Family Fridays: Good Things Don’t Grow Overnight
Sept 25, 2026
Written by Dr. Adam Fleddermann, Founder & CEO of Fleddermann von Rieste, who designs every watch and oversees manufacturing and operations.
Happy Family Friday. This one starts on a farm, not a workbench, but stick with me, because it’s the same story either way.
A hundred years, one farm
My family has farmed the same ground in Indiana for more than a century. That’s not a figure of speech, it’s a fact with a certificate attached to it. Our farm holds the Hoosier Homestead Award, given to families who’ve kept the same land in continuous ownership for over a hundred years. You don’t earn that in a season, or a decade, or even most careers. You earn it by showing up, year after year, long after it would’ve been easier to sell and walk away.
I think about that award more than people probably expect a watchmaker to think about a farming designation. Because it taught me something before I ever built a single watch, that the things worth having usually take longer than you want them to.
What that has to do with watches
When I started this company, I could have taken shortcuts. Found a factory overseas, slapped our name on watches somebody else assembled, and called it a brand. It would have been faster, and probably cheaper. I didn’t want that, and it’s not because I think there’s anything wrong with the people who take that path. I just didn’t think it would build the thing I actually wanted to build.
Instead, I found Adam Parrish, an AWCI-certified watchmaker here in Indiana, and we started slow. One movement at a time, hand-assembled and regulated on his bench in Kokomo. Every watch that’s left our shop has gone through his hands, not a machine on a line somewhere doing it faster and cheaper. That’s slower. It’s also the only way I know how to build something meant to last.
Growing the way the farm grew
We’re a young company, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. We don’t have a hundred years yet. But I look at how that farm earned its award, one honest season after another, no shortcuts, no rushing the ground into giving more than it could, and I think that’s exactly how a company like ours has to grow too.
We add retail partners carefully, one relationship at a time, not by chasing every door that’ll take us. We build one watch collection at a time instead of flooding the market with releases just to stay visible. We’re a family owned watch company on purpose, not because we haven’t gotten around to raising outside money yet, but because slow, deliberate growth is the only kind that leaves you with something worth handing down at the end of it.
Why I’m telling you this
Good things don’t grow overnight. Not a hundred-year-old farm, not a watch worth keeping, and not a company built to still be standing when my own grandson is old enough to wear one of these watches himself. I’d rather build slowly and mean it than build fast and have nothing real underneath it when people start asking questions.
That’s the whole bet this company is making. I hope you’ll stick around long enough to watch it pay off.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Hoosier Homestead Award?
It’s a designation given by the state of Indiana to farms that have remained in continuous family ownership for 100 years or more. The Fleddermann family farm holds this award, and it’s part of the family history that shaped the values behind Fleddermann von Rieste.
Why does Fleddermann von Rieste grow slowly instead of scaling quickly?
Because deliberate, patient growth is core to the company’s values, not a limitation. Every watch is hand-assembled and regulated in Indiana, and retail partnerships are added carefully rather than rushed, in the same spirit as a family farm that’s been worked honestly for generations rather than pushed for short-term gain.
Is this story related to the company’s watchmaking philosophy?
Yes. The same patience that earned the family farm its Hoosier Homestead Award is the philosophy behind how every watch is built, hand-assembled rather than mass-produced, and how the company itself grows, one honest relationship at a time.
Where to go from here
If this story resonates, I’d point you toward where the watch came from, another piece of the family history that shaped this company. And if you want to see what that patience actually looks like in a watch, the Hanoverian is where I’d start.
Or email me at adam@fvrwatch.com. I like hearing what part of this story lands with people.
Dr. Adam Fleddermann, Founder & CEO
Dr. Adam Fleddermann founded Fleddermann von Rieste after growing up watching his father care for a watch passed down through generations of the family. He designs every watch and oversees the brand’s global supply chain, operations, and manufacturing, working alongside an AWCI-certified watchmaker and his team who lead the hand-assembly of every timepiece in Indiana.
