1. Horage as an exception or a direction

WoW:
Looking at Horage from the outside, it feels less like a brand and more like a model of how a company can operate. Do you see what you are building as an exception, or as an early indication of where the industry will eventually have to go?

Andreas Felsl:
Horage is certainly not a standard Swiss luxury watch company. Most brands begin with marketing and storytelling, and only later try to improve product performance, delivery, or supply‑chain resilience. Very few seriously consider precision, because luxury is often treated as something that doesn’t need to be accurate.

We approached things differently. We see ourselves in the business of a hobby — and when someone invests in a hobby, the expectation is not to be disappointed. That responsibility starts with the movement. A precise mechanical watch creates a far stronger emotional alignment with the brand than one that doesn’t run well, even if precision is not strictly necessary today.

This insight pushed us to build our technical and manufacturing capabilities first. Rolex succeeded for similar reasons: they leave no room for disappointment on the product side.

Deep vertical integration at low volumes requires a lean operational model. We believe the industry will split into two groups:

• brands with real watchmaking credibility in the mid‑premium segment, and
• brands selling status in the ultra‑high‑end segment.

The lower segment — historically protected by distribution advantages — will struggle. Many brands contributed little to the progress of watchmaking and existed mainly because they had access to retail networks. Without innovation and credibility, they will fade.

Micro‑brands face the same challenge. A unique design or a good story is no longer enough. Long‑term relevance likely will come from technical contribution, not aesthetics alone.

2. Independence without illusion

WoW:
In watchmaking, “independence” is often understood as doing everything in‑house.At Horage, however, it seems to be more about control over IP, engineering and decision‑making rather than full vertical integration. Does this mean that the traditional definition of independence is simply no longer valid?

Andreas Felsl:
The value of a product comes from its intellectual property — and IP is far more than patents. It is the combined know‑how that allows a company to make things better, faster, or more efficiently. It is the ability to design, engineer, source, and assemble high‑performance products independently.

The industry has misled the market by presenting “in‑house manufacturing” as the ultimate requirement for excellence. That is fundamentally wrong. IP creates value; manufacturing creates cost.

Watchmaking involves dozens of specialized processes — milling, turning, hobbing, stamping, polishing, hardening, plating, joining. No company in our industry is large enough to master and continuously improve all of them internally. The CAPEX would be enormous.

We spent more than ten years mastering the full product‑creation workflow — design, engineering, toolmaking, assembly. Only once that foundation was solid did we bring the most cost‑intensive processes in‑house, supported by mature CAM technologies and the need for greater agility.

A movement requires around 3,500 information transactions before machining even begins. Bringing too much in‑house too early inflates complexity beyond what most companies can manage.

True independence lies in controlling IP and processes — not in owning every machine. Because we understand how our partners manufacture, we can innovate with them. This creates a healthy equilibrium between independence and dependency.

3. “In‑house” as a boundary concept

WoW:
“In‑house” has become one of the most powerful terms in the industry.At the same time, even the largest manufactures rely on complex supplier networks.In your view, does “in‑house” still carry real technical meaning, or has it become primarily a narrative construct?

Andreas Felsl:
“In‑house” has become a marketing term. Many companies claim it simply because they own machines. But owning machines does not mean understanding how to conceptualize, design, or fundamentally improve a movement.

Real in‑house capability means:

• the ability to design and engineer a movement from scratch,
• understanding every step from raw material to T0/T1 assembly,
• managing the supply chain across all relevant processes, and
• knowing the quality requirements at each stage.

It does not mean buying equipment without understanding the upstream and downstream processes. Without that knowledge, you cannot improve the product — and improvement is the essence of watchmaking.

4. Transparency vs. managing perception

WoW:
You mentioned that if there is nothing to hide, transparency comes naturally.At the same time, the industry often doesn’t hide facts as much as it shapes how they are understood.Is Horage consciously stepping away from that model, or do you simply not need it to build value?

Andreas Felsl:
Rolex operates with a culture of secrecy, yet they could reveal everything and still remain the leader. Most companies cannot, because they have created narratives that don’t match reality.

Our mission is to advance watchmaking. We speak to clients who value substance. We are not here to protect heritage or play the scarcity game. We want to make watchmaking exciting for the next generation.

When people visit us and see how we work, they understand the value. Excessive secrecy does not create value — it creates doubt. Eventually, companies must invent stories to cover earlier claims, and that destroys trust. The secondary market reflects this erosion of credibility.

We build value through engineering excellence, founder‑led storytelling, and strict avoidance of overproduction.

5. Manufacture as intellectual property

WoW:
If one looks at Horage through the lens of IP, engineering and process control, it could be argued that you represent a different kind of manufacture.Do you think that the future definition of a manufacture will be more closely tied to intellectual property than to physical production?

Andreas Felsl:
Manufacturing is highly specialized and CAPEX‑intensive. Many hardware manufacturers struggle to innovate because they lack strong software capabilities.

Our approach focuses on the software stack required to elevate traditional processes. The industry is shifting from volume manufacturing to high‑mix, low‑volume production. That shift requires investment in IP — meaning skills, not machines.

AI, vision systems, and robotics will play a major role. In micromechanics, we are working toward AI‑driven 100% quality control. That is impossible without strong software expertise.

6. Limits of the model

WoW:
A model based on partnerships and control has clear advantages, but also potential limitations.
Where do you see its limits?Is there a point where not being fully vertically integrated becomes a constraint rather than a strength?

Andreas Felsl:
There will always be a balance between independence and dependency. As long as supplier relationships remain fair — with neither side exploiting the other — this model has no inherent limitation.

7. MicroReg and the shift of roles

WoW:
MicroReg suggests a fundamental shift — moving control over accuracy from the watchmaker to the user.This affects not only technology, but also the role of service, certification and even the concept of regulation itself.Do you see MicroReg as a natural evolution of watchmaking, or as a challenge to its existing foundations?

Andreas Felsl:
MicroReg fundamentally changes the landscape. It shifts accuracy control from the watchmaker to the user — and no traditional system can match a user‑adapted MicroReg watch on the wrist.

We remain fully within the definition of a Swiss mechanical watch, yet we created an innovation that even the largest companies cannot compete with, regardless of scale.

The industry spends an estimated CHF 800 million per year regulating watches — and this cost does not make consumers happier. It increases total cost of ownership and reduces industry volume.

MicroReg cannot eliminate this cost entirely, but it can dramatically reduce it. Where major cost exists, innovation wins. MicroReg has Black Swan potential — in a positive sense — because it makes owning a watch more enjoyable.

8. Certification vs. technological reality

WoW:
Do systems like COSC still carry real relevance today, or are they becoming a legacy framework that no longer reflects current technological capabilities?

Andreas Felsl:
Certification still matters. It is not a guarantee of precision but a guarantee of process stability. If a company can certify at scale, its internal processes are robust.

Many high‑end brands do not certify because they likely could not pass consistently. Reworking failures would be too expensive. Their lack of certification is often masked with luxury storytelling and hand‑finishing narratives.

Stable processes create quality. Certification exposes whether those processes exist.

9. Biel/Bienne instead of Swiss Made

WoW:
In many of your watches, you replace “Swiss Made” with “Biel/Bienne”.
From a global marketing perspective, that could be seen as a step back, but from a transparency standpoint, perhaps a step forward.Do you believe that “Swiss Made” has shifted from being a precise indication to a simplified symbol?

Andreas Felsl:
“Swiss Made” has been diluted. Many companies using the label have no real watchmaking capability beyond casing movements. The term has shifted from being a precise indication of origin and expertise to a broad marketing symbol that often hides how little actual watchmaking happens inside the company.

In our case, when we talk about movement parts — we source or manufacture roughly 98% of them in Switzerland, almost all within a 30 km radius of Biel. Only three parts are made in Germany, and those relate to the etching of our silicon components. For movement parts, Switzerland is simply the best place in the world. There is no reason to go elsewhere.

Where we take a different approach is with structural parts — cases, bracelets, dials, hands, straps. These are not performance‑critical in the same way, and the required manufacturing capabilities vary widely. Here, we follow a simple philosophy: buy from the best, not from a passport.

For example: Asia leads in complex case and bracelet manufacturing. Diamond‑cut hands cannot be sourced in Switzerland because no factory here specializes in that technique. One of the best dial makers sits in Thailand. Whereas most companies source leather straps in Asia, we buy in Switzerland, because we get the best quality and low MOQs.

So we source structural parts internationally, based purely on capability, not nationality. It is not a price question; it is a who can do it best question.

We are a globally operating company with its roots in “Biel/Bienne.” It is a precise, verifiable statement of where our watchmaking capability resides. It reflects the reality of our work far better than a national label that can be stretched to its limits.

10. Price as a consequence of the model

WoW:
Horage is often described in terms of its strong “specs‑to‑price” ratio.But that assumes price is a deliberately positioned parameter.In your case, is price a goal, or rather a consequence of a model that removes traditional layers and mark‑ups?

Andreas Felsl:
Our strategy is simple: top product at an acceptable price. Achieving top performance requires heavy investment in engineering and innovation. To keep prices reasonable, we must operate D2C.

We still work with physical points of sale, but we do not transfer the risk of unsold inventory to retailers — a practice that forces artificial margins. Instead, we collaborate with partners we call concierges, who support clients preferring offline interaction.

Our 10‑person software team built our own omnichannel retail system, enabling integrated transactions with minimal friction compared to traditional multi‑layer retail.

11. Design as a potential constraint

WoW:
Horage has built a very strong position in terms of engineering and value.
At the same time, watches operate not only on a technical level, but also on design, form and emotional appeal.Do you think that at a certain point, design — rather than engineering — becomes the main constraint to scaling a brand?

Andreas Felsl:
Design is subjective. Our philosophy is subtle, comfort‑focused, and detail‑driven. We do not design for status signaling.

There are two design strategies:

• the Patek approach — subtle, diverse, slow‑building, low risk,
• the Hublot approach — one strong signature, fast scaling, high saturation risk.

We follow the Patek approach: different looks across the collection, unified by a modern‑classic language, legibility, and comfort. It is slower but far less risky and appeals to a broader range of tastes.

12. Luxury without distance

WoW:
Traditional luxury is built on distance: boutiques, controlled distribution, limited access.
The D2C model reduces that distance significantly.Do you see this as still being luxury, or as something that is evolving into a different category altogether?

Andreas Felsl:
Luxury has two major dimensions:

• status, and
• aesthetic experience.

We focus on the latter. Buying an Horage watch requires engagement — understanding our work, meeting the team, appreciating the engineering. That investment of time is part of the luxury.

A friend once said we offer “independent watchmaking for independent thinkers.” For people who value substance over display, this creates a unique form of luxury.

13. K3 and a potential shift in industry structure

WoW:
If the K3 calibre becomes widely available to other brands, Horage moves beyond being a watchmaker into a technology provider.Is this a deliberate step towards a role that could challenge the historical position of suppliers like ETA or Sellita?

Andreas Felsl:
K3 is among the highest‑performing movements available. Whether other brands adopt it remains to be seen. We do not aggressively pursue OEM business — it is difficult, and many brands undervalue movement development while overspending on marketing.

K2 and K3 form the foundation for MicroReg, which could challenge the entire movement industry. The key question for us is strategic:
Do we remain a premium‑segment innovator, or do we build a monopoly‑level technology platform that could dominate Swiss, Chinese, and Japanese movement production?

MicroReg forces us to consider these possibilities seriously.

14. The decision no one saw

WoW:
Every company has a moment where a decision is made that is invisible from the outside, but defines its future.What was that moment for Horage?

Andreas Felsl:
Few people realize that Horage contains a highly capable software company. We built omnichannel software that solves the long‑standing disconnect between online and offline retail — the root cause of grey markets and retail decline.

We used Horage as a simulation environment to understand these problems deeply and developed a unified solution, now protected by a U.S. software patent.

This solution is not limited to watchmaking. It applies to nearly all consumer retail — a USD 30 trillion global sector. Nobody expects a watch company to tackle a problem of that scale, but that is exactly what we have done.

15. Concepts that no longer mean what they used to

WoW:
In every industry, there are terms that once had precise meaning but gradually became diluted.
Which concepts in modern watchmaking do you consider today to be the most disconnected from reality?

Andreas Felsl:
Two concepts have become disconnected from reality:

• that watches are an investment class, and
• that rarity automatically creates value.

Secondary‑market data does not support the investment narrative. And rarity is clearly not the main driver of value — the most profitable brand in the industry, Rolex, produces around one million watches per year.

Rolex is the competitor we all face for one of the two wrists available.

16. One sentence

WoW:
If you had to describe in one sentence what truly differentiates Horage from most of the industry — what would it be?

Andreas Felsl:
We advance watchmaking by applying modern technology across every layer of the company instead of relying on heritage as a substitute for innovation.

17. Internal vs. external development of key movement elements

WoW:
If we break your movement down into its key elements – the regulator (balance and hairspring), escapement (anchor and escape wheel), gear train and power system – which of these do you fully design and develop internally, and where do you still rely on external suppliers or know-how?

Andreas Felsl:
We design, lay out, and engineer every key element of our movements. The intellectual property behind the architecture is entirely ours. Where we rely on suppliers, it is limited to highly specialized process know‑how — for example coatings, technical surface treatments, or other niche processes where Switzerland already has world‑class specialists.

Most companies claiming to have their “own” movement are in reality building on ETA architecture and using off‑the‑shelf components for the most difficult parts: ratchet wheels, friction systems for hands, setting mechanisms, and especially the entire assortment. Many do not understand the mathematics behind the gear train, tooth geometry, force distribution, or any of the fundamentals required to claim true authorship or improved performance.

This is the real skill of movement making: controlling the core IP in design and process know‑how. It is not about owning machines; it is about understanding every step that leads to a reliable, high‑performance movement.

We control all fixture and toolmaking relevant to T0 and T1 assembly processes. We never buy finished sub‑assemblies (such as riveted wheel‑and‑pinion units) unless we have a long‑standing relationship with a supplier who fully understands our requirements and gives us complete transparency into their own supply chain.

The reason is simple: when you innovate and improve a movement, you must be able to debug it. If you do not know every process step behind a sub‑assembly, you cannot identify the source of a problem. At this small micron-level scale, even an incorrect washing process can cause a movement to fail.

18. Control over the regulator and hairspring

WoW:
Focusing on the regulator, meaning the balance and especially the hairspring – do you have full control over their design and parameters, or do you still depend in any way on external solutions or expertise?

Andreas Felsl:
For the hairspring, we work with an experienced mathematician who provides the theoretical foundation. We then translate those numbers into a functional 3.5 Hz system. For the escapement, we now perform all mathematical work internally, same for laying out tooth shapes. Since 2011, we have gone through more than eleven improvement iterations on our escapament, and that accumulated knowledge feeds directly back into our simulations, geometry, and process optimization.

In the early days, we did not fully understand the mathematics behind the escapement. Today, we combine deep theoretical understanding with more than a decade of practical experience.

One clarification: one of our shareholders, Florian Serex, is part of our development team and acts as our primary simulator. He works on a contract basis, but after 15 years of collaboration, we consider this in‑house. In complex product development, external theoretic expertise is always part of the equation. Even car manufacturers rely on tools like KISSsoft for gear design, which means they depend on external algorithms and historical data libraries.

No company can draw a perfect line between internal and external know‑how. The real question is: on which side do you lean? The more you rely on external expertise, the less internal understanding you have — and the less you can claim true authorship of your movement.

19. Where process control ends and dependency begins

WoW:
You speak about control of the process. At which exact stage – design, component manufacturing, assembly or regulation – does that control realistically end and turn into dependency on partners?

Andreas Felsl:
On the manufacturing side, we naturally depend on external suppliers for machining tools. But what we do with those tools — the processes, tolerances, workflows, and quality control — is entirely internal know‑how.

On the engineering and design side, there are rare areas of mathematics where we rely on experts with decades of experience. It does not make sense to internalize every niche skill, because the scale does not justify it and Switzerland already has multiple suppliers with world‑class capabilities. Transfer stamping, coatings, and technical surface treatments are good examples.

That said, we are evaluating bringing plating and magnet polishing in‑house to reduce time‑to‑market. In truth, there is very little about our components or their production that we do not understand. We selectively internalize know‑how or processes based on supply‑chain risk and strategic dependency. Movements are a strategic asset, and as Horage grows, we must ensure that no third party can harm us by controlling a critical supplier. This risk assessment guides our IP and process onboarding, besides cost reduction needs achievable by economies of scale and or inhousing. I think as an engineering driven company there is not much know how or skill we cannot learn or execute within our organization. It is merely a Capex question which is limiting us.

20. What is truly yours vs. what is integrated from external sources

WoW:
Without using the marketing definition of “in-house” – what in your movement is truly yours from concept to final execution, and what is in practice integrated from external sources?

Andreas Felsl:
No one in this industry invents everything from scratch. For example, our escapement architecture was inspired by a 1968 Tissot patent from the era when plastics and micro‑injection molding were entering watchmaking. We took the geometric idea and transformed it into a version optimized for silicon. Many of our components draw inspiration from historical solutions — that is how engineering evolves.

But when you look at our component toolkit — System‑K — which is entirely based on our proprietary engineering and modular architecture across five calibers, then the entirety of the IP is ours. We know how to design, engineer, source, quality‑control, manufacture, assemble, and service all of our movements and their parts. At this level of variety and performance, only Rolex and ETA can claim something comparable.

Consider Breitling and Universal Genève. Why did Breitling ask Sellita to industrialize the B31? Why did they ask LTM to handle Universal Genève movements? And why do none of these movements use silicon? Because Breitling can manufacture the B01 — designed by former engineers who also worked on the Daytona — but since then, they have not brought a fully proprietary, high‑performance movement to market. Because they have not team internally which can design industrial movements from the ground up.

There is a huge difference between manufacturing something that has already been designed and de‑risked, and designing something from scratch. Very few people in the world can design an industrially producible movement more or less from blank page. We have several of them in our team, with experience spanning Omega Cal. 8000, the Vaucher micro‑rotor, the Eterna Cal. 39, Richemont ValFleurier and La Joux‑Perret calibers, and our own K1, K2, K3, K‑TOU, KT‑MR — plus another industrial movement that will be revealed in 2026 by a Swiss company.

20. What is truly yours vs. what is integrated from external sources

WoW:
Without using the marketing definition of “in-house” – what in your movement is truly yours from concept to final execution, and what is in practice integrated from external sources?

Andreas Felsl:
No one in this industry invents everything from scratch. For example, our escapement architecture was inspired by a 1968 Tissot patent from the era when plastics and micro‑injection molding were entering watchmaking. We took the geometric idea and transformed it into a version optimized for silicon. Many of our components draw inspiration from historical solutions — that is how engineering evolves.

But when you look at our component toolkit — System‑K — which is entirely based on our proprietary engineering and modular architecture across five calibers, then the entirety of the IP is ours. We know how to design, engineer, source, quality‑control, manufacture, assemble, and service all of our movements and their parts. At this level of variety and performance, only Rolex and ETA can claim something comparable.

Consider Breitling and Universal Genève. Why did Breitling ask Sellita to industrialize the B31? Why did they ask LTM to handle Universal Genève movements? And why do none of these movements use silicon? Because Breitling can manufacture the B01 — designed by former engineers who also worked on the Daytona — but since then, they have not brought a fully proprietary, high‑performance movement to market. Because they have not team internally which can design industrial movements from the ground up.

There is a huge difference between manufacturing something that has already been designed and de‑risked, and designing something from scratch. Very few people in the world can design an industrially producible movement more or less from blank page. We have several of them in our team, with experience spanning Omega Cal. 8000, the Vaucher micro‑rotor, the Eterna Cal. 39, Richemont ValFleurier and La Joux‑Perret calibers, and our own K1, K2, K3, K‑TOU, KT‑MR — plus another industrial movement that will be revealed in 2026 by a Swiss company.

Many thanks to Dariusz Chlastawa for giving permission to share the interview here on the HORAGE Journal.

You can find the original interview (and lots more watch content) here:

Andreas Felsl – Horage - a rebel by choice | WoW Watcher of Watches