SUCCESS STORIES
Inspiring Tales of Startups,
Growth and Overcoming Hardships
BY CHRISTINA BUSWELL
WILL STEIN
President • Philip Stein Holding, Inc. • Miami, Florida
PERFECT TIMING
P
hilip Stein Holding, Inc. was founded in 2002 by
Florida-based entrepreneurs Will and Rina Stein, who
combined their expertise in timepieces and marketing
to create a unique line of functional watches that use natural
frequency technology to help promote relaxation, focus, positive mood and sleep.
German physicist Winfried Otto Schumann was the first to
propose on the existence of natural electromagnetic waves in
1952. Eight years later, German biologist Ruetger Wever showed
through experiments that the Schumann Resonances can positively influence health, performance and well-being.
“The timing was perfect because the boom of alternative medicine, yoga and organic food was just starting. All of these were
in line with what we had in mind,” says Will Stein.
Beginnings
When the company was first starting out, watches were only
used to tell time, as status symbols, or fashion accessories. The
founders’ biggest challenge was to educate customers on the
well-being benefits offered by their watches. “How do you bring
technology, which is not known and cannot be visualized, under
one umbrella with luxury and well-being? That was our challenge,” Stein says.
The Philip Stein Holding, Inc. sold their first watch in August
of 2013. A month later, they received a phone call from Oprah
Winfrey informing them that she received a Philip Stein watch
from her good friend Madonna and that she would like to introduce the watch in her show “Oprah’s Favorite Things.”
“You can imagine what happened after that. Luckily, we were
able to produce enough and on time,” says Stein. From August to
December of that year, the company sold between 6,000 and
7,000 watches. The following year, they went global and sold
three times as m [