The Business of Watches [034] Inside Lorier Watches' Acquisition With Lorenzo Ortega And Blake Malin

0:00Blake Malin:Welcome to the Business of Watches, the Houdiki podcast where we go behind the scenes and talk to the executives and the players who are making things tick. I'm your host, Andy Hoffman. Today we have some breaking news, an interesting transaction in the watch world. We are joined by Blake Malin, who is the co-founder and CEO of Worn and Wound. As well, we're also joined by Lorenzo Ortega. Lorenzo is the co-founder and creative director for Laurier Watches. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us on the Business of Watches. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much for having us. And so our news here is that Laurier, which is a brand that's been around since I think about 2017, is being acquired by Worn and Wound.

0:53Blake Malin:So this is, I guess it's fair to say, sort of a first for both of you. Lorenzo, let's start with you. I mean, tell us about Laurier and the journey that that brand has been on and then how we got here. Sure. Well, we started out of a love for vintage watches. And when we started, that market had already exploded. And we had this idea that, well, the idea of a vintage watch should be something more accessible. something that doesn't require you know applied figures to enter and something that should be enjoyable and so the idea was to make a watch that felt like it came out of the time machine and that you could use like a watch that people used back in the 60s just like unpretentious and you could just you know like people know but they're Submariners and that was cool and so now you can do that with a Laurier and uh thankfully we were uh quite financially successful and uh yeah it it took off and uh here we are uh a few years later and it was me and my wife operating the whole thing and uh it logistically it just became too much for us and uh yeah one around kind of stepped in I don't know if Blake can step in here, but we already knew each other and we desperately needed the help.

2:27Blake Malin:So, yeah, I mean, well, let's just situate ourselves. I'm in Geneva. You guys are both in the United States. Tell me where you are and then tell me how you got to know each other over the years. Worn and Wound, obviously legendary and well-known watch website. Also, obviously an event operator with the various wind-up watch shows.

2:49Lorenzo Ortega:Yeah. So maybe I could sort of jump in. So yeah, so Laurier, you know, will remain sort of a New York-based brand. And Warn and Wound has always been based in New York. We've been in Brooklyn. Our offices have always been in Brooklyn. So really, we like to say we're a Brooklyn-based brand. And yeah, we got to know Lauren and Lorenzo, you know, Lauren's wife and co-founder of Laurier, and just through Warn and Wound, through, you know, writing about them editorially and then them coming to the fairs. and you know per sort of lorenzo's description of the brand and sort of what the thesis is that resonated quite closely with me and my partners and with the one-on-one audience at large so you know it was an it was a natural fit like they were always received very well on the website and they fit right in at wind up and just in sort of over the years getting to spend time with them you know sometimes i'm sure you've experienced this handy like you kind of meet your people in the crowd.

3:45Lorenzo Ortega:And sometimes you kind of get on, sometimes you don't. We just got on really well with Lauren Lorenzo. And, you know, all the partners here, Zach Weiss and James Helms, we've been friends with Lauren Lorenzo for some time. I was, you know, fortunate enough to kind of develop a friendship outside of the company. We've, you know, hung out a few times, connected over a mutual interest in like MMA and kickboxing and things like that. I don't want to put you on blast, Lorenzo, but Lorenzo's like, I guess, like a kickboxing enthusiast. I would say. Amateur competitor. Amateur competitor. I've seen the cuts.

4:18Lorenzo Ortega:But he, you know, I've been to like fights with him and stuff like that. So we've been very friendly for some time with him and his wife.

4:24Blake Malin:So you guys are buddies and you share some hobbies, pursuits, enthusiasms outside of watching. Yeah, for sure.

4:32Lorenzo Ortega:And, you know, the genesis of sort of the partnership was really, you know, me catching up with Lauren at Windup New York in 2025. I hadn't seen Lauren Lorenzo in some time About a year And I was kind of blaming myself But then upon talking to them I think they were kind of preoccupied as well Kind of sort of wrestling with what to do with the business And, you know, Lorenzo You can describe it better than I can But they kind of gave me a rundown of, you know Where they were and the challenges they were facing And that they were basically looking To transition one way or the other Either continue the business with the right partner Or maybe even sunset it I know, Lorenzo, do you want to kind of speak to that?

5:09Blake Malin:Yeah, yeah, no, I mean Yeah, you told the story very well of how you arrived to where we are. And I realized in my explanation, I skipped all those steps. So yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, this was in 2025. And we were basically struggling to stay afloat, not as a business. But the business had done so well that we no longer had personal lives. And Lauren and I were married. and uh yeah it was you know it was a tough time and this was wind up new york october 2025 uh we had a project with grand central watch and we had told ourselves okay like this is this is gonna be the last one at least for a while like we're at least gonna take a sabbatical and see like where we land and then uh yeah you know blake comes and checks in and you're like yeah it's been so long like sorry we haven't been around like sorry we haven't been like texting you because you know it's been it's just been business all the time it was like like when are we going to have a weekend right like even this weekend like we're at wind up doing wind up right so yeah and so it was just that's kind of what started the talks of oh let's let's see where where we can go together i'm interested before because i'm very interested blake in in why and what it means for worn and wound to acquire an actual brand.

6:37Blake Malin:But Lorenzo, I mean, you know, you talk about sort of, you know, you'd sort of pushed it as far as you could go. Business-wise, it was a success. But, you know, what was the issue in terms of, you know, either having to sell or to sunset the business? Was it, you know, I guess you would have had to hire people or they're just simply, you know, you just didn't have the hands and the manpower to sort of do what you needed to do? or explain that a bit more? Yeah, I'd say it was all of the above. And yeah, we would have had to hire people, but managing people is not something that we, I mean, it's not something we know we can do.

7:20Blake Malin:Yeah, we just don't have those skills. And WarnerMount already, like I know Blake has those skills, just knowing him. And I know that WarnerMount also had that infrastructure. to where we can make Laurier what it's really meant to be, which is an affordable, accessible brand. And we had gotten up to the point where it was kind of difficult to obtain our watches just because we were limited in how much we could handle in our production capacity. So that doesn't really make for an accessible brand. And so we weren't fulfilling the mission that we had set out for ourselves to do. And yeah, here comes one amount.

8:03Blake Malin:And be like, okay, they have this infrastructure. They have the people. And yeah, we thought that, okay, yeah, this is kind of a perfect partnership because we know Blake and the guys and we trust them. And we kind of think the same way and share the same tastes. So, yeah. Cool. And Blake, then let's talk about Worn and Wound and that business. Give us a, you know, for those who don't know, give us some history, how long Worn and Wound has been around. And then, you know, obviously, I think it's my impression from the outside, but I don't know this. I guess the event side of the business, those wind-up watch shows, I mean, that's the biggest part of the business now.

8:44Blake Malin:I mean, talk about how the company and Worn and Wound has evolved over the years. And then why acquire, you know, even though you and Lorenzo are buddies and friends and have these great mutual interests, why acquire a watch brand?

9:00Lorenzo Ortega:Sure. So Wernher One's been around for, this is our 15th year, May of 2026. It was 15 years since we first published an article on the web. And, you know, we started, you know, this is a familiar story, especially for the folks at Hodinkee, right? Like we started as an editorial publication. You know, I think that we saw opportunities in the retail space, starting with making straps and then moving on to selling watches. Offering, you know, those partners like a pretty sizable platform. And really tapping into the enthusiast market. And then, as you noted, we started the Wind Up Watch Fair in 2015.

9:34Lorenzo Ortega:So that is about an 11-year-old franchise. And, you know, our whole approach to what we've chosen to pursue in the watch space has always been about, you know, where we feel like there's a gap. And I know that, you know, everybody says that, but also something that feels very authentic to us. So, you know, when we first started the shop, you know, we were really into learning more about like heritage wear and, you know, materials and things like that. So we wanted to work with like American tanneries and like learn about building straps in the garment district in Manhattan, that kind of a thing.

10:08Lorenzo Ortega:And with the events, you know, we were going to watch events, but then we were also going to more casual events like the pop-up flea or American Field. And, you know, we'd go to the watch events and feel totally out of place. And then we'd go to these other events and felt supernatural and in our place. And we said, this needs to exist for watches. We want to like dial down the exclusivity and dial up the inclusivity and community and approachability. And so that's what we did. And yeah, we're very fortunate that the fair has really, you know, taken off quite a bit. You know, we have, it's in four cities now.

10:39Lorenzo Ortega:You know, we're always in discussions of potentially taking it elsewhere. where it's interesting, we get that feedback a lot that the fair is the largest piece of the business. And I would say from like an optics and sort of marketing perspective, it certainly is. And that's like a really wonderful piece of it. I would say from a financial perspective, it's successful, but it's, you know, our e-commerce is just as successful in terms of just like raw numbers. So we have a real expertise in that. And it's always been in-house, you know, fulfillment, customer service, logistics, you know, creative production, that kind of a thing.

11:10Lorenzo Ortega:so we have some real know-how there that we're really proud of that we've been able to develop so you know i think that for us you know when the opportunity with laurier came up you know partially i just you know when i initially was talking to lauren i just kind of hated the idea of laurier going away like that sucks and you know we talked to a lot of smaller independent brands that are sort of in our in our sphere who sort of struggle with some of the similar issues of like you begin to scale and then you realize that there's all kinds of, you know, systems and people and other things that need to be put in place.

11:44Lorenzo Ortega:And maybe that's not what you want to do, you know. And also, you know, to Lorenzo's point, like we feel like we have the know-how to be able to really kind of power a brand like Laurier. And, you know, it was also important for us to know that Lauren and Lorenzo still wanted to be involved. They're still, you know, they're minority owners in the business. As noted, you know, Lorenzo staying on as creative director. we don't want to change anything about Laurier. What we want to change is our ability to produce watches at a greater scale and provide like a really great experience for customers.

12:12Lorenzo Ortega:So, you know, for us, it was really, we just don't want this great brand to go away. And I think, you know, obviously it's something that I think financially would be very beneficial to the business, but, and it also, it just kind of sounds fun. I don't know. Like, you know, it's one of the, it's one of the fortunate positions that we're in at WarnerWound. Like we've always been fully independent. So we've kind of been able to do things the way we want to do them. And this sounded like a really fun opportunity to work on a really exciting project with friends. You know, sometimes that's as simple as it is.

12:42Lorenzo Ortega:Yeah.

12:42Blake Malin:Yeah. And am I right to think that obviously, yeah, you've got lots of brand partners and you sell their product on the retail website. Laurier is generally online only in terms of sales. Yes. But this is the first brand that will be outright owned by Worn & Wound. Is that right? And, you know, what does that mean for all your other brand partners? And, you know, are you creating a new set of issues in terms of how everybody's treated?

13:16Lorenzo Ortega:Yeah, no, I think that's a really good question. Yeah, this is definitely the first brand that Worn & Wound has acquired. We've sort of developed brands internally. Like we have our Adapt brand, which is, you know, very small and never really quite got off the ground partially because we didn't have the creative energy to put into it. So sort of the opposite issue. And, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, navigating the watch industry and whenever you're working with, you know, at this point, like a few hundred Parkers at any given time, it's always going to be a challenge of making sure that everybody feels like they're getting the treatment and consideration and care that they deserve.

13:53Lorenzo Ortega:You know, one thing I'll say is that Laurier is an independent business, so it's owned by Warner Wound, but it will operate as its own LLC and it has its own general manager. Actually, we're very excited. We hired Warner Wound's first employee, Ilya Riven, who left for a period to go work at Grand Seiko. We hired him and he's going to be general manager of Laurier, which is really exciting because he really gets the brand and the Warner Wound audience and he'll be able to work, you know, independently. But, you know, honestly, like for us, I always say like the proof is kind of in the pudding of like how we operate.

14:27Lorenzo Ortega:You know, we've been working, we're doing limited editions, we've been selling watches, we've been doing the show and the show has various tiers of sponsorship. They're lead sponsors who pay considerably more than, you know, a standard sponsor. And, you know, I think we've always been able to, I think, kind of walk the walk of, you know, equitable treatment of all the different brands that we work with. And certainly it'll always remain that editorial is fully independent. I guess that's the other leg of it. You know, editorial here, like I have no say over, you know, what the blog says, what they choose to write about, what they choose to say about those products that they're writing about.

15:03Lorenzo Ortega:and neither does like really anybody at the business. Zach Kazan, our editorial director, has full control. So, you know, as with everything, you know, in this world, especially, you know, you look at the watch industry and like, I think everybody's looked for creative ways to sustain that business, right? Like whether you're an influencer, you're an editorial outlet, like everybody's been experimenting. And I think that at the end of the day, all you can really go on is like, how are people actually behaving? How are people actually continuing to operate? And I think that we've built a lot of equity with our partners and a lot of trust from our audience.

15:36Lorenzo Ortega:And I hope they'll continue to give us that trust as we move forward. I don't know if you think that's a good answer or a fair answer or a cop out.

15:44Blake Malin:But to echo Blake's point, I myself would not want Laurier to be in a position of favor. And I think one of the core reasons why we chose to partner with Blake is that we've always operated along this ethos of, well, I mean, this show is very much in how we started and how Warrior Mountain started. we very much operate under this ethos of well, we're just going to do what we think is good for ourselves what we think would be to create those spaces where we belong and to make the products that we ourselves like and maybe there's a gap in the market for it if there's not, well, we tried but if there is, then great when we first started, Blake will say the same thing about starting MindUp back in 2015.

16:37Blake Malin:When we started, we reached out to all these manufacturers and they said, are you sure you want to make a watch in 39 millimeters? Because we don't think this is going to sell. Too small. And so we said, well, yeah, it's too small. Yeah, it has to have that four as the first digit. Right? And so, but we said, but this is what we want to do, right? This is what we can't find in the market. And so we want to create it for ourselves. And Worn and Wound has always operated in the same way. And tell me as much as you can in terms of, I mean, how big is Laurier? How many watches do you basically produce and or sell per year?

17:15Blake Malin:What does that production process look like? And then have you already identified, you know, ways that the business is going to change in terms of growth or distribution or those kind of things? So at our peak, we were making 5 ,000 to 6 ,000 watches a year. That's not insignificant. That's as many as Longo makes. Yeah. So, yeah, for two people, and we were doing everything. I was doing all the QC. Wow. I was doing a lot of the repairs. I was doing all the photography. We made the website. We were answering every customer email. We were doing all the fulfillment. You know, we would manually pack every watch, you know, write a little personal card.

18:03Blake Malin:So all those things we would handle. And yeah, for us to continue to grow, we reached, you know, reached a point of, well, we wouldn't really know how to bring someone else on to do this with us. And yeah.

18:15Lorenzo Ortega:And I think from our perspective, you know, like Lorenzo was saying, we have infrastructure, I think, to address a number of those needs. Like we have existing customer service teams. We have, you know, a warehouse with existing fulfillment folks who are, you know, coming in to ship product, pack product, process inventory as it comes in, that kind of a thing. We have the know-how in terms of managing, you know, scaling Shopify stores, things like that. So, you know, a lot of the burden of that is sort of taken off the business and will allow us to scale. I think, you know, for us, really the biggest, I think, hurdle we're trying to get over and the thing we're really trying to deliver is just consistent availability of inventory.

18:54Lorenzo Ortega:you know I think that you know hopefully in sort of freeing up Lorenzo to kind of focus on the creative side of things and working with manufacturers and our teams being able to help sort of logistically like sort of work on that process you know that's really our primary objective not really much is changing about you know the watches you know moving forward if anything we're looking to improve them in certain ways but yeah for us like the real thing we're trying to tackle right now is just availability.

19:24Blake Malin:And what does it mean? You know, we just, in June last month, we just had the EPHJ here in Geneva, which is, you know, where all the suppliers and people come together. And I always sort of think of it as, if you want to make a watch, this is the place you go and you can talk to everyone and make a watch. What does production look like for Laurie? I presume there's parts and components from Europe, from Asia, not sure where the manufacturing is. And then it sounds to me like what's going to change and hopefully improve is, you know, sort of distribution and sales side that Blake's team can handle out of one wound.

20:05Blake Malin:Yeah, that's exactly right. So the watch supply chain is already very complicated, right? So, you know, you could have 99 % of parts ready, But if one part is missing, then you can't even start assembling a watch. So 99 % complete is actually 0 % complete in practice. So that's its own thing. But really, the bottleneck for us was it was just me and Lauren this whole time.

20:36Lorenzo Ortega:Which I think it's interesting because like to kind of give Lauren and Lorenzo their flowers a little bit, you know, you could call it a bottleneck or you could also call it like a Herculean feat to be able to process 6 ,000, 5 ,000, 6 ,000 watches in a given year. between two people, especially knowing like the way you see them and things like that. But I think that, you know, like where we can step in, you know, through various projects we've worked on with, you know, doing limited editions or other interesting projects, like we have sort of a little bit more knowledge about different manufacturers and different suppliers that may exist that we might have relationships with.

21:09Lorenzo Ortega:You know, we've already added a European service center to like the roster. So European customers will be able to send their watches locally rather than having to send them back to the U.S., you know, things like that. I think, yeah, but yeah, not to like really oversimplify, but to Lorenzo's point, I think just like pouring some fuel on the fire is really going to help, you know, scale things.

21:30Blake Malin:And what will this mean for you and Lauren? How is it going to change things in terms of your life, in terms of your output, in terms of your work? Are you going to look now to other projects as well? Because, yeah, you've been basically a creative director, a watch designer and producer for the last decade. Yeah, what does this mean then for you professionally and personally, I guess? I don't know if I'm in a space to answer that yet because we're still building the transition. And obviously, you want to give it the time and the energy that it's due. So one thing that we say is that we'd rather not exist than exist badly.

22:18Blake Malin:And so we're trying to give respect to that idea as much as we can. Do you have ambitions to have new model? I mean, you do a chronograph, you do a GMT, you do a field watch. You've done a bunch of other stuff over the years. Do you have ambitions within the Laurier line to do new stuff, new creations at this point? Yes, of course. I mean, there's always that, right? As a creative person, you always want to do more. The focus is really just reestablishing that core collection and making it more available. Because right now, if you go on the website, none of the core collection is available. And that's kind of antithetical for what we want a core collection to be.

23:02You want something that's readily available that you can buy and can wear immediately.