We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aren Bazerkanian. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aren below.

Aren, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

The idea for Havid Nagan came to me, in its simplest form, when I was walking through a boutique mall, trying on a number of high-horology watches and finding that nothing really spoke to me, and I asked myself what would the ideal watch be if I were to have designed it? The thought left me for some months and one day, I told myself I’m going to a sit down and design the perfect watch I envisioned on my wrist. So I did. I drew out the initial case design that would later become the HN00. I drew it out from the top and later view. I liked the design so much that I Googled Swiss manufacturing partners that could help me bring it to life. It took about 2 years to develop the watch technically, find the right partners that I knew would delivery quality, and to be honest, afford the project in the first place. My wife and I were married in September 2019 and we had the discussion as to whether this was something I should pursue or stay at my comfortable job and just work my way up the ladder. On Christmas Day 2021, she’d placed an envelope under the tree that was a check for the last payment due for the HN00 prototypes. I launched the brand formally in April 2022 and sold out the debut HN00!

Aren, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Aren Bazerkanian. I’m the founder and designer of my Swiss watch brand, Havid Nagan. My background isn’t what you’d associate with the typical watch brand founder. My family doesn’t come from watchmaking, jewelry; we aren’t French or Swiss, and I was raised in a middle-class household.

I got into the industry after having made the switch from my former career in real estate. My wife had gifted me tickets to a local watch event in Downtown LA for my birthday and I met the general manager of FP Journe. I told him that I wanted to work for the company and eventually, I sat down for an interview with Laurent Journe, director of the West LA boutique, and it’s been history since. I spent 3 years at the company before leaving and formally launching Havid Nagan. During that time, I built really close and strong relationships with the different collectors that came through and some of them supported me in the launch. I learned everything I know from Journe and I owe a large part of the success I’ve had to them. I learned how to cultivate a community, how to treat people, and most of all, that I can fully be myself in the context of whatever endeavor I pursue.

Havid Nagan is an amalgamation of a number of dynamics I value – design that is specific to what I love and cherish in a watchmaking context and a sense of community and closeness to the collectors of the brand. As the company gets bigger, I plan on hosting more events and “pop-ups” around the country to build the collector base further.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the hardest things to recondition my mind to was the fact that the market, especially within the “hyped” steel sportswatch category, was overvaluing things that clearly wouldn’t last. The last 3 years have been astronomically good to the watch industry. Premiums on some watches went through the roof and I saw that first hand at FP Journe, too. We went from having 50-60 watches in the safe at anytime in mid-2019 to the waitlists being 2-3 years long at a minimum today. There is a lot of equity in the watch industry now and I’d argue a large portion of the watches being purchased now are for that fact alone. People want their money to be safe, especially when buying an expensive watch. But throughout the entire history of watches and watchmaking, equity or investment return was never a thought. The industry has become jus that.. an industry. I have to communicate with the collectors that it’s going to take me time to build the market around Havid Nagan. It takes years for that confidence to be built.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I used a method that isn’t foreign to the industry of watchmaking, albeit used by the small independents. I actually found out about the method from Journe himself. When I launched my brand, I had a 2 month window in which orders were placed. Collectors either placed a 50% or 100% deposit towards the production of the watch. This helped me accomplish the funding in production of the 115 HN00’s without giving up equity in raising capital and has helped me fund the development of the second watch, HN01 Lucine.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.havidnagan.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/havidnagan/?hl=en

Image Credits
Julian Duque Photography