1Rolex is one of the most luxury brands in the world,
2valued today at around 8 billion dollars.
3Its history dates back a century ago
4and began with an orphan teenager whose inheritance was stolen away from him.
5With nothing other than his determination to overcome his challenges,
6he ran away from his hometown and moved to another country.
7After a few years working his way out, he decided to follow his passion and opened a watchmaking business.
8Little did he know that this business venture would lead him to pioneer modern wristwatches,
9changing its whole industry and creating a billion-dollar empire.
10Hans Wilsdorf was born in Kulmbach, Germany, on March 22, 1881,
11by parents Anna and Johan Daniel Wilsdorf.
12He was the second son of three children.
13His family ran a fairly successful business that was passed down from his grandfather,
14selling iron goods, classifying them in the middle-range class.
15Unfortunately, his mother got ill during the next few years and died in 1892.
16To make it worse, a year later, his dad would pass away too,
17leaving Hans an orphan at the age of 12.
18Now under the custody of his mother's brothers,
19his uncle immediately decided to sell his family's business and used some of the money for their education,
20putting all three of them in a nice prestigious boarding school called Ernestinum Coburg in Bavaria, Germany.
21Hans hated this decision early on and became depressed.
22While living in the new town, Hans was seen as an outsider
23and was often teased by other boys because of his religion.
24To get through his difficult childhood, he decided to put his focus on school.
25As he got older, he understood that even though he didn't like the decision of his uncles,
26it became an important factor for his success.
27"Our uncles were not indifferent to our fate;"
28"nevertheless, the way in which they made me become self-reliant very early in life made me acquire the habit of looking after my possessions."
29"And looking back, I believe that it is to this that much of my success is due."
30Hans enjoyed reading books and became quite the bright student in school.
31The subjects he most notably excelled in were mathematics and languages, where he learned French and English.
32He was always curious about travel and knew that languages would be very useful,
33which would eventually play a big role in his career.
34During school, he became friends with a Swiss boy
35who would tell him stories of his birthplace in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a city located in Switzerland
36that was well-known for its long history in the watchmaking industry.
37And Hans became very intrigued about the place.
38One day, Hans had enough of the way of his life
39and left the boarding school in Germany to move to Geneva, Switzerland.
40At the age of 19, he got himself a job as an apprentice for an international pearl exporting company.
41This company was buying pearls from various markets and would sort, grade, and package them for sale to jewelers.
42He noticed the company wasn't really creating anything but was still making great profits.
43There he immersed himself to learn their business tactics and was making good money for his age.
44One day, Hans received a letter from his friend who offered him a job for a company called Kuno Korten.
45Kuno Korten was one of the biggest high-quality watchmaking businesses at the time,
46and was exporting about a million Swiss francs worth of pocket watches each year.
47They also produced some of their own watches from scratch.
48This well-known company was based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the place he always wanted to go.
49Even though the company he was already working at was more beneficial for him,
50his curiosity for the place and the business around watches were stronger.
51Therefore, in 1900, he moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds to work for this company.
52He was hired as an English correspondent and clerk
53thanks to his ability to write and read English that he learned back in school
54and was getting paid with a monthly salary of 80 Swiss francs.
55He was also responsible for winding hundreds of pocket watches every day
56and verifying they were accurate.
57He picked up tremendous insight into watchmaking
58and obtained a big deal of knowledge about how all types of watches were produced.
59However, his time there was cut short.
60He had to go back to Germany and serve in the army after only two years at Kuno Korten.
61After his service at 22 years old,
62he moved to London, England, to work for another company of high-quality watches.
63There, he was responsible for a bigger role
64and was now in charge of increasing their sales.
65During the two years he stayed there, he successfully managed to find more clients for the company
66and grew their sales over time.
67By then, he was already thinking about building his own business of watches
68and was learning everything he could to further his knowledge into his future business.
69During those years, he also met his future wife, Florence Frances May Crotty,
70and would get married shortly after.
71One day, Hans was sitting outside with his much older brother-in-law, Alfred James Davis,
72and talked about life and plans for their future.
73Hans told him he felt he was confident enough to open his own business of watches
74but he just needed some capital.
75Alfred did have the money and knew how passionate Hans was about watches.
76Despite being very young, he took a chance on the German
77and told him he was going to help him on his business venture
78and was ready to invest his money.
79They shook hands together, and in 1905, they founded the Wilsdorf and Davis Limited,
80which would eventually become Rolex a few years later.
81They partnered up with a Swiss watch company called Hermon Egler,
82which was based in Switzerland and started importing movements from the Swiss country to England,
83placing them in watch cases.
84They also opened an office in Bienne, Switzerland, to favor his partnership there.
85Soon after, they were specializing in the distribution of timepieces at affordable rates.
86Even though Hans was a lover of watches,
87there was one major thing he found unfavorable about the watch industry: pocket watches.
88At the time, wristwatches were mostly worn by women as jewelry
89and were looked down upon by some, the reason being for not being well-precise on the time.
90These watches were much smaller than pocket watches and consisted of smaller movements,
91which would regularly make the clock either go faster or slower due to small details in the movements.
92This was the main reason why pocket watches were more popular at the time
93and was considered masculine for its bulky size.
94But for Hans, he mostly found it inconvenient to use.
95It was a little hassle for him every time he had to reach his hand in the pocket in order to see the time,
96especially when his hands were busy.
97"Until then, it was thought to be almost impossible to create the perfect wristwatch"
98"that could consistently show the exact time and be in everyday use."
99"My personal opinion is that pocket watches will almost completely disappear,"
100"and that wristwatches will replace them definitively."
101Hans predicted that sooner or later wristwatches were going to be the new norm for everybody
102and was fully committed to finding a way to create the perfect wristwatch for it.
103He spent the next several years traveling to many countries all around Europe
104and met countless watchmakers to discuss about the small details of watches.
105During those years, he started to release his own wristwatches beginning the same year he founded his company.
106One watch after another, he was crafting down on creating a better high quality and reliable wristwatch for men and women
107applying what he learned from other watchmakers from his journey.
108Soon after, his company began to get some traction,
109and by 1908, it was one of the top firms in the watchmaking industry in England.
110By now, Hans wanted to change the name of his company to something high-class, catchy, and easy to say, no matter the language.
111It also needed to be short so the name could fit easily in the dial of the watch.
112He spent a big deal of time combining five letters from the alphabet to come up with something
113until finally, Rolex was born.
114He immediately knew it was the perfect one,
115and a few days later he registered the Rolex name as a trademark for Wilsdorf and Davis Limited in 1908.
116During the next few years, Rolex was becoming known for its high-quality wristwatches,
117and many rich people were already starting to use it.
118But it didn't take long after when the First World War broke out,
119and many businesses, including watch firms, were struggling to stay in business
120and even had to shut down in some cases, but not Rolex.
121This tragic event only made Hans's company more famous because of its already reliable wristwatches.
122Many soldiers were given Rolex watches instead of pocket watches
123because it was much easier and safer to use.
124It also helped them to better coordinate their attacks because of its precision on time.
125By then, the company had grown to such an extent that they were employing 60 people in 1914
126and had big open office spaces in London.
127To further their credibility, Rolex had already won the first-ever wristwatch chronometer rating from Switzerland,
128followed by a Class A certificate of precision from London's Q Observatory.
129This made the brand more trustworthy for people to buy.
130But not everything was sunshine and rainbows for Hans.
131In 1914, the British applied a 33% tax for all companies registered in Great Britain
132that were exporting goods across international borders.
133It became a big concern for Hans,
134so he moved his company's headquarters from London to Bienne, Switzerland,
135in order to avoid these taxes.
136Another reason for his move was because of the World War.
137People from Britain began to dislike the Germans
138since the name Hans Wilsdorf was clearly German.
139And even though he registered Rolex before,
140he was still using the Wilsdorf and Davis name in England,
141which was getting looked down upon.
142This also led him to completely switch his company name
143from Wilsdorf and Davis Limited to the Rolex Watch Corporation Limited in 1915.
14410 years later, Hans would also register Rolex's famous trademark logo of the five-star crown,
145which became implemented from then on on the dial of their watches.
146In 1919, the Rolex Watch Corporation moved its main office from Bienne to Geneva,
147where it still stands today.
148From now on, the company focused on manufacturing the watch movements in Bienne
149and would transport them to Geneva, where they carefully verify the movements were accurate,
150finishing them with their high-class design and launching their products.
151It's here in Geneva where Hans would go all in with his team
152to improve the technical innovation of the wristwatch.
153"We must succeed in making the watch case so tight"
154"that our movements will be permanently guaranteed against damage caused by dust, perspiration, water, heat, and cold."
155"Only then will the perfect accuracy of the Rolex watch be secured."
156Thanks to his patience and determination, it eventually paid off and paid off big time.
157In 1926, Rolex released their new model that would forever change the watch industry:
158the Rolex Oyster, the first-ever waterproof wristwatch in history.
159This new model was sealed with a very tight case
160that provided optimal protection for the small watch movements inside,
161leading it to be waterproof.
162Hans knew this was revolutionary,
163and people would certainly be interested in it,
164but he decided to wait for the perfect opportunity to present it to the world in a very creative way.
165In 1927, Hans heard about a woman from London named Mercedes Gleitze
166who claimed to be capable of swimming across the English Channel,
167a 20.5-mile body of water that separated England and France.
168People didn't believe her, so she was set to do it again in front of thousands of people,
169even though the water temperature was much colder.
170Hans saw the opportunity and encouraged her to wear a Rolex Oyster watch around her neck.
171After swimming for over 10 hours, she was pulled out from the water after almost freezing to death
172and made it about 4/5 of the way across the channel.
173The task was not a complete success, but the Rolex Oyster came out of the water in perfect condition.
174People went crazy for the watch,
175and Hans followed the publicity by putting an ad in front of the London Daily Mail newspaper related to the event.
176This is the point where Rolex rose to international fame as a revolutionary watch.
177To further the hype, Hans also marketed his Rolex Oyster inside fishbowls with real fishes in it
178on the sale display of every Rolex dealership for people to see when they walked by.
179This genius strategy worked amazingly,
180and people became hooked on the products.
181By now, Hans decided to advertise heavily on Rolex.
182So in 1928, he worked with the top British model at the time, Evelyn Lane, to promote his watches,
183and of course, there were pictures of her wearing her wristwatch inside a fishbowl.
184The publicity didn't stop there.
185In 1933, Rolex Oysters were seen in the newspaper again related to a flight over Mount Everest,
186in which the crew members who were wearing their Rolexes were very satisfied to see
187that after the flight, their watches were still 100% functional.
188Another example was when the famous driver Malcolm Campbell
189set a speed record for driving around 300 miles per hour
190wearing his Rolex in 1935.
191Hans asked his permission to publicize it,
192and Malcolm accepted it, refusing to get paid.
193At this point, people began to perceive Rolex not only as a high-quality designed watch
194but also as a trustworthy, reliable, and technical wristwatch
195that anyone can wear for everyday use.
196Only great marketing is needed to make a company successful.
197During these times, Rolex continued to fascinate people when they introduced their updated model,
198the Rolex Oyster Perpetual, in 1931,
199which was the first-ever waterproof and self-winding wristwatch.
200Its previous model of the Rolex Oyster was a great achievement,
201but the challenge was that you still had to often manually wind the watch,
202which made it more difficult because of its tight case.
203You had to unscrew the Oyster crown first, wind it, then re-screw it again.
204Creating this self-winding watch was a dream that for centuries people tried to perfect,
205but none were successful.
206From 1934 to 1940,
207Hans also produced some high-quality watches outside of the Rolex firm
208and trademarked it under his own name,
209but it was discontinued due to the hatred that French, British, and U.S. Markets had for Germany.
210Even with all his achievements, Hans would sometimes struggle to make his way in the market
211and had to put double the effort to make a successful company due to his German name.
212When World War II broke out, Rolex took a hard hit.
213It became difficult and expensive to export products outside of Switzerland to some other big markets in Europe.
214Hans was frustrated with the situation,
215and to add to his bad luck, another tragedy followed:
216his wife passed away in 1944.
217To commemorate his wife, he established the Wilsdorf Foundation,
218a charity organization for social causes.
219Something to mention shortly before Hans's death,
220he transferred 100% ownership of Rolex to the Wilsdorf Foundation,
221which still owns and controls Rolex to this day.
222Therefore, Rolex will never go public or be sold,
223nor will they ever pay any taxes because it's essentially a charity.
224As soon as World War II finished,
225Rolex started to take off and tremendously.
226To give you an idea, in 1946, Rolex had sold its 50,000 certified Rolex chronometer,
227which they started certifying 20 years ago.
228By the next year, in 1947,
229their sales reached their 100,000 certified Rolex chronometer,
230doubling their sales from the past two decades in a single year.
231Its success was backed up from its new model that was released in 1945, the Rolex Datejust -
232the first waterproof self-winding wristwatch to indicate the date of the month on the dial.
233This was followed by another revolutionary model nearly 10 years later, the Rolex Day-Date -
234the first waterproof and self-winding wristwatch to not only include the date of the month
235but also the day of the week.
236These types of watches are still seen to this day,
237which is often the standard for normal use of wristwatches.
238During the '50s, Rolex kept releasing a series of innovative watches.
239The most legendary one was the Rolex Submariner, introduced in 1953.
240It was the first deep-diving waterproof wristwatch that could reach 100 meters deep in the ocean
241without getting dysfunctional.
242Hans Wilsdorf died in the year 1960.
243Following his death, Rolex started to approach itself as the luxury brand it is today.
244The company focused their marketing more toward being an exclusive watch collection for people of high society, which worked.
245Another factor to consider is that in 1985,
246Rolex started to manufacture its watches with 904L,
247a very endurable and expensive steel,
248becoming the first watch to ever do so,
249which is one of the reasons for their expensive prices.
250Today, Rolex remains the most recognizable watch brand in the world.
251From an orphan boy who started with nothing,
252Hans Wilsdorf went for his own path and is responsible for changing the watch industry to what we know today.
253His passion for design and technical innovation has placed him on the list of one of the most influential men in the industry,
254and his legacy can be seen today in every person wearing a Rolex.