We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Steven Lee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Steven thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve had an infatuation with watches. There was something captivating about trying to measure the incredible vastness of time. At that time, I was a huge fan of dinosaurs, and to me, the span of millions of years was so hard to understand. However, it made a little more sense when I learned about telling time on a watch. My dad wore a watch and he was my hero, so that made it even more interesting.

As I got older, I just got into watches more and more. My mom used to tease me that I was becoming one of those guys in a trench coat lined with watches, but she always encouraged me in my pursuit of watches. In fact, I named the brand after her maiden name as an homage to her support. I pursued a couple different careers in my life (initially, I was a corporate pilot and then a successful career in software sales), but I always had a nagging itch to figure out a way to become involved in the watch industry. I taught myself to completely disassemble and reassemble watch movements, and I kept a small notebook where I’d draw rough sketches of various watch designs throughout the years. It wasn’t until a cool day in February of 2016 that I finally connected all the dots. I needed to start a watch brand…

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

DuFrane is an independent watch brand specializing in creating high-quality, unique timepieces that are inspired by Austin. The company motto is ‘History remembers those who are a little bit different’ and I believe there’s something very unique and different about Austin. So I wanted to fuse my passion of watches and my desire to share this amazing city I call home.

All of the watches are custom designed and constructed from the ground up, with final assembly done in my workshop in the southwest hills of Austin. We only use genuine Swiss movements to ensure longevity and accuracy, and our overall quality rivals brands that cost thousands more per piece. However, the most powerful product we offer is enthusiastic customer experience. I am a real watch fanatic and take great pride in helping my customers along their watch buying/owning journey. To me, watches are extremely personal and can contribute to a lifetime of memories.

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

Gaining an understanding of how to actually manufacture a watch is daunting. It’s a lot of work, especially to an outsider. The supply chain, who to trust, how to manage quality, costs involved, timelines, relationships with factories, how to manage servicing post-sales… so many aspects. Not to mention, what is the design ethos that brings uniqueness to the product line. However, all of these complexities, costs and huge challenges are all far, far easier than the process of building a brand, finding your audience and differentiating from a very crowded marketplace. This was and continues to be the ever-elusive secret sauce that I am constantly tweaking. But it is an absolute blast and I love facing the challenge every day.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I have been fortunate enough to self fund my entire business. I have not had to take on any debt or funding sources, which has created a tremendous amount of freedom. However, I have definitely made mistakes and wasted money on ideas that didn’t work, but that is all a part of the process. The largest gap I’ve had to overcome has been on the Marketing side, really defining and marketing to my audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dufranewatches.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dufrane_watches/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dufranewatches