How to Build a Uniquely Rewarding Business: Lessons from Haven Watch Co.

Haven Watch Co. is not your ordinary watch company. A brand that sells supremely well-made timepieces, Haven has found a way to connect with an underserved segment in the vintage watch market: artists, writers, and musicians.

Founded by watch enthusiast Weston Cutter, Haven Watch Co’s branding is unlike anything you’ve ever seen in the industry. For starters, the products are packaged like burgers and are designed to bring about a sense of fun, whimsy, and delight. As a son of a former watchmaker, Weston decided to follow in his father’s footsteps by getting into the watch industry. In 2012, he started buying and selling vintage watches and found the experience fascinating.

“I loved it,” recalls Weston. “I loved seeing old watches, studying them, understanding them, trying to understand trends and how the market moved.”

However, as years passed, Weston grew frustrated with how the vintage watch market “had gotten so big and so expensive.”

“I wanted to see if it was still possible to make a classic excellent Swiss mechanical chronograph for under $2,000. That was really it, just a sort of ‘what if’ to pursue,” he says.

And so, Haven Watch Co. was born! One look at the company’s products and packaging will tell you that Haven Watch Co. is a unique player in the vintage watch industry. Its catalog comprises classy and colorful pieces that are both functional and fun — and Weston designed them that way because he found a significant gap in the market.

“One of the odd things about getting into watches was feeling like there wasn’t space for someone like me. The majority of watches are sort of dude-focused and masculine, or they’re dolled up to be really pretty, or they’re abstracted into some notion of pure mechanical excellence.”

Weston continues, “All of that is fine… but I was honestly just hurt that there didn’t seem to be watch brands that felt — for lack of a better term — like good rock and roll or punk.”

“My world is writers and musicians and artists, and I felt like watches were really stupid to exclude us, so the goal from the start was to make watches that worked for the folks I enjoy and admire.”

So, he set out to do just that. And a big part of Haven Watch Co’s positioning lies in its branded packaging.

As Weston puts it, “the goal is always to make enough of an imprint on people that, eventually, they’ll be able to tell something from your company right from first blush.”

That’s why he decided to package his watches as cheeseburgers — he wanted to create an memorable experience that wasn’t overly serious.

tendlyn’s customizable tissue paper helped Weston create that experience. “We needed a big piece of tissue paper to wrap around the burger, and that would obviously need to be colorful and weird, too,” he says.

“One of the things tendlyn enables is a sense of whimsy or serendipity, which is 100% what (in my opinion) Serious Masculine Products are missing.”

Weston ultimately decided to go with tendlyn because the product is eco-friendly and cost-effective.

“Your pricing’s incredible, and the depth of your commitment to reduced environmental impacts made tendlyn a really, really simple choice for us,” he adds. As for what he loves about running the business, Weston says he finds joy in seeing his watch designs come to life.

“My favorite recent moment was finally seeing the finished product of our new watches, the Lomax (a diver) and the Trotter (a GMT). There’s always the potential for a gap between the design of something and the finished execution of it, and it was thrilling to see how well the Lomax and Trotter turned out,” he explains.

He also feels privileged to work with family, friends, and people he admires.

“I get to work on design with one of my oldest and best friends, Steve Reidell. I get to be in the shop with one of the best watchmakers I know, Donovan Paradise, who assembles and tests our watches. I get to connect with friends and solicit their points of view about our direction and decisions. I get to share it all with my dad, the watchmaker who knocked me down the rabbit hole of all of this.”

In a nutshell, he says, “Most of it’s just incredibly fun and interesting and rewarding.”

*See more of Haven Watch Co. on the brand’swebsite!*No matter what your visual style is, tendlyn’s customizable and eco-friendly packaging can help bring your brand to life.Wrap your products with tissue paperthat’s uniquely YOU and create unforgettable experiences for your customers. Start exploring customizable products that are sustainable by design!