Welcome to the Serve No Master Podcast! This podcast is aimed at helping you find ways to create new revenue streams or make money online without dealing with an underpaid or underappreciated job. Our host is best-selling author, Jonathan Green.
Today's guest is Ronnie Teja is the founder of a successful watch company. He discovered the high profit margins of quartz watches and decided to start manufacturing them in Shenzhen, China. With a one-way flight from Vancouver, he seized the opportunity to create watches with a 75% margin. Although not initially a watch enthusiast, Ronnie was inspired by the success of micro brands like Movement and DW. Confident in his abilities, he set out to excel in the industry.
In this episode Ronnie Teja the man who is here to share his incredible journey of building an 8-figure e-commerce empire. Get ready to dive deep into the world of online business as Ronnie takes us through his experiences in the e-commerce industry, his strategies for success, and some fascinating insights into the world of watches. From launching his own brand, navigating the ever-changing landscape of digital advertising, to the importance of customer engagement, Ronnie has valuable lessons and tips for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Notable Quotes
- "I see you coming in here every day. I see you pitching your ideas. I see you doing all these things, but do you know how quartz watches are made or how clocks are made?" - [Ronnie Teja]
- "There's an opportunity here to manufacture watches at, like, 75% margin."- [Ronnie Teja]
- "The Cost of Influencers: 'The larger the audience, of course, there's a premium associated with it, which we are willing to pay. If you're a nano or a micro influencer, of course, we'll give you what the market rate is.” - [Ronnie Teja]
- "There's no job where you love every aspect of it. There's nobody who, like, loves doing the accounting as well as running their business." - [Jonathan Green]
- "Price is the most important aspect, but there's also a price when you go too low, people get suspicious." - [Jonathan Green]
Connect with Ronnie Teja
Website: www.branzio.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronniesteja/
Connect with Jonathan Green
Welcome to the Serve No Master Podcast! This podcast is aimed at helping you find ways to create new revenue streams or make money online without dealing with an underpaid or underappreciated job. Our host is best-selling author, Jonathan Green.
Today's guest is Ronnie Teja is the founder of a successful watch company. He discovered the high profit margins of quartz watches and decided to start manufacturing them in Shenzhen, China. With a one-way flight from Vancouver, he seized the opportunity to create watches with a 75% margin. Although not initially a watch enthusiast, Ronnie was inspired by the success of micro brands like Movement and DW. Confident in his abilities, he set out to excel in the industry.
In this episode Ronnie Teja the man who is here to share his incredible journey of building an 8-figure e-commerce empire. Get ready to dive deep into the world of online business as Ronnie takes us through his experiences in the e-commerce industry, his strategies for success, and some fascinating insights into the world of watches. From launching his own brand, navigating the ever-changing landscape of digital advertising, to the importance of customer engagement, Ronnie has valuable lessons and tips for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Notable Quotes
- "I see you coming in here every day. I see you pitching your ideas. I see you doing all these things, but do you know how quartz watches are made or how clocks are made?" - [Ronnie Teja]
- "There's an opportunity here to manufacture watches at, like, 75% margin."- [Ronnie Teja]
- "The Cost of Influencers: 'The larger the audience, of course, there's a premium associated with it, which we are willing to pay. If you're a nano or a micro influencer, of course, we'll give you what the market rate is.” - [Ronnie Teja]
- "There's no job where you love every aspect of it. There's nobody who, like, loves doing the accounting as well as running their business." - [Jonathan Green]
- "Price is the most important aspect, but there's also a price when you go too low, people get suspicious." - [Jonathan Green]
Connect with Ronnie Teja
Website: www.branzio.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronniesteja/
Connect with Jonathan Green
Jonathan Green: Want to build an 8 figure ecommerce empire? Find out on today's special episode with our guest, Ronnie Teja.
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Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, Fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now, then you've come to the right place. Welcome to Serve No Master podcast Where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author, Jonathan Green. Now here's your host.
Jonathan Green: Now I'm very interested in what you do because So many people, the first thing they say when you talk about watches, like, I don't wear a watch. You know, my my phone tells me what time it is. And the other people are people whose watches are 100 of 1,000 of dollars. And it's, like, really, to me, it's so risky to have something so expensive on your wrist. And that's why people lose their watches all the I write, like, would make me so nervous to have a 50 or $100,000 watch. So I'm very interested because your watches aren't crazy expensive, But they look nice, and you have a lot of interesting things going on. So I'd love to know maybe how you first decided that watches were gonna be the business you go into, where did your passion for watches come into, and how did you decide to go the ecommerce cycle?
Ronnie Teja: Sure. So the inter thanks for having me, Jonathan. There's a couple of there's an interesting story behind how I started my watch company. And the the story is this. I read somewhere that the margins on quartz watches about 75%. And I said, wow. How am I not making money off of this? So essentially, what I did was yeah. I found out where the The the one center epicenter where quartz watches were made in that court that epicenter is Shenzhen, China. Right? And the world's largest watchmaking fair that happens in the world is in Hong Kong. So I'm from Vancouver and then basically took a one way flight. There was no coming back from there and took a one way flight to go from Vancouver to Shenzhen. And I said, look, there's an opportunity here to manufacture watches at, like, 75% margin. So personally speaking, when I started, I wasn't much of a, a watch fanatic. I bought into watches because I saw others like Movement and DW and all these guys, the OGs of micro brands, actually excelling at it. And I said, I can do what they can do, what I could do, you know, A little better than them.
Jonathan Green: I think that's something very interesting because a lot of people think, oh, I have to be passionate about whatever I do When it's 99% of people hate their jobs. Right? They just do it Monday to Friday to get the paycheck, but they think, oh, if I start my own side business, I have to love every part of it. And it's that old saying, if you love your job, you never work a day in your life. I hate that saying because it's not true. There's no job where you love every aspect of it. There's nobody who, like, loves doing the accounting as well as running their business. Right? Only accountants love accounting, but it's all part of it. Right? There's always something that's the job part. So it's really interesting to hear from someone who's No. This I just saw an opportunity as opposed to I was a watch person originally. Because I think a lot of times when people approach from a passion this is why there are so many golf inventions. People like golf keep making golf inventions. And how many inventions in 10 years ago around? Probably none of them. Right? But they get too passion driven. They're trying to find that balance. So That's very interesting to me. So when you went to this fair and you're in China and you're looking for this angle, are you looking for someone who's gonna make watches based on your designs or as designs that you can just put your brand on. Like, what's the approach you take when you're looking at entering this market?
Ronnie Teja: Yeah. Sure. So the interesting part that ended up was so I called everybody from university back then. I only had 3 or $4,000 in my bank account. So, of course, the money was working against me. And, it's an interesting situation. So called everybody from university. I said, look. I'm coming to Hong Kong. Hong Kong's a really expensive place. It's like New York in terms of its living expenses and everything else. So I said, I'm not booking or tell I'm coming to stay with you. So stayed at his house, lived and bought it for free, and ate all his food. And every day, I would go to the this watch and clock fair. And the watch and clock fair basically happens for about 2 weeks. And every morning, I'd start from 1 flow, and I it's about 3 flows. And every morning, I'll go from 1 flow and cover all 3 flows. And I basically take my design, show it to the guys, And be like, hey. This is what I wanna do, but this is my idea. And then I think I did that for a week. And and one of the days, this old gentleman, he looked at me and he said, look. I see you coming in here every day. I see you pitching your ideas. I see you doing all these things, but do you know how quartz watches are made or how how clocks are made? I'm like, dude, I have no idea what I'm getting into, But all I do know is there is an opportunity here that I wanna pursue. So lo and behold, from the generosity of this guy who The Watch Factory says, completion engine, stay with me. Right? And he basically said, come see all watches are made. So that's essentially how I found out how quartz watches were made to start off with.
Jonathan Green: And how do you decide how many designs to have? Because some watch brands have hundreds and hundreds of designs. But it's like when you Say, oh, I have a Rolex. That doesn't mean anything because there's such a wide range of designs from things that are $100,000 to things that are a couple $100 now. Right? And even if you say, oh, I have a Submariner, it doesn't mean anything. Well, what year? What color? There's 7 features to figure out what it is on the range. So how did you find where you're going to fit as far as Pricing as far as how many different designs you have, because some people, they go really far down that path. If I'm gonna have a 1,000,000 designs, and they said It's been especially bad for clothing because you have to have every size. I mean, I have extra small all the way up to 3 x all g unit with a massive amount of stock, and you have to guess not only the design, but the sizes. So there's a lot of complexity. So with watches, how do you decide how many different designs you're gonna start out with when you're launching your brand?
Ronnie Teja: Yeah. So the the interesting part about this whole situation is 3, 4. So always test out before you launch. Right? The name Brandio came through a Google survey Because I'd read somewhere again that if you name your you're watching Italian sounding fame, people are probably gonna like it. So I put out, like, at least 4 or 5 different names, domains that I want to buy, did a Google survey for a week, and Brandy was the top one. And I said, okay. This is the brand we're going with. Bought the domain for $10, and that that was it. In terms of designs, a similar strategy was applied, which is basically We I mean, later on, it's evolved. But when I started, it was basically I had about 6 different models, tested it out on Google, and there were 2 with 2 clear winners, Right? By by a fair fairly large margin. And we said, okay, these are the 2 ones that we're gonna go with, and then we're just gonna evolve it from there. Right? Today, we test it in a different way, I e, we basically Disperse new designs to a email list and ask them to pick the winners. Be like, hey. You get to be you get to be a part of this, and you get to pick the next the next best watch if you want at the end of the day, and we'll give them a free watch. Right? Right? We'll give them a free watch in case their design wins or etcetera. I mean, the cost to compete on that is next to nothing. However, your customers feel appreciated that they get to be a part of the dishes and meeting process, Which is the next level. So you feel engaged in that it's your decision that's actually matters at the end of the day.
Jonathan Green: There are a lot of people that try to enter these markets and it doesn't work. I know some people, they go, oh, I'm gonna go straight into drop shipping. So they're gonna order watches 1 by 1, ship them from China directly to the consumer, and kind of They have that really long delivery cycle, which crushed a lot of people over the last year when supply chains slowed down and shipping got so, so slow that now it's like, oh, your watch will be there in 6 weeks. Now, when I grew up and you ordered something online or from a magazine, they were like, it'll be there in 6 to 8 weeks. And you just accepted that. But these days, no one would ever wait 6 to 8 weeks for anything to be delivered. So what are some of the other people who are trying to do similar things with e commerce brands or with micro brands or bringing products from China to America, what are they really doing wrong? What are some of the biggest mistakes you see, and how can people avoid those really common mistakes?
Ronnie Teja: Yeah. Sure. I mean, the I went through the same situation as well initially, which was Amazon had just launched, I think Amazon delivery back then in 2013 was a 5 day delivery process, if I'm not mistaken. Right? It came with a 2 day delivery or the same day delivery in your city in 2017, if not, around 2016, 2017. The thing was, I was pretty upfront with my customers when they ordered it. I said it would take you a week to receive your product. Right? We were using the cheapest means we could. We were bootstrapped. We were trying to shave costs where we could, and we said it's gonna take you 7 days to receive your product. Now fast forward it to today. Right? We give people the option. We the option is you can either get Free you you can pay for delivery within 2 days, right, which is gonna cost you 9.95 or 19.95 or 40.99 depending on your a regional where you want delivery. Or if you wait a week, week and a half, you'll get it straight to your doorstep for free. Most people choose the free option, but you give It's about it's not the paradox of choice. You you give them the the choice. Choice matters in terms of the customer and how fast they want their delivery or how slow they want their delivery. So at least 30% of our stock is US based. There's there's still about 50 to 60% of our stock that is similarly drop shipped from China directly from the warehouses, from Hong Kong, essentially. And that takes about a week and a half. But If people do order and they want their delivery within 2 days, we do deliver to them within 2 days.
Jonathan Green: How much of the margin goes into the shipping cost that you're eating when you give them the free shipping?
Ronnie Teja: That's an interesting one. Margins, unfortunately so are we talking about COVID margins, or are we talking about post COVID margins? Because shipping's come down. Right? What you have to also account for is, like, shipping a container that used to cost us $3,000 pre COVID, and now it's leveling off to the same sort of prices during COVID jumped from $3 to about $21,000 a container. So it's a seven x cost. So in some cases, During COVID, we did have like, there there were some cases where we would breakeven. Right? I mean, usually, we would we would consider a 10% 10 to 12% of the total, of the total gross margin to go into shipping. Right? Today, it's 10%. During COVID, that figure was about 22, 22% per watch, Which is you basically double your shipping cost, which which is crazy. Right?
Jonathan Green: And as you're seeing other people who like you said, when you first saw it, you saw other people that were trying to do watches, and there were things going right and things going What have you noticed? When you saw the opportunity, what did you see that you could do better? What are the big mistakes other people are making or the opportunity in the market?
Ronnie Teja: Oh, yeah. So that's an interesting time. 2013 is also the nascent years of Facebook ads. Right? I mean, you could there there were cheap CPMs. Influencers were coming in extremely cheap. You know? It's you could basically do a Instagram live was something with Kim Kardashian for a 100 k. With this so there was an opportunity for us to start taking these chances. So usually the way we would position our budget is 80% of it goes to tried and tested methods. Facebook Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google shopping ads, all that stuff. So that actually does still is 80% of our total media spend budget. 20% of it, we'll test out. So when TikTok came out, we started advertising on TikTok. We got influences on TikTok. That helped us scale a lot. And then, of course, today, in that 80% mix, we also have TikTok. And then we'll still pursue 20% for using get emails or retention .com or something else. Try and always be testing with 20% of your budget to see where the new opportunities are. So when I started, a lot of people were doing Google, but not a lot of people were doing Facebook and Instagram. And, you know, Instagram influences were taking off back then. That money from Instagram influences has now switched to YouTube influences, which is a completely different ballgame as well. And I find YouTube to be a lot more Direct and a lot more, conversational with the customers. Podcast is another one. Right? We would watch podcasts where it was extremely Conversation where people are talking about certain pieces, and people consume the media in different forms. I mean, the main crux of the conversation is the more that we intend to build is around the media that we have. And, ideally, we would prefer to own the media.
Jonathan Green: And so there is this constant flux between advertisers and media, and you I see it a lot. Like, there's a lot of trends lately with a lot of Facebook. A lot of YouTube advertisers turning out to be not what they were offering. Right? There's been a bunch of YouTube advertisers that have suddenly had to here because no one will work with them anymore because of all these things going on with how they treat their influencers or how they kind of it always catches up to them if they have a short term win. So Yeah. When When you're trying to create a there's always that risk, right, of a backlash, right, if you underpay your influencer, it saves you money in the short term. But in the long term, they start to hate you. Right? They And they'll let it out on other streams. I've seen that happen a few times to some big brands. How do you establish a relationship and figure out what's the right amount to pay someone? Like, how do you go through that process without you don't have to go into specific numbers, but more about the what are you assessing, what are you looking at, what are the risks and rewards with This type of marketing because a lot of people really don't understand influencer marketing because I've seen people with massive same size followings. 1 person's getting $400 a video. The other person's getting 10,000, and they don't know the difference.
Ronnie Teja: Yeah. That's an interesting that's an interesting question, actually. So I can take it through what how I would assess it personally. When I'm assessing an influencer, what we would do is we would work back from the cost per thousand. What is the cost per thousand of impressions? Right? So if I were to, say, drop a a YouTube video today and advertise for it and say the cost is, Let's say 20 to $25, that's Canadian. Right? That's where my usual CPM would fall. And if I have to get a YouTube influencer, say, within the 15 to $20 range, it's a no brainer for me. I would sign them up immediately, and I would say, okay. This is coming in a little below what I would pay for My beauty badge and this is actually a much better medium because I have a very captive audience. Right? There's a there's, of course, a mix of micro micro, nano, and large scale YouTubers. The larger the audience, of course, there's a premium associated with it, which we are willing to pay. If you're a nano or a micro influencer, of course, we'll give you what market rate is. And that market rate is determined by what possible 1000 is compared to what YouTube is. The interesting part that that comes down to it is we usually work with only YouTubers who have who are there for the long term. I mean, it's coming like, of course, there's influencer side. There's also the advertiser side. The advertiser side is we've paid in we we pay all influencers upfront. Right? And in some cases, they've disappeared in the short run. So it's which happens. Right? And that's the cost of doing business. In some cases, it happens, and we have to be We have to be able to write it off. I mean, I think I've lost 20, 30 grand doing that kind of stuff, but it's okay. Like, it's we are in the business for the long term. We are in the business for the next 10, 20 years, And we're there to those relationships. I think, as a person, I personally appreciate relationships that I've built over the years, 1 on 1 with influencers or With with the reps at ad ad agencies or our reps at Facebook and Google, it's the same sort of, I guess, mindset that would apply in this case.
Jonathan Green: Different Social media platforms have different longevity. Like, today, I was watching a video from 3 years ago that had that inbuilt ad that they re that they recorded for some brand, and I'm sure they got paid a long time ago. Right? And there's a really long tail to it. That's, like, the beauty of YouTube. Right? People watch videos a lot longer, whereas it's very rare for someone to watch a TikTok that's more than a week old. But one of the interesting things about TikTok is that some small person can have a video blow up. So there's more opportunities. Right? So is it when you're Developing your strategy with these other platforms, Instagram or TikTok. Is it better to get, like, 10 influencers that each have 10,000 followers or 1 influencer that has a 100,000 if it cost the same. Because my feelings has been, like, on TikTok, I got 10 shots of it going viral. Right? It's it's increased odds of going viral for the same price, or is it better to go for the larger influencer?
Ronnie Teja: So you brought up a couple of really good points. So number 1 is the longevity of YouTube. Right? So when you talk about, like, pay once and just leave it there forever, With YouTube impresses, we usually end up paying affiliate commission after so we'll say, okay, look, 3 these 3 to 4 months is what I paid you for. But in the future, if you if if there is a an opportunity to sort of work with you, we will continue paying your affiliate commission on each sale that you drive. So that way, when we talk about not taking advantage of influencers, this is something we put in place just to come back to the conversation. Number 2, when you're talking about TikTok, Instagram versus YouTube. I almost prefer YouTube because YouTube is, from my experience, you always think about the audiences first. Right? Instagram, I I consider to be very self driven, I guess. Because you you know it's a sale coming on on Instagram. Right? TikTok is an interesting beast. TikTok is I definitely would agree with your assessment of, you know, saying, look. If you were to put the same amount between Instagram and TikTok, I will out myself used TikTok before Instagram because it there's 10 different shots of you of your content going viral. So for me, that sort of equation would always be YouTube number 1. TikTok would definitely be number 2 just because of the audiences and the variety of the content.
Jonathan Green: How much integration do you look for between the channel, Like, the type of content they're making and your branding. Because I see a lot of YouTube ad like, everyone on YouTube's always seems to be running the same ads. Right? They're all doing Everyone seems to have a v no matter what they're talking about, they do a VPN ad or they do an ad for this wallet that everyone that no one has that everyone advertises. Is like
Ronnie Teja: That's rich, man. That's nobody Sean. Sean Frank, he's a legend.
Jonathan Green: They're like, how do you choose? Do you care that much About the integration, do you only wanna be on watch channels, or you just look for channels where your demographic watches the content?
Ronnie Teja: We are looking for specificity, I would say. Right? Ideally, specificity is something that would help. Oh, see, a a watch is very interesting. Right? You you People who like watches will only watch channels. It's a disease. Like, I don't know. It's people who smoke cigars will only watch cigar channels. It's not a very broad. It's not as saying, hey. Look. It's not like a mass market thing like an iPhone. Right? Watch is extremely specific, and people who like watches like watching Extremely specific content that's towards it. I don't know. What what what's the passion for you? I'll give you an example. Like, what what is it that you love? I I see you have really, a really good podcasting, Mike, your setup and your studio is amazing. Right? So maybe you've you've gone down the hall of how to have a setup for your home studio, and maybe you're a photographer. And I also see a great gaming chair in the back. So Chances are, I would say you do have consumed content from a gaming channel. So it's sort of that niche. Right? It's like you you the content that you would consume is very specific to your own needs versus a Teddy Balzac Who's who makes really good content related to watches versus, I don't know, mister, you know, who might be a diff who might be a different category altogether.
Jonathan Green: Because Sometimes, like, I look at, like, parallel things. Like, when I've worked with other men's brands on projects, we're like, oh, what are the things that guys watch? Like, every guy I know watches lock picking videos. Right? We we all have that part. You know what I mean? That's like, oh, yeah. I could do that. Like, I could be a spy if I need to.
Ronnie Teja: A 100%.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. Or We watch, like, a woodworking one. Like, yeah, if I needed to, I could build that. Like, there's a part of us. Like, obviously, it takes a like, the it takes years to develop these skills, but we watch those or the Got like, although a lot of people that watch those, they build a house in the woods, that thing. Like, there's some of those that, like, seem to be, like, every guy watches those. Right? And so they're not directly watches, but they're parallel. So when you're look because there's only so many watch channels. Right? So then you're looking for the next thing around it, which is --
Ronnie Teja: People who like watches, like cigars, like whiskeys. So yeah. So you bang on the money on that sense. It's not just 1. There's usually something there's some commonalities. Wine, fine dining, whiskeys, Watches, there's a few. There's about the next level goes about only about 6 to 8.
Jonathan Green: That's very interesting. So my next question is, How many watches does, like, a person buy, like, in their lifetime with you? Is it they buy 1 watch and then they're gone? Or are they buying a new watch every 6 months or every year? Because, Again, my dad was a watch guy.
Ronnie Teja: Oh, really?
Jonathan Green: He was one of these guys that had, like, watches, and they were yeah. Oh, big time. And he had the spinning watches. He had 50 pairs of shoes, 50 jack. He was one of Guys, it was really into fashion. I'm at the other end of the spectrum. Maybe it's a rebellion thing, like or maybe it's just my face. But, you know, the you have the watch that keeps spinning because the watches are Like, I wore a really good one for a long time, and no one ever noticed. When I finally could afford a Rolex, I wore it for you. Nobody noticed. I go, well, what's the point? So for me, it's the external validation. Like, I don't wear it for how it makes me feel. It doesn't make me feel anything. So that's just me. But I do know that people who get into it, they have a lot of people have collections, which seems to be like is that kind of your demographic or the person who goes, oh, I just need 1 watch, and then they come back in 5 or 10 years.
Ronnie Teja: See, that's a really good question, actually. So quartz watches so the the the and I'm at the lowest end of the spectrum. Right? I'm not your badge level, and I'm definitely not your level. So our brand basically is a very mass market produced watch. It costs you a $100, 150. It's like, looks nice. I like the color. I like the dial. I'll buy it. Right? Versus something that your dad and your yourself wear, which is what I call a Rolex is a prestige brand. Right? A Rolex is a prestige brand because whenever you think about the and please, this is just my explanation of it. I might be wrong on this, right, which is When you think, like, you've made your 1st you hit 5 figures for the 1st time in your life, and you get that $100,000 a year paycheck. I don't know if that's a thing now. I think I'm sure that the needle's moved on that 250, 200 k. You people usually think about buying a Mercedes Benz. Right? It's like, wow. I bought a Benz or I bought this amazing car. So a Rolex is similar to Mercedes Benz. It shows prestige, right, but on a very mass level. So, hence, the term mass teach. The your father, for example, probably is a couple of levels above it too because if he's in the watch hole, he probably owns a Lange and Sohne. Right? Rolexes he probably had Rolexes, but he had Brands which are perhaps even more niche than Rolexes, which was you know, could be GP, Gerard Peugeot, could be, like, an MB and F, could be like so A watch lover after a certain point of time goes down a hole which is more mechanical. So they're in love with the mechanics of the watch. They're in love with just looking at, you know, when they wind the watches and just in the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick that goes on. So for example, I own vintage watches from the thirties and forties, which I prefer to be a lot more appealing to me versus watches that came in 2010, 20 later on, which Just like the Rolex Sub or something. So the it's a watch is very personal, and it's make it your own with the story that's behind the watch for you. So Every time I've had an exit because I own a portfolio, every time we sold a business, I'll buy a watch to remind me. Would I wear a watch in public, to be honest, Jonathan? I'm a little scared myself to wear watch in public given that if you travel to certain cities. Right? If, for example, in London, people are even getting they get held up for wearing, like, a moon's watch, which is a $200 watch. Anything on your wrist is basically gold, so they'll take it. So when I'm out in public, I'll probably wear my own watch or I'll wear, like, a moon's watch. But for certain events, You have to bring out the nice one. Sorry I went up back on that.
Jonathan Green: No. That's great because that's exactly what I went through. It's like you go through the phase. You start making good money and you buy a bunch of expensive stuff for a while. And then I don't use an expensive phone anymore for the exact same reason. Like, I don't wanna Lose a $2,000 phone. Like, it would be it's so annoying. I use a $200 phone, and I have every time I look at upgrading, I just can't see a reason to. I use my phone so rarely. It's not a primary part of my business. I used to be a phone business. Now I'm much more running from the computer, and it's just, like, Again, you don't want something I live, you know, I live in a third world country. I live in Southeast Asia, and you have to be a lot smarter. A lot of people here, you don't wanna, you know, show off and create attention to yourself like some dummies do. And it's like those are things, like, exactly that you think about is, like, well, I don't wanna everyone go, that's the richest guy in the island. Like, that's the last thing I want people thinking in. So sometime and also I have 4 kids. I'm always, like, well, I can buy them something really cool Instead of buying myself something. Right? I'm in that phase of dadhood, but it is very interesting to me because I think a lot of people thought watches were gonna disappear once they added, Like, a clock to a phone. Same thing, like, everyone's like, there'll never be a flashlight again because now cell phones have flashlights even though the flashlight is cell phones. It's not that good.
Ronnie Teja: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Jonathan Green: Do people buy, like, several different color watches to go with their different outfits? Like, this is what I'm wearing, a blue suit, this is a gray suit.
Ronnie Teja: Oh, man. You're you're you're you're touching it. You're touching it right now. Yes. People match the watches. I have a friend. I think he's probably got 3 or 400 watches, And you weigh each and every one of them. Some people buy 50, 60, 70 watches, and they probably never wear them. Some people have 400 watches, and they were they know how to pair it, and they pair it with the outfits. Right? It's like the analogy would be like women in handbags or women in shoes or you know? So it's kinda like on the on on the male spectrum, it's kinda similar. Right? It's, It's how you dress in the dressy outfit and how you get get along with it.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. I recently was on my wife and I went on a trip last month for a whole month. We were away. And The 1st day, I was like, maybe I should start dressing up again. We live somewhere very tropical. It's so hot. All of my all of my good clothes melted. Like, that just melted into a cube in the attic. All my leather jackets, all my tuxedo jackets, it just that's how hot. And I said, maybe I should start wearing nice stuff again. And so I bought some Slacks and shirts. I know what I like. Right? We're going around. We go to the big store, and I'm like, let's go get some ties. And I only wear skinny ties. I have this whole thing, she's like,
Ronnie Teja: I love you guys, man. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan Green: I'm like, I need at least 30. So, like, whatever mood I'm in, she's like, those are both pink. I'm like, they're not the same pink. This one is shine pink. I'm that way about skinny ties for sure.
Ronnie Teja: Yeah.
Jonathan Green: It was like and I've only worn 3 of them in the last month. I'm like, yeah. But when there's an emergency, like, it's a whole thing free. So I get very much about that. And so I do understand the pairing thing. I think that's very interesting because a lot of people, when they think about entering a market, they don't look at. There's kind of different people. There's the people that, like, hey. I just wanna watch that works. I'm never gonna think about it. When it dies, I'll buy the next one. Then there's the people that want like, you talk about that, like, really care about the mechanics. They know how different Rolexes function. Like, they know, oh, a fake Rolex ticks, but a real Rolex spins like that kind of stuff. Yeah. Or maybe have a back like, those are things they know. And I have a friend who's really in the high end watches, and he knows this type of gem, actually, Lee, as the watch ages, it gets more accurate. Like, he really cares about accuracy to the second I was watch, and it's so important to him. And I get that's fine. And then there's the people that, like, no. It's part of my accessories. Like, when I was single, yeah, I had 50 different wrist cuffs, Fifty different belts, and it was, like, a whole process to get dressed. Six pairs of shoes, not, like, a 100 like my dad, but it's, like, I have to put together an outfit To be the cutest I can possibly be. I don't have a lot to work with, so I gotta really maximize myself using fashion. And it's like the people that are pocket square people. There's no pocket square guy that only has one. Yeah. Either have none or you have a 500. There's no middle. Right? And there's a whole thing to it. So you either into it or not. And I think that's what's really interesting is that for every hobby Or for every accessory, there are people that obsess about it. Like, there's people with 500 belt buckles. Right? And it's like, oh, I have to wear the right belt for the right thing. So I think that's really where the interesting part happens. So when you think about the future of ecommerce and where things are going in the future, What are the things that kind of have you excited about the future, and what are the things you think are gonna start to fade away? Because I've seen for a while, everyone thought it was gonna be NFTs. Teas, like I would like, I care what a picture of me is wearing or and when that's gonna be virtual reality. I don't know anyone. No. Actually, it's true. I've met 1 person who owns a virtual reality helmet. I don't know if he ever uses it, but I've met 1 person ever who has one. Right? And sometimes we double down and we believe in technologies. Like, they've been trying to do virtual reality since I was fifteen and had it at the mall and was terrible then. And I still don't wanna try it. But they're like, oh, you can accessorize your character in a game. I'm like, yeah, I don't. That's not real to me. Right? Like, I want something I can hold. So I get to think about a watch. It's a physical thing. There's a lot of mechanics to it. It's interesting to see how it works. All of that's Interesting.
Ronnie Teja: If I may interrupt you, the reason I know I'm in the watch business, so I'm a bit biased, but I'm gonna say something which people might have thought about or may not have thought about. The one true piece of jewelry that a man gets to wear is a watch. So
Jonathan Green: Yeah. It's like you can if you're famous and I always wonder about this, like, this. When do you start to wear all the accessories? Right? When do you wear start wearing 15 bracelets? After your 1st movie? Right? Or when you decide you're gonna be an actor. Right? Or when do you start having 7 neck You know what I mean? It's like there's a big gap between how normal people I don't wear exactly that. I don't wear any jewelry, Only if I'm going out. I don't even wear my wedding ring. It's so hot here. Right? It was me and my wife talked about it. I was like, I don't leave the house. I I haven't left the house without white wife for one of my kids in, like, 8 years. So So it's not like you need to wear prove it to anyone. But I was like, this is just so uncomfortable. My finger's always itchy. And I just used to wear rings, right, when I would look cool and all that stuff. But you're exactly right, is that most accessories, especially once we get married. Right? Like, we really transition. Men go through the different phase. Like, why don't I have to try as hard anymore now, do I? Right? Like, what's the best? You know what I mean? Like, It's let's be honest. For being
Ronnie Teja: honest why you're not hearing that in the next room, man.
Jonathan Green: Don't worry. She's got a really good life. Like, she has an awesome life. She's like, I'm like, do you want me to buy another watch for me or something for you? She always chooses her. So we have that system. But you know what I mean? It's like you don't wear Six bracelets. I don't wear a wrist cuff on every wrist. I don't wear, like, 2 necklaces and all of these things. But, yeah, it just it was a phase. I did it a lot in my twenties and early thirties, but now I've just moved to the next phase where I'm just about comfort. Right? You go through those different phases where you care about flash, then you care about comfort. Like, It's why you see when people get rich at different ages, the way they spend their money is different. Like, it seems like everyone is rich in their seventies. Must go on a spaceship. Like, Yeah. There's a generate like, what do you wanna spend your money? I just wanna go to space for 4 minutes, and that's not my age. That's older than me and younger than me. They want a car where the doors go up. Like, I don't even own a car. I walk everywhere. Yeah. Great. Island.
Ronnie Teja: Love it.
Jonathan Green: So it's very interesting. So let's talk about the The last thing we're talking about is very interesting is the future of ecommerce. Where do you think things are going? Because there's been kind of consolidation and fragmentation. Right? It's like Everything's Amazon. No. There's a you can have your own small businesses. Those 2 schools of thoughts. Where do you see the future going? Like, is Amazon gonna just keep eating up every other business? Or is there room for individual sites for individual brands to keep growing?
Ronnie Teja: Look. It's pretty interesting from that perspective. Right? What it it goes back to what I had said earlier, which is you wanna give The the customer has a choice to find you. So we are not on Amazon just because Amazon has a really weird policy on jewelry and watches, Which is a I e that in a period of 2 years, they can basically return your product, and then it's your issue. And people on Amazon, of course people like my mom, they'll just order stuff off Amazon, try it on, and Oops. I don't like it, and then just send it back in a couple of weeks. So you know? And once your return rates get higher, Amazon just basically bans you. And I'm like, well, that doesn't make any sense to me. Second thing for me personally is Amazon was a race to the bottom. So we have the same suppliers as some sellers from China, and then basically, they'll sell the same product for $50. And I'm not gonna tell you the brand. However, having said that, if you have a strong brand, I think it it matters for you to be in retail. It matters for you to be on Marketplaces, it matters for you to be as a d two c. On the d two c side, you should be able to control your brand at the end of the day. So I think giving customers The choice to find you in different places is extremely important. However, there's certain it has to make physical sense what what the customers are doing at the end of the day.
Jonathan Green: So do you think that kind of the market is flooded? Because it I directly agree with you on Race to the Bottom. When my wife and I were running a hotel When we first opened up, there were 5 competitors. This is a few years ago. Within 2 years, there were over 500, and they were all dropping the price to Like, they're losing money every night. Like, the competition went crazy. So I was like, let's get out of this business. Let's have another baby. But I talked to my kids. What if we turn the guest rooms into a massive playground? They voted yes. We had another kid. I was like, 4 kids. We don't need to run a business out of the house. We ran it for 2 years. We just sold off everything a month before they kicked off the lockdowns, like, we got and all those business went out of business. But it is something where people have this idea about that price is the most important aspect, and it's something very important I wanna talk about. A lot of people make that mistake. They go, oh, Price is the most important thing, but there's also a price when you go too low, people get suspicious. Yep. Like, I was like, hey, I got a Ferrari. It's $14. You're not gonna believe me. Right? Like, you just go, there's no way. There's it's a trick of some kind. You don't know you might not know what it is. Maybe the car is Oh, and maybe it's gonna be a micro machine. Maybe it's gonna explode. But, you know, it's a trick. And so sometimes people and this is very interesting. One of my friends one time who's in real estate goes, I would never Even look at a real estate course that cost less than $5,000. Yeah. And that was very because most people are, like, $5,000 for a training course. That's so expensive. But at each tier, people like, why wouldn't do something that goes below x? Right? I wouldn't buy a t shirt that costs low than whatever their number is. Everyone's a different number. Right? And so Even if a watch is beautiful, if it's $4
Ronnie Teja: Yep.
Jonathan Green: You're not aware because you're still in your head going, it's a $4 watch. People are gonna see it. Right? Oh, it's a like, I have 1. I got we all have a friend who wears fake Rolexes. I have a friend who bought, like, 30 of them because he kept losing them. He'd go out drinking. He had a real one at first. Lost it when I drink. He goes, well, I'm not doing that again. If he's if I'm gonna keep losing them, he bought a 30 pack, which I thought was hilarious. A fake one, and he just kept looping. But We all have that different thing of where you're thinking about the vital risk. So, yeah, when you push down, you start to get the like, you talked about the high People that pay less refund more, complain more. I always found that we when we try to lower our price, we had just worse customers. People who would bring their own food from home, wouldn't rent any surfboards, wouldn't do any activities, and so we lost the 2nd year revenue. And it's you don't wanna go too low because you get the customer who, Well, they can't afford anything, and they're just going for the cheapest as opposed to people that are in the middle. They're doing a little bit of, well, I want something that I like. And if it's too low, I don't trust it. And that's the one of the dangers raised upon. And, also, you can never win. You can never go low enough to because there's always someone who can go lower. That's and then nobody's making any money. So I think it's a really important lesson for people to realize that price is not The barrier very often.
Ronnie Teja: Yeah. Price is not the end of it. Yeah. 100%. I mean, I've I've done price testing of different at different levels, and I can share some experiences on it. Try to be a $70 watch brand. We try to be a $100 watch brand. We try to be a $150 watch brand. The sweet spot is 125 to a 150. At the $70 watch brand, like you were saying, you get a certain kinda They love the returns. They love to take you for a ride. They love I mean, there was a time that in India, we had expanded to India. And, basically, we were selling watches there, and the A model returns we used to get, man, it was always people demanding more service. I I don't know why at the lower price point or the lower threshold of the market, people tend to be more demanding for a lot less price. And I said, this is not a headache. Just let this customer base be somebody else's headache. We'll move up the up the value chain.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. I think it's interesting that you're very strategic about choosing your price band of the market because a lot of people, they wanna be a luxury Even though I think all luxury brands are owned by 1 company, it seems like. Right? They own everyone, all of that stuff.
Ronnie Teja: 3 or 4 of them. Richemont, Rolexes and LVMH. They'll these 3 ideally own most of them.
Jonathan Green: Yeah. I think LVMH owns, like, everyone else. Right? And it's like, you think That oh, I wanna be luxury. But the problem with luxury is that people don't buy luxury items that often. Like, how many people buy more than 1 car a year? Right? Very few. Whereas and that not that many people. Whereas if or most people in their lifetime, I think, buy 2 houses. Right? They buy a house and then later buy another house. That's it. Whereas watch at the high end, such a small number of people that are buying that. Right? There's very few people buying watches over $25, and there's tons of people buying watch at $10. But finding your right banner thing going, this is where I'm gonna be because this is where we have maximum profitability and can minimize customer support, which is such a big part of a business, especially a business with physical products. Returns can kill a business. I've seen that happen.
Ronnie Teja: 100%. It doesn't.
Jonathan Green: Just make the wrong return policy, or you have a misspelling on your privacy policy page. Boy, is out of nightmare. So this is all really good stuff. I think people are gonna be very interested. And, again, your watch brand is called Branzio, b r a n z I o. People don't wanna check it out. They're nice watches. Very interesting brand. I think, has been really great. Where can people see more what you do? You wanted to just go to the website, or where else do you want people to visit? You'd see what you're doing and see how this brand is growing.
Ronnie Teja: Yeah. For sure. I mean, if you can follow me on LinkedIn, Ronnie Teja, just look for that, or on Twitter, same thing.
Jonathan Green: Perfect. And we're gonna put that in the show notes. I'll put them below the video on YouTube. I think people are gonna love this. Really interesting to see. There's a lot of different ways to build a business online, and I love having people that are doing different things. Thank you so much for being here. This has been a really cool episode, and I know that that people are gonna absolutely love it.
Ronnie Teja: Thanks, Jonathan. I appreciate you, bud.
Jonathan Green: Thanks for listening to today's episode. I love podcasting, and it's never too late to start your amazing podcast. Get started with my free guide at servenomaster.comforward/checklist.
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