"I wanted to write about watches the way great writers wrote about cars or music — with knowledge, passion, and a point of view."
Ben Clymer founded Hodinkee in 2008 as a personal blog focused on mechanical watches, written with genuine enthusiasm and a clear editorial voice at a time when online watch content was dominated either by manufacturer press releases or collector forum posts. From this beginning, Hodinkee grew into the most influential watch media company in the world, fundamentally reshaping how the industry communicates with collectors and how a new generation of enthusiasts discovered and engaged with the subject.
Clymer's editorial instinct was to treat watches as objects of genuine cultural significance — writing profiles of watchmakers with the care usually reserved for musicians or artists, covering independent makers alongside major brands, and applying a standard of journalistic quality that was unusual in a category previously served mostly by advertorial content. The site attracted a readership that was younger, more globally distributed, and more independent in its tastes than the traditional watch press had served, and Hodinkee's effect on the fortunes of certain independent brands and references — its coverage could visibly move secondary market prices — was evidence of real editorial authority.
Clymer grew Hodinkee into a media and commerce business, adding a shop, a magazine, a radio show, and equity partnerships with several watch brands. He transitioned out of the CEO role in 2021, and Hodinkee subsequently went through a period of restructuring. His own relationship with the brand he founded has been complex in the years since. Whatever the trajectory of the company, however, his founding contribution — establishing that there was a large, intelligent, underserved audience for serious watch content — changed the industry's relationship with its own audience permanently.