Justin Reis, Co-Founder and CEO of WatchBox on Creating Value through Community and Passion

Panic with Friends – Investing for Profit and Joy

I invited Justin Reis of Watchbox back on the ‘Panic’ podcast back for a second time. I’ve long been fascinated by all things watches, and Justin is my go-to expert on buying, selling, and trading pre-owned luxury watches. (Full disclosure: I am a personal investor In Watchbox.)

Prior to co-founding Watchbox, Justin was a co-founder and partner at Presidio Capital, a private investment group with over US $1 billion in capital deployed throughout the Asia Pacific and beyond. I hope you enjoy our chat on creating value through community and passion.

You can listen to the podcast here on Spotify or Apple podcast and now all the episodes are on my YouTube channel as well.

You can also listen right here on the blog:

Guest: Justin Reis

Profile:  Co-Founder, Global Chief Executive Officer at WatchBox

Where to Find Him: LinkedIn

What’s Justin Panicked About?: The snow bomb blizzard about to hit the Northeast.

Previous Appearance:

Episode 154 (June 18, 2021)

The Takeaway:

2021 was a good year for collectibles. There was incredible liquidity created and available due to the macro backdrop . The whole idea around investing in alternative assets outside of traditional financial instruments continues to move forward, albeit a little more cautiously as we look for traction in 2022. To find out where the market is going, we’ll have to look at the type of consumer out there and how they adjust to changing market conditions. With some of the air coming out of the crypto market, will some early movers in this space be dissuaded? Will they go into other categories, or do they leave the sector altogether? Many market participants have never experienced the recent dynamic of going up and down so quickly. Fortunately, in a down macro environment the watch itself is probably the last thing to go from the personal balance sheet. And as long as there’s activity going on in the marketplace, we don’t typically see the same volatility in the luxury watch market you might see in other categories.

Show Notes:

• (00:11) – Show intro

• (03:16) – Introducing Justin

• (04:23) – The macro environment

• (06:05) – Changes in market conditions

• (06:56) – Average selling prices on Watchbox

• (10:06) – Bringing liquidity through a store of value

• (11:16) – Leveraging Brand Equity

• (13:19) – Building trust through community

• (16:34) – The pop-up model meets high-end retail

• (17:43) – Customer retention and building loyalty

• (26:11) – Looking at the underlying trends

• (28:45) – It isn’t fun if you can’t share the passion

• (30:16) – Size of the primary and secondary watch market

• (33:10) – The best watch for the beginning collector

• (35:02) – Howard’s home address and safe combination

• (36:50) – Limited production timepieces

• (39:01) – Pros and cons of running a public company

• (40:13) – Your mom probably listens to Panic with Friends

• (43:03) – The value creation inherent in community

• (44:06) – Closing thoughts