Michael Morgan, now the 25-year-old proprietor of Iconic Watch Firm, offered his first Rolex Submariner when he was simply 13 years previous — a sale that happened primarily out of boredom. “Whenever you’re 12, 13, you normally get tired of issues very, in a short time,” Morgan tells Entrepreneur. “So inside six months [of buying it], I knew that I needed to promote [the vintage Submariner].”
How did a 13-year-old find yourself with a aspect hustle promoting costly watches? From a younger age, nearly eight or 9, Morgan says he had an appreciation for “previous issues.” It started with Porsches — “I might pick every thing about them.” However youngsters cannot exit and purchase a automotive, so Morgan began to gather cash, stamps and fountain pens earlier than turning his consideration to watches.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Iconic Watch Firm. Michael Morgan.
“I might at all times preferred watches,” Morgan remembers. “My dad had a few good watches. Once I was about 10 years previous, I began to examine watches always. Pocket watches first. And very similar to cash, stamps and pens, I spotted pocket watches are usually not actually helpful. And from there on, I spent most of my time studying about watches. [The book] Classic Rolex grew to become the main target.”
Morgan pored over the pages of that ebook on daily basis and in the end purchased his first classic Rolex Submariner at age 12, buying and selling a few watches he owned and utilizing some financial savings to make the acquisition that might kick off his aspect hustle. “I bear in mind it price me $3,500, which on the time appeared like an amazing sum of cash,” Morgan says.
Morgan listed the look ahead to an “optimistic” $5,500 on a web-based discussion board — and was considerably shocked when the piece offered inside two days for $5,200. That was when “the sunshine bulb went off;” Morgan realized that his pastime might double as a critical money-maker. Though taking the enterprise full-time wasn’t doable for the younger entrepreneur then, he noticed the enterprise as one thing enjoyable that would assist him purchase extra watches.
“[When I said] ‘I am really 14 years previous,’ he was blown away. And he really ended up turning into a [regular customer].”
A number of years later, Morgan knew his watch-selling aspect hustle was the actual deal. It already took up most of his time, and “college was positively secondary.” Morgan offered watches throughout his lunch hour and repeatedly facilitated transactions within the $50,000-and-above vary, he says. Regardless of the early successes, when he was beginning out, Morgan did not like taking cellphone calls — as a result of they might give away his age.
“I had this one consumer who was keen on shopping for two watches, so I knew that I needed to do a cellphone name,” Morgan remembers. “I am on the cellphone with him. I got here off okay, and on the finish, he requested me how previous I used to be. I used to be like, Oh god. I informed him [I was 14]. First, he thought it was a joke. [But when I said] ‘I am really 14 years previous,’ he was blown away. And he really ended up turning into a [regular customer].”
Though being a younger entrepreneur wasn’t with out its challenges, it did include one main benefit — “lots of people need to assist you to once you’re younger,” Morgan says.
By the point he was 18, Morgan had little interest in school, however his mother and father inspired him to go. He ended up interviewing on the College of Southern California. The primary dialog did not go effectively, Morgan admits; the interviewer requested obscure questions that did not permit his entrepreneurial acumen to shine. However his father organized a second interview so Morgan might talk about his enterprise, and by the tip of that assembly, Morgan says the interviewer was pitching USC to him. Morgan was excited to attend and enrolled, however by the point his junior 12 months rolled round, balancing his workload as a pupil and enterprise proprietor wasn’t sustainable — and he needed to go all in on watches.
“There’s most likely 30 lively folks always looking out [for vintage watches]. So competitors has gotten extraordinarily fierce.”
Today, age is not Morgan’s greatest enterprise problem: That may be sourcing the classic watches he sells. “The issue is we’re coping with previous watches, and there aren’t that many nice items on the market, and as time has gone on, there are increasingly more folks looking out,” Morgan explains. “Once I first began, there have been most likely 5 to 10 main folks within the U.S. actively shopping for classic. [Now], there’s most likely 30 lively folks always looking out. So competitors has gotten extraordinarily fierce.”
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Iconic Watch Firm
Morgan says he is gained a popularity for sourcing a few of the rarest classic watches — primarily Rolexes — and has flown internationally to amass a few of them. “A spotlight could be discovering the bottom serial quantity and presumably first recognized Rolex GMT-Grasp from 1955 discovered through an Instagram DM with historical past tracing to Walt Disney,” he notes. Morgan loves the chase and admits that “discovering the subsequent nice watch is what will get [him] going each single day.”
Morgan’s dedication to the enterprise has helped it flourish: He is offered hundreds of watches to shoppers throughout the globe, and since 2017, annual income has exceeded $10 million, with a major concentrate on non-public gross sales. And one notable latest transaction? He offered a 1970 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona ref.6263 “Paul Newman” for $750,000 to a outstanding collector in Asia.
Ardour made it doable for Morgan to take his watch enterprise from aspect hustle to an organization that is grossed greater than $110 million, so the entrepreneur encourages all younger, aspiring entrepreneurs to seek out theirs — and observe it into ventures of their very own. “Reap the benefits of your ardour if it might probably result in a enterprise,” Morgan says. “It is a very lucky alternative to have. It makes all of the arduous work concerned with operating your individual enterprise that rather more pleasing.”
This text is a part of our ongoing sequence highlighting the tales, challenges and triumphs of being a Younger Entrepreneur®.