{"id":21881,"date":"2020-01-02T14:24:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T19:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=21881"},"modified":"2020-01-02T14:24:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T19:24:47","slug":"time-well-spent-michael-sims-03-and-gash-clayton-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/time-well-spent-michael-sims-03-and-gash-clayton-03\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Well Spent: Michael Sims '03 and Gash Clayton '03"},"content":{"rendered":"

The founders of the sophisticated sports watch company Hook + Gaff are settling into their success \u2014 and their product\u2019s higher purpose.<\/em>\"Michael<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWatches have been made\u00a0since the late 1800s.\u00a0<\/span>There\u2019re a few that have tackled the idea with one or two models, but they\u2019ve never gone all in with this concept.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concept that Michael Sims is referring to is a watch designed specifically to alleviate discomfort while playing golf or casting a fishing rod by having a crown placement (the small knob on the side of the watch face that adjusts the time) on the left side rather than the right. This way, the crown doesn\u2019t dig\u00a0into the skin on the back of the left hand when it\u2019s bent or in motion.<\/p>\n

When Sims first came up with the idea, he was playing golf.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m one of those weird guys who doesn\u2019t take . off his watch when playing golf,\u201d he laughs. \u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019d have a callus on the back of my hand from the traditional crown placement.\u201d In the midst of juggling his insurance company in Anderson . and helping with his wife\u2019s Chick-fil-A business in Columbia, Sims started researching watches for a solution. The idea for Hook + Gaff began to take shape in his mind, and he knew he\u2019d need a logo, designs and other assets to move forward.<\/p>\n

So, he turned to his college buddy Gash Clayton. Clayton, a lawyer by day and artist by night, drafted the sharp, red logo for Hook + Gaff in just a few hours, sending it back to Sims, who was immediately sold. The partnership only grew from there:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give each other opinions,\u201d says Clayton, \u201cbut at the end of the day, there\u2019s no argument over who makes the final call.\u201d Clayton controls the company\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>designs and brand while Sims oversees the day-to-day operations. After launching the company in 2013 with 300 Sportfisher watches manufactured in Switzerland, Sims and Clayton entered Garden & Gun magazine\u2019s \u201cMade in the South\u201d competition. The watch didn\u2019t make the cut, but it was included in the Southern magazine\u2019s gift guide, which \u201creally jumpstarted the brand,\u201d Sims says. Now, Hook + Gaff is growing rapidly with stateside assembly and celebrity ambassadors like Carter Andrews of National Geographic\u2019s Legendary Catch<\/em> and Brad Leone of Bon App\u00e9tit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Durability is Hook + Gaff\u2019s bread and butter. \u201cWe knew that our [customers] were really going to put these through the ringer,\u201d Sims explains. Materials like titanium, scratch-proof sapphire glass and Italian dive straps are staples in each collection. Despite their high-quality product, the question Clayton and Sims get all the time is, \u201cWhat does your watch do that my smartwatch can\u2019t do?\u201d Their answer may surprise you: \u201cTo get away from technology, every once in a while, is a good thing because what you\u2019re going to remember down the road is the time you spent with family and friends, doing things you love to do. \u2026 Our hashtag has become \u2018Time Well Spent\u2019 over this last year as we try to push that message.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is time well spent for you?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The founders of the sophisticated sports watch company Hook + Gaff are settling into their success \u2014 and their product\u2019s higher purpose. \u201cWatches have been made\u00a0since the late 1800s.\u00a0There\u2019re a few that have tackled the idea with one or two models, but they\u2019ve never gone all in with this concept.\u201d The concept that Michael Sims […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":21883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[1395,1526,2688,3230,3346],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-21881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","tag-golf","tag-hook-and-gaff","tag-sports","tag-watches","tag-winter-2020-alumni-profiles"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/12\/i-n5G9Xpz-X3-e1576167152335.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21881"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=21881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}