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Archive Feb 01, 2016
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A friend gets a text on his phone, which then lights up his wrist, notifying him of the text. Soon after, his iPhone-linked gadget notifies the entire table that his new Tinder match has messaged him back. This might sound like a rant about the impending Orwellian dystopia—it’s not. We’re simply pointing out how technology meant to streamline can often be a nuisance. Enter Tinker. Counteracting the constant noise, a new watch company promising you the basics in the classic form, with no calculator, event reminders, or heartbeat monitors to be found.
“This thing can’t go underwater. It’s not indestructible. It’s just an easy, elevated watch,” said Eva Goicochea, one of the founding members. Instead of interior lights and survival style bands, Eva and her partners wanted a customizing system that allows you to create your everyday watch with an almost effortless process. Choosing from three sizes, five tones of Australian leather for the band, and gold, silver, or copper casing, you can build a watch on their high-tech site and be out the digital door within minutes.
With the team’s diverse history, the four founders brought elements to the table that aided in building their ideal timepiece. Eva was a founding team member of Everlane when the creative was based in Los Angeles, giving her the experience of a start-up environment as well as an ethos in keeping it easy and truthful. Her partner, Ian Goicochea, studied engineering at Harvey Mudd, lending the knowledge of what was going to make their watches tick.
“We really took apart the idea and tried to make it as functional and accessible as possible,” Ian says. “We were looking at companies whose price ranges spanned from $100 to $3000, and when I was reviewing the specs I wasn’t seeing where the absurd pricing was coming from. If anything, we wanted to give a large consumer base a quality item at a price that was affordable.”
The pair has other businesses in the works that are exciting and note-worthy, but nixing the stability of a 9 to 5 is not the top priority. Like many people in their age range, having your hands in multiple industries and interests is important to them, but dedicating all their time to just one sounds more caging than their chance at freedom.
“It’s not like we’re all quitting our day jobs,” Eva says. “This is a side venture we were all passionate about starting, but we want it to be one of the things we’re working on. We’d love to see it become big, but at the same time were happy letting the growth happen as organically as possible. We’re not looking into ad banners. If people want the product, we just want to make it easy for them to find it.”
For $150, the unisex watch that pairs well with pretty much everything is made of stainless steel, has an automatic system, a smooth comfortable leather band, and brings a simplicity to the process of choosing an everyday arm piece. While their product nods to the past with its clean and timeless design, their openness of sourcing, user-friendly interface, and honest approach point out what matters to the Millennial generation in terms of how we shop. We want to know where it’s coming from, we want it to be easy to purchase, and we’re looking for something that will last us past a few fashion seasons. Tinker Watches brings to light all of that, but also gets us away from our phones.
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