During the Covid lockdown, together with my business parter we saw a gap in the luxury watch auction market. Traditional watch auction houses typically charge 20-30% and have a slow consignment process. We conceived Watchdrop - a multi plaform watch auction web-app which would allow for online auctions running 24/7.

Users could use the platform to register, and once passed identity verification could list their watches for sale, manage auction settings, and browse and bid for others' watches, and make online payments if succesful.

I helped to plan, design and build the product as my business partner dealt with partnerships, customer service and business development. With only two of us, there was a lot to do and we each had to wear many hats.

Firstly I designed a simple logo and brand which looked modern and sophisticated. I then built the frontend of the web-app using Vue.js, whilst storing data on Contentful (a SaaS CMS), and hosted it on Netlify. Using Contentful Functions I was able to negate the need for a separate backend, which allowed us to develop new features more quickly.

User identity verification was handled via a Passbase integration. Auth with Auth0. A Stripe integration handled card payments and Sentry for observability.

Over a 18-month period we held over 250 live auctions. We also exhibited at the London Watch Show.

I successfully exited the company in 2022.