Alfredo García of Dando La Hora; creators of the first Latin American digital watch: I saw these Japanese and Swiss watches and thought, why dont we make one ourselves?
Today, with the use of mobile phones, the use of analog watches seems like something from the past. This is also due to the emergence of a wide range of smartwatches. However, there are still those who love the simplicity of using a watch just to know the time.
While the Swiss and Japanese are renowned as the experts in watchmaking, there is now a group of compatriots in Chile striving to create the first digital watch made in Chile. And the person behind this project is none other than Alfredo García, founder of Dando La Hora.
In conversation with Entreprenerd, he tells us how he managed to start his business with just $150,000 pesos, which has now brought him national recognition after creating the first digital watch in Chile and Latin America. How did he achieve this? Did he always have this idea? What were the steps he took?
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A CLEAR PATH FROM CHILDHOOD
García recalls that his passion for watchmaking began when he was young because his father was a watch enthusiast. In those days, watches had to be taken to watchmakers for maintenance periodically. Living in Santiago, the capital’s center was like a paradise for watch lovers, with several shops dedicated to these processes.
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“My dad used to take me to the center where the famous watchmakers were. These gentlemen, generally very elegant, wearing white coats, would open these things full of pieces and all. I watched this and was really passionate about it, even as a child, it fascinated me,” Alfredo recalls.
He adds, “I always more or less knew that I wanted to dedicate myself to the watchmaking industry, whether with a shop, a factory, a workshop, etc.”
Although he studied something completely different from his passion, he continued collecting watches. His experience working with Oscar from Greenglass led him to decide to create his own online watch shop, focused on those who love traditional watchmaking.
“I’m quite clear that I’m going to dedicate myself to this for the rest of my life. So I’m in no rush.”Alfredo García, founder of Dando La Hora, to Entreprenerd.
“In general, I saw that everyone had everything mixed up, there wasn’t a strategy (smartwatch, fashion, traditional, etc.). There was a lack of someone dedicated to traditional watchmaking for us geeks. That’s when I had the idea to found Dando La Hora.”
THE CREATION OF THE FIRST “MADE IN CHILE” DIGITAL WATCH
Alfredo explains that he had two objectives when creating his business: One was to save enough money to study watchmaking abroad, and the other was that, although owning his own business, he felt tied to brands, which led to the idea of creating a 100% Chilean watch.
“I saw this watch which is Japanese, this watch is Swiss, this watch here, this watch there, I saw this and thought, why don’t we make one ourselves? Is it too difficult? And why isn’t there a digital watch, a Chilean one? And why can’t we do this? That’s where it started, I didn’t know anything about electronics, didn’t know anything about manufacturing plastic, nothing, nothing, nothing, I knew absolutely nothing.”
After approximately a year of searching for designers and engineers, they managed to carry out an initial electronic test of the watch.
“This watch has several features, it plays the national anthem, it counts down the days until September 18th. We added several Chilean touches and tweaks,” Alfredo explains.
(You can review all the technical details of its creation in the video interview ????)
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE FUTURE... ????️
One thing Alfredo is clear about is what he wants to continue doing. Although his business is thriving, his dream for the next 20 years is to have a workshop to repair watches.
“I would love to repair, for example, it makes me feel very bad when I go to public places in Chile, like the San Francisco church on Alameda which has had a broken clock since 2010. (I’d like) for all of them to work, it would be great. I would love to intervene so that the public clocks in the center are better.”
“But if you ask me about the business side, the next steps are, I’d like to have an excellent product, a range of digital watch products, I’d eventually love to have a range of products that can be made with Chilean identity, with functions, with everything, over the next five or ten years. And obviously internationalize. Now that we’ve bought, because you think about this internationalization, we’ve sold from the number one, five watches abroad.”