Take Your Time: The Story Behind Trafford Watch Co.

Welcome to the Micro Collector, a podcast where I talk with the founders and operators behind some of the most exciting microbrands and independent watch companies. I'm your host, Justin Dorfman, and in today's episode I'm joined by Nathan Trafford, founder of Trafford Watch Co. Trafford is one of the most talked about microbrands in the space.

And after spending time with the watches and hearing Nathan's story, it's clear why. The watches stand out immediately with their distinctive shapes and incredible colors. But what makes them more interesting is their goal to help you stay connected to the meaningful moments in your life. In this episode, we talk about Nathan's path from designing digital watch faces for smartwatches to founding Trafford, the surge in demand after winning Teddy Baldassarre and Kevin O'Leary's microbrand competition, and how the Trafford Collection has evolved, including the new Crossroads S line.

If you enjoy the episode, be sure to subscribe for more conversations with the people behind these incredible watch brands. And with that, please enjoy my conversation with Nathan Trafford of Trafford Watch Co.

All right, Nathan, welcome to the Micro Collector Podcast. I am super excited to have you on today.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. I— we were just chatting before we hit record. Oh man, I feel like there's a buzz about Trafford.

I've seen the buzz for a while. I was not just at Windup San Francisco, but I was at Windup Dallas, that obviously being sort of your home event in Texas. There was so much buzz around the booth. I hardly had a chance to sneak through the crowd and check out some watches. In San Francisco, a little bit bigger space, so I was able to get some of the watches on my wrist.

And mentioned that I fell in love with your new Crossroads, the Flora, sort of pinkish, salmon-ish dial. But even online, you know, right after Windup SF, I saw Andy do a little bit of a review of the watches. I recently saw Matt Likes Watches talking about some of the watches that he loves.

So you must be doing something right, and I wanted to hear the story behind the brand so that we can hear sort of what's in the water over there and what you've got working.

Well, man, I hope it's all good buzz. But man, I love doing those shows. I always say that's the best part of the gig is getting to go and meet people, get face to face, get watches on wrists, and just hang out with other owners and people in the industry like yourself. It is a lot of fun. So happy to be there and glad we got to spend a minute in San Francisco chatting about stuff.

Well, I guess to start the conversation today, maybe we can take it back a little bit and learn a little bit about you and your background. I understand you come from a design background, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into design, but also then sort of the interest in watches and where that all came from.

Sure. Well, I'm a designer by trade. I grew up in the fine arts, drawing, sketching, all that. Went to school for it, and eventually ended up doing graphic design as my major and photography as a second major. And then I went and worked in the advertising world for 15 years or something like that. So that's the design.

That has always been kind of in my blood for that side of things. For watches, man, it's— I always say I've always been a watch guy. I don't know where that starts, you know. I mean, the earliest watch I remember having is like a Sonic the Hedgehog little digital one. But I do remember as a kid, like, I was always the one taking stuff apart.

Not in like an engineering way, but more 'cause I wanted to like customize it. And I remember taking apart that Sonic watch and like repainting the face of it and stuff and little things like that. And yeah, here we are today making watches.

As a kid did you draw watches at all, or when did that start where you started kind of on the design side with watches?

I don't think I did as a kid. I always had a watch on my wrist, you know, high school and onward basically. And I've always had kind of a little fascination with it, you know. I've always liked tiny little things, fiddly things we called them, and especially the mechanical watches, the gears and springs and all that. It was just a lot of fun. But at some point I did just start sketching watches for some reason.

I wanna say this was post-college sometime, in work and in meetings and stuff. I would be sketching watches just for fun. Whether I was copying a watch that I had on my wrist or coming up with something new. Yeah, it was just a kind of a thing that I did. And that's where it all started, honestly, was doing that, because I was sketching watches, never once had the thought of making real watches, like not at all.

And one of my buddies in a meeting one day saw me sketching this thing, was like, hey man, do you ever think of putting one of your designs on a smartwatch face? Like on a digital watch. And you know, me being me with a smartwatch, get out of here. But I did it. And it was so cool. Like I didn't even own a smartwatch at the time.

But there's these programs online. I use one called Facer. It's this free program where you just upload your designs and it gets them on a smartwatch and there you go on your wrist. There's your design. And I was kind of hooked after that. So I did that for a couple years at least. And it got to the point where I started being able to sell them. And it was, you know, like 25 cents per download or something like that.

And I just squirreled that money away in a separate account and that was the money that I used to do my first prototypes. So yeah, kinda interesting beginnings in the watch world for me from a design perspective.

Yeah, that— I didn't know that story. That's really interesting that you started in sort of creating these digital interfaces, sort of background screens, if you will, of the smartwatches. At what point did the idea for Trafford and actually creating a physical watch come into play, and what was kind of the first concept that you came up with?

Yeah, so I was doing that. I was doing all the digital watch faces and stuff. And to be clear, I still do that. I still use it for prototyping. It's one of the best prototyping tools that I think the industry doesn't use near enough. But for testing dial designs and stuff on your wrist, it's awesome. It's right away, you know. So anyway, at some point in there when I was doing these digital watch faces.

You know, I was already kinda plugged into the community, the different groups and stuff online, and talked to other owners and stuff. My initial thing that went in my brain was just to make a handful of watches for my friends and family, you know, four or five real mechanical watches. And I quickly learned going through that, like, you gotta make five hundred watches at a time. Okay, it looks like I'm selling watches now. You know, that's kinda how it went.

So I went through that process. I went and talking to other owners and stuff, found manufacturers and all that to do my first prototypes, and I went the whole route of Kickstarter for the first ones. I— this is a whole different conversation, but from a story standpoint, the first watches I did were these chronographs that had a design inspiration pulled from this crazy historical story about these race car drivers that turned into British spies. Blah de blah.

Anyway, that's where it all came from and started out. And the Kickstarter was successful. It funded the next prototypes for the next watch, you know. And here we are five or six years later. I have my own space and stuff like that. So it's been a really fun journey.

That's very cool. Thinking about those early days, any lessons that stick out, right? Kind of challenges, lessons— you mentioned sort of the MOQ, sort of like, I have to do five hundred of these, but any other ones that sort of stick out in your mind?

Yeah, inventory is always gonna be an issue. You know, the more we grow the more demand there is and it's hard to keep up. But I'll say from the very first design, those, they were called the Roadster. Had a lot of fun doing that. It was, you know, I made it. It's obviously something I'm proud of. But the lessons learned along the way, it's—

They were more tied to me about story. 'Cause I went into that initial release trying to force a story onto a watch, right? It's a design that is pulled directly, inspiration wise, from this story. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think story in general is the ground for any design really, it should be the foundation.

But what I got from that that was really interesting from my perspective after the fact, after it all went out, everybody got their watches and stuff, nobody really talked about the story that much for the watches. Everybody talked about the design, all that. But what really stuck out to me was the reasons why people were buying these watches for themselves or for somebody else.

You know, they were celebrating important moments in their life, or you know, important moments in other people's life, which I think is cool. But it kind of— that was kind of a turning point for me with watch design in general, not just the business and my approach to how we sell and make things and all that, but for design with watches, the stories the wearer brings to the table are much more powerful than any story that I could apply to a watch in terms of connecting with who's wearing it.

And so that was kind of a light bulb moment. Like instead of forcing my story onto somebody else, let's lean into celebrating the moments in other people's lives. And that's been kind of our guiding light ever since for the brand.

So that was a big lesson for sure.

Yeah, it must be really cool to hear some of these stories as well. When you get to go to these shows and meet some collectors and they're like, This is the watch that actually I got when my child was born, or, you know, it was a gift from my father before he passed, right? Or something like that. Any stories or any things that stick out in your mind as well? I'm sure there's a ton of them out there, but yeah.

There's so many. There's really countless. I love those ones where they are getting a watch for somebody else. They're not even getting it for themselves. I think those are the special ones to me. And something I've been thinking about a lot recently with our new Crossroads, it's our first hand wound watches. So you're forced in the morning every other day or so to wind up your watch. And I love that moment.

'Cause sometimes, you know, if it's watches that's been gifted to me, I spend that moment looking at the watch and like remembering why I have that watch and why that person gave it to me, maybe. But a lot of the times these days, I'm obviously just wearing these watches that I've made. And so I pick up a watch in the morning and I start winding and stuff, and those stories come to mind for me. You know, the different reasons somebody bought that watch and stuff, and this guy got it for when he had a kid and stuff.

So that's been a cool little thing I didn't expect from that regard. But yeah, gosh, there's so many stories and I love to hear for sure.

You know, it's funny you mentioned that ritual. So I'm actually wearing my first manual wind watch right now.

And this has an interesting story. I won't go too deep into it. But my grandfather was actually a watchmaker, and this was a watch that was left on his workbench that my mom gave to me. And after doing some research on it, I found out that it's a Smiths W10, it's a 1969 British-issued military watch.

And it's got all the markings on the back, on the dial, that sort of— I have to admit, I used AI. I uploaded a picture and it sort of pointed out these things, which was really interesting. That got me in a rabbit hole just learning about the brand, which is a very fascinating brand as well, but also just military watches in general. And as I wind it when I wear it in the morning, I think about both my grandfather repairing it, and then also like.

Who might have worn this and where

Right.

they were and what this watch saw. So it is a really interesting ritual. And I love seeing, you know, more modern brands bring that ritual back, especially in a day and age where when else do we really take the time to sit down and think about things, right? We're all like— we wake up in the morning, pick up our phone, and we're bombarded by emails and social media and text messages and so on. So it's a ritual worth keeping, I think, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. And a big part of that for me personally is gratitude. You know, when I pick up one of these watches that's been gifted to me, you have that moment in the morning, you start your day with gratitude. Thankful for these relationships you've built over the years and stuff, and even the new relationships you've made with folks in the industry and stuff. I think it's great all around. It's a little grounding in humanity for us in a world of AI.

Yeah, totally. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the collection today. And I know the Crossroads, the new Crossroads is a big, you know, part of that. I've seen so much enthusiasm about it. Maybe the overall collection, but also the Crossroads itself and yeah, kind of the thinking behind that new model, maybe what makes it different and new in the collection.

Yeah, so gosh, we have three main lines right now. The Crossroads is the square ones that I would say we're most known for. And that's been going for four years or so now, through different evolutions. We have the GMT and the Daytripper models as well. They share a case design, which has been a fun thing for us to explore.

And then we have another new case design coming later in the year as well, which will be our fourth, which we're super excited about that one. But the Crossroads, gosh, the Crossroads is such a special watch to me personally. You know, where I was in life and trying to decide should I keep doing this whole watchmaking thing, you know, was when it first came around.

And through the community and the feedback I was getting, you know, encouragement from other people to keep doing this thing, like, all right, yeah, this is worth doing. This is— you know, let's turn the page, move on. And that's kind of where the Crossroads is born out of. I sketched a horizon line with a little sun peeking out over the horizon. And that became the side profile of the Crossroads as we knew it.

And that's now evolved. You know, it's gone from strength to strength. And it's so reassuring and encouraging to hear the feedback on it, especially this new one, because man, I've been working on that for two, two and a half years or so. With the smaller version especially is something that people have been asking for for a long time. So we had to go down a whole rabbit hole of making that work, finding new movements.

Going through a complete case redesign and figuring out where we could up-level it as much as possible to make it special. And there are a lot of things with that watch that I've poured a lot of hours into personally and I've been thrilled with the results of it for a while now, but gosh, finally getting it out in front of people and seeing the reaction on people. I love when folks come up to the booth at shows and stuff and a lot of the times there'll be two people, you know, it'll be a couple or whatever, and it's either the wife dragging it or the husband dragging his wife around to a watch show or the other way around and all of a sudden the other one gets excited as well. You're like, man, these watches match each other. We could match each other. And you know, there's just these fun little encounters that I've been seeing with it, which was a lot of the point for these new Crossroads was to kind of share these moments with somebody else. They're meant to.

So that's been really neat and it's something that I'm really excited about for the brand because it has been a very successful launch for us, which I'm humbled by for sure.

Yeah, as you're talking, I'm realizing that I'm gonna have to buy two. Because I

Ha ha ha.

went to the booth first and I saw that watch, the Flora with a sort of salmon pink dial, and I was like, ooh, that's definitely not a color that I have in my collection. I love how it has that sort of greenish strap, right? And sort of that mix between colors. And what I love about this model in general is just that mix of very classic feeling design.

Sort of timeless design with this interesting play on color in the dial, right? That sort of brings it a modern feel, right? So I took a picture of that one and sent it to my wife and she just was like, you know, emoji, you know, hearts in the eyes, like, oh my gosh. And when it went live, you know, whatever, a week or two ago, I said, hey, you know, should we get this one? And she's like, yeah, but you're not gonna wear it. I'm gonna be wearing it.

There's, you know,

Okay.

you're not gonna get any wrist time with it. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna— there were a couple other colors too that piqued my interest. So I'm like, okay, I'll get— and I was also deciding between the 36 and the 40, and now I think, why not get a 40 and a 36? You know,

There you go.

You know, I think that's the play. But you know, I also saw an email from you on the colors, and I think that was the question I asked you at the booth, hey, are you getting a sense of which color is most popular?

And you said something like, I always try and guess, but I never get it right. What's it looking like

Yeah.

right now? Is there a sorta clear winner or is it still pretty even? It seemed pretty well distributed when I saw the chart.

No.

Yeah, very, very even across the board. I'm wrong every time trying to guess colors. I just stopped trying to guess. But the results honestly fairly even across the board, which is what you want to see from a design standpoint. Just healthy distribution. So I mean if you wanna choose a winner then it's probably the Surf, the dark blue one. But

Really again, you could throw a dart and it would land on any of the colors really. Which has been, yeah, very encouraging. I love seeing that. So I do feel bad that it's such a hard decision for

Yeah.

folks. But that's half the fun.

The other thing, I mean I have to say for what it is, the design, the quality, the movement, right? Swiss movement, the price point is amazing as well, right? So it's not a watch that— I mean, different collectors have different budgets and thresholds. For me, I feel like this is a watch that I feel comfortable buying two of them, you know, because for what you're paying, you're getting a lot.

And it's a watch that's gonna last and something, like you said, that you're gonna be able to wear on these special occasions through your life, right? So that's another part of it that I think makes it quite appealing.

Well, appreciate you saying that. One of the main things about this collection is accessibility. Right, we have two different sizes. We have a whole plethora of colors to choose from, but price was a big factor in that as well. We want to stay accessible as a brand,

Like obviously moving to a Swiss Made foundation for these watches, there's a price increase with that. But we did everything we could to keep these things under a grand was super important to me. Obviously there's different budgets and all that that we have to be respectful of and mindful of. But doing that was a big thing for us.

You gave us a little bit of a window into your design process. Would love to hear a little bit more about that. And now that I've heard a little bit, I guess starting question is, do you start with the dial? I know some folks start with dial. Some people think about the movement that they want to use and the type of watch and kind of build the watch design around that. What's sort of your starting point? Is it the dial?

Gosh, it goes all over the place, honestly. You know, I have these funny encounters with people sometimes as well, where they're like, man, you only make good watches. And I'm like, that's because you haven't seen the hundreds of terrible designs in my notebook. But our design philosophy, and not just for watches, but in general, right? I've been a designer for a long, long time.

There's two sides to the process. There's function and there's story. And oftentimes those two things live in different bubbles until they're ready to get married and come together. But the function side, the function side helps you with your day. The story side makes you feel something.

So from a function side, yeah, that's the dial. That's the case, the way it wears, the way it feels. We think about functions of the watch, whether we want it to be a GMT or whatever. We look at these functions and how we can improve them almost from a UX standpoint, user experience. And wanting to make these things as useful as possible.

Seeing if there's new ways that we can do things to make them easier to use. We always do that part of the design in black and white. It all starts with sketches. A lot of the times I'm just sketching without a functionality in mind. I'm just, you know, sketching. And things will come out of that. But it always starts with a sketch and then it always starts digitally with black and white to get legibility good.

To get the balance right, lights and shadows and stuff like that. And that's the functionality bubble. The other bubble is story, and how does that come across in a watch? Well, for us, story that makes you feel something, a lot of the times the biggest one is color and how those play together. So color is usually the last thing that we apply to a watch.

Another way it comes through is with small design elements. Like if you have a theme — which is something else that we try to do for all of our collections — we'll have a theme that we build around from a design perspective as well. And like the guitar ones we did a while back, there's little nods to guitar elements in the design that you may or may not notice, but it's a small part that pumps up the story side of things. Doesn't help functionally necessarily, but it makes you feel something.

So like I said, these two bubbles are often living in different realms and I'll have a great function design that works pretty well and I'll have— I have a whole list of, you know, different story ideas of different places we pull inspiration from and stuff like that. And then we'll just play, we'll just see what works together with these different elements and eventually something'll come out of it that works really well.

A whole lot of things will come out of it that don't work well and those don't make it to production, obviously. But yeah, that's kind of the foundation of our design process across the board.

You know, a funny exercise would be to have a bunch of microbrand owners share designs that never got made. I think that would be really interesting to see. Because I'd imagine

Yeah.

you have to push yourself on both sides, right? You know, maybe you have some designs that are just like too bland that don't excite you enough, and then you have others that it's like, whoa, this is too crazy, and then you sort of like

Find yourself somewhere in the middle, and it'll be interesting to see, and maybe even like a competition to guess whose design this

Totally. Yeah.

is, which brand.

My notebooks are full of— a lot of the times it's not a full watch design. It's function things. You know, I'll have an idea for a bezel that tracks something or another that's, yeah, I haven't seen before necessarily. And so I've got a bunch of random stuff in a notebook like that and then I'll start to think about full watch designs and pull different elements from all these pieces that I've found.

So it's kinda fun. There's correlations to a lot of different things like songwriting and stuff like that. Like I know a lot of songwriters that have their notebooks full of random ideas and then they go to make a song and they just pull different parts lyrically with that. There's a lot of crossover with how we work that way.

Yeah, yeah. I had to ask about the Teddy and Kevin O'Leary episode.

I think a lot of people maybe that's the first way they heard about Trafford. For me, actually, I heard about you at an event and then heard about the Teddy and Kevin and went back to it. And so for those that don't know, you were featured in this microbrand competition and actually you were the chosen watch, right? From Kevin O'Leary.

Tell us a little bit about the behind the scenes of that story. How did that come to be?

Was it a surprise or was it something that— I guess they reached out to you beforehand because you had a little intro video.

And then also what was the aftermath of that, right? Like how did that impact the business?

Yeah, it was crazy, that's for sure. The whole thing, you know. I have to start with a shout out to my buddy Devin Pennypacker, who was working for Teddy at the time. I had no idea that he was this person that worked for Teddy. But he bought a watch from me early on from Kickstarter, you know, and it was one of those relationships where he just— we chatted on Instagram every once in a while. And again I had no idea.

He worked for Teddy. It was so funny. And then one day out of the blue, he messaged me on Instagram. He's like, Hey, I'm doing this video with Teddy. Do you want to be in it? I'm like, What? Who are you and why didn't you tell me this? Like that's crazy. Of course, yes, I would love to. So I was told that it was a video with Kevin O'Leary, that they would be looking at watches.

And that was kind of it. That's all I was told. I was not told it was a competition type of thing. I don't think they knew that's what it was gonna be. So they asked me to send in some watches and to send a little intro video basically. They were gonna be looking at a bunch of different microbrands. I was one of them. That was it. So I send that stuff and then months go by. And they didn't tell me when it was dropping or anything like that. I didn't know a thing. It just dropped one morning on a Saturday morning.

I remember it vividly because I was at the donut shop getting donuts for my family. And my buddy texted me, like, hey, do you know this video dropped? I'm like, What? So I was sitting in my car shaking, watching this thing, like shoving donuts in my face, you know. And I didn't fast forward at all. I just watched the whole thing through and talk about nerve-wracking, but life-altering as well.

You know, we're seeing sales notifications coming through halfway through the video. So immediately after the video, we had to go back to our manufacturer and be like, We need more, we need more. Can you please add more to this batch? Blah de blah. So that was just unbelievably cool. Did great things for the business. People still come up and ask us about it, usually is one of the first things folks say, they saw me on the Teddy Kevin O'Leary video. So I'm forever grateful to those guys, especially Teddy. Like he's one of the good guys I like to say. He's just such a humble person. And he's so big now that, you know, he does not need to be talking about microbrands.

But he does. He takes the time to do it. And I think that is a good reflection on him. It helps the community. And so I will forever be grateful to both those guys for making that a part of my story. I think it's great. And I hope they keep doing it for more microbrands as well, 'cause it's such a cool thing.

Yeah, Teddy is actually one of the reasons why I got into microbrands. It's how I first learned about microbrands. My first one that I learned about was Brew, and it was through his interview with

Yeah.

Jonathan. And I've learned about countless microbrands from

Such a good human, by the way.

him. And like you said, those competitions are really great because you get exposure to all these different brands and sort of get to

get a deep dive into the design and the story behind it. And, you know, it's amazing that you won. I think for anybody that appears on there, it's an amazing achievement and experience.

We are all winners.

And I'm sure it has an amazing impact for all of them. So I agree with you. I hope that they continue to do that segment. And I'm sure he'll continue to be a great champion for the microbrand space.

You know, you touched on this a little bit, your motto, take your time.

I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into that and just kind of get your perspective on where did that first come from?

You know, we have that on a few things and people assume it's just the, you know, take your time, do it right, sort of thing. And it is. It's a big part of that. But it's actually it's more of a call to action. And the funny side of it is it's something that one of my little league baseball coaches would say, and I thought it was a joke at the time, you know.

We would be doing batting practice and stuff, and he'd be like, Would you hurry up and take your time? Like, it's nonsense. It doesn't make any sense, you know, to a kid. But he would always say, and it stuck with me, hurry up and take your time. And then there was one day we were in a game, and you know, like the perfect setup with two outs, by, you know, end of the game, and

And I was up to bat, and I don't remember what was happening. I'm not doing great, probably. But he pulled me aside and was like, Nathan, take your time, take it. This is your time, take it, you know.

And it kind of clicked then like, don't take your time, like slow down and do it right. Like, this is your opportunity, this is your moment.

To take it, you know, so take your time that you're given and use it to the best of your ability. I am sure that I struck out, but that was— it was something that kind of stuck with me, the double meaning for that, long before obviously I ever started a watch company. But it's become the same sort of thing for the company. Yes, take your time, do things right, spend the time that you need to.

On things, but also take the time that's given to you and do your best with it. Like enjoy every moment because it's— no moments are guaranteed. You know, so take the opportunities that are put in front of you. That's the real meaning behind take your time.

I love it. And I love that a watch can be a sort of reminder of that, right? You can look at your watch, remember, you know, times in your life that are meaningful for you and what they represent, but also remember to, you know, take your time and use your time wisely and you know spend time with the people that are important to you, doing the things that are important to you and all that. Very cool.

This has been so much fun. I love these type of conversations and I was so intrigued about Trafford, about your story. So thanks so much for making the time, taking the time to

There we go.

to walk us through it. What can folks expect next from Trafford and where are the best places for them to follow along? Any events that you're gonna be going to in the near future that they can meet you and talk to you more about the story?

Yeah, lots of stuff coming up. It's a big year for us, obviously. Crossroads S launched recently. There's a whole lot more stuff planned for the rest of the year. Depending on when this video launches, just come to all the shows. We go to all the major ones, all the Windups and stuff. But we are planning on expanding out to other shows kind of globally as well in the next year or two.

So just check in with us, get on our email list so you know what's coming up, social media, all the things. Very easy to find us.

Awesome. Well Nathan, thanks again for your time today and have a great rest of your day over there.

Appreciate it, man. Thank you.