How Watch Straps Are Changing Collecting

Welcome to The Micro Collector, a podcast where I talk with the founders, operators, and people shaping the world of micro brands and independent watches. I'm your host, Justin Dorfman, and in today's episode, I'm joined by Nick Lehner, founder of StrapHabit, a watch strap brand built by a collector for collectors. In this conversation, we talk about Nick's journey from engineer and watch enthusiast to full-time founder.

The story behind StrapHabit and why straps have become such an important part of how collectors personalize their watches. Nick also shares the personal story behind StrapHabit's charitable work, including the Men Wear Pink campaign and the causes that have become such an important part of the brand. If you enjoy the episode, be sure to subscribe for more conversations with the people behind this incredible watch community.

And with that, please enjoy my conversation with Nick Lehner of StrapHabit.

All right, Nick, welcome to The Micro Collector Podcast. I'm super excited to have you on today.

Hey, thanks Justin. Yeah, I'm excited too. After we first talked I looked through and you've had some really great guests before and a couple of friends of mine, so I feel like I'm in good company joining you today.

Yeah, yeah. And by the way, I'm super excited because you're my first strap business owner on the podcast. And as you said, you know, we have a bunch of friends in common. Adam from Farr + Swit — I actually knew about your brand and had purchased some of your straps prior to seeing you on that little clip that he had on Instagram. So I was already a fan of your business and your products.

And then learned a little bit more about you. And you know, the strap space is so interesting. I feel like there's so much excitement and innovation that's going on. So I was really excited to hear the story behind your brand and your company, but also maybe pick your brain on some of these trends and innovations that are happening out there. Well, I guess to start with, maybe you can give us a little bit of your background for those that aren't familiar with you, aren't familiar with StrapHabit. You know, tell us about your background and how you got into watches in the first place and what led you to starting StrapHabit?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I guess to start the question with watches. You know, I went to school for engineering. I was an engineer for twenty years. I've been really into cars and bicycles and things like that since I was young. So that kind of mechanical side and looking at specs and researching things has always been in my brain, I guess. So I feel like I had a watch collector in me. It just took some time for that to surface, I guess. So like even when I was younger I wore watches. I remember I did an internship in Germany when I was in college

and I had a watch that had like a digital and an analog display on it and I figured out I could set one of those to my home time and that was like so cool to me. And then, you know, when I graduated, I bought myself a Nixon watch. That was maybe my first like nice watch as kind of like a gift for getting my first job. But you know, I think when I got into collecting or got actually serious about the hobby, I had some friends that we got to the age of people are starting to get married and I had some friends where, you know, my fiancé bought me this watch after I gave her the ring or whatever and my

now wife was like I would love to buy you a watch if we ever get married. And being an engineer, I wanted to learn more about what's good. Like I don't wanna get a bad one or something. And so I started reading like

Hodinkee — it was like a blog to read at the time — and going on all the forums and things like that. And when I started ring shopping, I'd go into these jewelry stores and be all intimidated. And it was always like, let's go check out the watches first and we'll ease into it that way. And I started looking at watches that way.

And then when I started looking at videos online, I remember seeing like a Seiko Monster video of that sweeping seconds hand and I was like, whoa, that's — I can get that, that's so cool. And that's kind of where it started and then just snowballed from there for me, I would say.

Very cool. And I can tell, you know, from your website and just the level of detail around the straps and just the vast types of straps that you have, that you come from a collector background. You are a collector yourself and an enthusiast yourself. When you were collecting prior to starting StrapHabit, did you start getting interested in straps? Was it sort of like, is that how the idea of StrapHabit came to be, that you struggled to find the right straps for your watches? Or how did that — what was the itch that made you decide, you know, there might be an opportunity here to build something?

It wasn't exactly that. I did have a million straps and was always buying straps and swapping them out. That didn't exactly lead to starting the business in the way that you said. It's actually I guess not that romantic of a story, but I really kind of just wanted to try starting a business. I had a couple of close friends who

had started some different e-commerce businesses, and they were kind of showing me how excited they were or the results that they had, or I had this much sales this month, and it seemed really fun to me. And you know, I never thought of myself as like someone who knew how to start a business or could even do that, I guess. But seeing some friends do it, I thought,

you know, I really want to try something and I was just trying to think of like what is something that I'm knowledgeable about and excited about, I'll be like actually motivated to continue working on it. And, you know, watch straps seemed like a good way to go. So, you know, I had a friend who kind of talked to me about how he got started and it helped me just kind of give me that initial idea and those couple tips that kinda helped me to get going and then I

just started it from there and then just continued working every day and it turned into something I'd never expected it to be.

What was sort of the first product that you brought? I know again, like looking at your background, there's so many different SKUs and different colors and types of straps, but I'm assuming you started maybe with a small number or one type of strap. What was sort of the first version of StrapHabit?

Yeah, I started with an elastic strap. It was just something that I kind of thought was cool and identified as there weren't a ton of options for that at the time. You know, when I started,

like I had a friend who did a lot of sales on Amazon and you can kinda watch these like how-to videos or gurus that make it look like it's so easy. Like you sell on Amazon, they do all the work for you and

you know, initially I thought about just starting an Amazon business and so I basically spent like what to me was a lot of money at the time and had a bunch of straps manufactured and then after I spent the money found that I couldn't even get approved by Amazon to sell them and kinda had some moment of panic. And that led me to find other avenues basically and, you know, one of my friends said, you know, why don't you just start a website?

It just seemed like so hard to me to actually build a brand and build my own website, but I didn't really have another great option. And you know, so I ended up starting there. After a few years, I cracked the code of the Amazon thing and figured that out as well. But starting the website was really the thing that

helped the brand to take off a lot more because it's just such a better interaction with the customers that way and you can kind of market to them, talk to them however you want to and tell your story that way.

Yeah, I wonder, I mean, do you find that Amazon might be a way that some folks discover you, right? Because they're just looking at straps across Amazon. And I think I'm just thinking back to how

I discovered StrapHabit, and I think that's how I did. I think

I was looking for — actually I remember now, I was looking for a tropic strap for a vintage watch that I had. And

you guys came up, you know, StrapHabit came up on Amazon. And then I eventually went to your website and then, like you said, I found that the website there was — it felt more like a home for the brand, obviously. And, you know, I started to see sort of the vast collection of options that you guys had and then read a little bit about your story, followed you on Instagram and it really

helped me connect with the brand. Do you think that's — is that like a usual journey that you find with a customer, that maybe they discover you on Amazon and then sort of connect with you across the other owned platforms, let's say?

Yeah, I think the two things feed off of each other. I don't have a lot of data to show always like where the first person is like first learning of the brand. But I mean I have some like anecdotal stories of people going to one or going to the other. They do go back and forth, I think, but yeah, I mean I'm sure there are quite a few people discovering it on all the channels, I would say.

Tell us a little bit about what it's like to manage a strap business. I've had a bunch of watch founders on this podcast. So I think, you know, my listeners and myself have a pretty good grasp on sort of what the fun parts are of managing a watch business, what the challenging parts are, right? But you know, a strap business — I'm sure there's some similarities, but there are also some unique attributes.

What are some of the things that, you know, are really fun about managing the business and what are some of the things that if somebody was listening to this and they were interested in learning more about straps and how to manage that type of business, what are some of the learnings, the challenges that they would wanna look out for?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think the fun parts, I mean to me, especially if I come out with a product that I think is really cool and then it starts selling well, like the day it goes on sale, you see the orders start coming in and then

to start seeing people giving that feedback or posting it on social media, especially if it's something that is distinctive or like I really like the design or something, you know, when people get excited about it, I'd say that's probably the fun part. And then you know, more recently,

having the business kind of allows me to meet other business owners like the watch brand owners that we've talked about as well as the customers and it's been a really great community to be involved in and there's more than you would think — there's not an attitude of competitiveness or I don't want to tell you this because you're my competitor. Like I feel like there's a really kind of open collaborative

kind of atmosphere in the community that I was surprised by and really enjoyed. And I'd say maybe compared to, you know, I haven't run a watch company, so it's kind of like speculation or things I've talked to those guys about. I feel like you know a watch strap is maybe a tenth of the cost of the watch or something like that. So on the one hand,

it's an easier like impulse buy to convince a customer to purchase it versus a watch. I think that journey probably requires a lot more consideration, but I have to sell a much higher volume of orders in order to, you know, sustain the business compared to a watch company. So there's just tons of communication and emails and just trying to offer good customer service to everybody and then the logistics of all the shipping and everything like that

is, you know, can be challenging sometimes.

Yeah, one question I wanted to ask you was how do you differentiate

as a strap company, right? I think, you know, when you think about watches, there's a lot of watches out there too. So that is — I'm not saying that that's not a challenge for a watch brand, but you know, there are more, I guess, things that you can work with to try and differentiate it. Whether it's like, you know, a dial or a material or a shape of case, there's like many different variables that you can play around with, right?

When it comes to a strap business, I'm curious, yeah, what are some of the ways that you can differentiate and sort of connect with customers so that they turn to you as their go-to source for straps?

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a little bit tricky sometimes and people have said this to me when they're kind of talking about the business, but for me to take an outside look and reflect on myself is a little bit tricky. But I feel like there's a number of really big kind of faceless watch strap companies, or maybe you know who the owner is, but they're not so community driven. And then there's also like

the smaller companies where they're hand making it or small batches are coming out and they sell out really quickly, and I'm kind of in this middle zone between those, where you know the straps are being manufactured — I'm not hand making them — but I'm pretty involved in the community and you know, I'm going to a lot of these shows now that I have more time, that we might talk about on the show. But

you know, being involved in the shows, I'm collaborating with a lot of brands and things like that, which I think people really resonate with. And then, you know, being a collector and someone who's into watches, I'm always on social media and these forums and things like that and I'm trying to be aware of what is missing or what are people looking for that they're asking and can't find. And, you know,

maybe not coming from a business background, I don't always even know if something's gonna be successful or not, but I feel like it creates goodwill of the company. Like sometimes if you have a product that doesn't sell super well, but people can't find it anywhere else, it makes them really happy to find it at this company and share and be involved.

And then I also feel like the customer service and shipping times and things like that are probably quite good as well — an area that I work pretty hard to do well.

Yeah, I would say, you know, looking at it from the outside, the community aspect and the sort of founder brand, if you will, is a huge differentiator and something that I think is quite unique to you. Like you said, you can go on Amazon and there's a bunch of these straps out there, but you know, you don't really know the brand. You don't know if the quality is gonna be good, you don't know the story behind the brand. There's no like feeling of connection with the brand. So

a lot of the stuff that you're doing on social media at the events telling your story and then also on the experience side of getting the straps quickly, they fit well, the materials feel good, they're good quality, you know, that builds trust, right? And both of those things, I think, build trust and build affinity. And I can see them as being great differentiators, as well as, you know, maybe being a place that has a vast

set of options, right? Which I found with you as well. Maybe we can touch on that a little bit as well. I know I'm seeing all these boxes behind you, so I know that you have a ton of different options. So we probably don't have enough time to go through every single SKU that you have, but at a high level, maybe you can walk us through the various types of straps that you offer and

maybe also some of the favorites, right? What are you seeing out there? I think you have a really interesting perspective on what's resonating with collectors, what's resonating with watch wearers. What are some of the ones that seem to be sticking out? Maybe in terms of style, material, color — you know, what are you seeing out there?

Yeah, I mean I feel like you hear a lot of brand owners say this, that they make a product that they wanna wear themselves, and that's kinda how I feel as well, I guess. Like when I first started the company and I didn't have a lot of confidence and the company didn't have a voice, I tried to just stick to like here's the couple of basic colors that I know are gonna sell well in the standard sizes and not take any risks. And now

you know, I have a little more, I guess, confidence or feeling of like, you know, if I make something that's a little bit different, people are still maybe gonna be interested in it. So, you know, as you mentioned, kind of like the odd lug sizes and things like that. But I've always really liked deployant straps myself, especially where the end of the strap tucks under. So

you know, that's something that I've tried to expand on as well. And just trying to have, like you said, a variety of colors and things like that. Like I buy a lot of watches, so I used to hate it when I would get a new watch and I couldn't find anything in my inventory that I wanted to put on that watch and I had to find another strap. So I've tried to kind of have something for everybody,

whether it's, you know, colors and materials and graphics. So, you know, the FKM rubber straps are really popular, the sailcloth straps are really popular as well, a few leather options and, you know, we've been doing some crazy things with graphics with the pass-through nylon style straps with a couple collaborations of other brands and things like that.

Yeah, you know, when I see collectors and I talk to a lot of collectors who have — actually I mentioned this several times on this podcast — that one of the first things that they tend to do when they get a new watch is change the strap from the factory strap that is on the watch or the bracelet that's on the watch. And a lot of the times, I mean, it might be who I'm connected to. You know, I'm personally into like tool watches, like sort of

you know, your divers, your field sort of watches, your aviation watches and things like that. So I tend to see a lot of my community, my friends, collector friends, putting you know, tropic straps on there, NATO straps, I think as well, is pretty popular. Definitely leather, you know, is always something that I'm seeing. But I noticed a couple of ones on yours — and FKM I think in more recent years.

Mm-hmm.

as a material has become really popular. But one thing that I saw was this hook and loop sort of strap that's on your website that had like — it looks like it's almost like an elastic material. That one really caught my attention because that's not one that I've ever worn. Maybe tell us a little bit about that. Is that something that you're seeing a lot of people choose? What's been the feedback on that one? Because that seems to be maybe a little bit newer of a style and material.

That seems really, really comfortable.

Yeah, those have been pretty popular. People do like that elastic material and that one also comes with three different lengths so you can kind of fine-tune it for your wrist size. And you know, one of the things that you mentioned earlier just made me think about this, but now that I've been participating in some of these watch events and having like a booth there, I get to now watch the customer

have this first interaction with the product and that scenario that you explained about buying a new watch — like I've actually gotten to witness that in person happen where someone will come to my booth and they'll say, I'm thinking about buying this certain watch from this brand that's at the show, but I want a different strap. And they'll go and they'll pick out whatever strap they're gonna get, they'll go back and buy the watch and then they'll come back over here and now I'll have got the watch. Can you help me put the strap on it? And it's a pretty cool —

you know, as you said, like a lot of us are just swapping it out right away. So yeah, it's been a cool experience.

Yeah, you know, I actually have a question on that because this is another topic that I've touched on a couple of times in this podcast. You know, this idea of watch brands and where they choose to invest in their watches. And obviously, you know, the usual — the movement, the dial, you know, the watch case itself. But also we hear a lot about packaging, right? The packaging experience.

Mm-hmm.

And it seems like that seems to be an area where

a lot of watch brands invest, but maybe not so much on the strap or the bracelet. And I wouldn't say this is the case with all brands out there. There's some brands that do a really, really good job of that. One that comes to mind for me is Formex. You know, they've really invested in strap and bracelet innovation, right?

Yeah.

But I think that is maybe not the norm, right? And ties to that situation that I mentioned earlier of

people buying watches and immediately deciding, you know what, I'm gonna — like almost treating the strap or the bracelet that it comes with as like, you know, an afterthought from the brand, that I'm gonna actually then put something better on there, right? Something more comfortable, something more unique, right? Why do you think it is that brands have not invested historically, let's say — and I know that's a broad statement, but you know, why do you think it is that maybe straps or bracelets

sometimes are seen as an afterthought for watch brands?

Yeah, yeah, and I do think what you said — there are some brands, especially if you look at bracelets, that have some great innovations and things like that. But I think you know, one aspect might just be cost. If, you know, they're trying to hit a certain, you know, cost target or profitability, you know, that might be an area where you can save a little money that doesn't show up on a spec sheet of a watch. But I mean the other thing that I'm just realizing

more and more as a business owner is, besides cost, like time is just such a limited resource. And you know, I could imagine that if they can kind of, you know, just easily find a strap that doesn't require a lot of development energy or thought or things like that, that will allow them to have more time and resources to just develop the watch better. So

and it could be the thing like you said as well where they think — it could be like as long as the strap is nice enough that comes with the watch, people will still buy the watch and

then you know, they can upgrade it or kind of personalize it as they want after that. But that's just kind of my guess, yeah.

Yeah, no, I think you're totally right on all those points. And I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, in that we've seen it in other spaces where specialization, you know, creates a better end product, right? When there are different vendors that specialize on different parts of an overall product experience. And something that you mentioned earlier actually

sort of sparked a light bulb in my head, which is this idea of collaborations. And I know you've done this with Farr + Swit with their Vice watch where you collaborated — you were the strap behind the Vice watch, right? I think that's something actually to look out for where as we start to see strap brands start to form, right? Not just these faceless vendors out there that you've mentioned in the past, but you know, brands like StrapHabit that people

become connected to and feel an affinity to, seeing a watch brand collaborate with a strap brand to produce a product, a finished product out of the box, right? Adds to the experience, I think, right? You know, now that I'm a fan of StrapHabit and I'm a fan of Farr + Swit and I hear that they come out with a new Vice dive watch that has the StrapHabit strap on it,

it actually adds to the experience and the appeal of the watch. So I think that's something that personally I'm gonna be looking out for as a trend. What are some other trends that you're seeing out there in the watch space? I know we talked a little bit about, you know, some of these companies and what they're doing with, you know, maybe quick releases and new materials, but what are some of the things that you have on your radar that maybe us, you know, who aren't so deep in the strap world might not be as familiar with?

Yeah, yeah. I've been kind of seeing a bunch of that and as you mentioned, like the watch collaborations have been really fun to me as well. And so recently Nodus released a watch called the Nomad that comes with a StrapHabit strap as well and was used for a desert exploration across the Gobi Desert. So that was really exciting and I have a few

collaborations coming this year. And to the specialization thing you talked about, like I've been taking an existing watch and working with the brands just to tweak it a little bit, not even design a watch from the ground up, and it just makes you understand how much specialization goes into each component on a watch, I guess. But as far as kind of trends that I'm seeing,

I mean the deployant straps, people are looking for those kind of nice clasps and kind of seamless way of taking the watch on and off, I think. And then, you know, I've just been with a different kind of sizes or configurability, just trying to find ways to make the fit perfect of the watch. Or like I've started coming out with like extra long straps because I just had a bunch of people with a really large wrist that can't find a solution. So I've been trying to focus on

just kind of fine tailoring, that each person can find like the perfect fit for them or try not to have to compromise as much.

Yeah, on my end as sort of a collector, what I'm seeing is definitely, like you said, making it easy to swap out the straps. The quick release has been sort of a big innovation, right? We're at the point now where you know, when you go to a Windup and you walk around the room and you go to the different brands that are there, it's almost like you have to have quick release on your bracelets or your straps. If you don't, right,

you know, it actually is something that somebody might think about. Do I really want that watch? Right. Because I do want to swap out straps and I want to sort of show my personality and make it my own a little bit more, right? The micro adjust is another really interesting trend that I'm seeing, especially on the bracelet side of things. You know, the on the fly, right? Without having to take it off. How do I adjust this? And I think, you know, comfort

is a big thing. So whether that be again, micro adjust, whether it be material, or like you said, when I look at a bunch of the comments on straps that I look at online, it is a lot about size, right? Length. And I bet that's a hard one to get right because some people are saying it's too long, some people are saying it's too short. But the other piece, and I wanted to get your take on this, was there seems to be a re-emergence of let's say vintage watches, or like

vintage style, vintage proportion watches. Have you seen a push towards — maybe I know for a while there was this like standardization of 20 millimeter lug width, right? But you know, are you seeing having a variety of lug widths, is that something that you're seeing a need for in the market? You know, personally when I started buying my first vintage watches what I started realizing is like these are 18 millimeter,

or actually it says eighteen millimeter, but the tolerances back then weren't so good. So they might actually be seventeen point eight something, you know. And I find some of these are hard to fit on. Is that something as well that you're starting to see, is this, you know, more options in terms of lug width?

I have been somewhat, yeah. I mean the odd like nineteens and twenty-ones have been picking up a bit. I mean I've been trying to as much as I can offer those sizes and the eighteens as well. The one thing that's really — you know, once I thought I got a handle on that, there's been a — especially like TAG Heuer

has some half millimeter watches, which that's like really frustrating now. And they don't always even say it on the website. So I've had a few customers who get the thing and they get the strap and it doesn't fit on their watch and they're thinking that I sent them the wrong product or something. And then I have to ask like, well what kind of watch is it? And it's this TAG or something. So the half millimeter's been the tough thing now. But

yeah, I haven't seen like a major increase of the small vintage stuff. And then it's interesting 'cause sometimes it feels like the trend is going smaller, but then I've heard from a couple of brands that people are now back to asking for bigger size watches again. So you know, I just try to keep like a variety of everything basically so I can try to help everybody out.

Yeah. Yeah, it's wild how we swing back and forth between big and small watches. And I'm sure that that makes it really hard for you guys on the strap side to sort of, you know, support both trends. I wanna circle back to you and managing the business and so on. You know, one thing that I wanna say huge congratulations on is that I heard pretty recently you went full time with StrapHabit. You know, you started the business back in two thousand nineteen, I believe, right? So

Mm-hmm.

you were doing this on the side for a while. I'm sure it feels amazing to be able to focus on it full time. At the same time, I've heard from a lot of entrepreneurs that have been on this podcast, you know, they recommend doing it the way you did, right? Start your business as a side gig and then, you know, sort of come at it full time once you feel confident that, you know, the business is up and running. You have a brand formed, you have a

you know, the revenue and so on. What was that like managing it on the side? You know, any tips for anybody? Because I know for me that would be personally very, very challenging to do. I'm somebody who's kind of like an all-in guy, but how did you manage to do it? Any tips for folks? And I also think another hard thing to decide is when is that moment where you do go full time? And what was it for you that made you decide, you know, okay, now's the moment, you know, I'm ready to go, I'm able, I'm confident

you know, enough to do this full time?

Yeah, yeah, it was very difficult. And if you told me now that I would be where I am today — like if you told me, you know, ten years ago

you're gonna quit your job and be selling watch bands, I would have been like, what are you talking about? Like I couldn't have even imagined it, I guess. And just as a background, like I was an engineer in the automotive industry for 20 years and actually really enjoyed my job. And I really liked the people that I worked with and that was almost like a great thing, but something that made it more difficult because, you know, there's a lot of people out there who just can't stand every second of their job that might make the jump easier to make, I guess. But you know, I somewhat got lucky with the timing of the business because I started it the summer before the pandemic happened. So, you know, I know a lot of really bad things and hard things happened to people during that time. The I guess silver lining to me was that,

you know, I gained a lot of time back just by working from home and not commuting. I did end up getting furloughed for a little while from my job and we weren't, you know, going out a ton on the weekends or after work and things like that. So, you know, those couple of years was when I really was able to put my head down and kinda get the business off the ground. And I wasn't getting a lot of sales actually from the start either, so I didn't —

you know, I didn't spend as much time doing kind of the day-to-day just running the business kind of stuff. But then yeah, there was way too long of a period of time where I was getting up like super early in the morning to ship orders before I had to start work and then working late at night every night to do like the, you know, logistic things of the business and stuff like that. And so

I probably waited maybe too long, or it was maybe a bit too much to deal with for a while, but I got to the point where something had to give basically and I couldn't see myself giving up on this thing that I had built at this point. And, you know, I told myself like I didn't just

start this just so I could have like some more money on the side. I kept working at this thing because I wanted to change kind of the way that I was living my life and my flexibility and things like that. So I met a really good financial advisor who

kind of looked through things with me with an outside view and told me like, okay, this isn't crazy. Like you'll still be able to feed your family and pay for college and things like that as long as the business is kind of maintaining its level where it is now. So you know, it just reached a point where I just kinda was forced to make a decision and finally went ahead and did it. And you know, it's been very fulfilling ever since then.

Yeah, well I mean congratulations. I think that's so rewarding to, you know, all the sacrifices that you probably had to make in the early days, like you said, shipping things early in the morning, you know, working late at night, to now be able to focus on it full time and actually, you know, stand on your own feet and have this business that's growing. Must be an amazing feeling and it is an amazing achievement. Not a lot of people get there. So

you know, congratulations to you and I'm super excited to see you continue building this awesome business that you have. Another thing that really resonated with me, especially, you know, given what you just told me, right? That this was a business that you were doing on the side, you know, you had this goal of going full time, but you still prioritized giving back as part of your business, right? Which is something that I,

I really think is an amazing thing that you've done. Maybe you can tell some folks a little bit about it. I see the strap that you have on your wrist, and I think that's one of the straps that is part of this giving back, the Men Wear Pink strap, right? But maybe you can tell us a little bit about sort of why this was so important to you early on in the business and what are some of the things that you're doing to give back, you know, with your business?

Yeah, yeah. I guess that's kind of the origin of the whole thing. You know, the year that I started StrapHabit I found out that I had testicular cancer. So, you know, luckily it was stage one and it didn't become nearly the struggle that I think a lot of people that have cancer go through, but it

affected me a lot mentally and it was very difficult, so it kind of put that as an importance in my mind. So you know the years after that I became involved in Movember. So, you know, initially I just —

there was a local watch dealer here that did a Movember campaign of like a lot of the watch collectors in the area. And I hadn't told a lot of people that I had gone through this. So I posted on my personal social media and got a ton of donations from my friends and family, and that kind of taught me that if you're telling like an honest story and telling what happened to you, that people kind of resonate and can appreciate that. So I ended up getting that Movember watch as gifted to me through that fundraiser. So then the following year, StrapHabit had started to get a bit of a following and I wanted to kind of pay it forward. So I gave away another Oris to some StrapHabit followers and

you know, Movember's in the month of November, breast cancer's the month before that, and Brodinkee always had done the Men Wear Pink campaign. So we kinda helped share each other's campaigns that year. And

you know, I appreciated what he was doing. Then the following year my mother ended up having breast cancer, which she's doing fine right now for anybody that just might be concerned about that. But I saw what we were both doing and I reached out to him, like, hey, would you wanna collaborate and do a strap together for Men Wear Pink? And that was kind of the origin of that. So

you know, I asked him like how many straps do you think we could even sell? And he said, I don't know, maybe like fifty. And so we ended up making a hundred of them, thinking like these are probably gonna take forever to sell, but we can, you know, raise some money for charity. And they ended up getting shared on social media and they sold out like very quickly. And all these people were going, well, I didn't get one, can I get one to do it? So we did a couple more rounds of them and just realized

again, like how much that people kinda can resonate to such a thing. And it's also bright pink, so it's a very like shareable thing on social media, which is kinda why we stuck with the pink thing as well. So

every year since then, we've done — like every year it's a different version of that strap, and it will release like around usually before the month of October, so people can have it throughout the month. So, you know, StrapHabit has donated, I think, in the past couple years, about $75,000 to the American Cancer Society. And then last year I reached out to Mark from Long Island Watch, and long story short, we did a watch collaboration as well, which was the Men Wear Pink Islander. So Mark donated over $60,000 himself last year through that. Which this year nothing's been announced yet, but I have a couple other things up my sleeve for Men Wear Pink this year. And it just

just kinda went to show like the business can kind of support these donations and it's just like a win for everybody because people get a cool product that they're happy to wear. Maybe they have a loved one that's gone through something so they can feel good while they're wearing it. We can, you know, raise money for a charity and you know, people learn about the brand that way as well. So, you know, through that I've just kind of, if I identify another

thing going on in the watch space, or sometimes people have come to me and an area where we can do a combination of a cool product and help out a group. You know, I've just been kind of doing things like that. So like we worked with the Anti Watch Watch Club last year who supports veterans and first responders and those straps sold out pretty quickly as well. Or coming up next month there's a ride to conquer cancer with Worn and Wound and Teenage Grandpa doing a strap with them. So

so sorry to kind of keep dropping all these names, but those projects, even though the entire sales get donated, it's more fulfilling and I enjoy wearing those products and those are the ones that I think are most fun to see on people's wrists.

Well, first of all, I'm glad to hear that both you and your mom are doing well. And what an amazing story. What an amazing business. So you know, thanks so much for opening up, sharing both about your personal story but also all aspects of your business. I'm, you know, sure there's a lot of people listening, a lot of people watching this that are really excited to learn more about StrapHabit, check out

the options that are on your website, but also get an opportunity to meet you at, you know, some of the shows that you're going to and meet you in person. So if somebody's listening to this and they wanna learn more about StrapHabit, where are the best places for them to go online? But also where can they meet you in person? What are the next events or places that you're gonna be sort of showing your collection that they can look forward to?

Yeah, online I would say if you go to straphabit.com, probably the best way to stay in the loop is to get on the email newsletter. And

you know, I try to make sure that it's kind of a mix of content of product information, but other things that are interesting or maybe not just like trying to sell people stuff. So like we usually send out a weekly blog email. Like I write most of the blogs on the site myself. A lot of them are the watches that I just own that I'll write a review about. And you know, sales and product info and these charitable and collaboration products. I'm pretty active

on Instagram, strap_habit, and then all the other socials is StrapHabit as well. As far as shows, I'm planning to attend the remaining Intersect shows this year. Wes and Peter and those guys do a great job putting those on, and the atmosphere at those shows is a great community kind of feeling of the brands getting together.

I was at Windup San Francisco in the Windup booth actually and then I'm planning to attend Windup New York. I don't have an exact schedule for that one yet, as well. And then I'll probably do some of the Minutes and Hours shows in the upcoming years. So I'd say those are some of the better opportunities.

Well, I'm sad that I missed you at Windup San Francisco, but I'm planning to be in New York. And I also want to check out some of the Intersects. So hopefully we get a chance to meet in person as well. But it was such a pleasure having you on the podcast today. And thanks again for sharing your story, sharing more about the business. And we're gonna be really excited to cheer you on as you continue to build it, now being full time working on the business. So thanks again and have a great rest of your day over there.

Yeah, thanks a lot, Justin. This was really fun. I'm glad we were able to chat today.