Executive Briefing
Hodinkee and the new luxury
“We want to be the nose on the face of the watch industry.”
By Dan Frommer on Saturday, December 12, 2020 at 8:00 am
Hodinkee, an online publication and store for watch enthusiasts, announced earlier this month that it had raised $40 million in new financing, and that Toby Bateman — most recently the managing director of Mr. Porter, the men’s luxury e-commerce brand from Net-A-Porter — was joining the company as its CEO.
Hodinkee is interesting for many reasons, even if you don’t care about watches.
It has become one of the best working examples of the elusive niche content, commerce, and community model.
Launched in 2008 by Benjamin Clymer as a website about watches — I first met him shortly after that, when Hodinkee was a simple but attractive Squarespace blog — it will generate around $25 million in revenue this year, mostly from e-commerce, and has long been profitable.
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