with my next creations too. Absolutely. And to everyone listening, we'll say what we always say. Stay on time. Have you made an honest review? 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