Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ray Pee. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Ray thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?

I’m no stranger to failures. In fact, I am a specialist at failing. I’ve failed a thousand times more in the past 2 years than I’ve ever failed in the previous 40 years of my life. My story of intense failing started when I decided to break out of the ‘mundane’ 20 years I’ve spend in the corporate world climbing the corporate ladder.

I’ve spend the most part of my life doing what a regular middle income Asian family does and achieving some above average success out of it. I studied pretty hard, went through University and worked for multi-national companies. I climbed through the ranks of senior management and was comfortable in sustaining my family’s and my own lifestyle.

But as I enter into middle age as a creatively restless person, I found myself ‘miserable’ and ‘bound’ for many years of not learning anything new. That’s when I started GANE Watches in 2021 during the dearth of the pandemic. It gave me an outlet to channel my creative energy into design, photography, writing, marketing and branding. But it’s nowhere near the million dollar business that I can retire from the corporate world happily ever after.

At the same time, I was offered an opportunity to join a new industry and be part of the coveted C-suite group. Sadly, I soon learnt that I’m not cut out to be one of them and I left. For the past year, I’ve been reflecting, exploring and learning new things to try to find sustainable income sources. Through this time, I’ve experienced multiple failures and they certainly are not fun at all.

In conclusion, I don’t have any fairy-tale turnaround or significant wins to share about yet. But in one year, I’ve probably read 20 books, spent thousands of hours researching and learning new skills, So firstly, don’t take failures personal. Consider them as feedback of what does not work and channel your emotions into honing your skills. Secondly, manage your risk such that the failures do not wipe you out of leftover ‘fuel’ for you to continue to try new things. Last but not least, have a religious pivot so that you can keep yourself afloat spiritually and psychologically through the trying times.

Ray, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I grew up dabbling in arts and music but is trained as an engineer. I’ve always been fascinated by watches such as Grand Seiko from Japan and Sinn from Germany that combine high engineering expertise, pleasing aesthetics and toolish essence. Over time, my taste shifted towards minimalist and vintage style especially the early 1900’s European and Japanese design language.

Armed with this blend of design preference, I started GANE Watches. GANE, pronounced ‘gain’, was extracted from ‘Hagane’ which means steel in Japanese. I envisioned the brand to fuse beauty and industrial elements for everyday, smart or casual setting. Strong, brushed steel case represents the industrial element while nature and art brings the beauty element into our watches. I hope to present GANE to new mechanical watch enthusiasts as an alternative to established luxury brands.

Our design is rather unique with classic influences that I don’t think you can find anywhere else. Our partnership with an established Swiss company to manufacture the watches brings an assurance of quality. Lastly, our direct to customer model cuts out the middlemen and helps to bring cost down.

This approach will hopefully allow early enthusiasts to enter into the intriguing world of mechanical watches.

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How did you build your audience on social media?

When I started GANE Watches, all my budget was spent on product development. So I devised a strategy to hopefully build my brand organically. I spent a year to build my Instagram presence with like-minded watch enthusiasts and spent about 2 to 4 hours a day to engage my followers. I also developed my photography skills and invested in camera equipment to enhance my social media persona.

When the time comes for me to launch GANE Watches, I have a fairly large group of followers for me to introduce my brand.

My advice for new business owners is to spend more time and budget, at least 20%, into social media branding and marketing. In the present world, if you do not have a significant online presence, it is hard to grow your business.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

As a sole business owner, I design my watches but do not have the capability to manufacture them. My key focus was to ensure quality at the forefront of my products, So I researched for manufacturing partners in Japan, US and Europe. Finally I settled for a Swiss company which is a member of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH, a governing body that assure good quality manufacturing of watches.

The movement of the mechanical watches is also an important aspect for the enthusiasts. As such, the Citizen Miyota movement from Japan was selected as a robustly reliable option. Every watch is then tested for function and autonomy in Switzerland, again to ensure good quality products.

My advice is not to rush when searching for a business partner in view of a long term collaboration. Find somebody that you are comfortable working with and is able to improve each other with continuous feedback and close communication.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ganewatches.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ganewatches/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GaneWatch
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ganewatches