Watch collectors love to talk about watches. It’s one of our defining features and honestly, a pain for anyone around us that doesn’t collect watches. That’s what has made Watch Crunch, a social media platform specifically aimed at the horologically obsessed, a huge success story. It’s a place for us nerds to just be nerds and to post our watches, whether they’re cool, weird, cheap, pricey or anything in-between.
So, we sat down with the man behind the platform, Max Ma, to find out what makes him tick, what made him decide to launch such a specific idea and, more importantly, get to know the man behind the profile.
What was the last watch you bought?
The Tudor Pelagos FXD. I feel like Tudor always get close to making the watch that everyone wants but conspire to not quite give you exactly it and I go through Tudors faster than I do cereal brands. But they do a good job with each new release, so I think to myself, ‘is this the one? Maybe this is the one…’ If history is any judge, then this is my ‘current’ Tudor. I’ve already got my feelers out for the new FXD GMT.
For me the FXD stands most with the spirit of Tudor. I gravitate towards the historical element with the Marine Nationale and the Snowflake and I’ve always just wanted a modern Snowflake. This comes closest to it. There’s something enthusiast about it; I wouldn’t recommend a fixed lug watch like this to my friends that wear Apple Watches. But if you see someone wearing a Black Bay 58, you might give them a thumbs up; if you see someone wearing a Pelagos FXD, you probably want to have a beer with them.
Do you collect anything outside of watches?
I’m a neurologist by day – a lot of people are surprised when they here that, but watches are an intense hobby for me. Watches occupy my right brain, the aesthetics and ephemeral; being a neurologist is all left brain 90-degree corners. But it does mean I have a rather large collection of reflex hammers. It’s the tool we have to interrogate the innards of the body without opening you up. Throughout my training I’ve upgraded my hammers and I’m now at the point where I have more reflex hammers than I’ve had Tudors. I could talk for hours about the history of the reflex hammer, how the earliest were made from whale ribs, all of that. I’m actually looking for one of those, as well as one called the Queen’s Square. My current hammer is titanium with my name engraved on it, but I’m still looking for that grail…
What, other than a watch, is at the top of your wish list?
Honestly, a dedicated space for our content. Every video we make it a love letter to watches and as we grew, so too did our stash of equipment to the point where we – myself and Josh, the guy I work with on our videos – needed a dedicated space. We bit the bullet and got into a studio space that we’re still in the middle of getting ready and furnishing; top of my wish list is for us to finally get it done!
A recent find/discovery?
I love discovering new lines of vintage or neo-vintage watches that hit that sweet spot between value and style. I stumbled recently into vintage Grand and King Seikos and bought a 44-999. These watches share the same design language as modern Grand Seikos, they did an amazing job taking that older silhouette and refining it for modern collectors.
You can find these older ones though for under $1,000, some have hi-beat movements, they have the same sharp, faceted hands, similar case design language with large, polished surfaces. On the wrist you might have a 36 or 37mm watch but it feels really modern. If you’re looking for a wedding watch with a bit of character, something that’s 60 years old but still looks modern and won’t break the bank, for me vintage Grand Seiko is it.
What inspires you?
The chance to create something. That was the case with WatchCrunch, seeing all these old forums that weren’t exactly a pleasure to use and wanting to build something better. But it’s probably more directly funnelled into straps.
I love military inspired watches and therefore NATO straps, but I’ve never been satisfied with it on the wrist. Manufacturers spend millions of dollars trying to make their watches as thin as possible, then we go and add two, two-and-a-half millimetres of material underneath. On something like a Speedmaster, it looks brilliant but for me at least makes it almost unwearable, propped up so high and wobbly. So, I designed something I called the Zero Pass strap – it looks like a NATO but it wears like a dream. It’s one of these things that seems so straightforward you wonder why it’s not been done before.
So, I reached out to a few strap makers and now David at The Strap Tailor is helping me make them. Funny thing, he used to live in Seattle where I live and was a tech guy before he was a strap maker, so it takes a tech bro and an OCD neurologist to make something like this come alive. It’s opportunities like that which really inspired me. I’m not trying to revolutionise the watch industry, but it’s satisfying to leave my own stamp on it.
A book, podcast, or album that changed the way you think?
Back to the neurology thing, I’m fascinated by how we perceive the world. We’re locked into our own perceptions and need to remind ourselves that everything – everything – is subjective. We have to interpret everything with our brains first and that interpretation isn’t reality. So, there’s a book called Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer. There’s a chapter where he talks about distinguishing what your eyeballs see and what your brain sees.
We assume that we just make this perfect rendering of the world on the inside, but what’s cast onto your retina is nothing like you perceive. There’s a tremendous amount of post-processing that happens in the brain to make that image sharper, more contrasting, more defined. It’s like a camera where we don’t see what hits the sensor, just what the computer spits out. But with the brain it’s an even stronger difference. If you could see the image on your retina, it would look like an impressionist painting. And what you call green might not be what I call green. So, when I call a watch dial green and everyone else says it’s blue, that’s why.
Who is a celebrity or person of note that you admire?
I’m tempted to say Brad Pitt given his taste in watches. But in this modern time there’s a lot of distractions and it all makes me feel a bit ADHD. When that happens, I put on YouTube videos of Alan Watts. He’s sort of this British philosopher that spends a lot of time in Asia learning about Buddhism and Daoism. He translates Eastern philosophy for Westerners. He has this great British orator voice and has a really elegant way of putting the universe into perspective.
One thing that recently struck a nerve with me is that we often get into this mindset that everything has to go right and if it doesn’t, that’s unfair, we’re a victim. But his point is that if you look at the universe, everything is in balance, that you can’t have light without dark, yin and yang and all that stuff. So, it’s kind of silly to think that only good things should happen. So, when I buy a vintage watch and the movement wasn’t serviced like they told me, I can shrug my shoulders and think ‘I was happy with my last watch, so I was due for a dud.’
What’s your ideal long weekend?
Honestly, a weekend where I can just make content. My friend Josh and I running around with cameras, going to a nice, aesthetic coffee shop, talk about how AI is going to kill us all and shoot some cool watches. That’s the highlight of my weekends these days, the joy of ‘getting the shot’. If I lose that, we’ll probably stop making videos.
What would we always find in your fridge?
Mango juice. I really like mango juice you can do a lot with it. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
What’s a rule or mantra that you live by?
In short, leave the places you’ve been better than you found them. We’ve done a few different collaborations with brands and I’ve always donated the money to the Arbor Day Foundation. They rehabilitate forests that have been destroyed in fires or logging – especially relevant in recent days. I get to leverage these bigger projects to help, to transform these little trinkets we ogle into something good.
What does the year ahead look like for you?
This is a huge year for Watch Crunch, the app. We started out as a grassroots community of nerds during the pandemic that wanted a modern forum interface. Reddit was toxic, Instagram wasn’t conducive to discussions and WatchUSeek was just clunky. Luckily Watch Crunch has been embraced by over 100,000 members and now it’s time to take things to the next level.
So, we’ll be introducing a few more professional features but more importantly, we’ll be bringing in a marketplace. I keep hearing that it’s easy to buy a watch but hard to sell, so we’re looking to make the process as integrated as possible. It just feels better to buy a watch from someone you’ve been chatting to on a website than some random, anonymous buyer. Hopefully it all goes off without a hitch!
