The Business of Watches [029] Benjamin Arabov, CEO Of Jacob & Co.

0:00Welcome to the Business of Watches, the Houdinki podcast where horology meets high finance and we go behind the scenes to talk to the executives making things tick. This week, a brand we don't cover a lot at Houdinki, Jacob & Co. Flamboyant, controversial, and expensive Jacob & Co. watches aren't for everyone, but they certainly are for some as the jewelry brand reports that it's among the 30 largest Swiss brands by the world. sales. The brand reported 180 million Swiss francs in sales in 2025, according to Morgan Stanley. That's a 14 % jump in revenue and a 24 % increase in volumes. While most of the industry is struggling to stay flat, Jacob & Co.

0:50is growing. We speak with CEO Benjamin Ereboff, the son of the brand's founder Jacob Ereboff and get the lowdown on how Jacob & Co operates. But first, some business headlines from the watch world. Chopin plans to eliminate 28 jobs at its fleurier operations in the Val-de-Travaire, Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported. Chopin confirmed that it plans to cut due to changes in the market for its products. It employs about 220 people at its operations there, and told Le Temp in a statement, the watchmaking industry is undergoing a profound transformation, accentuated by a particularly uncertain economic and geopolitical context, the management noted.

1:44Customer demand for the company is now evolving towards higher-end watch creations produced in smaller volumes due to their high complexity. We are reorganizing and adapting our production facility in Fleurier to this new reality, Chopin says. The planned job cuts come after a period of short-time work, the Swiss government-supported program that allows companies to furlough workers and avoid permanent job cuts for up to two years. For a number of Swiss watchmakers, the period of Arte Asch, or short-time work, will soon end, and more job cuts could be on the way. The Swiss watch industry employs about 65 ,000 people directly and represents Switzerland's third largest export sector behind machinery and pharmaceuticals.

2:39Switzerland exported about 26 billion francs worth of watches in 2025, while values are near record highs and represent more than half of the global watch industry. Swiss export volumes have been declining from about 30 million units in the early 2000s to about 15 million units annually in 2025. Speaking of Swiss watch exports, more volatility in the monthly stats. Exports fell 16 % in April as shipments to the U.S. skidded 56%. But that is after a 156 % surge in the same month the year before, when brands rushed to send watches to the biggest market to avoid looming tariffs. Exports are now down about 3.9 % year-to-date, but excluding the U.S., they're up 1.7 % so far this year, suggesting a gradual recovery in some markets, including China.

3:43And that's your business headlines for this week. Now, here's our conversation with Benjamin Ereboff, the CEO of Jacob & Co.

3:59We are in Geneva. It is the week of Watches & Wonders 2026. and I am at the Four Seasons Hotel with Ben Ereboff, who is the chief executive officer of Jacob & Co. Jacob & Co. isn't a brand that we always talk about on Hardinkee, but we're super happy to have you on the Business of Watches podcast. Welcome, Ben.

4:26Benjamin Arabov:Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Excellent. Excellent. So for those who don't know the story of the brand, Tell us your connection to Jacob & Co and how long you've been involved with the brand and how long you've been in the CEO role and how you got here. Sure. So my connection with the brand is that I'm the son of the founder, Jacob. Jacob the jeweler. Jacob the jeweler. Jacob Araboff, who is your father. Some call him now Jacob the watches. I saw a recent article saying that, so that was cool to see. That's cool. Does he embrace that change in his nickname? He embraces it for sure.

5:06Benjamin Arabov:So my journey started in 2017, where Jacob asked me to support his marketing efforts. At the time, I was running my own business. It was a digital marketing agency focused on helping educational businesses get more enrollments online. And I was in the digital marketing space since 2010. Digital marketing was my passion. It was my interest. It was my curiosity. I started a successful business in the space. And in 2017, as he was exploring entering into the digital side of marketing for his brand, He asked me to help him and work with the current team. So I helped him like in a consulting type of role while I was still running my own business.

6:00Benjamin Arabov:And in 2020, late 2020, he asked me if I would join the company full time. This is in the middle of COVID, if I recall. In the middle of COVID, yes. and it was an interesting time for me in my personal life because I was running my business already for eight years and the business was set up in a way where it didn't need me on a day-to-day basis and I was kind of losing interest in the industry. So I saw this really great and exciting opportunity for me to come on board, to partner with Jacob, to help him grow the business and for the brand to achieve the potential that I always saw that it had.

6:47Benjamin Arabov:And one of the first things that I did when I joined was evaluate everything that Jacob is doing and to remove everything that he absolutely doesn't love to do and is a burden for him. What kind of things were those at the time then? Operations. Operations. Running the business day-to-day. Yeah, running the business day-to-day. Marketing, running the day-to-day of marketing. I really wanted him to focus on coming up with the big ideas, which he's absolutely a genius in. Coming up with big ideas, working with the research and development team to execute those ideas, and sales. You know, he's a master salesman.

7:30Benjamin Arabov:So I removed everything besides what he absolutely loves to do, which is to expand the sales side of the business and to come up with great ideas. And with that journey already five, six years now, we have some really exciting results to show. And I'm something that I'm really, really happy about. Absolutely. And I think I want to ask you later what I mean, what it was like to grow up in your family. But I mean, let's just talk about the business of Jacob and Co. at the moment. I mean, in the most recent Morgan Stanley report on the Swiss watch industry, you know, their estimates, these are not hard numbers necessarily.

8:09Benjamin Arabov:They are our hard numbers. Okay. So what I'm going to get to is indeed, they show you as one of the fastest growing brands in Swiss watches, in the watch industry. You know, tell us how you've managed to achieve that at a time when the industry, much of the industry is, you know, faces challenges and what kind of growth are we talking about? So year over year, we grew, I believe it was either 13 or 14%. And we were really excited and surprised when we saw that because before that report, we had no idea where we stand in terms of growth or not growth compared to our competitors. Because you've never appeared in the report before, I believe.

8:56We have appeared, yeah. Oh, okay. You have appeared before. Yeah, we have appeared.

8:59Benjamin Arabov:Okay. But last year was a unique year. Like you said, it was a rather challenging year for the industry. And it's hard to pinpoint one specific thing that we did that allowed us to achieve that. But we had a tremendous year with some new releases. We had one of our best years when it comes to the engagement and the interest of the brand online. We track every metric that we can to help us identify if we're making progress, if more people are talking about us, if more people are looking at our content, if more people are exploring on our website. So basically, you know, I mean, that's not the most difficult information to get, but maybe you're getting it at a much more specific and high level.

9:52Benjamin Arabov:Yeah, we're getting it at a really detailed granular level. And last year was our best year when it comes to the interest of the brand online. Why is there anything specific you can point to? Is it a certain release? Yeah, it's a few releases. We had some really exciting partnerships that we launched. We launched our partnership with Saman Khan, who's a big star in India. We launched our partnership with G-Dragon. We had some really exciting releases. And yeah, I mean, last year there was more people talking about or interested about our brand than ever before. And because of that, I feel like that also helped us and supported the year that we had.

10:32Yeah, you mentioned some, you know, launches in India. So is part of this a story about growing into other markets? Absolutely. Absolutely.

10:44Benjamin Arabov:Last year, we entered into 38 new point of sales. That's not insignificant. No, no, it's not. Three new stores and the rest shop and shops. Something I don't think many people know is that just in 2021, we only had two point of sales. Now we have over 115. Just from my understanding, I mean, how does that work? Does Jacob & Co. own these stores and operate them or do you work with partners? We own some of them, but the majority of it is a partner that runs it locally in the industry. So I shouldn't think of it like a franchise situation? Like a franchise, yes. Yeah, okay. Like a franchise. And is that an initiative that started under yourself, obviously?

11:29Benjamin Arabov:Well, in partnership with Jacob, yes. And that was also one of the things that, which was strategic to allow him to, to have more time to do it. Because really before he was, you know, doing just everything. And it's just, it's just not sustainable to do everything. Also, you have to be good at everything, which just nobody is. So I'm a true believer that people should focus on what they're truly good at and just focus on that. Because that's when true creativity or true execution happens. And, you know, for those who don't, I mean, I think everybody does know the Jacob & Co name and has seen some of your watches.

12:06But, you know, let's pretend that someone's been living under a rock and hasn't seen or heard of Jacob & Co. Describe to me what the brand is, what kind of watches and pieces that you make. if you had to give me the 10-second elevator pitch? 10-second elevator pitch, I think the words that people say the most

12:28Benjamin Arabov:when they see our watches for the first time is, I have never seen this before. And that is the reaction, emotional reaction, that we want people to have, to say, wow, I have never seen that before. And as we continue to hear that year over year, we know that we are in the right direction. because that's what I feel like we bring to the industry, something that just is completely innovative and creative with not only technical details, but also design put together. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly fair to say that when one sees a Jacob and Co-Watch, it often looks like something they have never seen before.

13:10Talk to me about the manufacturing process, because correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you have your own manufacturer exactly, But tell me what it looks like, the manufacturing process.

13:20Benjamin Arabov:So our current operation is that we have a headquarters here in Geneva. That headquarters is responsible for production, research and development, design, logistics, and after sale. So we come up with the ideas, and then we have a third-party manufacturing company called Concepto, which help us execute the movement side of things. Yeah, I mean, they're very well-known third-party manufacturers. extremely complicated and extraordinary kind of stuff comes out of Conceptor. So does Conceptor do all of your pieces? They do 90 % of our movements. Okay. Yeah. They do 90 % of our movements. They're our key partner.

14:00Benjamin Arabov:What we truly love about them and Jacob has been working with the CEO of that company for over 20 years is that they have never said no to a challenge. Never. No matter how crazy the idea, no matter how innovative the idea is, they have never said no to it. They've always explored into the unknown with us, which is a really important piece of the puzzle for us. Because Jacob, he's not a watchmaker, as a lot of the founders are, especially in the independent space. He's a jeweler. And he's a designer. So he comes to the table from a design perspective, which I think is pretty unique and rare in the space.

14:40Benjamin Arabov:And I think that is partly the reason why we do things without limitations, because he doesn't think of the constraints of what has been done before in the past, but he thinks what could be accomplished in the future. What would you hold up as the most innovative or important piece that you've done in recent times that expresses what you're trying to do? Honestly, I think the Astronomia Regulator. The reason is because it's a timepiece that celebrates such a significant collection in our company, but it completely redefines the whole collection. it's the smallest astronomia that we've made and it's one of the most complicated astronomias that we made displaying the times in three different sections of the watch hours minutes and seconds and we have the whole movement spinning 360 degrees in in one minute that collection is a celebration to the astronomia line and the astronomia line put us on the map when it comes to high complications.

15:48Benjamin Arabov:It was the first complicated watch that Jacob launched in 2014. That's when he launched that watch in Basel, funny enough. Very interesting. And where are you based? Where do you work out of? We're based in New York. So our headquarters is the same building as our store on 57th and Park. And we have the second floor, third floor, fourth floor, and fifth floor that, you know, each floor is a different department basically. So we work from that store, from that office. And on the watches front, what kind of prices are we talking for Jacob? What's the range? What's the average price? Can you... The range is, it starts at$14 ,000 all the way up to$800 ,000,$900 ,000.

16:32Benjamin Arabov:We do have some models in the millions like the billionaire watches. And the average price point of somebody walking out of the store is about$150 ,000. Interesting. And what's your top market? The U.S., I presume? Our number one market is the Middle East. Okay. Then it's Mexico, and then it's United States. Interesting. And how long is that configuration, Middle East first, Mexico, and then U.S.? Three, four years, I would say. Okay. Three, four years. Yeah. And what shifted there? We had an aggressive expansion. We opened up a new store in Dubai. We have so many POSs in Mexico. So giving the chance for people to see the actual watch has made a significant change in our business because, you know, you got to just see it.

17:20Benjamin Arabov:You just got to see it. And it's so animated where, you know, and to see it in real life is just a completely different experience compared to seeing a video of it or on a website or whatever. Yeah. And, you know, obviously we're talking here on Hodinkee's Business of Watches podcast. I think it's fair to say, and I don't think you disagree, that Jacob & Co pieces aren't the traditional Hodinkee watch enthusiast kind of timepiece. Are watch enthusiasts, watch nerds, people who live and breathe watches, are you trying to reach those customers? Absolutely. And if you are, yeah, then tell us, you know, why they should consider and be looking at Jacob & Co.

18:03Yeah, absolutely.

18:04Benjamin Arabov:That crowd specifically is taking longer. We need more patience for them, which we respect everybody's opinion, of course. And we are working very hard every day to convince them that we have a space in this industry, even though we took a different route or different strategy compared to some of the independents that they highly respect, which are doing just incredible work. so they are a really important crowd for us we are working every day to you know educate them on on our time pieces and our process and our innovation and creativity and it's gonna happen slowly but surely but i know that once they are convinced about our brand and our strategy then our company just could go to the next level yeah and just to be clear i mean what kind of sales?

19:02I mean, what, you know, did Morgan Stanley estimate you're doing each year?

19:06Benjamin Arabov:We do. Last year, we did 180 million in sales for wholesale. For wholesale. For wholesale. Yeah. So, you know, that is not a small watchmaker. No. Right? You are among the top 50 brands. Yes. In Switzerland. And so you talked about connecting with that enthusiast community. Are you looking to do more collaborations with well-known independent watchmakers or are you sort of locked in to that concepto relationship? Well, we feel the way that we would make progress on convincing this crowd of people is having really long conversations. Sure. Like this one. And educating people because what you see online is great, but to actually sit and have a conversation and go through how we do things, our process, and what we're achieving and how we're achieving it, then perception slowly changes.

20:11Benjamin Arabov:And we see that collector by collector, they feel more comfortable and confident about working with our brand or purchasing our brand. And it's happened. It's happened. We have some really passionate collectors that purchase from independents, from the top brands, that integrate our watches in their collection because of how different and unique we are. Absolutely. I mean, I'm just looking at a picture here of your Godfather II watch. You know, I think there's some people who would immediately say, I have to have that watch. I have to have any watch that's associated with that. It's my favorite film or there's some other kind of connection to it.

20:49But it also, at the same time, are you closing off the brand to some audiences who would think, I could never, you know, that's not my style of time piece? Sure.

21:01Benjamin Arabov:Yeah. I mean, we are very niche because of the products that we design and the process that we take to create them. But I think we've proven that even though it's niche, it's a big niche. There's size to the market. And I truly believe that we're still at anywhere from 10 % to 15 % of our potential. So, yeah, I think we are, but there's still a lot of room to grow in this niche. Who's the typical Jacob & Co. watch client? Somebody who appreciates our ability to do things different. And in most cases, that person is different himself. Whether he's an entrepreneur who took a different path to create his own success and people who appreciate both design and technical ability combined together.

21:55Benjamin Arabov:That would be the typical client for us. And someone who can afford a watch of your caliber and price. I wouldn't say that. I don't think we have any customers who bought our watch as the first watch. they either have a collection of a few pieces or an extensive collection but you know we we create very different and unique watches and and most of them are conversation pieces so it's somebody who also wants people to see it and have that conversation which not everybody does somebody wants to wear a very thin vacheron which i love under their wrist and just be cool which is amazing. I love that.

22:41Benjamin Arabov:And I respect that. This is not this watch. It's a different ballgame. And, you know, you didn't work for the company in your entire professional life. Obviously, you built another business before that. What kind of, you know, tell me about your journey with watches. I mean, do you collect anything outside of? Outside, no. Outside, no. I do have a collection of my own Jacob and Co watches, but outside of the company, I don't. And growing up, what was your interest and exposure in the business and watches and jewelry? Well, every night, Jacob would come home with a different story. So my brothers and I, we were really ingrained in kind of the day-to-day as if we were there at the office, but in reality, we were at school.

23:32Benjamin Arabov:But, you know, Jacob would come home and, you know, He's so charismatic and excited of what's going on. And he would tell us these stories and we would learn from them. And yeah, we were there and listened to them and kind of absorbed the business. And now, somewhat 20 years later, the whole family works for the company. Even my two brothers. My older brother is the commercial director of the company. So it's a full family business. And what should we think of your father, Jacob's role? you know, you said designer, but I mean, how much is he involved still? He's very much involved, very much involved.

24:09Benjamin Arabov:People think that he retired or something like that, but he is very much involved. He's very active in the business. He's really excited to see how much we've achieved in a very short period of time now. And he is fully on board with a lot of energy to help us to continue to grow this thing. Because again, I really think that we're just at 10 to 15 % of our potential. And, you know, one of the ways that I learned about Jacob & Co. was through this great piece in Houdinki a few years ago by my colleague Malika Crawford about the five time zone and the role that that watch played in shaping watch culture and all the celebrities that were spotted wearing that watch.

24:54Is there a way for Jacob and Co to recapture some of that magic that existed with that piece, whether through a new interpretation of it or looking back to some other iconic, well-known models from different eras?

25:13Benjamin Arabov:I will say that a reinterpretation of the five time zone is not off the table. It's such an iconic piece and it would be really exciting and cool to see it reinterpreted with our new language and DNA of high complications. But taking the design essence of that watch and integrating it together could be something really cool. So it's not off the table. Are there other candidates, models that you could do, you know, try and do a similar thing as well? Or is the five time zone, if we're going to see something brought back? Yeah, it would be the five time zone. If we would bring anything back, it would definitely be the five time zone.