Case study — Watch Pursuit
A platform built to
unify 50+ marketplaces
in 7 months
A unified search and price intelligence platform for luxury watches
The Summary.
Watch Pursuit partnered with Ontik to unify 50+ luxury marketplaces into one search platform, solving overchoice and pricing anxiety for collectors with real time price intelligence and a scalable data engine underneath.
7
Months
50+
Marketplaces
"This is probably the best product in the space right now. I've looked at every top marketplace. There is nothing like us. The moment I saw it, I knew we'd done something special together."
Shel Smith
CEO & Founder, Watch Pursuit
About Watch Pursuit.
Watch Pursuit is a discovery platform for luxury watch collectors navigating a 60 billion dollar market. With 528 brands and thousands of listings, buyers faced overchoice and grey market pricing anxiety, tracking prices manually across dozens of sites. Ontik built a community first aggregator targeting Gen Z and Millennial buyers, unifying fifty plus marketplaces into one trusted search experience.
The Challenge.
Watch Pursuit's founder discovered a market with no real solution. The global luxury watch market exceeds 60 billion dollars, with 528 recognized brands and Rolex alone offering 48,000 distinct references. Focus groups revealed two consistent pain points: overchoice, where buyers could not navigate the sheer volume of options, and pricing anxiety, where grey market transactions left collectors unsure if they were paying a fair price. Serious hobbyists kept manual spreadsheets tracking the top ten marketplaces because no tool aggregated listings. Existing players like Chrono24 functioned as reference points but never solved the underlying decision problem for everyday buyers.
A downside of building something genuinely new is that there was no playbook to follow. The team had to design an entirely original price intelligence model, scoring listings as fair, good, or great against a constantly shifting median. This had to work across fifty plus marketplaces with inconsistent data quality, listing errors, and no standard taxonomy for brands or references.
Watch Pursuit needed an outsourced team because building this internally was not feasible on a startup budget. The build had to happen fast, stay flexible under constant founder input, and never break trust with early users.
Watch Pursuit needed a platform that solved overchoice and pricing anxiety across fifty plus marketplaces. Building an original price intelligence model from scratch, on a startup budget, while staying flexible for a hands on founder, would set the tone for everything after.
The Solution.
Within weeks, Ontik assembled a team to build the platform. Engineers mapped fifty plus marketplaces and designed a scraping and normalization pipeline. We pinpointed React.js and a custom AI search layer as the foundation, making the platform fast, mobile friendly, and scalable enough to add new luxury categories without rebuilding.
All Technologies Used.
The Outcome.
Ontik helped Watch Pursuit by:
- Aggregating fifty plus marketplaces into one unified search experience for buyers.
- Building a real time price intelligence engine scoring listings as fair, good, or great across 1.5 to 2 million watches daily.
- Giving collectors access to community driven listings across fifty plus trusted marketplaces.
The platform launched to its first cohort of Gen Z and Millennial buyers, with a data layer ready to power future luxury categories.
Your Idea could be Live Next Quarter
Let's Discuss Your IdeaCase study — Watch Pursuit
A platform built to unify 50+ marketplaces in 7 months
A unified search and price intelligence platform for luxury watches
The Summary.
7
Months
50+
Marketplaces
Watch Pursuit partnered with Ontik to unify 50+ luxury marketplaces into one search platform, solving overchoice and pricing anxiety for collectors with real time price intelligence and a scalable data engine underneath.
"This is probably the best product in the space right now. I've looked at every top marketplace. There is nothing like us. The moment I saw it, I knew we'd done something special together."
Shel Smith
CEO & Founder, Watch Pursuit
About Watch Pursuit.
Watch Pursuit is a discovery platform for luxury watch collectors navigating a 60 billion dollar market. With 528 brands and thousands of listings, buyers faced overchoice and grey market pricing anxiety, tracking prices manually across dozens of sites. Ontik built a community first aggregator targeting Gen Z and Millennial buyers, unifying fifty plus marketplaces into one trusted search experience.
The Challenge.
Watch Pursuit needed a platform that solved overchoice and pricing anxiety across fifty plus marketplaces. Building an original price intelligence model from scratch, on a startup budget, while staying flexible for a hands on founder, would set the tone for everything after.
Watch Pursuit's founder discovered a market with no real solution. The global luxury watch market exceeds 60 billion dollars, with 528 recognized brands and Rolex alone offering 48,000 distinct references. Focus groups revealed two consistent pain points: overchoice, where buyers could not navigate the sheer volume of options, and pricing anxiety, where grey market transactions left collectors unsure if they were paying a fair price. Serious hobbyists kept manual spreadsheets tracking the top ten marketplaces because no tool aggregated listings. Existing players like Chrono24 functioned as reference points but never solved the underlying decision problem for everyday buyers.
A downside of building something genuinely new is that there was no playbook to follow. The team had to design an entirely original price intelligence model, scoring listings as fair, good, or great against a constantly shifting median. This had to work across fifty plus marketplaces with inconsistent data quality, listing errors, and no standard taxonomy for brands or references.
Watch Pursuit needed an outsourced team because building this internally was not feasible on a startup budget. The build had to happen fast, stay flexible under constant founder input, and never break trust with early users.
The Solution.
Within weeks, Ontik assembled a team to build the platform. Engineers mapped fifty plus marketplaces and designed a scraping and normalization pipeline. We pinpointed React.js and a custom AI search layer as the foundation, making the platform fast, mobile friendly, and scalable enough to add new luxury categories without rebuilding.
All Technologies Used.
The Outcome.
Ontik helped Watch Pursuit by:
- Aggregating fifty plus marketplaces into one unified search experience for buyers.
- Building a real time price intelligence engine scoring listings as fair, good, or great across 1.5 to 2 million watches daily.
- Giving collectors access to community driven listings across fifty plus trusted marketplaces.
The platform launched to its first cohort of Gen Z and Millennial buyers, with a data layer ready to power future luxury categories.
Your Idea could be Live Next Quarter
Let's Discuss Your IdeaOur Client's Thought
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"I recently visited the Ontik Technology office and was impressed by the team’s curiosity, professionalism, and enthusiasm for building meaningful solutions. Their culture reflects a strong dedication to both technical excellence and continuous growth.It was a pleasure sharing perspectives and engaging with such an ambitious team."
"Our discussions around custom technology solutions, global talent mobility, and cross-border innovation opened exciting possibilities for future collaboration. The team’s vision and forward-thinking approach stood out immediately.
Looking forward to building impactful opportunities together."