We startedin 2015.
We stopped. We came back.
This is the watch I would have built a decade ago if I had known then what I know now.
Read onA sketch anda windowsill.
Yesah started on a windowsill in Rogersville, Tennessee, in 2014.
I was prototyping wood watches in a small house in a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians. The first design that worked — the one that became Yesah — was the Black Bear. Walnut dial, dark strap, simple hands. It was the first thing I had ever made that someone wanted to buy.
“It was the first thing I had ever made that someone wanted to buy.”
We launched in January 2015. The early months were slow. A few orders a week. A few hundred Instagram followers. But the watches found people, and the people stayed. Through 2015 and into 2016, Yesah grew the way small brands grow — slowly, then suddenly. The Black Bear sold out. We followed it with the Signature Series, more refined and more minimalist. That sold out too.
By the time the audience reached thirty thousand on Instagram, we had a real brand on our hands. Customers in California, Australia, Germany. People wearing Yesah to weddings, to hikes, to their own weddings. Reviews showed up with photographs we couldn't have staged if we'd tried.
Somewhere in those years, we figured out how to use the brand to give back. Yesah donated close to fifty thousand dollars to nonprofit hunger organizations between 2015 and 2019. That part still means more to me than anything we sold.
Then itstopped.
We relied on one manufacturer.
That was the mistake. For five years it worked — the orders came in, the watches went out, customers were happy. Then one large order arrived completely broken. Unsalable. Every watch in the shipment.
Then COVID hit.
I tried to recover. Tried to find a new manufacturer. Tried to make the math work for a small brand suddenly facing global shipping chaos and a destroyed inventory. Nothing landed.
By late 2020, Yesah had stopped shipping. The Instagram stayed up but the posting stopped. Most customers moved on.
I didn't.
What five yearsteaches you.
I thought about Yesah constantly during those years.
Not in a dramatic way. Just in the way you think about something you weren't done with. Every few months I'd open the drawer where the old prototypes lived. Wind them. Put one on for a day. The walnut dials had darkened. The cases had honest scratches. The hands still swept clean.
I went to work at other places. Spent two years running digital marketing at a premium golf apparel brand. Learned what a real brand operation looks like up close — inventory cycles, photography, the math behind paid media, the discipline of email marketing done well. Learned how to use AI as a workflow layer instead of a gimmick. Built systems that turned raw data into reports and raw images into ad creative.
I got better at the parts of running a brand that nobody on a founding team ever wants to prioritize on their own.
Yesah was always in the back of my mind. I never let go of it. The time just wasn't right.
Until it was.
The watchwe always meantto make.
The Ridge isn't the watch I made in 2014.
That one was wood through and through — beautiful, but fragile. This one is brushed steel and solid walnut. Sapphire crystal. An automatic movement from a Japanese manufacturer trusted by independent watchmakers since 1959. Full-grain leather, finished to age with the wearer.
It's the watch I would have built a decade ago if I had known then what I know now.
Yesah today is designed in Tennessee and built with manufacturing partners I've spent years learning to choose well. I'm not turning movements in a garage. I'm not pulling walnut from my backyard. I'm a one-person brand again — older, slower, more careful — working with the best partners I can afford to make every watch live up to the design.
That's the honest version. I figured you'd want it.
Welcome back to Yesah.
— Noah Smith
Shop The RidgeA small team, by design.
Yesah today is a small operation. We design every watch in Tennessee. Components are sourced globally — the movement from a Japanese manufacturer trusted by independent watchmakers, the case from a precision shop overseas, the leather from a family tannery in Loudon. We assemble, quality-check, and ship from a workshop outside Bristol.
We don't pretend to be something we're not. We're not turning movements in a garage. We're not pulling walnut from our backyard. We're a small team that takes the design and the customer experience seriously, and we work with the best manufacturers we can afford to make each watch live up to the design.
That's the honest version. We thought you'd want it.
Quiet quality.Made to be lived in.
Every Yesah is built to be worn for a lifetime. Patina is encouraged. Scratches are stories. The leather will darken. The wood will deepen. The watch will get better the longer you wear it.
That's what we want on your wrist.
Ready when you are.
Black Bear.
40mm automatic. Sapphire crystal. 50m water resistance. Designed in the Appalachians.
Shop The Ridge