The year is 1893. A 12-year-old boy from Germany loses his parents. He inherits a little money from them, which is later stolen while he is travelling.
Despite losing everything, he retained one thing –his unstoppable passion for watches. And this passion helped him build the world’s greatest watch company. This is the story of Rolex watches.
Following his parents’ death, Germany’s 12-year-old Hans Wilsdorf became an orphan. Darkness clouded his future. His relatives sold his parents’ business and sent Hans to a boarding school.
Here, he became friends with a boy from Switzerland who informed him a lot about Switzerland’s watchmaking industry. Soon, Hans realised that his call lay in this industry. That's why, in 1900, at the age of 19, he left Germany and shifted to Switzerland.
There, he found a job at a watch-making company called Cuna Korten. He was tasked with checking the accuracy of hundreds of watches daily. This role made him passionate about creating perfect watches.
In 1903, he decided to settle in London. But during the journey, he met with a tragedy. The 3300 German Gold Marks he had inherited from his parents got stolen.
This was a significant setback in his life. Yet moving forward was his only option. In London, he took up a job in another watch-making company in the sales and marketing department.
In the next 2 years, he learned much about manufacturing, sales, and, most importantly, consumer behaviour directing the watchmaking industry. He realised that most watch-making companies were focused on making their watches fancy and decorative x while the customers wanted simple, accurate, durable, and elegant watches. To change this situation, 24-year-old Hans decided to start his own watch-making business.
But there was one problem. Hans lacked sufficient capital to start the business. That’s why he welcomed his brother-in-law on board as a business partner in exchange for capital.
This led to the formation of the Wilsdorf and Davis Firm in 1905. They realised that watches were indispensable for travellers as they needed to catch trains and buses on time to reach their destinations. That’s why they decided to manufacture pocket watches catering to travellers.
Compared to ordinary watches, this watch was smaller in size to make it more portable for travellers. The pouch for this watch was manufactured using high-quality leather to make it more sturdy and give it a premium look. This watch was called the Portfolio Pocket Watch.
Despite being the company's first product, it was a hit. Even though Hans started his company with pocket watches, he didn’t want to be limited to manufacturing pocket watches. He predicted that wristwatches will completely replace pocket watches in the future.
That’s why Hans shifted his focus to manufacturing world-class wristwatches. But the problem was that the customers of the time weren’t keen on accepting wristwatches. There was a perception that only females wore wristwatches.
Hans wanted to change this perception. In 1906, Hans saw that both males and females loved to wear bracelets in Britain. He spotted a huge opportunity here.
He launched gold and silver wristwatches on the market. Instead of leather, the straps of these watches were made of gold and silver. This made the watches look like bracelets.
Moreover, these watches weren’t called wristwatches. They were branded as bracelet watches. As a result of this strategy, Hans’ watches became popular across Britain.
Moreover, Hans realised that all the watches in the market carried the names of their manufacturers as their brand names. Hans wanted his watches to have a unique name –something that could neatly fit in the dial and be pronounced easily in any language. He combined different alphabets and came up with more than 100 names.
At one point, the pleasant-sounding name of Rolex came to the fore. He trademarked this name in 1908. In the modern world, we use wristwatches not just to keep time but to enhance our looks and personality.
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That’s why nobody could succeed at designing a perfectly accurate movement. Till 1910, Hans imported the movements for his watches from Switzerland. But now, Hans decided to make his own movement.
He began to study horology. He met with expert watchmakers worldwide and became an expert in movements. He then developed his first wristwatch movement–15-line caliber 200.
He then sent it to Switzerland’s Official Chronometre Testing Institute for certification. The institute conducted rigorous tests on the movement. Later, it turned out to be the world's first wristwatch movement that received a chronometer certificate.
Basically, Hans had successfully developed an accurate wristwatch movement. This innovation improved Rolex’s reputation. His watches began to get exported to other European countries.
By 1914, Hans had set up multiple offices of Wilsdorf & Davis. He had formed a team of 60 exceptional people. His business was growing rapidly.
But a major event put a brake on his growth story –World War 1. To make up for the cost of war, the British government imposed a 33% export duty on watches. Compared to the foreign competitors, Rolex’s price went up by 33% overnight, and its sales crashed.
To survive the crisis, Hans had to shift his company to Switzerland. Till now, Rolex was just the brand name of Hans’ watches. Upon reaching Switzerland, he changed the company’s name to Rolex Watch Co.
Ltd. and started many of his business operations from scratch. The market for luxury watches had crashed due to the war.
But Hans observed an interesting trend. There was a sudden demand for wristwatches from the armies fighting the war. Watches are crucial for soldiers fighting a war.
They help them coordinate their firing and marching actions properly. However, pocket watches weren’t practical for keeping track of time. A soldier would need to lower his rifle, open his coat and take out his watch to check time.
That’s why armies shifted to wristwatches, which were more feasible to track time. As a result, Rolex launched Trench Watches for the soldiers. The watches were made of unbreakable glass.
It had a strong body and a luminescent hour radium hand, which allowed the soldiers to check the time even in low light. These Trench Watches helped Rolex flourish its business even during a war. World War 1 soldiers were seen as heroes in their home countries.
When people see these soldiers wearing wristwatches, they also begin shifting to wristwatches as well. As Hans had predicted, wristwatches completely replaced pocket watches. But wristwatches had a major problem.
Their accuracy got compromised in the presence of dust and water. Hans wanted to solve this problem. He decided to build a tight watchcase that would protect the watch’s movement from heat, dust, and water.
Hans observed that watches were built using a snap-on mechanism under which all the watch components were assembled on top of one another. Just like we assemble a tiffin box. But this mechanism left behind gaps that allowed for the entry of dust and water.
So, Rolex designed a watchcase using the world’s first screw-on mechanism, which tightly screwed the components together using grooves. Moreover, rubber rings shut the remaining gaps. Finally, the watch’s winding crown sealed the body tightly like a submarine’s hatch.
Like an oyster, this watch could remain underwater for a long time without incurring internal damage. That’s why the watch became known as Rolex Oyster. Launched in 1926, this watch was revolutionary and it needed revolutionary marketing for its promotion.
Hans learned about a swimmer, Mercedes Gleitze, who claimed to be the first woman to cross the English Channel. Many had rejected this claim. To prove herself right, she decided to swim across the English Channel in front of the media.
Hans contacted Mercedes and offered her the position of Rolex’s first brand ambassador. To promote Rolex Oyster’s waterproofing capacity, Mercedes was to keep the watch attached to her necklace while swimming. Initially, her attempt was successful.
After swimming for 10 hours, she had crossed 80% of the English Channel. Unfortunately, she got exhausted and was rescued. She failed to cross the Channel, but Rolex Oyster worked perfectly when checked.
Despite the unsuccessful attempt, Mercedes Gleizte became popular for her effort. With her, the Rolex Oyster gained popularity for being the world’s first waterproof watch. Hans featured Mercedes and Rolex alongside each other in the ads.
Moreover, he displayed the Rolex Oyster in a fish tank in all retail stores. This tank also contained real fish. In 1928, Hans hired the British star Miss Evelyn Laye as Rolex’s brand ambassador.
In the ads, Evelyn would be shown wearing a Rolex Oyster with her hand dipped in a fish tank. This unique marketing strategy made Rolex Oyster’s waterproofing features popular. Rolex’s success touched another level.
While the entire world was appreciating Hans, he wasn’t satisfied. Actually, the watches of the time were completely mechanical i. e.
instead of a battery, they were powered by a mainspring. The mainspring had to be tightened by rolling the crown. Once tightened, the mainspring would then unwind and move the hands.
Simply speaking, it worked exactly like a windup toy. The watches had to be wound every two days. In the case of Rolex Oyster, if the crown wasn’t properly shut after the winding process, water could easily seep in.
That’s why Hans' next goal was to build a fully automatic watch. Hans spent years solving this problem. Finally, he invented the perpetual rotor.
This was a semicircular rotor which could rotate 360° inside the watch. It was connected to the mainspring through multiple gears. It would rotate when a person’s hand moved.
The gears would then transfer the energy and tighten the mainspring. Basically, you could wind the mainspring simply by wearing the watch. This way, the watch could work perpetually, and it became known as the Rolex Oyster Perpetual.
People had tried building automatic watches before, but Rolex was the first company to successfully adopt the mechanism. Perpetual made Rolex and Hans Wilsdorf legends of the watchmaking industry. But in 1939, they encountered another hurdle – World War 2.
The war disrupted the supply chain across the globe. Rolex’s sales tanked again. In the upcoming years, Hans ensured the survival of Rolex despite all odds.
But there was another tragedy. In 1944, he lost his wife. The last 6 years were the most challenging times for Hans.
But he had seen such challenges since childhood and had developed a fighter mindset. So, he regrouped his energy and set about the task he excelled at –making world-class watches. In 1945, Rolex completed its 40th anniversary.
On this occasion, Rolex launched a new watch–Rolex Datejust. This was the world’s first automatic watch that even showed date. But there was a problem.
Some people had complained that they couldn’t check the date as the display was tiny. Like always, Hans set out to find a solution. It’s said that one day, a drop of water fell on his watch.
This allowed the date to appear magnified. Inspired by this, he added a 2. 5X magnifying glass on Datejust watches and solved the problem.
By 1960, Rolex launched other revolutionary watches. For instance, in 1953, it launched Rolex Explorer, a strong and unbreakable watch made especially for mountaineers and explorers so that they never have to worry about the watch getting damaged. In 1955, Rolex launched GMT Master, which featured a rotating bezel.
It was made especially for pilots as they had to fly to different time zones. The bezel made it easier to track time. Finally, in 1960, Rolex launched an experimental watch called Deep Sea Special.
It was designed to handle the extreme water pressure of the deep sea. To test this, it was taken to the deepest known ocean point of the 1960s, nearly 11,000m deep. The watch worked perfectly even at this depth.
This is how Rolex established itself as the king of the watchmaking industry. Be it the tip of Mount Everest or the deepest point in the ocean, there was only one watch brand that could handle these extreme conditions–Rolex. Hans achieved things with Rolex that no watchmaker could ever dream of achieving.
In 1960, at the age of 79, Hans Wilsdorf left the world. But he left behind a watch brand that had made him immortal. This was the story of Rolex.
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