Meet Lawrence Bouligny | Pastor, Watch geek.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lawrence Bouligny and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lawrence, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
My wife and I stepped out in faith and sold our home in San Diego so that I could pursue the Christian ministry. We moved to L.A. so I could attend seminary and, after graduating, connected with a church in Fillmore, California. It was a small congregation and the position was part-time, so I was given the church’s blessing to pursue another job, so long as it didn’t interfere with the ministry.

After kicking some ideas around, I thought that it could be possible to turn my interest in watches into some sort of steady income. I had been buying and selling watches to supplement our income already, which usually involved buying a watch collection and selling the individual items for a profit. The problem was it was very time consuming. Not only did I spend countless hours scouring the internet looking for watch collections, but then between making minor repairs, photography, listing, etc., it consumed all of my free time. While trying at the same time to be a faithful pastor and not neglect our growing family, I knew I could not do this indefinitely. I was looking for something a little more steady and that which did not require as much of a time investment.

Since I was already very involved on Seiko watch forums, I noticed a recurring theme with a lot of the threads. Guys would groan about the dearth of options for straps and bracelets for their vintage watches. There was a great need and no one was really stepping up to fill it. After much prayer and research, I decided to try my hand at producing a few of these impossible-to-find vintage items, so as to meet this great need in the watch community, and at the same time, help provide for my family. Hence, Uncle Seiko was born!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I think what sets me apart from other related businesses is that my philosophy is simple–if I don’t love wearing it, I won’t put my name on it. So, I focus on producing an item that I want to wear, and then if I love it, I make it available to the collecting community. It’s kind of a selfish motivation, but it’s been a great guide for me. If I buy a new watch and I don’t like the available options, I get to work and design something that I want to wear on it. It seems to be working!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I definitely want to give thanks to my wife, who trusted me enough to take what little we had and invest it in a business. We were in a house we could barely afford and when interest rates dropped, we remortgaged and I convinced her to let me use $10k to try to make this idea work. She truly has great faith!

Website: www.uncleseiko.com

Instagram: @uncleseiko

Image Credits
Photos by Will Gilles (@watchclicker)