Solius
Montreal
Watching the shocking 2016 documentary Before the Flood, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, was a turning point for Samuel Leroux and Alexandre Desabres.
As business students at HEC Montreal, Quebec's most prestigious business school, the two men collaborated on the university's entrepreneurial competition and were considering going into business together when the climate change documentary shifted their focus.
"We realized we wanted to do something to improve people's consumption habits, make a positive impact," Desabres, 30, said in a video call from Solios' new office and manufacturing center in Le Sud-Ouest, a borough of Montreal. “As watch fanatics being ourselves, we knew that the industry was really conservative.”
After graduating, the men took jobs in finance to gain experience and used their vacation time to take research trips to see industrial centers such as Japan, Hong Kong, France and Switzerland. “I think being French Canadian really helped us because French is a very important language in the watch industry, and being Canadian in this industry is completely new,” said the master. Leroux, also 30 years old.
Being fluent in a common language with the watch producers also helped them get straight to the point. “The watchmakers in Switzerland assumed we were there for a ‘Swiss Made’ movement,” said Mr. Leroux. “But we told them, ‘We are here because you have the expertise to create a watch that has a much lower impact on the environment. But you just don't use your abilities to do that! "
By 2019, the partners had settled on their product offering: solar-powered dress watches for men and women that will retail for $300 to $350 will be slim and sleek, and made from as much recycled and recycled materials as possible. Materials now include vegan leather, certified recycled stainless steel, and an innovative transparent biopolymer watch face that allows sunlight to reach the solar cell.
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