Hello Ernie, thanks for cooperating with this interview for my watch
weblog, Fratellowatches.com. Ofcourse, I know you as host of WatchUSeek
because I am moderating (together with Kurt Koerfgen) the Omega Forum.
For the non-WatchUSeekers or WatchUSeek-visitors who didn't pay
attention. Can you introduce yourself a little?

Hello Robert-Jan. Thanks for the invitation for this interview. Yes, we know eachother for some time now and I still enjoy the way you take care of the Omega Forum.

A little introduction: I am 46 years as I type, married for almost 20 years now and two lovely children (daughter of 17 and son of 19). Although WatchUseek takes a lot of my time, being the owner is only a part time job. In daily life I am a team manager on a school for children with learning and behavioural problems in the age of 12 to 19. I do not teach a lot lately, because the managing and supporting part is taking lots of time. It is a stressy job, but I like it anyway. It is always a great thing to see how children develop in the right way.

 

What got you started with WatchUSeek and did you attract 'new forummers'
or TimeZone-refugees? I know for a fact that WatchUseek is much more
loose than other forums like TZ, Paneristi etc. How come?

Back in 1996 (I think it was ‘96) my brother-in-law showed me two watches who bought in the East (while he was on a business trip for the bank he works for). It was a Raketa chronograph and a Universal Tri-Compact. Both very nice pieces for not too much money! Anyway, we were on a vacation with some family members then and he talked about watches in general and let me read one of his books about watches. Well, afterwards I decided I had to have me a “real” mechanical watch! I started saving money and looking for the right watch. At the time one of my friends owned this Oris watch and he got me on the Oris trail. I ended up buying me a very nice Oris Big Crown with coin edge bezel. I still have it (of course), but do not wear it that much anymore. It is simply too small these days (38mm). My wife wears it from time to time J.

Are you still here? …. Ok, when I got “hooked” I already had started a webpage on the internet. It was a hobby site where I linked to all kinds of subjects. I decided to re-design it and made it a watches only page. I gathered links to all kinds of watch websites. I also added two fora: the Oris Forum and the Zenith Forum (yes, they are already that old). Later in 1998 I registered WatchUseek.com. I was also involved with Watchzone.net and became one of the teammembers (together with Marc Levesque (time2watch.net), Brandon Sparks (moderator EOT), Bradley McInnes (time4watches.net) and Terry Allison (nowadays known for his MA watch brand). We split up some time later and I decided to put all my energy in Watchuseek.com.

It has always been my goal to have a friendly and open community (I got banned from Timezone a long time ago). I think I have achieved this with the help of all (former) team members.

When did you started 'hiring' moderators?

I do not know exactly when I started “hiring” moderators, but after a while I knew I could no longer do this alone. Especially after I added a few more fora. There are appr. 38 moderators now…… including the official fora.

You had and have a few very well running fora. One of them was the Poor
Man Watch Forum (<1000 USD watches). How did this started? Personally I never thought there would be much discussion about such watches, not because of the watches, but because of the audience of pre-1000USD watches. However, there seem to be a lot of collectors who are interested in Seiko's, Aristo's, Citizen, Junker and so on. When did you cut this forum loose?

It all started when I noticed the forum and dropped Reto an e-mail. His forum was on a free hosted server and I offered him a place on WatchUseek which he gladly accepted. We agreed it would run for 2 (or 3 years), but Reto decided to pull it off and moved to his own server after a year. Reto and I have always respected eachother and we will probably always will. I helped his forum in the saddle and we now work (link) together occasionally. I think it is no longer questioned if a forum for “poor man’s watches” was a good idea J

Another populair  running forum is the Invicta forum. I was (and am) never a fan of their watches, but this forum has a lot of traffic seen the number of posts every day. Are most visitors of this forum from the US? Do you have an explanation for the success of Invicta at all? A lot of people seem to justify this brand although it is using Rolex design.

Invicta is a US based company and therefore I think it gets lots of attention from our US visitors and members. They are also watches in a good price range and their design, well you already mentioned it, got even more attention. The Invicta 8926 and 9937 are/were very populair, but it seems that Invicta succeeded to be a popular brand with lots of other and different designs.

The Invicta Forum not only discusses the Invicta brand, they also discuss about other subjects and watch brands, mostly those that are shown and sold through ShopNBC. One of our former moderators is a tv host for ShopNBC now! Last but not least, the success of the Invicta Forum also comes from all who participate and of course the great job the moderators do.

Besides moderating and hosting the forums, you also seem to do good business with your WatchUSeek WatchShop. You seem to have found a certain niche in the watch selling business. It even seems so that you do a lot of networking directly with the watch companies, is this because the watch companies are so small or that you like to deal with them directly anyway?

 

Good observation R-J! Yes, I did find a certain niche in the watch selling business, but believe me, I could not live from the earnings. No way J The networking is one of the things I like most. I especially like to work with the small one man companies. Maybe because I run a (rather) small company myself and enjoy to see things grow with a lot of hard work and lots of time investments. Many companies work their brains out to achieve their goal. Some just attract me, like Kobold, Anonimo, Cyclos, Japy and many more. It always amazes how friendly and helpful people from these companies are! A good personal contact is very important imho.

What brands have your personal preference and why?

There are a too much categories (design, exclusivity, value for the money, etc.) and I cannot just choose one or two. I feel it wouldn’t be right either to name only a few out of many.

I know by running a few websites myself, and moderating one of your forums, that you could easily make it your fulltime job. However, you should be loaded to do so or make money with it, especially if you got a mortgage, family and car(s) :-) I know that you are a teacher in your normal daytime job, do you ever consider to switch to selling watches and hosting WatchUSeek fulltime? Or only after one buys you out? :-)

Good question! J Yes, I could turn this in a daily job, but I wouldn’t earn enough to live from it (you are right about the mortgage, family and car). Sure, I am able to earn some money, but Watchuseek also costs money (hardware, software, connection, server, support, …). I can manage ok the way it is now and with the support of our sponsors!

Can you combine your daytime job, family and WatchUSeek? Or did the last two merged into eachother? In other words, does your family understand the passion you have for watches and are they 'with you' or do they just accept it?

Yes, they well understand my passion and they also share this passion up to some level (not as much as I am doing though J). And yes, they accept it, but not too much I am afraid. Sometimes they hate to see me working behind my notebook … again, hour after hour. Especially my daughter hates to see me do this too. Oh well, every passion has its bad side, but we’ll survive J

 

Do you have future plans with WatchUSeek you want to share with the readers? What can we expect in 2005 for example?

One of the most important things for 2005 is to get the new server! The current one is getting too old (almost 3 years) and can’t handle all the visits and data request. It times out every now and then and that annoys visitors, members, moderators, sponsors and myself a lot. I am also looking around for a new, faster, less bandwidth eating forum script. It is tough to find the right one, because mostly all forum software available offers a flat message list rather then a threaded message list. Threaded lists are so much more easy to read and follow a discussion and I am certainly not the only one who thinks that way.

I also hope that Watchuseek keeps growing and we will be able to stay “the #1 interactive portal to world wide watches”. I am fully aware that it can only be done with the help and support of all our members, visitors, sponsors and our moderators!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity Robert-Jan. Good luck with your own goals for 2005!

You are welcome and I hope that your wishes for WatchUseek will come out!