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Unique Design, Licensing Deals Drive Watch Sales

To pivot on a good idea is to come out with something better.

These are the words that prompted brothers Ryan Beltran and Andrew Beltran to launch their watch company, Original Grain, which specializes in men’s watches made out of wood and steel.

“I’d come across wood watches before, but there was nothing in the market at the time that combined wood and steel,” said Ryan Beltran, 30, who knew he wanted to start a men’s accessories’ brand at the time. “I didn’t know I wanted to do watches, necessarily. But, when I saw my first wood and steel watch (during a stay in Hong Kong), it was like an ahah! lightbulb moment for me. To me, this is a better built product (than a wood watch) and it just looks really cool.”

Launched in S.D. in 2013

In 2013, the Oregon natives officially launched Orginal Grain. Six months later, Ryan Beltran moved from China to San Diego, where Andrew Beltran, 28, was stationed, and set up shop. Today, the company, headquartered in East Village, has about 17 employees and had a revenue of $15 million in 2015 with strong year-over-year growth, according to the Beltran brothers. Ryan Beltran, who graduated from University of Oregon with a major in business and oversees the overall direction of the brand, said the company is looking to sell north of 75,000 watches this year.

Ryan Beltran admits, when he made the move to Hong Kong at the age of 22 to pursue an entrepreneurial career, he knew little about business. But what he did know was that watches have a great margin, have a lot of price elasticity and “is an overall cool product from a business perspective,” he said.

“It also embodied where we grew up in the northwest,” said Andrew Beltran. “It was something I knew, from an authenticity standpoint, we could get behind.”

Thanks to the crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, the Beltrans were able to raise $390,000 in 30 days that same year, which is what originally funded the company. Ryan Beltran said Original Grain kicked off with about 2,000 customers from over 100 countries. The company followed with a second Kickstarter campaign in 2014 which raised $420,000. With the financial backing and the help of social media, Ryan and Andrew Beltran began to scale the company.

Licensing Deals

After it started to build a solid fan-base, Original Grain landed its first licensing deal that same year with bourbon whiskey company Jim Beam after meeting a representative for the company at a trade show.

“They loved the innovation and the newness of the product,” said Ryan Beltran. “We had done a whiskey watch with whiskey barrels and they had never seen anything like that. They were in a place where the wanted to rebrand and they really wanted to paint a picture for younger consumers.” The watches sold for $500 each.

In 2015, Original Grain partnered with local entrepreneur James Brennan, who has invested in other San Diego-based consumer brands like Kopari Beauty and is co-founder of Suja Juice Co. While the Beltran brothers wouldn’t disclose the terms of that deal, they did say the company’s second licensing contract, which came in 2016 with Major League Baseball, happened because of their relationship with Brennan.

Original Grain first created a watch with reclaimed baseball bat wood for the New York Yankees, and then the Chicago Cubs in 2016. The company followed that with a deal to be the official timekeeper of the Chicago Cubs for one year and then a licensing deal with the Boston Red Sox. Although there is no certainty, Andrew and Ryan Beltran hope the partnership with the MLB with be an ongoing thing.

Chelsea Collins, lead sales consultant at Collins Family Jewelers in Mira Mesa, which sells products with wood features in it as well as stainless steel wedding bands and watches, said combining wood and steel is innovative and out the box.

“It must be tricky to combine such different mediums as they have such different chemical properties and characteristics,” she said, adding that when working with any metals, the technician typically uses high heat to manipulate it which is not what he or she would do with wood. “It’s clever to have thought of combining these two materials into one piece. It’s a very manly combination and aesthetically pleasing to combine something very natural like wood with something very manufactured-looking like steel.”

No Direct Competitors?

While the Beltran brothers feel strongly that they don’t have any direct competitors, although other brands have released wood and steel watches since them, they do look to Detroit-based Shinola luxury goods brand for inspiration.

“We definitely look at what they are doing,” said Ryan Beltran, “because, they are telling a very similar story as us in terms of the way they manufacture.” He adds, though, that something that sets Original Grain apart from the rest is its sustainability angle, stating that for every watch the company sells, it plants one tree. So far, it has surpassed the half a million trees planted mark.

Original Grain sources its materials from all over the world, according to the Beltrans. They work with suppliers for its exotic hardwood, which includes rosewood, maple and ebony, among other wood strains. Most recently, Ryan and Andrew Beltran have sourced some of its specialty woods themselves: they get whiskey barrels and bourbon barrels from Kentucky; beer barrels from Germany; and stadium seats for MLB products from various private sellers. Last November, Original Grain launched a military line for which it gets wood from the USS Missouri; the military collection features wood from ammunition crates with a leather band made from U.S. pilot jackets.

The company works with multiple suppliers in China and Hong Kong through relationships Ryan Beltran said he was able to forge while staying in Hong Kong in his early 20s. All orders are fulfilled direct-to-consumer from the Original Grain warehouse in Los Angeles.

Over the last year, Andrew Beltran said the company has placed a lot of its focus on growing its distribution. Original Grain launched sales in Belk department stores and recently secured a contract with Macy’s. Original Grain also sells in Nordstrom and Navy Exchange stores in San Diego, and, in October, is scheduled to launch in Dillard’s. Andrew Beltran said the company continues to expand its online presence through sports memorabilia sites like Fanatics, and is looking to grow internationally (Original Grain already sells in Japan and Australia).

What’s Next

Most recently, the company hired a new watch designer, Scott Young, who hails from Movado, to lead all watch designs. Ryan Beltran said Original Grain is looking to continue to capitalize on the success the company has had so far with its $500-$1,000-priced watches, adding that while the $200-$500-priced watches are the company’s main point of sale, it hopes to continue to grow the higher-priced watches vertical through licensing and non-licensing sales in 2020.

Next for Original Grain is a partnership with a glove manufacturer in time for the MLB World Series, according to Ryan Beltran, and the launch of multiple women’s lines next year. He adds that the company hopes to get some more products made in the USA in 2020 as well.

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