NOVO Watch Update: How We Refined Our Offering And Now Make $240K/Year

Steve Christensen

•

Published: April 10th, 2022

save

Steve Christensen

Founder, NOVO watch

$20K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

NOVO watch

novowatch.com

from Alberta, Canada

started November 2011

$20,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools Steve recommends to grow your business!

Discover what books Steve recommends to grow your business!

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less Greg McKeown

Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Fou... John Doerr

Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds David Goggins

Want more updates on NOVO watch? Check out these stories:

1. Steve Christensen Is Building Watches From Old Train Tracks (2019) ➜

2. How I Used Direct Messaging On Instagram To Grow My Business (2020) ➜

This is a follow up story for NOVO watch. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 5 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

My name is Steve Christensen and I’m the founder of NOVO watch. We handcraft watches using meaningful memorabilia such as railroad tracks, military tanks, golf clubs, and pretty much anything that has value to our customers. At the moment we only do custom watches.

We are fortunate to work with amazing people from all walks of life. From someone looking to encapsulate the love of a family member to an athlete looking to celebrate a one-in-a-lifetime achievement, we’ve got to do a lot. Here’s a unique piece we made from an iPhone. To make a long story short the owner dropped the phone under some bleachers and the manager had to open the gate to let him retrieve it. They fell in love and got married!

novo-watch-376bffb0-0e10-461a-acf3-f23eeabbc0fa

Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?

Since we chatted last time we’ve adjusted quite a few things. Over the past year, our business has MOSTLY come from custom pieces for customers, which has changed where we focus our time. Rather than craft our pieces in small quantities, we now work exclusively with clients to customize timepieces for them. By being more specific and focused our messaging is less confusing and we’re generating more interest.

Customers need to know exactly what you do when they find you and what problem you’re solving for them.

One of the huge help was reading the book “Marketing Made Simple” by Donald Miller. We organically get a decent amount of traffic every day without advertising and cleaning up our messaging gets people more interested.

We’ve also been focusing on building our email list to have a better connection with our customers.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

One of the biggest realizations last year was when our Instagram was blocked! We’re not sure what we did but from what I remember it lasted for 1 week. We spend a lot of time networking there and when we were randomly blocked we instantly realized that we rely too heavily on places we have no control over. Shutting us down hindered our approach to business and we didn’t want it to happen again. We’re working on building our email community to increase our control and decrease theirs.

I also learned that a morning routine done daily helps keep me grounded. There are so many ups and downs in entrepreneurship that it’s nice to have some constants that guarantee I’m ready for whatever comes my way. I wake up at 5:30, read my goals, do a visualization session, read a book, work out then get ready! By 7:45 I’m ready for the day and feeling great.

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

I’ve always had a goal to sell our watches with an “in-house” movement. By getting to that stage I think we’ll solidify ourselves as one of the best watchmakers in Canada, which would be amazing. I believe we can get there, just takes some time and focus. Always be learning!

I’m excited to keep learning. One of the best parts about watchmaking is that the more you learn the more freedom you have to be creative and the more creative I am the more my customer will benefit.

Have you read any good books in the last year?

I’ve always been a fan of non-fiction reading but I picked up a series by Jack Carr this last year and loved it! Jack Carr is an ex-navy seal and an incredible writer/storyteller. I can’t recommend the series enough!

Stillness Is The Key by Ryan Holiday was also a great read.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

It’s so simple but often overlooked - what are your stats telling you?

For example, I used to spend so much time focusing on my social media but when I drilled into the numbers from my website a minuscule amount of traffic was coming from them and a large majority was coming from Google. I learned I needed to optimize for Google.

Also, messaging is huge. Customers need to know exactly what you do when they find you and what problem you’re solving for them. Marketing made simple is such a great place to start.