Who is Richard?

Meet Richard Benc, Founder of Studio Underd0g Watches!

About Studio Underd0g Watches

Fashionable, unique, and functional.

Studio Underd0g is a watch brand that is on the pulse of fresh trends in the watch industry. Offering affordable and high-quality products in a wide range of styles, the brand creates new options for any type of watch collector. 

Richard’s Journey

Richard discovered his passion for design in university, when he first took an industrial design course. During his studies, he paid attention to how entrepreneurs were bringing new brands to the market. He enjoyed seeing new Kickstarter projects and watching interesting brands progress in the business creation process. 

While he was always interested in design, Richard didn’t know the watch industry existed until he tried applying for jobs after graduating from college. The first job he secured was in designing character watches, specifically creating artwork for pre-existing artwork, like Disney characters. 

During this job, Richard discovered a passion for designing small objects and paying attention to tiniest detail. He says that although most founders have a beautiful story about how their father handed down a high-quality time-keeping piece, his story is a little different. 

“It was something that always resonated with me because then it’s all in the fine, fine detail,” Richard says. “It’s all in the micro-decisions you make, those fractions of a millimeter.”

He spent six years designing watches for other brands, refining his horology skills — or the study of watches — when COVID hit. As Richard saw other brands enter the market, he realized that it was his moment to try his hand at building a brand.

Then Richard began developing a passion project with no intention to bring his products to market, and this mindset helped him come up with a fresh perspective for the watch industry. In the end, his product resonated with people, which became a big factor in the brand’s success.

“At the start, it was a design project to try and challenge myself and then lots of natural stepping stones until where the brand is today,” he says.

Crafting the Company

E-Commerce was something that Richard had to learn over time. While he didn’t have a first-hand experience as an entrepreneur prior to starting his brand, he did have many experiences as a customer, which worked to his advantage. Richard put himself in the shoes of the customer, ensuring a great and engaging purchasing experience.

“This is all something that I’ve had to learn. The E-Commerce side of things is something I didn’t really have a particular first-hand experience in,” he says. “The first-hand experience that I did have was from the customer side, which has worked to my advantage because I put myself in the shoes of the customer.”

Like the other brands Richard followed in earlier years, his brand launched on Kickstarter. Initially, he set a goal of 20,000 pounds and surpassed it in record time. Richard wanted to start crafting products as quickly as possible to establish himself and showcase that he and his brand were here for the long run, so he began to transition to a traditional sales strategy fairly quickly after releasing his proof of concept.

Handling High Product Demands

As he launched a website and made products available, Richard realized that the more products that were out there, the more people discovered the brand, the more people were falling in love with the brand and sharing its message. Because of this, it was difficult for Richard and his team to forecast the level of demand. 

When the team dropped the first line of products, they sold out within six minutes. Understanding that some people were disappointed that the products became unavailable so quickly, Richard and his colleagues tried to create a solution. The second time they dropped product, the team left the pre-order window open for a set amount of time that was shorter than they did on Kickstarter. Now, the company opens up order windows for nine hours, which allows people who have been engaging with the brand to choose any products they’re interested in.

Studio Underd0g has created a commitment to be fully transparent in its communication with customers. Now that it’s been three years since Richard and his team fulfilled the first of their watches, they’ve had some time to learn from their sales. Earlier this year, during the brand’s most recent restock, Richard and his team allowed customers to pre-order products for nine hours and the result was shy of 6,000 watches. In just nine hours, the team brought in $3.5 million. Because the demand was high, Richard says that it would’ve been impossible to forecast customer demand on their own. Luckily, the team dedicated some cash they had on-hand to pre-assemble an initial number of items. As soon as the orders came in, the team was already starting to assemble and fulfill products. 

“We have the most accurate forecasts that you could ever possibly imagine because they're based on literal orders,” Richard says. “[Our system] is really working for us and customers, too… [They] want to be part of this brand and this brand’s story.”

Tech Stack

Shopify — The team’s website platform

Gorgias — Automates the team’s customer engagement and responses

The Studio Underd0g Team

Including Richard, the Studio Underd0g team is made up of three people, but at the end of August, the team will grow to four. One team member manages customer requests by handling Gorgias, replying to customer emails, and connecting with people who want to learn more about the brand. The rest handle operations, which Richard says is an incredibly important part of what the team does.

Building an Operations System from the Ground Up

The team assembles the brand’s products in the UK, so they have many individual components coming in at different times. When Richard started the brand, it was easier to keep track of items because they had only one watch model. As the brand grew, the team began receiving more items and SKUs. To keep track of everything, they had to build an operational system that could help them stay on track with their SKUs. Eventually, the team built a system on Google Sheets that Richard monitored. When things became too technical, he hired a Google Sheets designer on Upwork who could make the necessary changes to the system and improve it. 

Operating the Brand through Exclusive Product Drops

During the brand’s exclusive product drops that are open for only nine hours, the team will take as many orders as they can. After the window closes, the products will remain unavailable. The only way that customers can interact with the brand is by signing up for its mailing list. Unlike other E-Commerce brands, Studio Underd0g only sends out email blasts every two months, saving their interactions with customers for when the team has something important to say — whether it’s a restock or an exciting project the team is working on.

The team’s unique customer engagement strategy has helped them receive open rates that many brands could only dream of. In the eyes of the customer, Richard says, they can get bored when they receive emails all the time. When they see something that’s interesting, they might want to share it with their friends, which increases the amount of engagement.

“Even if they don’t know the brands or they don’t have an interest in watches, you want the story to be that engaging,” he says. “I think that’s something that we’re quite good at, and that doesn’t need to be done twice a week. We can just wave these stories, some of which are sometimes gifted to us on a plate.”

The CX Philosophy at Studio Underd0g

The foundation of Studio Underd0g's CX philosophy comes down to the brand’s tone of voice, Richard says. Within the brand’s products, its tagline is visually easy to absorb and understand, especially considering the fact that the watch industry is quite serious. On the opposite hand, the Studio Underd0g team wanted to do something different and share a playful, fun, and whimsical voice, all the while still being a serious watch for serious collectors. 

Richard says this unique juxtaposition and playfulness is something that the brand follows through not only in brand design but the customer experience — be it the brand’s social media engagement or the way they talk about the industry.  This strategy developed over time, and the team didn’t have to think through it. Instead, this approach came naturally to the team.

“It’s actually a really great and easy marketing tactic because [when I’m talking about the brand], I don’t have to think about what communication points I want to get across,” Richard says. “I can just be incredibly open, incredibly honest, and talk about what I want to talk about. That’s part of the brand.”

Studio Underd0g’s Growth Strategies

Ensuring Customer Retention

Richard says that a considerable part of the decision-making process in the watch industry is value retention. To ensure their value retention, he and the team focus their communications onto the customer that is interested in high-quality horology, or luxury watches, and build products for them at a different price point. 

All of Studio Underd0g's watches are mechanical, hand-wound, and some of the movements are based on designs from the 1940s. The brand’s interesting elements appeal to knowledgeable customers and their preferences. Furthermore, Studio Underd0g’s drop system keeps the brand’s products in high demand and boosts its value retention. Not only does the system help with value retention, it also helps with customers’ final purchase decision, Richard says. When customers are deciding whether to purchase a Studio Underd0g item, the $500 price tag may help.

“At this moment, we’re fortunate in the fact that if you do buy a Studio Underd0g watch in the drop, you buy it from us, you can wear it for a year, you can enjoy it, you can show your friends,” he says. “When you decide that there's a different watch that you want to [buy], hopefully [it’s] the next generation of Studio Underd0g, but if it's something else, you can feel confident that your money's kind of safe in a way.”

Unlike other brands in the market, the Studio Underd0g team doesn’t innovate their products based on data or trends. They create products that they are interested in and pay attention to what customers want as well. Richard also looks at what brands in other industries are doing and implements fresh and creative ideas that can improve his brand and the watch industry as a whole.

“We are quite good at seeing what works, figuring out kind of why they work, and ensuring that we just allow those [ideas] to mature rather than looking at what other people in the industry are doing,” Richard says.