“I don’t want to be an industry insider,” HoDinkee founder Ben Clymer told The New York Times back in 2013. Fail. After a new round of fundraising, adding $40m to its corporate coffers, HoDinkee is now owned by TCG, LVMH Luxury Ventures, True Ventures, Future Shape and Google Ventures. (Not to mention musician John Mayer and NFL quarterback Tom Brady.) If you think that doesn’t put Mr. Clymer and his baby “inside the industry,” consider the fact that . . .
Clymer is relinquishing his position as CEO to former MR.PORTER Managing Director, Toby Bateman. The move highlights the HoDinkee founder’s abject and final surrender to his company’s prime directive: sell watches. In that sense, Clymer isn’t an industry insider. He is the industry.
As we’ve pointed out many times, HoDinkee’s watch reviews are elaborately disguised advertisements for the watches they sell. And the watches they don’t sell – lest they piss off anyone in the watch industry. Mr. Clymer’s claim – “to insinuate we were purchased by LVMH or that they will influence our editorial decisions is simply inaccurate” – is simply ridiculous.
Under Mr. Clymer’s care, what started as a watch enthusiasts’ online conversation has morphed into a multinational horological money machine, including regular co-productions with mainstream manufacturers. God bless the free market and all that. And props to Mr. Clymer for amassing his fortune. And now?
“It’s funny, as CEO I briefly fell out of love with watches,” Mr. Clymer opines in his HoDinkee message to the troops. “That didn’t feel right. Watches should bring me, and you, joy!”
On top of celebrating the transition with the purchase of a new vintage Daytona, the founder also mentioned that we will be working more on the content that got him excited in the first place; extending to not only the site and video format, but also engaging more with the community he has helped shape.
Group photo aside, it’s lonely at the top! If I had to guess, Ben Clymer will find that the “average” HoDinkee reader will worship their fearless, increasingly symbolic leader. But the high functioning “not insiders” with whom he used to hang realized long ago that Mr. Clymer cashed-in his credibility.
It was John Mayer who took HoDinkee to the next level; lending Clymer boatloads of cool. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the musician credited his horological homie for “turning the musty world of wealthy collectors over to a rising crop of online enthusiasts who care deeply about watches they might not even be able to afford.”
Talk about irony. As Mr. Clymer’s celebratory purchase of a “new vintage” Rolex Daytona attests, he’s joined the musty world of wealthy collectors. And industry insiders; evidenced by both the sale of his baby and his recent by-invitation-only membership in the GPHG.
Consciously or subconsciously, Ben Clymer will have to live with the fact that once you sell out, there’s no going back.
The John Mayer factor is interesting to me. I don’t know a thing about him as a musician, but his off-the-cuff explaining why he writes on a typewriter in the documentary “California Typewriter” was brilliant. When Youtube revealed to me the years-old Mayer x Hodinkee watch talk vids, I was hoping for similar enlightenment.
Others seem to have gotten it, not me. He in no way made a case to me on why I should give a damn about “good” watches, particularly not the safe collector-friendly ones he seemed to get all hot and bothered over.
His first video with HoDinkee is a bit of a joke and Clymer has to correct him on multiple technical details.
Usually the “founder” CEO is a big part of the valuation of startups, so it’s particularly interesting to see Clymer get pushed aside. Apparently even he was not putting enough Ho in HoDinkee for the PE investors. They have a tough challenge because what they are trying to sell at retail is almost all available at a discount elsewhere. Rolex, Patek, and AP are staying away from “the shop.” Even for the HoDinkee special editions the aftermarket bump seems to be wearing off.
It will now be even more of:
Every watch is sacred,
Every watch is great.
If a watch is critically reviewed,
Investors and retail partners get quite irate.
In fairness to Ben, it’s a business and most have a price. His was probably less than 100mm. If he turned down that chedda on principle for the love of the watch, I’d have thought him a saint, and a fool.
It’s not just about money; Mr. Clymer sold his journalistic integrity. Judging from Mr. Clymer’s publicly professed sadness for the loss of horological joy, he’s discovered that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Or something like that.
lol x lol x lol
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/g-shock
Gabbo! Gabbo! Gabbo!
Well, that got my attention.
RF – as someone who has been involved in automotive journalism for quite some time, I’d like to get your insight into that vs. watch journalism. Do the car journos have the same issues with journalistic integrity due to the manufacturers giving them product to review?
Yes
So what’s the equivalent of Consumer Reports in the watch community? Is there a big/popular site or YouTube channel or whatever that doesn’t accept loaners/gifts, reviewing only what they purchase with their own money? And also doesn’t sell their own watches and/or accessories? Maybe this hobby/industry isn’t popular enough to support something like that at scale. Leaving the randos to review their own personal novelties.
Somebody’s salty.
Jealous much? You guys probably can’t even monetize an hour of your time for a dollar, and Benny Ben Ben is worth more than your whole family tree put together.
Selling out? Heh. That’s called making it, especially when the name of the game is selling overpriced look-at-me status trinkets.
What game are you in? What’s the mission statement of this blog? Hating on success? NOT making money?
Sure seems like it.
Our mission: tell the truth about watches.
[…] are we? HoDinkee founder Ben Clymer recently got a large payday. That’s a fact. The truth, right? But what about the story? At watchpro.com, Mr. Clymer had […]
The truth about watches, fully independent watch website…….that looks like utter shit. Stop complaining and whining about others success. Focus on your mission and maybe you’ll hit a 1,000 uniques
There’s always room for improvement! That said, we’re pretty happy with our look, feel and editorial stance. As are our 45k monthly unique visitors (and growing).
If you have some specific advice – other than cautioning us not to hold the watch media’s feet to the fire – I’m ready to hear it.