Tick Talk #1: From the Back Room to a Luxury Watch Platform

Twelve years of HORANDO began with five watches on eBay, zero ratings and a back room in an auction house. In the first episode of Tick Talk, Christopher Fischer and Stefan Sebök go through those years: The first customers, the first trade fairs, the first financing round – and the stories you could not make up.

The following version is an edited transcript of the conversation. The full episode can be found further down.

2013: Five watches on eBay and not a single rating

The two founders met at the age of 14 in Bamberg. The company was founded in 2013 with an idea that seems almost out of time today: Offering luxury watches online at lower prices. Back then it really was still about price, not availability. In 2013 HORANDO sold a Rolex Submariner below list price – and could have sourced twenty of them on request. All that was missing were the customers.

There was no website of their own. Instead, five watches were listed on eBay, none of them in stock. The first customer bought a Submariner from a seller with zero ratings – and paid. He remained a HORANDO customer for several years. Looking back, this is the point both of them still keep coming back to: Why would someone entrust a four-figure sum to a seller with no history at all, at a time when large shopping baskets were still the exception in e-commerce? Their parents were dismissive back then: Who buys a watch worth several thousand euros online?

This is exactly where the later obsession with trust signals came from – Trusted Shops, Trustpilot, reviews, being reachable by phone. As Sebök puts it, it is not just about selling a watch, but about everything that happens around it.

Baselworld: The first authorised dealerships

In 2014 the two attended Baselworld for the first time, back then the largest watch fair in the world, where Rolex, Patek Philippe and Omega presented their novelties once a year. The first visit was above all overwhelming – a different world, including Italian dealers wearing two watches on one wrist. On the second visit there were appointments at the stands, and these led to the first authorised dealerships: Frederique Constant, Bell & Ross, U-BOAT.

Interesting is the side effect both describe: With the dealerships, the perception within the industry grew. "Grey market dealer" became "secondary market". Today hardly anyone asks whether everything is above board with an online purchase – twelve years ago, that was exactly the first question every customer asked.

From the back room to the first showroom

In 2015 they moved from the back room of the auction house into their first own showroom on Lange Straße. Two men, one room and a learning curve made up of countless small details.

Take Saturdays, for example: They opened because they thought they had to. In return, they stayed closed on Mondays to attend to private appointments – the very day on which every bank, every supplier and every customer calls. Looking back, both describe this as a crazy idea.

Or the dentist who stood in the showroom with his dog while the invoice could not be finished because of internet problems. At some point he said to his dog: Yes, I'm bored too, we'll be going in a minute. And the customer whose bracelet was to be adjusted "quickly" and whose adjustment took 45 minutes. That day, the decision was made to outsource bracelet adjustments.

The biggest lesson from this time, however, is a different one and still applies today: At the beginning of 2014 a customer came in wearing jogging bottoms, looked around – and bought two Rolex watches, one for himself and one for his wife. He worked for a large company in the region and simply did not feel like wearing a suit at the weekend. Ever since, the rule has been: Never judge by appearances.

Southern Italy, country codes and the network

In this industry, the dealer network is the real currency. It was built on foot: Into the plane in a suit, visiting dealers in Spain and Italy one by one, family businesses in their fifth and sixth generation, many of whom are still partners today.

The first of these trips went to southern Italy, to an authorised Rolex dealer. There were three rules: Do not take any goods with you, use the rental car only to go to the dealer, the hotel and back, stay in the hotel in the evening. All three were broken, starting with the goods and a stop at a motorway service area. The customer waiting in Hamburg was told the situation honestly: You are in Hamburg, I am in Bari, but your watch is in my inside pocket. It was delivered a week later.

From the same time comes a topic that has completely disappeared today: The country code at Rolex. Customers regularly asked which country a watch came from; for many, a "German" Rolex was a prerequisite for buying. Internally this turned into a game: Guessing reference numbers, right across Rolex, Omega and Breitling.

2017: Companisto and the first big boost

In 2017 the financing came via Companisto – not equity, but a venture loan with an equity-like character that was later repaid in full. One of the investors from this round sits on the advisory board today.

For a company based in Bamberg rather than Berlin, Munich or Hamburg, the path there was considerably tougher. Both describe the evenings at founder events without any sugar-coating: For every hundred founders there seemed to be three fund partners who dropped by for thirty minutes. In the end, the main thing that scaled was the beer.

The campaign itself went better than planned. The target was €100,000; after about two hours it stood at around €140,000. The plan to head to the beer garden as soon as the threshold was reached only failed because the brewery had not yet opened. With the capital, the Christmas business was stocked in a completely different way, and revenue doubled compared with the previous year – handled by two people, from customer service and photography to returns. Then work began on the Series A, which would take a year and a half. That is where episode 2 picks up.

Waiting lists, list prices and the maths behind them

A large part of the episode revolves around what leads customers to independent dealers. Sebök tells of a visit to an authorised dealer in Hamburg: Beautiful ambience, coffee, champagne – and a no when he asked about a Rolex GMT-Master II. Two drawers further along lay a Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711 in blue, list price around €50,000, market price at the time €80,000 to €90,000.

Both understand both sides. Anyone who buys jewellery and less sought-after models from the same dealer over the years is more likely to get access – it works the same way in a restaurant on a Saturday evening. It is just not everyone's cup of tea to put themselves in that position. And the maths often works out differently than customers assume: If you buy the Omega from an independent dealer 20 to 25 percent below list price and pay a little more for the Rolex, you end up at list price for the two watches combined – and have both straight away.

Then there is the group of customers for whom time is simply more expensive than money. Anyone who is successful in their field has little interest in applying for a watch.

Customer stories that stuck

Three stories are typical of the early years.

The first: Munich, Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten. Customers from Frankfurt and Munich were simply invited to the hotel bar, without a reservation, with the watches in a small case. Some paid in cash. When a customer once failed to show up, a friend who was an auditor took over the handover – the envelope was then counted in the offices of one of the big auditing firms.

The second: A customer from North Rhine-Westphalia wanted to buy a Patek Philippe and trade in several Rolex watches. He asked whether Bamberg had an airport, got back in touch two hours later and asked for the address – he had landed at Bamberg airfield in his private jet. The handover took five minutes, after which he went back by taxi. He is still a customer today.

The third: The very first gold Rolex, a Yacht-Master II in solid gold, at the time the most expensive watch the company had ever sold. The same customer was back in Bamberg a few weeks ago. This, both say, is exactly how you measure the business – not only by the KPIs that shareholders want to see.

As a footnote on technical questions over the phone: A half-hour conversation about movements could once reliably be ended by mentioning the 904L steel alloy. Today, such questions are handled by a colleague who knows considerably more about them than both founders.

Five either-or questions to finish

• Panerai or IWC? IWC.
• Drive to the customer yourself or pack ten parcels? Drive to the customer yourself.
• A customer who negotiates or a customer who knows everything better? The one who negotiates.
• Buying in: A Rolex without papers or a Cartier Tank from a smoking household? A Rolex without papers.
• A rate deviation of four seconds or "I bought it elsewhere, could you check whether it's genuine"? The rate deviation.

On the lottery question: Three times Patek Philippe on one side; on the other, a Nautilus 5711 in blue, a Rolex Daytona Ref. 6263 "Big Red" from the late seventies and an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak in 39 millimetres – the classic, not the Offshore. A. Lange & Söhne is expressly praised but rarely turns up in the trade: In twelve years, barely ten watches from the manufacture have been sold.

Watch the episode

Chapters

• 02:49 – Founding and the first eBay customer
• 07:04 – First visits to Baselworld
• 10:53 – Building trust in online retail
• 12:23 – First showroom, first customers
• 15:08 – Authorised dealerships and dealer network
• 18:23 – Business trip to southern Italy
• 20:11 – Country codes and guessing references
• 21:20 – Financing via Companisto
• 25:57 – Three dream watches after a lottery win
• 29:21 – Waiting lists at authorised dealers
• 38:42 – Customer stories from twelve years
• 46:18 – Crowdfunding and first growth
• 49:44 – Five either-or questions

Listen

Tick Talk is available on YouTube and Spotify. The current range can be found in the selection of luxury watches, and inspected pieces under Certified Pre-Owned.