Niall One.2

A few months ago, we interviewed Mike Wilson, CEO and cofounder of Niall, a new brand based in Kansas City, on a quest to become the next great American luxury name. At the time, we were curious to learn more about the brand and their debut piece, the Niall One. Since then, Niall the brand and Niall One, the watch has evolved and I wanted to follow up with the latest developments.

What can you tell me about the launch of Niall One? How did it went?

The Niall launch went very well. We had several orders that began on the first day of launch. The article in TechCrunch really helped create the spark we needed to get the brand going – for that, we are eternally grateful. Out of the TechCrunch article we gained our first customer, Marc Andreessen – the inventor of the modern web browser. I can tell you I will always remember our first customer, and it’s great that it was someone so iconic as Marc. That really meant a lot.

During the first several weeks after launch we had the opportunity to put the Niall One in the hands of some very high profile celebrities, billionaires, rappers, and athletes. The early success and buy-in from that crowd has been encouraging.

Additionally, when we launched the Niall One there were tens of thousands of people online that engaged with our brand in some form or fashion. We watched as dozens of social media posts, blog articles and general news articles spread across the internet. During that process we keep our eyes and ears open for consumer feedback.

Having a background in marketing and software we know how important it is to iterate based on market feedback. Rooted in those ideals, we read and listened to every single comment across the internet. We took that feedback and evolved our product accordingly. The results you see today is the second iteration of the Niall One, we call the Niall One.2.

Niall One.2 All Black

I saw you were busy updating the Niall One, what can you tell me about these changes?

The Niall One.2 has two major updates to it: the bezel shape and the crown.

One of the largest pieces of feedback we received online was that consumers felt our bezel shape was too similar to others in the marketplace. Some brands used octagons, others used circles, and some used rounded squares. So, in the spirit of evolving our product we dug deep into the Niall story to find a shape that we could make ours.

Aerial view of the Hill of Tara

In this research we found pictures of the Hill of Tara in Ireland. The place in which all High Kings of Ireland were crowned King in ancient times. While looking at aerial photography of the land around the Hill of Tara, we discovered a shape that inspired us. It was a “truncated circle” (a circle with a flat top and bottom). Once we saw it, we knew that shape was something truly remarkable and something no one in the marketplace has.

Within three weeks, we had the Niall One bezel redesigned, re-engineered, and re-tooled. The results is a shape that is very elegant and carries a very deep, purposeful meaning. The new shape is not only ours, it’s a better representation of our brand. The feedback on the new design has been amazing and we really love hearing the great feedback.

Niall One.2 Raw Stainless

The other major update is the crown. We launched the Niall One with a screw-down crown because it’s touted as the industry standard for luxury timepieces. However, what we found with our first customers and ambassadors is that the screw down crown concept itself is clumsy, confusing and counter intuitive. We had several people strip the threads on the screw down crown because, even with instructions, we’re confused on it was supposed to function. The result was less than optimal. I actually remember hearing Ben Clymer of Hodinkee talk about on video how he questions the purpose of a screw-down crown on certain timepieces. We feel the exact same way.

So we eliminated it. We moved to a standard double o-ring push down crown and added an additional custom-made silicone gasket inside the case. This three-layered gasket system is what we call “airlock.” We’ve tested our new push down crown on many levels and the results are fantastic. Customers love it, its far more intuitive, and it works like people expect. We’ve water tested it up to 10ATM, heat tested it, and freeze tested it. The results have been great and we’re very excited by the new direction.

Niall One.2 Stainless/Black

Since we last talked, what are the latest developments at Niall, the luxury brand?

A lot of progress has been made and a bunch of new doors have opened for us since the launch of Niall. We’ve brought our leather partner, Sandlot Goods, into the same building as us to help further collaboration efforts. Katy Bird, the founder, is an absolute genius and I know will help drive some amazing vision for our luxury brand.

Additionally, we’ve received a lot of great feedback from watch collectors that have helped us drive the direction of our product lines. It feel really good to have such support from groups of people that have spent a lifetime collecting timepieces from all over the world.

Looking forward, what would you like to achieve in 2015?

In 2015 you will see us expand our men’s watch line-up by another two timepieces and launch Caireen – our female product line. I can’t reveal yet what the design direction will be, but they will be iconic. We’ve had a huge interest in women’s timepieces so from a design and business standpoint – Caireen is an exciting venture.

The other major plans for us in 2015 is to launch the Caliber 1810 – an American-based mechanical movement that we’ve been working on for quite a while. We’ve made a lot of progress on it and have a great technical counsel guiding our direction. We have no deadline on it’s launch, but we anticipate its launch within the 2015 calendar year.

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions and let me wish you best of luck with your quest!

To learn more about Niall and the Niall One.2, head over to niallluxury.com.

Niall One.2 Two Tone