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Vortic Watch Company Taps into the 1800s for its Luxury American Artisan Series

vortic watch company

You’d have no idea by just visiting the homepage of the Fort Collins-based Vortic Watch Company that the co-founders of this elegant watch company sat in undergraduate classrooms at Penn State University a mere 24 months ago. What began as a simple class project, quickly turned into a bona fide business venture that took three college kids from dorm rooms to business meetings quicker than they’d ever imagined. Perhaps most impressive is the fact 25-year-old CEO R.T. Custer and his business partners — 23-year-old COO Tyler Wolfe and 25-year-old CMO Frank Barber — achieved this by literally turning the clock back to the mid to late 1800s, repurposing antique pocket watches into some of the most beautiful pieces you’ve ever seen.

Though  you’ve likely seen a repurposed pocket watch in some fashion, it’s guaranteed you haven’t seen one the way Vortic does it. Starting out by finding old timepieces online, Custer and his team developed a way to 3D print a compatible case which would help restore the watch. The 3D-printed model allows the movement to essentially float inside the case, giving it a one-of-a-kind look and design. After partnering with a 3D printing company to develop the steel and bronze cases, Vortic also bought its own Formlabs Form 1+ stereolithographic machine to manufacture its product’s plastic components.

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From the 3D printing of each piece’s case to the packaging of their final product, Custer and his team’s attention to detail is absolutely stunning. Due in large part to Vortic’s idea that the customer experience is paramount to a successful business, no stone goes unturned in leaving those who buy one of these remarkable pieces in absolute awe. Constructed by a local Fort Collins carpenter, each piece’s unique packaging perfectly displays the company’s intention of crafting a positive customer experience. By using salvaged American walnut, brass hardware, and finishing each box by hand, the final packaging is a work of art in itself. Vortic even stamps the box’s wrapping with the kind of wax seal used to fasten parcels sent on railroads over a century ago.

“Most companies don’t show you how their products are made because they don’t want you to know,” Custer told The Manual. “We do everything in-house and each one of our products are 100 percent Made in the U.S.A.”

Because of this attention to detail and righteous product, there’s no surprise Vortic — a combination of vortex and tick, like a clock — continues to enjoy its meteoric rise to relevancy. With plans on tap to move into an upscale, remodeled farm in Fort Collins (to establish its first brick and mortar), and goals of expanding into roughly 10 retail stores around the country by holiday time, it’s an understatement to call Vortic a success story. Though before Custer and Wolfe even thought of seeing their product on store shelves or in revered publications, the duo encountered a bit of a rough patch early on.

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After speaking with Custer about the genesis of Vortic Watch Company and how it managed to enjoy exponential growth throughout its infancy, the co-founder did admit to running out of money shortly after graduating from Penn State in May of 2014. Though forced to walk away from what had taken Penn State businesses classes by storm (the co-founders won a business plan competition, earning them grant money for research), Custer moved to Fort Collins, Colorado to pursue a career in industrial engineering.

It wasn’t until the end of that summer Tyler contacted Custer admitting some frustration of his own career path and insisted they get the band back together and give Vortic an earnest second shot. At this time, the duo decided to take their innovative watch plan to the crowdfunding site Kickstarter to see if they could raise enough money to operate the business. The thought was that even a modest $10,000 in funding would allow them to manufacture a handful of watches and enable them to get back to doing what they loved.

“I told him that if we hit our $10,000 goal, he could move to Fort Collins and live with me while we operated the business out of my house,” said Custer. “What happened next though was that we hit $10,000 in just the first 12 hours of the campaign, the response was incredible.”

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All told, Vortic raised an astounding $41,035 over the course of its entire listing on Kickstarter, meaning Wolfe was on his way to Fort Collins. More importantly, the raised funds meant the small Vortic team had to assemble roughly 50 watches in light of the success, a load of work that baffled Custer and company. After spending literally every second of every night and weekend on the orders, Vortic shipped its final Kickstarter-backed watched roughly one year ago.

Several times during my conversation with Custer, I couldn’t help but sit in awe of not only the sheer quality of Vortic and its products but of the company’s increasing momentum in an otherwise crowded industry. However, armed with one of the most innovative business plans ever introduced to the world of watches, Vortic Watch Company appears less like a flash in the pan and more like a company built for the long haul.

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Catching Up with the Creative Minds Behind Aulta Watches
aulta

When Marty Pomphrey, Abe Allouche, and Pancho Sullivan began formulating the idea for their timepiece company Aulta, they knew they wanted to create something which celebrated lifestyle and a love for the ocean. After deciding to produce a well-made line of surf watches, the trio took to the task of utilizing each of their industry-specific qualities to give the company a solid foundation.
For Marty, his background as a watch industry expert with Fossil and Diesel instantly gave Aulta a strategic edge over its competition; simply put, the guy knows watches. Abe — a seasoned businessman with the successful board short company Island Daze under his belt — added his experience building a company from the ground up, as well as a keen sense of design and production, to Aulta's entrepreneurial quiver. Then there was Pancho, a professional surfer born in Kauai and raised on the North Shore, he delivered fearless devotion and a strong familiarity with the surfing industry.
While each possess a resume unique to themselves, the sum of their experience allows Aulta to function in perfect harmony. After launching its first line of watches nearly two years ago, the amount of knowledge and experience akin to its co-founders shows Aulta is more than poised to make waves in the watch industry. To get a firsthand look at what makes it such an intriguing new company, we caught up with co-founder Marty Pomphrey to talk about the company's inspirations, why it will succeed in a crowded industry, and what's next for the brand.
What was the inspiration behind creating Aulta?
Aulta came about very organically five years ago when Abe, Pancho, and I were in Hawaii feeling completely recharged after a day of surfing together. Our conversation that day kept coming back to how lucky we felt to have an activity like surfing to balance out our busy lives.
Each of us comes from a different background, but we were brought together by a shared love of the ocean. We had talked previously about building a company together but wanted a brand and product concept which tied directly back to our lifestyles. The concept that resonated deeply with each of us was the importance of finding time to do what you love. Work is very important, but it doesn’t mean you have to compromise your lifestyle. Uncompromised lifestyle quickly became the core message of the Aulta brand, even before we decided on the product direction.

Pancho has been a world-renowned and respected professional surfer for over twenty years. Abe literally took the road less traveled establishing his successful surf apparel company Island Daze in 1998. And I come from a long history in the watch industry at companies including Nike and Fossil. So the idea of building stylish, durable watches that take you from “work to water” was a natural convergence of our individual lifestyles and collective talents. Every Aulta watch is rated 100-meter water resistant and built using gasket sealed screw down crowns and case backs. We love what we do and pride ourselves on building exceptional watches for active lifestyles.
Did you feel the watch industry was missing what you provide with Aulta?
Aulta is completely unique to the watch industry in that we only sell through our website. This direct to customer business model allows us to bypass the wholesale channel and pass the savings on to our customers.
We also made a conscious decision to ignore the traditional industry approach of seasonal product introductions. Instead, we decided to introduce one new watch on the 15th of each month. This non-traditional approach allows us to build focused stories and content around our watch introductions, and only reach out to our customers when we have something new to show them.
Where does Aulta succeed where you feel other brands come up short? 
Our direct-to-customer business model provides a remarkable value proposition. We are able to offer stylish, durable watches built with surgical grade stainless steel, Japanese movements, and a variety of strap options at prices ranging from $85-$105. If we chose the traditional wholesale route, the suggested retail prices would have been double.

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For most people shopping for a watch, the search typically involves finding a suitable timepiece strictly for themselves. Perhaps a watch for a friend or loved one may strike someone's fancy while shopping, but the mere act of buying a watch tends to involve just one person. However, no one told the Australian company Paradigm Watches this presumed fact as the startup recently took to Kickstarter to promote its luxury brand of watches intended for the whole family.

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Though the brand's roots date back to 1891, the company officially opened its first factory in 1903. It was with this factory that the Belber name was able to provide travel luggage and accessories, which not only provided users a ruggedly functional product, but one which remained as fashionable as anything on the market. Even back then, Belber operated under its motto "As Modern as Tomorrow," which symbolized its continued effort to bring the latest in luggage innovation to its customers.

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